Ahoti has a Voice. Let Her Speak
from the Podium
The following letter was sent by “Ahoti”
to
The event is to honor Dr. Orit
Kamir excellent book, “Feminism and the Court”.
The sponsors are Bar Ilan’s
Center for Gender Research, and the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status. The
panelists are Prof. Ruth
Halperin-Kadari, Prof. Dafna
Izraeli, Prof. Judith Lorber,
Ms. Leah Shakdiel, Dr. Noya Rimlat,
Prof. Gad Barzilai, and Dr. Kamir
herself. We deeply appreciate Dr. Kamir’s scholarship and the pathbreaking research conducted by all the panelists.
Their contributions to
Colorblind to intra-Jewish racism toward Mizrahi women, however, Israeli legal discourse and
practices are somewhat
exclusionary. Today’s panel is yet another example, demonstrating once again the erasure and
silencing of Mizrahi women. We are
Most Israeli women are Mizrahi.
Nevertheless, neither feminist discourse nor legal discourse takes into account the mere fact
that we trudge around the poverty line. We therefore are unable to purchase justice for ourselves
in the paid-for-service market of attorney representation.
Given both bureaucratic hurdles and budgetary concerns, pro-bono legal representation
for us is mainly beyond the pale. Most Israeli women capable of having access to the commodity
called justice are Ashkenazi.
Hence it is those Ashkenazi ladies who are able to contribute to the production legal precedences around women’s lives. These precedences
focus mainly on
the dissolution of upper middle class marriages and the employment discrimination
suffered by the higher echelons of the women’s professional-managerial class. Even if we
had won the lottery to be able to purchase the benefits of such precedences
in the market of
civil rights, they
would have little or no relevance to our racinated
lives. Furthermore,
the almost complete absence of Mizrahi women’s
discourse from the legal sphere is also manifested in the invisibility of Mizrahi women in the halls of justice. Most Israeli women judges are Ashkenazi.
All women law professors are Ashkenazi. Even in this feminist panel there ain’t not even one Mizrahi
speaker.
No one can imagine nowadays any form of U.S.-European
academic legal discourse
without the mention of the economic ethnic specificities and the
histories of racism
directed toward Women of Color. Poor and subservient to white
ladies, society
forces racinated women to enter the labor market
early in their lives.
Placed beneath the pedestal of white femininity, society exposes dark
women to systemic
sexual harassment and violence. Mizrahi women in
Come help us stop the legal and academic normalization that
always already produces us as your subalterns. We have excellent legal practitioners, scholars
and activists. Together we can further the legal struggle of all Israeli women.
In solidarity,
Ahoti – Mizrahi Women for women,
Israel