NORMA

International Journal for Masculinity Studies

ISSN: 1890-2138 (Print) 1890-2146 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rnor20

Occupying masculinities: fathering in the

Palestinian territories

Ravi Gokani, Aline Bogossian & Bree Akesson

To cite this article: Ravi Gokani, Aline Bogossian & Bree Akesson (2015) Occupying
masculinities: fathering in the Palestinian territories, NORMA, 10:3-4, 203-218, DOI:
10.1080/18902138.2015.1102898

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2015.1102898

Published online: 16 Dec 2015.

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NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 2015
Vol. 10, Nos. 3-4, 203–218, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2015.1102898

Occupying masculinities: fathering in the Palestinian territories

Ravi Gokania, Aline Bogossianb and Bree Akessona*
a
Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, Ontario,
Canada; bSchool of Social Work and Centre for Research on Children and Families, McGill
University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
(Received 29 May 2015; accepted 27 September 2015)

Under occupation, Palestinians face a range of challenges such as poverty, lack of

mobility, decreased access to social and health services, and violence. Fathers in
Palestine have had to raise children in such a context, yet little is understood
about their experiences. We conducted research with 18 families in the occupied
West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem in order to understand the experiences
of fathers in the face of occupation and violence. Applying theories of
masculinity and fatherhood, our analysis suggests that occupation has
challenged or obstructed the performance of three quintessentially masculine
acts inherent to fatherhood: provision, protection, and modeling. The first refers
to the role of the father as ‘breadwinner;’ the second to the role of father as
‘protector;’ and the third to the role of the father as masculine ‘model’ from
whom children can learn masculine traits. We conclude by providing suggestions
for future practice and research.
Keywords: masculinity; fatherhood; Palestine; violent conflict

Introduction
For almost a century, Palestinians and Israelis have been at the center of one of the
most bitterly contentious and protracted conflicts on earth. At the same time, Palesti-
nian men continue to get married, become fathers, and raise children amidst violence
and instability. While such a situation is conceivably dominated by a number of prac-
tical considerations, some natural to fatherhood and others specific to the situation,
fatherhood is an inherently multifaceted role. In this paper, we consider masculinity
as one such facet, which in the Palestinian experience, like fatherhood, is influenced
by the ongoing conflict. We begin by providing a brief overview of the social and econ-
omic context within which Palestinian fathers live. Then we present the theoretical fra-
mework that scaffolds our research. We briefly describe our research methodology
before turning to the data. Our analysis of the data indicates that the occupation chal-
lenged or obstructed the performance of three masculine acts inherent to fatherhood:
provision, protection, and modeling. The first refers to the role of the father as ‘bread-
winner;’ the second to the role of father as protector;’ and the third to the role of the
father as masculine ‘model’ from whom children can learn masculine traits. We con-
clude this paper by providing suggestions for future practice and research.

*Corresponding author. Email: bakesson@wlu.ca

© 2015 The Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities
204 R. Gokani et al.

Background/context
To better understand the development of masculinity among fathers and sons in light
of occupation, the following presents background on the social and economic context
within which Palestinian men find themselves. Since the end of the second intifada over
a decade ago, in the name of Israeli national security and supported by the inter-
national ‘war on terror’, Israel has established a network of restrictions in Palestine
dividing Israelis and Palestinians and controlling Palestinian movement. These pol-
icies contribute to what Halper (2000) has identified as Israel’s ‘matrix of control’
and others have identified as a form of colonialism and apartheid (see Davis, 1989;
Farsakh, 2003; Peteet, 2009). In addition to the checkpoints and the wall, the
matrix of control includes use of outdated laws to confiscate Palestinian land
(Bunton, 1999), the construction of Israeli-only access roads (Biesenbach, 2003;
Misselwitz & Rieniets, 2006; Weizman, 2007), policies of closures (Brown, 2004;
Hass, 2002; Roy, 2001), the development of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land
(Campbell, 2005; Gordon, 2008; Halper, 2000; Weizman, 2007), the doling out of dif-
ferentiated identification cards and travel permits (Abu-Zahra, 2008; Tawil-Souri,
2010), policies of land ownership and residency registration (Khamaisi, 1995), and
the demolition of Palestinian homes when these regulations are defied (Jones, 2012).
The number of males in prison represents another major challenge to Palestinian
families. According to the prisoner support and human rights association Addameer
(2013), as of August 2013, 5042 Palestinians were being held in Israeli prisons, often
for political rather than criminal reasons; approximately one-quarter of these Palesti-
nians being held in Israeli prisoners were arrested for being in Israel illegally
(B’Tselem, 2013). Of those, 134 Palestinians were under administrative detention,
which means that they have not been charged and are being held indefinitely and
without trial. Human rights groups claim that Israeli military courts violate inter-
national standards of fair trails by denying access to lawyers, using confidential evi-
dence, and giving briefings in Hebrew without Arabic translation (Asser, 2003).
Detainees face an increased use of solitary confinement, a ban on reading materials
and television, a halt of transfer of funds from family members for prisoners to pur-
chase basic food products, and the discontinuation of academic studies for distance
learning. Furthermore, allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in Israeli jails
have been documented by Amnesty International (2012), Human Rights Watch
(2012), and B’Tselem (Wolfson, 2010). Palestinians consider Israeli’s detention of
Palestinians as not only punishment for the individual, but also collective punishment
for Palestinian families, who face increased economic hardship and targeting by Israeli
forces as a result of the imprisonment of their fathers, sons, and brothers. As Segal
(2015) notes, ‘husbands’ absences … may demand a great deal of labor – emotional,
financial, and social – on the part of those left behind’ (p. 31). Due to the illegal trans-
fer of prisoners outside the occupied territories, a large number of Palestinian prison-
ers cannot enjoy family visits, thus further straining family relationships.
Not surprisingly, the ubiquitous occupation, the imprisonment of Palestinian men,
and all of the related difficulties ‘[have] ripped apart the social fabric of Palestinian
society, leaving families more and more dependent on their dwindling resources and
frequently cutting them off from potential support coming from kin and social net-
works’ (Abu Nahleh, 2006, p. 103). Not only do Palestinian families have to struggle
to secure their daily livelihoods, but they also must contend with very real threats to
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 205

their physical and mental health (Abu Nahleh, 2006). As a result of the ongoing Israeli
policies of closures and mobility restrictions related to the matrix of control, many
male breadwinners have seen an impact on their livelihoods and have become impo-
verished (Abu Nahleh, 2006). As a result, this paper explores how the performance
of the quintessentially masculine acts inherent to fatherhood has been challenged
and compromised.

Theoretical framework
Our theoretical approach to masculinity is rooted first and foremost in a social con-
structionist epistemology (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Accordingly, we view mascu-
linity as a phenomenon that is heavily influenced by human agency and as a result,
we observe a constellation of ‘masculinities’, each of which is theoretically related
to the others in the complex of human culture. However, as Connell (1987) states,
‘not all masculinities are equal’, and so we note the disproportionate power of
certain constructions of masculinity over others. Whether from a Foucaultian perspec-
tive, which emphasizes relations of power, or the structuralist approach upon which
Connell’s (1987) work relies, it is important to understand the manner in which
certain traits are branded as ‘masculine’ and privileged over others at a given place
and point in time. Connell’s (1987) pioneering work in this area has helped to bring
the term ‘hegemonic masculinity’ to bear on gender studies and on the social sciences
more broadly.
‘Hegemonic masculinity’ or the ‘hegemonic ideal’ has been described as ‘embody-
ing the currently most honored way of being a man, [requiring] all other men to pos-
ition themselves in relation to it’ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 832). This theory
implies that those individuals in a society who most closely represent the cultural ideal
of the hegemonic male are socially, culturally, and economically rewarded, while those
who fail to meet this ideal, said to be performing ‘subordinated masculinities’, are not.
In consideration of the present study, it is important to underscore the agreement
among scholars that there exists no universal definition of hegemonic masculinity.
In other words, different cultures idealize different forms of masculinity, and, more-
over, at different times. Although not integral to our analysis, we acknowledge the
influence of Christensen and Jensen’s (2014) call for a more nuanced understanding
of hegemonic masculinity that incorporates theories of intersectionality, which is par-
ticularly relevant in an international context.
Finally, we adopt an aspect of the work of Ashis Nandy (1981), whose seminal
study on the impact of British colonialism on Indian culture, identity, and gender
relied upon a crucial assumption about the manner in which seemingly ‘different’ cul-
tures interact. Opposing an essentialist position on differences among cultural groups,
Nandy (1981) argues that cultures are inherently internally diverse, almost infinitely
so. As a result, aspects of one culture exist, according to this view, in others. The dis-
tinction one observes between groups is more a function of the manner in which
members of a given culture prioritize these aspects at a particular time. Accordingly,
if a given culture idealizes a certain cluster of masculine traits, a particular hegemonic
ideal, from a Nandian perspective the ascendant position is less a function of an essen-
tial distinction or quality than it is a function of the manner in which internal and
external dynamics have ‘re-arranged’ the ‘cultural priorities’ for, in this case, masculi-
nity. We believe that this assumption is reasonable to adopt in light of the shifting
206 R. Gokani et al.

prioritization of certain masculine traits over others among Palestinians in the context
of political violence. Moreover, Nandy’s work has the added bonus of emerging from
within a post-colonial context, a term used by some to describe the current occupation
(see, for example, Gregory, 2004; Hanafi, 2009; Reuveny, 2003; Ricks, 2009).

Palestinian masculinities
While studies of Arab masculinity abound (Amar, 2011), the portion of the English-
language literature specifically concerning Palestinian men is relatively small. In
part, it seems that this might be a consequence of the tendency to focus on women
when considering the intersection of gender and war or violent conflict (Sharoni,
1997). On the other hand, the volatile climate itself has precluded the development
of a robust scholarship in the most obvious ways.
Certainly, ‘[t]he context of Palestinian masculinity’, as Hawari (2004) states, ‘is one
of political subjugation and coercion’ (p. 35). Accordingly, the handful of studies on
Palestinian masculinities has borne in mind this context as scholarship on the
matter positions Palestinian masculinity in relation to Israeli occupation and the
struggle for Palestinian nationalism (e.g. Massad, 1995; Peteet, 1994), including in
some analyses in relation to Israeli masculinity (e.g. Johnson & Kuttab, 2002).
Peteet (1994), for instance, has powerfully described the manner in which physical
violence against Palestinian men at the hands of the Israeli army during the first inti-
fada was reconstructed by them from being shameful to a ‘rite of passage into
manhood’ and a ‘ritual of resistance’ with implications for ‘political consciousness
and agency’, including for leadership (p. 31). With such a posture toward occupation,
‘the young male’, she notes, ‘is a metonym for Palestinian opposition and struggle
against domination’ (p. 36). Her observations are supported by the numbers: the
vast majority of opposition against Israeli occupation, at least directly, occurs vis-à-
vis the Palestinian, usually young, male (Johnson & Kuttab, 2002). This includes
the disproportionate number of males who are injured or killed by Israeli police or
military forces in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip (B’Tselem, 2015).
The gendered nature of opposition is part and parcel of what Joseph Massad
(1995), himself a Palestinian male, describes as a ‘nationalist masculinity’ which
formed among Palestinian men after 1947. However, with an unconscious similarity
to Nandy’s (1981) analysis of masculinity and Indian nationalism in the British
Indian context, Massad (1995) critiques the similarity between the European construc-
tion of nationalism, including its attendant Enlightenment values, and Palestinian
nationalist agency guided by this nationalist masculinity. He views nationalist
agency as rooted in, or at least related to, these newly derived gender norms for
men and women. According to Massad, these ‘new gender norms are modern inven-
tions dressed up in traditional garb to justify nationalism’s claim of a national culture
for which it stands’ (p. 468). Massad argues this point by analyzing two documents
issued by the Palestinian Liberation Organization which show the manner in which
masculinity (and gender in general) is a pillar for the justification and sustenance of
a purportedly inauthentic articulation of nationalism.
Perhaps it is not surprising that this gender–nationalism nexus is present among
Palestinians living in Israel, too. As in the occupied territories, scholars who have
explored masculinity among Palestinian men living in Israel underline the manner
in which Palestinian masculinity has been reconstituted to suit the Israeli national
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 207

context, albeit in different ways (Hawari, 2004; Sa’ar & Yahia-Younis, 2008; Strier,
2014). Hawari (2004), for instance, suggests that the Israeli national context has trun-
cated the expression of a masculinity to encompass a narrowly practicable but politi-
cally non-threatening goal: day-to-day survival. Masculinity, or ‘manliness is herein
defined by the man’s capacity to avoid confrontation with the authorities’ and ‘[t]
hus, masculine heroism [is] derived from the provision of daily sustenance and not
from the resistance against humiliation or subjugation’ (p. 39). Notably, this masculi-
nity is in stark contrast to the findings of Peteet (1994), who, during the first intifada,
derived the image of the beating as ritualized rite of passage and an inscription on the
body of resistance.

Palestinian masculinities and fatherhood

Perhaps, it is this reason – that is, the importance of male provision in the Israeli
national context – for which Strier’s (2014) more recent exploration into the effects
of unemployment on Palestinian fathers has yielded supportive findings. From her
interviews with unemployed Palestinian men living in Israel, there emerges a clear
picture suggesting that in this particular national context, ‘being a father’, to quote
one of her participants, means ‘carrying the burden of the family’s subsistence’
(p. 401). Employment and provision, as opposed to nationalism, emerge as the
primary masculine trait to be fulfilled.
Massad’s work (1995) appears to be among the few which mentions explicitly the
connection between fatherhood and masculinity in the Palestinian nationalist context.
Specifically, he notes that Palestinian national identity was defined by being ‘born of
an Arab Palestinian father’ after 1947. In other words, with the connection between
masculinity and nationalism in Massad’s work, fatherhood can be viewed in the
context of the development of a ‘nationalist masculinity’. This is more powerfully
stated by Massad:

[W]hile the land as mother was responsible for the reproduction of Palestinians until 1947,
the rape [of the land as mother] disqualified her from this role. It is now fathers [i.e., pater-
nity] who reproduce the nation. Territory was replaced by paternity. (p. 472, emphasis in
original)

Thus, the father–child/son relationship may be a site of contending Palestinian mascu-

linities, a place where the struggle to define what a man is, how to be one, and how to
do or perform manhood, is uniquely characterized by the complexities of at least one
man in the institution of fatherhood.
The importance of fatherhood as a site of masculinity is particularly intriguing for
a number of reasons in addition to those indicated by Massad (1995). For instance, to
the extent that masculinities emerge and abide in institutions (Sa’ar & Yahia-Younis,
2008), fatherhood and the family are among the most formative and crucial for young
children. Consider also what Birenbaum-Carmeli and Inhorn (2009) have pointed out,
that ‘fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood’ among Palestinians
(p. 23). Peteet (1994) also indicated that Palestinian ‘maleness’ is ‘closely intertwined’
with fatherhood (p. 34). A chorus of scholars therefore point to the father–son
relationship as significant, but no study has looked specifically at this relationship
from the vantage of masculinity. Consequently, it is this gap that our paper intends
to address, and hopefully doing so will provide an initial glimpse into the manner in
208 R. Gokani et al.

which Palestinian men struggle with competing masculinities in the context of violence
and occupation.

Methodology
Approval for research with human participants was obtained from McGill Univer-
sity’s Research Ethics Board prior to commencement of the study. Due to the
complex context, gaining access from the Israeli authorities and trust from the Pales-
tinian participants was a priority throughout the research. A variety of local commu-
nity ‘gatekeepers’ were engaged to gain access to communities and recruit families.
The data presented in this paper are from a larger research project exploring the
experiences of Palestinian children and families (Akesson, 2014). From this research,
it became clear that fathering was an important element that warranted its own exam-
ination. In 2010, pilot interviews were conducted with Palestinian children, families,
and organizations. Research continued in 2012, with a sampling of three families
from various administrative regions of the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jer-
usalem, for a total of 18 families. Sampling from multiple sites – in various settings
(refugee camp, village, city, encampment), under a range of territorial control
(Israeli and/or Palestinian), and with different population densities – provided
diverse examples of family experiences under occupation.
Representing the immediate family (a’ila), a minimum of three family members
(parent, older child (aged 9–18), and younger child (8 and under)) were invited to
take part in a collaborative family interview focusing on their experiences with
place. Fathers were present for 9 of the 18 family interviews and mothers were
present for 16 of the 18 interviews. Even when the father was not present (due to,
for example, work, imprisonment, or death), the family interviews still produced
data relevant to fathering. In only four of 18 households, the father had completed
tarjehe (secondary school). In nine out of 18 households, the father was unemployed.
Interviews often included members of the larger extended family, or hamula, with
some interviews including up to 12 family members: uncles, cousins, grandparents.
The inclusion of the hamula uncovered valuable data in regard to the importance
(and messiness) of family interactions and differences in generational perceptions.
An Arabic-speaking research assistant attended all interviews in order to translate
first the consent process and then the family interview. Interviews – lasting between
one and two hours – were conducted by first obtaining the full and informed
consent of each family member. Written consent was initially sought from each
family member. However, participants expressed hesitation to sign their name to a
document, considering their past history of having mistakenly signed away land
deeds to Israel (Norman, 2009). Therefore, oral consent was obtained from all
family members. Participants were guaranteed anonymity and assured that all infor-
mation would remain confidential and used only for research purposes.
To further ground the data, 10 interviews were conducted with key community
informants who work with Palestinian families; these key informants were also
parents themselves, and therefore often reflected upon their own experiences raising
children alongside their explanations of working with families. Sixteen of 18 family
interviews were conducted in Arabic, using a translator. Eight of 10 key informant
interviews were conducted in English. With the participants’ permission, interviews
were audiotaped and transcribed.
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 209

Dedoose – a web-based platform for qualitative data analysis – was used to facili-
tate coding and analysis. Bree Akesson – this article’s third author – collated all codes
related to fathering. We all carefully read and annotated the collated information so as
to ascertain the meaning and significance that participants attributed to their experi-
ences. Authors independently coded the transcripts and each generated concepts
grounded in the data that were then categorized into themes. Interpretations of the
themes were documented individually, and all three authors discussed, combined
and categorized them by linking conceptually overlapping ideas. For the purposes
of this paper, the three most salient themes emerging from fathers’ narratives of the
tensions and concerns in parenting were related to broader concepts of masculinities
and fatherhood.

Findings
The analysis of our participants’ narratives suggests that occupation has challenged or
obstructed the performance of aspects of fathering that have often been linked to mas-
culinities: (1) provision; (2) protection; and (3) modeling. The first aspect refers to the
role of the father as ‘breadwinner;’ the second to the role of father as protector; and the
third to the role of the father as masculine ‘model’ from whom children can learn, pre-
sumably masculine, traits. These three seemed to be seriously challenged as a direct
consequence of occupation, hence the title ‘occupying masculinity’.

Challenges to traditional ‘masculine’ role of father as provider

Fathers’ breadwinning and provisioning role has traditionally been identified as the
hallmark of fathers’ care of, involvement with, and responsibility for their children
and families. From a biosocial perspective, Lamb et al.’s (1987) explanatory models
of fathering describe the task of responsibility as fathers arrange resources for their
children. Hammami (2013) describes how following the second intifada, the historic
Palestinian male image of the heroic fighter was viewed in stark contrast to Palestinian
men’s lack of power and agency. Both of these images have since given way to the
father’s breadwinner role representing the refusal to be swayed from procuring a
daily existence. Breadwinning has come to symbolize daily resistance against the occu-
pation and men’s sense of being men and having some sense of agency.
Masculinities scholar Morgan (1992) suggests that masculinity can be ‘put on the
line’ when men are unemployed. Our analysis confirmed that the occupation system-
atically denies Palestinian men the opportunity to secure resources for their families,
particularly through economic means, thereby challenging men’s role as breadwinner
and provisioner. Fathers’ ability to provide adequately for their families is challenged
by multiple interacting systems including poverty, un(der)employment, disability, as
well as inadequate physical living conditions. This unfavorable environment influences
the degree to which fathers feel adequate in this role, as 35-year-old Abu-Younes
explained:

[I]n my family I have six members and earn 50 shekels daily. In your imagination, do you
think it’s sufficient? … Gas is 70 shekels, vegetables and fruit are both expensive, every-
thing here. My neighbor has nine members of his family just working and earning 70
shekels daily. This is affecting us.
210 R. Gokani et al.

Consequently, we might surmise that men’s performance of the provisionary aspect of

the traditional fathering role is obstructed, and men like Abu-Younes are consciously
affected by it. In fact, Abu-Younes went on to note that the structural violence from
poverty and un(der)employment was actually worse than the physical violence, as
reflected in the following exchange between him and a research assistant:

Abu-Younes: [We suffer more from] the economic problems.

Research Assistant: But [the economic problem] is part of the invasion
(occupation).
Abu-Younes: Yes, but the Israeli soldiers, we are used to them. But we suffer
from the economic situation more.

Economic marginalization understandably affected Abu-Younes’s ability to perform

the role of provider of his family’s needs, thereby challenging the position he
occupies in society and challenging the overarching masculine role of the provider
father.
The economic challenges that compromise the masculine role of the breadwinning
father affect not only his immediate family, but also the broader community. Forty-
seven-year-old Abu-Majd explained that ‘Until 1996, I was contractor and 50 employ-
ees were working with me. I was responsible for 50 families by giving salaries to my
employees.’ This role of responsibility not only to his children, but also to other
families in the community, represents these fathers’ extended caregiving role in the
community. Because of the economic challenges facing the fathers, they are not able
to provide for those in the hare (community), the extended hamula, nor within the
immediate a’ila. Kelly (2008) has also pointed to the importance of work for Palesti-
nian men who not only construct their masculine identities through provision of
resources for their nuclear families but also by fulfilling kinship and practical respon-
sibilities to their extended family and community.
Under these challenging economic circumstances, fathers must not only recreate
their identities, they must also juggle competing priorities. Thirty-seven-year-old
Abu-Ahmed explained how his pregnant wife was both physically disabled and experi-
encing illness related to her pregnancy, and she needed an expensive medication:

When my little child asks me for shoes for school, I can’t buy it for him, because I [have to]
buy medicine [for my wife]. You know it’s something more important than school, like
this is the priority. I can’t take on any debt, because I don’t have another salary and I
can’t pay it later on. So, I can’t afford my children needs.

The necessity to prioritize the needs of his family, rather than being able to provide for
all of their needs is a great source of stress in Abu-Ahmed’s life:

I can’t buy food. As I told you, I have to buy this medication [for my wife]. This makes
problems with the money for home rent. Hamdollah! (My God!) I just want somebody
to understand the situation!

In this example, Abu-Ahmed is faced with the difficult dilemma related to the role of
provider and protector of his family. Given the lack of resources, he prioritizes his
wife’s needs over his children’s needs, perhaps because of the urgency of his wife’s
medical issues. The structural oppression that influenced Abu-Ahmed’s ability to
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 211

provide economically perhaps influenced his position in the ‘internal hegemony’

(Christensen & Jensen, 2014) in relation to other men; from the perspective of ‘exter-
nal hegemony’ as caregiver to his wife and children, he dispelled the traditional hege-
monic ideal that profits from the subjugation or oppression of women.
The consequences of the occupation are far-reaching for fathers and infiltrate their
embodied experiences. Prior to the first intifada, 47-year-old Abu-Majd was a building
contractor within Israel. Like many young Palestinian men at the time, he was arrested
and imprisoned for engaging in non-violent resistance activities during the first inti-
fada. The physical conditions in the prison left him partially paralyzed. Upon his
release and due to his disability, he was unable to secure a job, and therefore has
not been able provide for his family:

… I can’t hold one kilo, if I want to buy one kilo of tomatoes. I’ll ask my son to hold it,
because I am sick … .because of the occupation … . Paralysis of five vertebrae in the
spine. It is damaged. I had to have an operation, surgery.

In a context where there are few services available for people with disabilities or those
who are un(der)employed, challenges such as those faced by Abu-Majd are com-
pounded. Palestine has the highest levels of multilateral per capita foreign aid in the
world (Le More, 2005) resulting in a large number of non-governmental organizations.
Yet, as 37-year-old Abu-Ahmed explained, ‘ … there are no societies to take care of us.
The Red Cross, they were helping me personally, but they were coming to my father
and not me.’ Abu-Ahmed’s observation supports criticisms of humanitarian funds
in Palestine, which ‘have come to be seen as morally dubious, directed by people
with private political interests’ (Allen, 2013, p. 79) rather than addressing the actual
needs of Palestinians.
When a father is unable to provide for the family, the economic struggles of the
family may be passed down to the sons. For example, when the research team asked
Abu-Ahmed’s 12-year-old son, Fahim, where he plays with his friends, Fahim
looked down at the floor and did not answer. After a few moments of silence,
Abu-Ahmed curtly explained that Fahim had to leave school so he could work with
his uncle selling shoes. Abu-Ahmed’s inability to provide economically for his
family challenges his role as a father, thereby influencing his self-concept and identity.
And in some cases, mothers have turned to formal salaried work to help contribute to
the family economy, further challenging the traditional view of the male economic
provider as a hallmark trait of fathers. In a predominantly patriarchal society, the
movement of women/mothers to the workforce represents a ‘failing’ of fathers, as
the traditional breadwinners. This is aligned with other research with Palestinian
families that illustrate mothers’ ability to manage financially on their own and the
threat this poses to the traditional construction of masculinity among fathers (Abu
Nahleh, 2006). The increasing difficulty for men to maintain their breadwinner
status (Foster, 2011) has been associated with fluctuations and strategies used by
their wives and children to accommodate, resist, and negotiate the gender order to
sustain fathers’ respect and authority (Muhanna, 2013).
The absence of a social safety net, limited resources and strained financial means
compromise fathers’ ability of both provision for and protection of their families.
When asked if he thought his dream to have a safe home for his children was achiev-
able, 30-year-old Abu-Jabar replied,
212 R. Gokani et al.

Well it’s kind of hard. My abilities are limited. And over here, the prices of the land and
houses are so expensive for anyone to afford it. The only thing I keep thinking about, is
that if anything happened to me – like an accident or any kind of illness or disease – what
will happen to my children?

Protection of his children is tied with economic means. All of these elements reproduce
Palestinian men’s experiences of disempowerment and marginality. This all suggests a
potentially cumulative effect on Palestinian fathers over time. Near the end of the
family interview, 37-year-old Abu-Ahmed exclaimed, ‘ … no one is helping … . I
can’t sleep thinking of what to do. I can’t work. I’m tired of this life (shouting)!’ As
Abu-Ahmed’s frustration illustrates, the fathers in this study face limited material
resources to provide for their families leading to a sense of hopelessness/helplessness.

‘We all feel frightened’: leveling the parent–child protection hierarchy

In addition to providing for their children, the notion of fatherhood conjures images of
protection. We found that the protection hierarchy, which typifies the parent–child
relationship, tends to be ‘leveled’ off between fathers and their children in this study.
This hierarchy is conceivably defined, at least in part, by masculinity specifically and
gender more generally, and certainly within the context of patriarchy. In other words,
under ordinary circumstances, within a patriarchy, the male head or father of a
family is responsible for the protection of its members, including children. We observed,
however, that the structural effects of the occupation, including violence and poverty,
strongly militated against the fulfillment of this responsibility, and instead, mediated
the ‘leveling’ of the protection hierarchy. For instance, 30-year-old Amir remarked:

[W]e as elders can’t protect ourselves. How about our children? Sometimes, we feel that we
see the death through our eyes. Other times, you are safely sitting, and you will see a bomb
being thrown through walls, and it will explode into you, your house, through your eyes.

While some, particularly younger, children seemed less aware than their parents of this
situation, others were aware of this vulnerability among the ‘elders’ or adults to the
violence of occupation. Twenty-three-year-old Adil recounted an event during the
second intifada when he was a child:

[W]hen the police center [near my house] was attacked, I saw my father run away in the
front of me. So like I think that my family couldn’t protect me on that day. It was like, OK,
he is trying to protect me, and at the same time, he is trying to protect himself. And no one
care about the other as much as he cares about himself. So everyone is trying to rescue
himself first, then they rescue the others … .

Adil’s story illustrates his awareness of this leveling of the protection hierarchy in the
face of violence. He spoke more about the impact of the occupation on the capacity of
fathers to protect their children from violence:

Like, whenever, like [my father] he see like a really bloody scene on the TV he was trying to
like shut the TV off or trying, like, ‘Don’t look at this,’ or something like that. But he really
doesn’t have that much tools to protect me or my brother, because he has no means really.
Like he’s just a regular person as me. Although I [was] still a kid, and he [was] a grown
man, but he doesn’t have that ability to do so.
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 213

In this way, both children and their fathers become aware of their own vulnerability,
vulnerabilities that are wrapped up in one another. This ‘leveling’ can be viewed as
support for the ongoing social displacement of ‘elder’ males by younger, presumably
more physically robust males, ‘due to the elder’s inability to physically confront the
occupation forces’ (Hawari, 2004, p. 37).

‘It’s difficult to control them’: competing masculinities between father and son
Perhaps as a result of this leveling, we observed among fathers and sons a shift in the
performance of what might be considered an aspect of hegemonic masculinity, or even
of the ‘nationalist masculinity’ described by Massad (1995). Specifically, fathers
expressed concerns about their sons’ more aggressive expressions regarding resistance
to occupation. Accordingly, fathers’ expressions of masculinity seemed to differ from
those of their sons, by being far less aggressive, and perhaps more ‘mature’. We
observed, therefore, fathers’ less violent, one might say stoic, masculinity ‘managing’
their sons’ more aggressive impulses. Abu-Younes, said, ‘It’s difficult to control them,
because we all feel frightened,’ illustrating the pervasiveness of fear among Palesti-
nians. Thirty-five-year-old Abu-Rachid described:

You know what [the male children] are thinking about it? When we come to speak to our
kids, we say, ‘OK, what do you think about tomorrow?’ [He says,] ‘I am not thinking for
tomorrow. I want to be a man, to fight, and to have my house back. I want to say what is
happening in the [occupation] how the police throwing us [out of our homes], how the
police beat my dad and my mom.’ They [are] not thinking about tomorrow.

Apart from viewing his son’s impulses to ‘be a man’ through the lens of a more
‘mature’ masculinity, Abu-Rachid, like many fathers, relied on the wisdom of his
experience. Having spent over 10 years in prison for political activism, he described
what he felt to be the futility of certain forms of resistance and worried about how
his own past would unduly influence his son’s future. He experiences his son’s frustra-
tion and desires to protect the family and sees how instability, worries about displace-
ment, and concerns over police violence have marred his child’s ability to dream about
a future.
Abu-Rachid goes on to describe how occupation and military domination have
altered everyday life, particularly for children who grew up during what he called
the ‘mini-intifada’. His son’s world is unrecognizable to Abu-Rachid, and he worries
about how this perception will play out in his son’s future. Subjectivity plays a
major role in the expression of masculinity in Palestine, particularly when men
chose alternate forms of resistance (Hammami, 2013). Abu-Rachid’s patient, con-
trolled, and contained expression of masculinity is juxtaposed against his son’s impul-
sive, aggressive and volatile expression of being a man. Here, Abu-Rachid describes a
difference in upbringing, which underscores the importance of context:

[T]he way that I was raised was a very good one … .We had good people to help the other. I
meant about this kind of situation … we have here in Silwan for about two years, a mini-inti-
fada. And most of the time, children are talking about throwing stones and jail and soldiers.

If the young male is indeed a central component of resistance, then these male children
arguably are thrown into adulthood. This father explains how the occupation and
214 R. Gokani et al.

invasive interference from different levels of government have created mistrust and
‘hate’, forcing boys to ‘become men before their time’:

[T]he new generation. There is no fear. Now, there is hate. Honestly, what are they doing –
the government, the settlers, the municipalities, all these organizations? Now I feel the kids
in this generation right now, they are not just children. They became men before their time.
It’s like what they have experienced now. I will give you a small example, and maybe you can
realize what I mean. Once, there was a child about 12 years, he said, [inaudible] he said,
‘Wow, it is too much. I cannot handle the situation no more like this.

Conclusion
War often conjures gendered images. But when it comes to men, these images are argu-
ably often exemplars of a more militaristic and aggressive performance of masculinity.
While not entirely unrealistic, the prevalence and force of these images seem to belie an
important reality: that the context of political violence provides a site for the subver-
sion of these images and a potential to open up and reimagine new forms of masculi-
nity. We have attempted to take a step in this direction, by providing an analysis of the
narratives of Palestinian fathers, which suggest a manner in which fatherhood in the
context of war is a site for the performance of masculinities among fathers and
sons. Our analyses suggest that among fathers and sons, three masculine acts – pro-
vision, protection, and modeling – were obstructed because of the occupation.
Fathers in particular were affected as occupation had seemingly interfered with
their ability to perform as breadwinners, protectors of children and families, and
models of masculinity.
Connell (2005) describes masculinity as a multiple and often conflicting range of
masculine identities that are hierarchically structured around a ‘hegemonic’ ideal
that shifts over time and in different contexts and geographic locations. According
to Connell (1995), oppression positions certain men at the bottom of the gender
order to that of subordinated masculinity. Conversely, men who are complicit with
the ‘hegemonic project’ through their association with particular practices, but who
do not meet the prescribed standard for ‘hegemonic masculinity’ will benefit from
the patriarchal dividend. Oppression and the subsequent exclusion from normative
life tasks influence and reduce the repertoire of masculinity choices available to men
in Palestine. It is within these complexities that the fathers in our sample reside.
Across the constellation of masculinities identified by Connell (1995) spanning from
hegemonic, complicit, subordinated and marginalized that point to men’s’ positions
in relation to one another and to women in a given society, time and place, where
do these fathers sit? Given their particular lives, social, and historical context, and
the traits, attitudes and behaviors exhibited by fathers in our sample, where can we
position them across this spectrum? The answer lies within the borders of a narrow
repertoire of embodied masculinities available to these fathers and how their enact-
ments, concerns and performances are understood, accommodated and accepted by
those around them. On the one hand, they are marginalized from accruing hegemonic
rewards because of their race and ethnic position in relation to the broader social and
cultural forces that rule their daily lives. On the other, they are complicit. Though they
cannot benefit from all of the rewards, the quiet practices of children and wives to
maintain provision and breadwinning in the family allow fathers to reap the benefits
of respect and authority connected to this ideal.
 NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 215

Palestinian men living in Israel are excluded from accessing the hegemonic options
of militaristic-heroic masculinity and non-violent, productive patriarchal masculinity
including labor force participation and involvement in political life because of issues
related to social class and national identity (Sa’Ar & Yahia-Younis, 2008). In the
current context, fathers in our sample neither performed acts of aggression or domi-
nation characteristic of militaristic males nor were they completely complicit with
that hegemonic ideal, reaping from its patriarchal dividend. An examination of
these Palestinian men’s lives unveils just how vulnerable the concept of ‘hegemonic
masculinity’ can be both across and within cultures and in and across changing histori-
cal contexts. When men and boys are denied access to social power or resources necess-
ary for constructing hegemonic masculinity, they must seek other resources for
constructing gender that validates their masculinity (Messerschmidt, 1993). Fathers
in our sample modeled masculinity through their stoic, quiet and persistent resistance
in the face of scarcity of resources and absence of employment. Their families made
room for these performances by assuming untraditional responsibilities (such as
breadwinning by women and children), yet not denying these fathers the dignity
and respect afforded to that role. While fathers’ primary concerns and worries centered
on their constrained ability to provide instrumentally for their children, families and
communities, their secondary concerns were centered on the legacy they were
leaving their sons. More specifically, these concerns centered on modeling appropriate
and fruitful ways of ‘being a man’. Fathers had to choose from a menu of behaviors.
Outcomes of past behaviors, particularly those representative of hegemonic ideals
typically reinforced and promoted in times of war, had disadvantaged these men
and caused their families, in some cases, to suffer the consequences of their absence,
physical disability or death (as we learned from their families). These fathers strived
to educate, discipline and help their children see a life outside of the current struggle,
a life that could provide more hope for brighter futures.

Implications for practice and research

This research highlights the importance of listening to fathers’ voices in the context of
conflict. Whereas many studies focus on children and mothers (e.g. in the third
author’s work) in conflict, attention should also be paid to fathers who contribute to
their children’s development in varied and unique ways. Approaches should focus
on supporting fathers’ caregiving roles and should ultimately consider father’s multiple
roles as provider, protector, and model both in relation to their families, but also within
the community. Using a strengths-based perspective, practice with fathers who feel as
if they do not fulfill the traditional ‘masculine’ roles within society may eventually see
the importance of their role within the family.
Finally, we suggest three concrete directions for research here. First, because our
findings are part of a larger study with a broader focus, future research might look
more specifically at fathers and sons in the context of conflict, either in Palestine or
elsewhere. Second, we did not uncover an intersection between masculinity and reli-
gious ideology in our interviews, despite there being evidence that such currents
might exist (Hart, 2008). Therefore, an exploration into how religion, and specifically
Islam, grafts onto masculine performance would be telling. Third, researchers might
consider exploring Israeli and Palestinian masculinities in relation to each other.
While masculinity has been considered in light of resistance to occupation (e.g.
216 R. Gokani et al.

Peteet, 1994), potential complicity to it (Kanaaneh, 2005), and Israeli masculinity in

relation to the notion of national security (Herzog, 1998), we were unable to find a
comparative study that brought together these important strands of research. It
seems unlikely that one can understand Palestinian masculinity without understand-
ing Israeli masculinity, as both are intertwined geographically and historically.

Acknowledgments
The authors would also like to express deep gratitude to the study participants who opened their
homes and hearts to the research team.

Funding
This work was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council under the
Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) program, as well as support from the
Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University and McGill University’s
Faculty of Arts.

Notes on contributors
Ravi Gokani is a doctoral student at Wilfrid Laurier University's Lyle S. Hallman
Faculty of Social Work.
Aline Bogossian is a doctoral candidate at McGill University's School of Social Work
and the Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF).
Bree Akesson is an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University's Lyle S. Hallman
Faculty of Social Work.

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