Palestinian Women and the Fractured Palestinian Healthcare System
During the fall semester of my sophomore year at Hofstra, I took a class titled “Women and Politics in the Middle East.” In this class—taught by my favorite professor—we read and discussed and made connections about Middle Eastern and North African women. We looked at how these women are linked to their culture, society, economy, and politics, as well as how patriarchy and patriarchal systems prohibit women from accessing education, working in the labor force, and being able to have more bodily autonomy. We also looked at how Westerners view MENA women and how we can deconstruct from a view that is based on false facts and stereotypes.
Two books we read included Huda Shaarawi’s memoir Harem Years and Valentine Moghadam’s Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. Other articles included “Bargaining with Patriarchy” by Deniz Kandiyoti, “The Revolution Shall Not Pass Through Women’s Bodies: Egypt, Uprising and Gender Politics” by Sherine Hafiz, and “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” by Lila Abu-Lughod. These readings and more contributed to lively discussions about Middle Eastern women and how they are not a homogeneous group, but rather a diverse group that differs throughout the region.
The most impactful reading for me was Abu-Lughod’s “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” because it so perfectly articulates what I want to say when I hear people incorrectly talking about Middle Eastern women. The answer to the titular question is a very bold no. Through this class, I was able to see that women from the MENA region are able to create change for themselves. Instead of we Westerners looking at what is “wrong” within the cultures of the Middle East and how that’s created conflict and hardship for people, we need to look at what the West has done to create conflict. And I promise that a majority of the conflict in the region is due to Western intervention. (If you would like to read the article for yourself, you can download and read it here.)
There were two major assignments for this course. The first was a statistical report on a certain country’s woman population. I chose Palestinian women, because while “Palestinian” is a nationality, circumstances differ for Palestinian women depending on if they live in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, or a refugee camp outside of the occupied territories. The statistical report was time-consuming in its research, but it was interesting to see how Palestinian women stacked up against women from other MENA countries.
The second assignment was a research paper. I wanted to continue the trend of looking at Palestinian women, and after bouncing some ideas off my professor and doing some digging in JSTOR, I decided to look at the Palestinian healthcare system and how Palestinian women are able to access healthcare. At first I didn’t know if I was going to have enough information, but I quickly realized that I would easily be able to meet my page requirement. If I had more time, I would have dug more into the history of the healthcare system during the Second Intifada, go more into depth of the differences of the system in the different territories, and explain in more detail how the healthcare system can be fixed through local NGOs.
My paper’s abstract:
In this paper, I discuss the fractured Palestinian healthcare system and how it affects women and their health. Due to the Israeli military occupation and patriarchal and cultural norms, Palestinian women have difficulty accessing adequate healthcare. Because of the occupation and the history behind the conflict, where a woman lives—in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip—can determine the kind of healthcare she can access. I give a slight history of the Palestinian healthcare system, focusing on the Second Intifada when the system was crippled due to the Israeli military and government. I explore women’s access to cancer treatment, as well as care during pregnancy and after giving birth. Abortion access is complicated due to the differing laws across territories, with the most restrictions in the Gaza Strip and the most liberal laws in East Jerusalem. I conclude my paper by discussing how the Palestinian healthcare system can be fixed. The Palestinian Authority should be given more control of its healthcare system and not have as many restrictions placed on it from Israel. Also, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should focus on long-term goals for fixing the healthcare system, rather than solely attending to the short-term goals. One way that NGOs can help is by training more women to be midwives and community healthcare workers. Healthy women create a healthier society; the future of Palestine rests on the shoulders of healthy Palestinian women.
I loved this class and definitely learned a lot throughout the semester. My biggest takeaway is that I as a Western woman need to listen to Middle Eastern women instead of making my own assumptions. Middle Eastern women are powerful in ways only Middle Eastern women are. They are strong and resilient, and for those who want to help, we need to be listeners first and doers second.
To read my statistical report on Palestinian women, click here to download “On Palestinian Women: Women Without a Country.”
To read my full research paper on the Palestinian healthcare system, click here to download “Palestinian Women and the Fractured Palestinian Healthcare System.”