I said this before and I’ll say it again, the level of sexual violence inflicted on Israeli women by Hamas and Gazan civilian men should have given people a clue what kind of lives Gazan women lead.
The report was shocking, a Palestinian on twitter highlighted the plight of a woman called rosy who’s not allowed to pitch a tent without harrasment because she doesn’t wear a hijab.
Domestic violence was at 30% of married women in Gaza before the war, child marriage was also not uncommon before the war. It’s awful, rape victims being married off to their rapists, horrendous.
Honour culture is foul, it always involves treating women like mere things. The report makes for stark reading. It’s not just men, if we were in a war situation I doubt my husband would start beating me, rape me infront of my child or exchange our child for a sack of flour. The idea that all men would behave like this given half the chance is wrong I think, it’s because theres a level of tolerance towards it all. I come from a quasi honour culture myself (dominant culture is honour, sub culture is dignity, it’s complicated).
The mistake many westerners make is that they think of everyone as having the same fundamental core values as themselves so they believe when people do this shit it’s sheer desperation because they couldn’t imagine doing it themselves (see western reaction to afghans selling their 6yr olds - poor dad etc etc) no it’s because females are disposable. For so many people around the world a woman or a girl is something they can trade, not a human being.
None of this negates the genuine horrors Gazans are living through but fuck every single man who harms a woman just because he can, every single one of them.I would remind people that child malnutrition is worse in many mena countries than Gaza including syria and iraq. Theres no fucking excuse. The problem is cultural, there was a poor woman who’s daughter was turned away from an UNWRA school because she didn’t make her wear a hijab, it was fucking ridiculous with everything else going on.
Too many progressives project onto arab culture absolute nonsense. Being disgusted by this doesn’t contradict the belief that eventually Palestinians need their own state. I expect that state to be as much as a dumpster fire of womens rights as many other arab states but you can hold both truths at once, the culture is awful for women and still people need dignity and self determination.