Feminist Except for Palestine: Where Are Feminist Social Workers on Palestine?

Abstract

Despite international social work commitments to social justice, human dignity, and individual worth, feminist social work remains silent on Palestine. Israeli settler colonial violence pushes us to revisit our responsibilities to stand against colonized militarism. We insist that collective liberation is a feminist ethical constant, a political bosom for decolonization, a compass for critical feminist social work. In this article, we extend previously made claims that Palestine is a feminist issue by highlighting four moral imperatives: 1) persistent sumud, (2) gendered impacts of Zionism's settler colonial violence, 3) commitments to justice and liberation, and 4) feminist praxis of narrating violence.

Critical consciousness from a Palestinian feminist, decolonial perspective: A collective exploratory inquiry

“…First, the concern for women's safety from soldiers’ violence limits their ability to move and their opportunities to travel for study or work. It has been studied how militarization targets women, women's bodies, and women's physical experiences of place by placing them under constant threat of abuse and violence, thus limiting their ability to move freely (Sousa et al, 2019); “My mother was supposed to have her education in West Bank, an excellent university. Because of the occupation and the Israeli soldiers abusing women, harassing them, her family did not feel safe to send her” (KI-5).…”

“…Decoloniality implies and requires continuous reflection on power relations (past and present) between the Global North and South, as they have to do with the entire system of thought that constructs the Eurocentric knowledge matrix (Fine et al, 2021; Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Mignolo, 2007; Segalo & Fine, 2020). At the same time, a feminist lens prioritizes understanding the lived realities of women's experiences, with particular attention towards women's agency and the multiple forms resistance takes under settler-colonialism—and particularly within the cruelty of ongoing military and civilian occupations as in Palestine (Al Labadi, 2003; Giacaman, 2020; Sousa et al, 2019; Veronese et al, 2021).…”

Fathers in and Against Pain: Father’s Interruptions of Settler-Colonial Technologies of Loss

“…Palestinian feminists have studied the effects of militarization and endless violence (Hammami, 2010;Kuttab, 2009;Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2015a, 2015b. At the same time, they have acknowledged how women's issues are not separated but linked organically to issues of the nation, men alongside women, especially when the whole nation is under attack (Kuttab, 2009;Shalhoub-Kevorkian et al, 2022). Anti-colonial and Indigenous feminisms criticize western-oriented feminism as being narrow and binary because it ignores the realities of imperialism and colonialism (Kuttab, 2009;Mekgwe, 2008;Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2015a, 2015bShalhoub-Kevorkian et al, 2022).…”

“No Free Homeland Without Free Women:” Tal’at's Indigenous Feminist Movement

“…By supporting this call, we “can send a message to Palestinians that we refuse to be complicit in perpetuating their oppression, reassuring them that the whole world is watching and they are not alone in their struggle for freedom and justice in/for Palestine” (Sharoni et al, 2015, p. 666). As feminist social workers, we must seek to realize our commitment to social justice and liberation for all (Shalhoub-Kevorkian et al, 2022).…”

“…This conceptual paper examines the Tal’at movement as an Indigenous decolonization movement that challenges the intersecting oppressions queer and female Palestinians face. In doing so, it serves as a counter narrative to Israel's branding campaign and demonstrates that Palestine is a feminist and social work issue (Shalhoub-Kevorkian et al, 2022). I begin by providing a concise overview of the Palestinian feminist movement that brought together the struggles for feminist and national liberation in response to colonialism.…”