BETWEEN RESISTANCE AND COMPLIANCE, FEMINISM AND

NATIONALISM: WOMEN IN BLACK IN ISRAEL

Erella Shadmi
Criminal Justice Department, Beit Berl College, Doar Beit Berl 44905, Israel
Synopsis — The article explores the practice of Women in Black—a women-only Israeli
peace movement—and the fashion in which it constructed meaning. It asks whether Women
in Black challenged orpreserved systems of power. In particular, this article pays attention
to the gender, ethnic, class and organizational aspects of the movement in constructing
meaning, that is, to the relations between the participantsthemselves, the practice they were
10 using and the social order to which they relate. © 2000
For 5 years, I stood every Friday in the Jerusalem vigil of Women in Black - a women-only
Israeli peace movement— until its final disintegration in August 1995. Throughout these
years I had been deeply involved in various discussions among the women of Women in
Black andwith others and in activities organized by the movement. As a feminist researcher
and teacher, I observed the dynamic relations between ourselves and others and listened to
the women’s conversations during the vigils. I often shared my reflections regarding our
practice with other participants in the vigil and elsewhere. Gradually, following my first
enthusiasm for the movement, I became ambivalent about Women in Black: vacillating
between identification and reservation, belonging and alienation.
20 This article, based largely on my observations and personal involvement, is an attempt to
interpret and conceptualize my experience with Women in Black. It argues that this
ambivalence stems from the tensions inherent within the practice of Women in Black
between feminism and nationalism, gender and ethnicity, the existing order and its
alternative, power and powerlessness. Ultimately, these tensions constructed a contradictory
identity which weakened Women in Black and broughtabout its demise. This article also
argues that despite Women in Black’s commitment to structurelessness and inclusion, the
movement became dominated by Ashkenazi (white) middle-class Jewish women and thus
became unable to contain its internal conflicts and contradictions.
Women in Black was a network of all-woman weekly vigils protesting the Israeli
30 occupation of Palestinian territories. Participants often encountered hostile, sexist and
violent responses from passersby (e.g., “Whores of Arafat,” “Go back to the kitchen,”
“Lesbians,” “You need a man to show you your proper place”) and ignorance from the
mass media and traditional politics. Only rarely did they receive support from occasional
passersby and other peace groups. Their strategy of protest has been adopted by women
from the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Italy, the United States and elsewhere, either to
protest the Israeli occupation or to struggle for local causes (e.g., the Bosnian war).
This article examines the practice of Women in Black and the fashion in which it
constructed meaning, and asks whether it challenged or preserved systems of power. In
particular, this article pays attention to the gender, ethnic, class and organizational aspects
40 of the movement in constructing meaning, that is, to the relations between the participants
themselves, the practice they were using and the social order to which they related, as these
relations are structured in the context of Israeli society in general and the Israeli peace
movement in particular. As the Jerusalem vigil included almost exclusively Jewish Israelis
facing and protesting against Jewish Israeli society, this article focuses on the experience of
Jewish Israeli participants of Women in Black within Jewish Israeli culture.
This article follows contemporary research on New Social Movements (NSM) (Eder, 1985;
 Melucci, 1985; Offe, 1985). This body of knowledge focuses on the ideological roots of
NSM, their collective identity—mainly built on particularistic characteristics such as race
and sex—and their challenge to the domination of culturally hegemonic groups (Touraine,
50 1985). This article wishes to explore the nature of the practice itself, its construction and
problematics. The first two parts examine the meaning and origin of Women in Black being
exclusively female. The third part focuses on Women in Black’s ethnic and class
composition, namely, its Ashkenazi (Jews from European and American descent)
dominance and its internal organization. On the basis of this analysis, the final part probes
the perplexing meaning of marginality.
WOMEN’S RESISTANCE: EN-GENDER-ING THE NATIONAL DISCOURSE
Women in Black grew from the initiative of nine Jerusalem women into a national
movement which consisted at its peak of a few hundred women present in about 30
different locations all over Israel. Three weeks after the outbreak of the Intifada (the
60 Palestinian uprising, December 1987), the women began holding a vigil each Friday for an
hour, in all weather conditions and regardless of political circumstances, at various road
junctions and town centers. Nothing united them—neither age, religious persuasion, nor
social belief— except a sign in the shape of a traffic stop sign, which read in Arabic,
English, Hebrew or Russian: “Stop the Occupation!”
This was, apparently, a clear message and a simple act of protest. On the surface, Women in
Black was no more than a traditional, extra-parliamentary movement, struggling against the
Israeli occupation exactly like the mixed sex group, Peace Now. The fact that it was
exclusively female was not surprising either. For one, women constitute the majority of the
peace camp in Israel (Sasson-Levy 1995; Zukerman-Bar’ely & Benski, 1989). Second,
70 women-only peace groups began to appear in the public arena since the Lebanon War
(1982), and more so since the outbreak of the Intifada (Chazan, 1992; Sharoni, 1996).
The wide involvement of women in the struggle for peace has been explained by both
essentialist and universal as well as structural and culturally specific factors. The first line
of interpretation emphasizes women’s moral and pacifist inclinations stemming from their
mothering nature (Randall, 1987); the second—social and cultural arrangements: the
exclusion of women from institutional politics (Azmon, 1990; Randall, 1987; Wolfsfeld,
1988), encouraged by the centrality of the army in constructing the identity and status of
Israeli manhood (Sasson-Levy, 1995, p. 69), religious fundamentalism and traditional
understanding of gender roles in Israel (Chazan, 1989); the nature of the Intifada itself,
80 whose brutality and violence made a great impact on women (Chazan, 1992) and, finally,
feminist aspirations, namely, an attempt to upgrade women’s status through an
appropriation of the security discourse dominated by men (Sasson-Levy, 1995, p. 76).
The female exclusiveness—like the quest for peace—of Women in Black was not, thus,
unusual in the Israeli context. Nevertheless, Women in Black was an entirely different
movement from other Israeli women’s organizations and women’s peace movements:
Women in Black told a story within a story. Beyond the outer narrative, which
corresponded to socially accepted modes of action, there was a latent level undermining
these same modes and constructing an entirely different symbolic system. At the latent level
the message lay not in the words but in the act: the medium was the message. The
90 combination, uncommon at that time, of womanhood and politics undermined and
redefined traditional perceptions of womanhood and political struggle, andthus formulated
a feminist strategy and transmitted a feminist message.
 The process of subversion and redefinition was constructed through three novel means,
which together built the medium of Women in Black. First was bodyspeak (following
Irigaray, 1980). The women of Women in Black Feminism and Nationalism in Israel wrote
and discoursed through their bodies. To express themselves they have, as Cixous (1981)
suggests, to be in touch with their bodies, the very bodies which become estranged and
alienated by patriarchy. Through the body the women transformed their reflections and
ideas into concrete reality.
100 Women in Black told their story through their bodies. In contrast to Freud, who saw
woman’s body as deficient and a source of shame, these women used their bodies and
selves as a means of self-expression. They exposed with pride their femininity in the town
squares rather than in more respectable and acceptable political fora or women’s
organizations. The publicness of their protest and the exposure of their bodies stood in
sharp contrast to both the place traditionally reserved for women (the private sphere) and
the way women have been pushed by Israeli culture and Zionist ideology and practice
beyond the walls of the home and family. It was particularly contrary to the way Zionism
harnesses the womb for national interests, especially to produce warriors (Berkowitz, 2000;
Fogiel-Bijauoi, 1992). Staging the body within a vigil challenged social norms, questioned
110 the traditional roles prescribed for women, and expressly reflected a protest against the
reduction of a woman’s body to a womb, the patriarchal function prescribed for it by Israeli
nationalism. It was, in fact, a strike by the female production laborers, as much as a way of
devising an alternative route for women’s involvement in society and politics and a model
for emulation for the Israeli woman.
The use of women’s bodies to protest political oppression establishes the connection
between women’s experience and national politics, between the Israeli occupation of
foreign lands and male occupation of woman’s body. Thus, the mystical and sexist notion
dominating Zionism, of the land of Zion as a woman who must be conquered and mastered
(Hazelton, 1977), was revealed, and the connectedness between militarism, nationalism,
120 colonialism and womanhood constructed by the dominant social discourse and national
culture was unravelled. By using their bodies in the streets and connecting women’s
subordination to political occupation, the women of Women in Black ascribed a concrete
meaning to the slogan “the personal is the political” and shattered the seemingly clear
separation between the public and the private spheres.
The second means Women in Black used was the color black. By preferring black over
white the women renounced the symbolism attached to women as pure, virginal and
angelic. Beyond expressing grief and sorrow over the evils of the occupation, echoing
Middle Eastern female mourning practices, they publicly ridiculed the mysterious portrayal
of women as a dark and fatal force. They made a mockery of women’s images held by men,
130 thus laughing the liberating laugh of the Medusa (Cixous, 1981).
Finally, the third means Women in Black used was the constant presence in time and space.
The feminist practice took place openly and publicly at central locations all over Israel. Its
publicness, regularity and wide dispersion exposed people from different backgrounds to its
overt and covert meanings. Willingly or unwillingly people became involved participants in
the social discourse Women in Black established and which revolving around areas
designated by the women themselves, namely politics, nationalism, culture and
womanhood.
The simultaneous use of these three means—bodyspeak, the color black, the constant
 presence in time and space—constructed a new “feminist text” (Harris & King, 1989, p. 2),
140 reflecting women’s value system—that is, embedded in women’s material experiences. It
was a way of expressing their perception of reality and, at the same time, of emancipation
from this very reality.
The context of a political struggle within which these three means were used further
amplified their power. Women’s bodies were used not for traditional women’s purposes,
such as temptation or advancement of women’s interests (day-care centers and equal
opportunity, for example). Instead, they were used in pursuit of a general, all-encompassing
social goal in which, as they argued in bodyspeak, there is a room for new, female messages
and strategies. They did not capitalize on the traditional roles of women as mothers and
wives to advance their protest; instead, they established their status and position in the town
150 squares through their mere presence as citizens with equal rights. They confiscated from the
public sphere, traditionally a male reserve, a room of their own for their alternative
message, which depended no longer on their sex roles. Womanhood thus reconstructed was
presented in a new political and ideological context, which transformed woman from an
object, contingent on men’s perception and conventions, to a subject with her own right and
distinctive position.
In their persistent demonstrating week after week over years in spite of endless sexist
comments and violent reactions, they realized the feminist conception of politics—not
politics in terms of institutions and activities (parties, elections, interest groups and
parliaments), but, rather, politics as an experiencing of power in daily life. The politics of
160 Women in Black existed within and was lived through the behaviors and the relations
comprising their reality.
Women in Black had neither accumulated any power in government nor socialized with
public figures and media personalities. Never had the women attempted to participate in the
formal decision-making process or to pressure officials in a conventional manner. In terms
of traditional measures of political struggle, one may argue that they failed to exert an
impact on the political process.
However, they contributed to the political culture and process in Israel as well as the
feminist endeavor to transform women’s social status. They succeeded in constructing an
alternative national discourse regarding fundamental elements of personal, social and
170 cultural reality, in paving a new route for political struggle, embedded in women’s
experience, in rendering a living and ever-present testimonial to the injustices of the
occupation and in opening new options for women’s involvement in society and politics.
WOMEN’S SPECIFICITY: FEMINISM AND NATIONALISM
(SOME PARAGRAPHS WERE CUT OUT TO SHORTEN THE
TEXT)
………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………
The entrance of women like Women in Black into the center of politics and the use of
women’s specificity subliminally disturbed personal and collective consciousness and
180 thwarted the existing social and political order. This explains the extreme reactions from
passersby as well as the reluctance of both women and society at large to join or at least
support the protest of Women in Black. In other words, within the specific context of Israeli
culture and women’s positioning within it (outlined above), feminist practice was on the
whole rejected by society and thus conflicted with the national (peace) aim of Women in
 Black. The overt national meaning was made insignificant by the covert feminist meaning.
A tension thus arose between the women’s specific values and culture and hegemonic,
male-defined and malecontrolled values and structures, or between women’s specificity and
the national Israeli discourse as it is currently constructed.
The tension between feminist practice and national discourse becomes even more apparent
190 when the two run in contradictory directions—as had been happening in Women in Black
especially since the Oslo Accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Accord and
the peace talks which followed were, on the whole, endorsed by most of the women in the
vigils. The Women in Black’s protest against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was
close to being made redundant with the immanent withdrawal. However, beyond the outer
national meaning of Womenin Black was, as we argued earlier, another, feminist level of
meaning, making the vigils a protest against existing political order. This order remained
unchanged, making protest still supremely important. Tension between the two levels of
meanings thus developed, underlining one crucial aspect of the problematics of Women in
Black, and ultimately playing a significant role in its gradual disintegration.
200 WOMEN’S COMPLIANCE: GENDER, ETHNICITY AND ORGANIZATION
Except for the quest to “Stop the Occupation”, as its sign read, Women in Black did not
formally commit itself to any other political cause. Nevertheless, the construction of a
feminist practice and the challenge of existing social arrangements stirred the expectation
for a movement of a new kind: pluralistic and open to all, structure less and equal. The
ethnic and class composition and the internal organization of Women in Black seemed,
therefore, troublesome.
Contemporary research regarding NSM views the movement’s organization as more than a
resource for goal attainment: It is a reflection of the movement’s world view (Epstein,
1991; Offe, 1985). Since NSM challenge domination and control, their organization is
210 usually non-formal, non-hierarchical, with no differentiation between the leaders and the
led, enabling equal participation of all members in decision making.
The radical feminist movement in particular rejects any line of organization. In its ambition
to develop an equal society with no power relations at all, it seeks a structureless,
leaderless, equal, decentralized movement (Epstein, 1991).
This feminist quest is echoed in the writings of articulate participants in Women in Black
(Deutch, 1992, 1994; Espanioli& Sachs, 1991), Feminism and Nationalism in Israel as it is
among women peace activists elsewhere (Kirk, 1989).
Indeed, the women of Women in Black maintained among themselves relationships
founded on sisterhood, friendship and sharing. Group decisions were made by consensus
220 and any woman was welcome to join the vigil. They established an “open space” (Pamela
Allen, as quoted by Eisenstein, 1983, pp. 39–40), in which they could develop trust and
freely express themselves. At the overt and visible level, therefore, they applied a women’s
culture of peace (Brooke-Utne, 1989; Ruddick, 1989) and thus, women’s values and needs,
embedded in their specific reality, became the organizing principles (Miles, 1989).
However, Women in Black deviated from these cultural rules, freely developed and agreed
upon by the women and advocated by the above-mentioned writings, in two major areas: its
latent organization and its ethnic and class composition.
In spite of their ambition for joint decision making and shared responsibility, only a small
number of women actually took part in decision making (i.e., the women who chose to
230 come to meetings). An even smaller number represented the group in the media and at
 conferences, organized the movement’s national and local gathering and were consulted
when a decision had to be made quickly. As a result, a small number of women defined the
agenda and became the informal leaders whose opinions had often been highly regarded by
other members of Women in Black. These women were often the ones approached by male
peace activists, police commanders, journalists and academic researchers when
consultation, cooperation or information was needed. They had been often approached by
other women of the vigil who wished to present a new idea to the whole group or to express
their dissatisfaction with a certain move taken by the vigil. Thus, a line of hierarchy was
established and a division between the leaders and the led was drawn.
240 The formal structurelessness begat a latent, discriminatory and hierarchical organization
and asked a tower structure which could be easily preserved because it was latent and
unacknowledged. This structure was not a product of a preordained plan but, rather of the
responsibility assumed and initiative taken by small number of women. It was enhanced by
relationships these women had already developed among themselves in past political
activities, mainly in feminist, peace or Marxist groups. Nevertheless, it enabled them to
acquire and exercise power within the movement.
Like its structurelessness, the apparent openness of Women in Black to all women obscured
latent discriminatory practices. Women in Black was mainly composed of Ashkenazi (Jews
of European and American descent), highly educated and salaried women
250 (Helman&Rapoport, 1997).12 Mizrahi and working-class women were excluded through
the use of two unconsciously developed major mechanisms.
The first mechanism was alienation and estrangement. Through the use of high language
and professional terminology (such as the use of scientific terms, insistence on non-rude,
clean language, mentioning of feminist slogans such as “The personal is the political” and
“Sisterhood is global,” assuming all women are familiar with them), the frequent reference
to theory and texts (such as citing Western philosophers and feminist theoreticians, the
daily newspaper Ha’aretz, popular among highly educated middle-class readers) and the
privilege attached to middle-class cultural resources and codes (such as visits to Europe,
mentions of American department stores, celebrating non-Jewish and non-Israeli holidays,
260 sharing childhood experiences usually not shared by Mizrahi people, in youth movements
and kibbutzim),Mizrahi and working-class women felt unfit for Women in Black, without
the “know-how” which is needed to feel at home (cf. Mahony&Zmroczek, 1996) .
The second mechanism was irrelevance and splitting: by refusing to acknowledge the
connectionbetween war, peace, class and ethnicity (Sharoni, 1996, p. 19) and the
problematics of being an Arab Jew in a state fighting the Arab world and downplaying Arab
culture, Women in Black made their practice irrelevant to Mizrahi and working-class
women. By such practice Women in Black separated national and feminist versus ethnic
and class oppression and, consequently, made explicit the schism Mizrahi women
experience between their feminist and ethnic identities and struggles, a split established by
270 Ashkenazi middleclass feminists (Dahan-Kalev, 1997; Shadmi, in press; Shiran, 1991).
In its ethnic and class composition, Women in Black reflected exclusions within Israeli
society as a whole in which the hegemonic groups consist mainly by Ashkenazi people and
which marginalizes Mizrahi and workingclass people. It also resembled other NSM whose
participants come mainly from the new middle class (Eder, 1985; Offe, 1985), in fact, those
who are political activists in general, inside and outside institutional politics, in all
democratic Western countries (Milbrath&Goel, 1977).
 Even as a women’s peace movement Women in Black is not unique in this respect: “The
‘typical Jewish woman’. . . is . . . snubbed by the academics and the professionals in the
‘women’s peace movement,’ who see her as shallow and simple-minded and, therefore
280 unworthy of co-optation into their ranks” (Azulay-Gibel, 1989, p. 23; see also Gillath,
1991). As a consequence of its ethnic and class composition, Women in Black formed an
elitist group in terms of its relatively high social status and rich resources (Etzioni-Halevy,
1993, p. 21, note 1). Perhaps this elitism also means an image of moral superiority attached
by others and possibly by themselves (Helman&Rapoport, 1997) to the ideological
commitment,political courage and social responsibility members manifested.
However, the absence of Mizrahi women stood in contrast to the high level of participation
in protest activity of Israelis of all walks of life (Lehman-Wilzig, 1990, p. 59), regardless of
their ethnicity (Wolfsfeld, 1988, p. 68). Moreover, it juxtaposed Women in Black’s desire to
disseminate the idea of peace among people from different backgrounds as it estranged and
290 kept Mizrahi and working-class women away. And what is most significant, it conflicted
with Women in Black’s feminist practice which challenged the existing order.
The simultaneous coexistence of female exclusiveness and Ashkenazi dominance, as well
as women’s culture and centralized structure, constructed an internal tension between
hegemony and marginality, center and periphery, powerfulness and powerlessness,
resistance and compliance, in fact, between two levels of meaning. On one level, female
exclusiveness and women’s culture challenged the existing order which marginalizes
women as women and excludes them from positions of hegemony. By this challenge the
women of Women in Black further distanced themselves from powerful positions. On
another level, Women in Black’s Ashkenazi composition and the use of traditional
300 organizational structure reflected compliance with the existing order which gives privileges
to Ashkenazi Jews. These two elements, thus, helped the women to preserve their position
within powerful, hegemonic groups.
The interplay between the two levels of meaning is made possible by maintaining the dual
social positioning of the women of Women in Black as “the powerful powerless.” On the
one hand, they belonged to the group of women, to a “sex class”—oppressed,
discriminated, dominated; on the other—to the Ashkenazi elite—privileged, controlling,
discriminating.
The maintenance of this dual positioning and the resulting interplay between the two
meanings reflected the refusal of the women of Women in Black to acknowledge the
310 interconnectedness between the different mechanisms of oppression working in Israeli
society as well as their ambition to be included in the center of society. Both meanings
draw the line between Women in Black’s resistance to and compliance with the existing
order. They reflect “a selective radicalization of ‘modern’ values, rather than a
comprehensive rejection of these” (Offe, 1985, p. 853). Consequently, Women in Black was
no more than either “a symbolic crusade fighting for the recognition of their own culture”
(Eder, 1985, p. 888), or “a political pressure group fighting against . . . its deterioration in
the status quo” (Eder, 1985, p. 888), or perhaps both. As such it could not be or refused to
become “a social movement fighting for a radical democratization of social relationships as
such (not only relationships of production)” (Eder, 1985, p. 888). These dual positioning
320 and meanings of Women in Black also exhibited an inability or refusal, in spite of its
potential and inclinations, to become a truly integrative feminist movement (Miles, 1996).
This limit of Women in Black became most apparent when feminist resistance conflicted
 with Ashkenazi compliance. Such a conflict broke out when it became clear that the peace
treaties with neighboring countries inflicted damage on the socially weak strata, the
Mizrahi working class in particular, as much as they benefited already privileged groups,
mainly Ashkenazi upper-class people. In face of such a gap, the internal conflict could no
longer be contained and, together with the tension between feminism and nationalism (see
above), it led to the gradual disintegration of Women in Black.
In summary, as long as the conflicting meanings of Women in Black could be contained
330 within the practice, the protest could go on. When the internal contradictions between
feminism and nationalism, resistance and compliance, burst out as a result of external
developments, Women in Black came to its end.
THE MULTIPLE FACES OF MARGINALITY
When women like those in Women in Black move from the margins to the center of the
political arena, they make use of their experience as women in a patriarchal society and,
consequently, form a new mode of practice and, hence, transform the national discourse.
The social critique of Women in Black stems from the specificity of women’s values and
experiences, long marginalized and downplayed by male hegemony. Their use of women’s
specificity distinguishes their politics from that of other women who enter politics. To put it
340 another way, Women in Black, contrasted with other women’s political practices, became a
feminist practice exactly because it made its marginalized specificity into a political
resource. It thus entered politics through the back door.
The hostile street reaction, the women’s elitism and the gradual disintegration as a group,
however, overshadows the uneasy relations between integrative feminist political practice
and hegemonic (male) politics, perhaps between radical feminism and traditional politics.
They reveal the ultimate inability of Women in Black to make its practice an integral part of
politics. The political practice the women developed remained their own, enclosed within
the group itself, incapable of being incorporated into politics. Consequently, its
transformative power, at least to a certain extent, was neutralized and circumscribed, and
350 the women remained on the margins of politics.
Such a state of affairs may be a result of forces at work in a particular society, such as
Israeli society, preventing the absorption of feminist ideas. It also may be explained by
hostility, ignorance and silencing exerted by traditional political groups, the mass media
and peace groups, fueled by a fear of feminism’s transformative power. But it may also be a
result of factors associated with the movement itself, that is, its attempt to move out of the
margins and to come closer to the center. In attempting to do so, however, Women in Black
marginalized others, that is, Mizrahi and working-class women, and strengthened the
existing order, which ultimately marginalizes all women, including the women of Women
in Black. Women in Black was thus caught between its conflicting ambitions, especially its
360 ambivalence towards marginality itself.
These women’s marginality is also connected to their adherence to their marginality,
namely, their refusal to translate their feminist achievements into concrete political power.
They had always been mindfully and proudly reluctant to establish formal institutions, to
authorize any leader or to assign a spokeswoman. They also refused to make changes,
minor as they may be, in their practice (except following the Oslo Accord when most of
them agreed to add placards approving of the Accord, and later, when they agreed to move
the vigil to a new location in order to enable Palestinian women to join in). They refused to
expand their strategy and to enlarge their political statement beyond the slogan “Stop the
 Occupation” or to incorporate any clear feminist or other message into their protest. In fact,
370 they refused to capitalize on their own achievements. Consequently, the feminist practice
they developed remained confined to the vigils and did not become an integral part of
Israeli politics in general.
Marginality has another meaning, though, and as such carries positive implications.
Marginality is also positionality (as suggested by Moi, 1985), by which Women in Black
symbolized the borderline between patriarchy and feminism, between war and peace. It
gave the women in the vigils an unmatched opportunity to single out, apprehend and
express the evils of patriarchy and the mischief of militarism and colonialism. Women in
Black’s marginality played a crucial social role—a moral compass, as an anonymous male
supporter once remarked when we all were going together to a demonstration. But this also
380 explains why other Israeli women refrained from joining the vigils, at the same time that
women from other cultures and societies have adopted the practice of Women in Black.
Marginality, therefore, is a perplexing and puzzling position, whose meaning is contingent
on one’s outlook.
The extent of the problematics of Women in Black should not, therefore, be overstated. Not
only has the powerful contribution of their practice of women’s specificity to the political
culture and national discourse to be acknowledged; not only have the strong opposition of
existing institutions and the power of male-defined and male-controlled social
arrangements to be taken into account. It also has to be recognized that Women in Black
vigils were in fact an experiment conducted in real life rather than under laboratory
390 conditions. Women in Black created, in the midst of a heated political struggle, an
alternative route for feminist practice. It also has to be recognized that only a few pioneers
can take such a unique and vanguard action as that of Women in Black. Elitism and
marginality are therefore to be expected. Perhaps Women in Black and integrative feminists
in other countries, as well as women peace activists in Israel, aware of these problems, will
continue this experiment and come up with better answers.