This is just so bad-ass. 19 year-old Idan Halili has sparked quite the debate in Israel after she sent a letter to the army asking for exemption based on her feminist values.
"The army is an organisation whose most fundamental values cannot be brought in harmony with feminist values," she wrote in her request for exemption. Halili argues that military service is incompatible with feminist ideology on several levels: because of a hierarchal, male-favouring army structure; because the army distorts gender roles; because of sexual harassment within the army; and because of an equation between military and domestic violence. Her arguments galvanised media attention in Israel, with Halili on prime-time TV news and bringing sidelined feminist arguments against militarism into the public arena for the first time.
Halili was originally refused a hearing with a conscience committee and was sent to military prison for two weeks when she refused to serve. The decision was later reversed when her lawyer, Smadar Ben-Natan, argued that “although Halili's case against serving was 100% feminism, her ideology of feminism also meant she was a pacifist, objecting to any military system.�
But the decision wasn’t reversed on the basis of conscientious objection, says Ben-Natan: "The committee said that her feminism, not pacifism, seemed more dominant and that, on the basis of holding such views, she would be unfit to serve."
Halili, who hails from a a kibbutz in north Israel, says that "the army, in essence, does not square with feminist principles." Love her.
For more on feminist perspectives of militarization, check out the work of Cynthia Enloe.
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She is totally my new hero.
Really? I think it's going to send messages to some idiots that "women must obviously not want to be in the army" and "keep women out of front lines incase their feminist training kicks in".
Just a quick note to let you know that Idan and Tali Lerner, a young woman who organized her campaign along with Idan, will be in New York and Washington DC between May 10th and 17th to attend the annual seminar of War Resisters International. They are both happy to meet with small groups of people who are interested in their work.
She is big big big hero of mine!!! My organization helped to support her campaign last year. She is a very strong woman!!!
I defend the consciencious objector on the grounds of her non violence, but I seriously doubt the feminism stuff will be of any value to advance women's causes. It is after all the same stereotype of the non competitive gamer on another story. See the traps we lay for ourselves? Who's to know what is women's or men's nature when stripped of the veneer of cultural memes. And I question what would happen to Israel if there were no soldiers. While questioning some of that state's more agressive positions and actions, lest we forget, Israel is surrounded by people seriously bent on wiping them off the map. I mostly agree what is published on your blog though. You are a daily view for me.
Not all armed forces are equally repugnant. Disaster response teams and peacekeeping forces rank high in my book, for example, but there are many other military groups I would resist joining. I'm pointing this out because we (the left, feminists, &tc.) can be too exclusive and tend to reject groups that don't toe our (sometimes too pedantic) line. For example, the generals who are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. I doubt they'd call themselves feminists, but they share parts of our cause. Inclusivity not exclusivity!
Nela writes:
I defend the consciencious objector on the grounds of her non violence, but I seriously doubt the feminism stuff will be of any value to advance women's causes. It is after all the same stereotype of the non competitive gamer on another story. See the traps we lay for ourselves?
Lord, Nela, I don't know. But tactical considerations aside, isn't she absolutely right about what military virtues are and what they represent? I have all the respect in the world for the women and men who serve in our armed forces. I am not a strict pacifist, either. But even I have to admit that the desire to be a killing machine, the absolute love of guns, the dominance hierarchy--these are all very culturally male ideas, and a cultural feminist would have, I think, a valid and admirable reason to claim conscientious objector status and not want to participate in all that.
Cheers,
TH
I'm sorry but I don't buy her feminist defense. If anything, to be a feminist is to argue true and total equality in any and every field possible. My mother was an officer in the Israeli Army and ranked higher than most of her male peers. By far, she proved what men can do, women can do just as well. Now that's what I call feminism! --AM
An important issue that Idan brought to light was the militarization and resulting sexism of the Israeli society, a society that employs MOST jewish Israeli young people in the military, and the affect that it has on the country. How does it shape the entire country's attitude about the situation between the Palestinian Territories and Israel when they spend a significant amount of time in the military?
She has opened a discussion within the media about whether the military instititution is chauvanistic. I applaud Idan for questioning this! When there are statistics about the division of labor being sexist and that such a high percentage of women are sexually harrassed while completing their mandatory military service, it seems like a very important question for someone to ask.
It also seems that if others are able to receive Conscientious Objector status for their particular religious beliefs, Why shouldn't a young person be able to question service through other ideologies? Why shouldn't a young person's particular feminist beliefs be a legitamate mechanism for questioning military service? Why should her petition be completely ignored just because she is using feminism instead of religion to question manditory service?
Idan's proposal for CO status was taken very seriously by the Israeli media and brought feminism into the lime light. I think a healthy discussion about what feminism is, is always good for a women's movement.
Here's another little tidbit about Idan:
http://www.newprofile.org/showdata.asp?pid=1010
occupying the land of and murderinf palestinians isn't so feminist either..
AM wrote: If anything, to be a feminist is to argue true and total equality in any and every field possible...what men can do, women can do just as well.
I disagree. If the field itself is unworthy of human endeavor, why should women compete with men in it?
Halili's points of contention were: "a hierarchal, male-favouring army structure; because the army distorts gender roles; because of sexual harassment within the army; and because of an equation between military and domestic violence."
Why should she strive to excel in such an environment? Would that not require cooperation with it? Should she strive to become the "best" sexual harrasser in the army, or to have the most distortion in her gender role?
I know there's a school of thought that says you have to create change from inside the system, but I have no problem with her rejecting the system on those points.
Militarism and war is based on hierarchy, power games, dominance, subjugation, violence, and death. Is it appropriate for women or men to strive to excel at these things?
Why shouldn't a young person's particular feminist beliefs be a legitamate mechanism for questioning military service? Why should her petition be completely ignored just because she is using feminism instead of religion to question manditory service?
Why shouldn't the country throw her out and deny her any of the protections assumed by all other citizens willing to fulfill their national duty.
CaptDMO:Why shouldn't the country throw her out and deny her any of the protections assumed by all other citizens willing to fulfill their national duty.
Well, they did throw her in jail...In a country that already has a legal process set up for those who believe their system of beliefs do not allow them to serve in the military, it seems that all petitions submitted through that system should receive a response. Idan did not.
And I believe that non-violent protest is an appropriate way to question systems within your culture. Idan was ready to face the consequences of her protest...whatever they might have been. Many COs in Israel do receive multipe jail sentences after refusing to serve...she was aware of this.
LOL! This is feminist hypocrisy at its highest level.
This is remarkable. The absolute pacifism, radical feminism and other miscleaneous left wing ideologies have collided to reveal the sheer unreasonableness of them all. Without a consistent world view all of these isms collapse into anarchy.
The problem is that these ideologies deny the existence of absolute truths. If there is no absolute truth... then there is no truth at all... chaos.
Margaret Thatcher must have been a man and I am sure the queens of England tried really hard to stop colonialization and felt really bad spending all the wealth derived from it and enjoying the nations dominance.
We all know that women are never violent or warmongering.
I know young men all like to be maimed and killed in war zones they are just throwing there lives away for a chance to be macho and it has nothing to do with their oppression or poverty or the fact in many countries globally they are forced or turned into child soldiers.
Just incase there is an off chance any men reading this would also like to get out of the army, you can claim it goes against your humanist beliefs, not that there are any male peace activists in the world or anything but if they were they would be humanist.
When humanists want to stop a war they include men and women it is more effective that way.
"If there is no absolute truth... then there is no truth at all... chaos."
Idiocy. Just because the rules of poker, for instance, are not absolute, doesn't mean every game degenerates into a fistfight. It's entirely possible to have an ordered civilization built on relativist morals. I mean, is has to be, since there's no such thing as absolute objective morality.
But, nice condecension. That's usually the first resort of people who know their arguments are indefensible.
If it's so indefensible, why have you not presented any reasonable arguments against it. There has always been absolute truth, and there always will be 1+1=2 is absolute truth, and the same level of assurance can be made through a proper study and applied to the morality of individual and corporate acts.
In relativist morals, there is no definite boundary between the rights of one individual vs another, when they conflict, order is absent.