Contribution to the Collective by Religious-Zionist Adolescent Girls

Tamar Rapoport, Anat Penso, Yoni Garb

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

The act of contribution to the collective raises a major dilemma in contemporary religious Zionism in regard to girls and women: how to maintain their traditional restriction to the domestic sphere while allowing participation in national tasks that demand their presence in the male-dominated public sphere. From in-depth interviews conducted with 37 seventeen-year-old religious girls studying in a uni-sex residential boarding high school, we uncover the manner in which these girls, as thy proceed to young adulthood, experience the act of contribution in three social arenas: the Bnei Akivayouth movement, national service and the domestic sphere. Our analysis reveals a gradual recruitment to contribution during the passage from girlhood to womanhoodparalleled by the gradual intensification of feminineJ qualities. This process facilitates the girls3 participation in the public sphere without challenging the traditional gender dichotomy. It also constitutes a central practice by means of which religious-Zionist society recruits the girls to the Israeli collective yet keeps them within its own socio-cultural boundaries.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)375-388
Number of pages14
JournalBritish Journal of Sociology of Education
Volume15
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1994

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