Educating women

Education, as one of the main socialization tools of society is the significant patriarchal domain that preserves and replicates itself. The roots of modern education, known today, draw on educational traditions in ancient societies that were customary in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where the father was responsible for educating the sons who mainly learned the father's trade and the tradition that is conveyed from one generation to the next. The mother was in charge of meeting the family's material needs and conveying her knowledge and skills as a woman to her daughters (Shupak, 1999). Later the model of male education was replicated to education outside the home and entrusted to male teachers as an alternative to the fathers.

A similar situation is also found in Jewish society, whose roots start with the founder of the nation, Abraham, from Ur Kasdim in Mesopotamia.

The father was responsible for education and the student was the son ("And thou shall tell thy son..," Exodus, 13:14; Deuteronomy, 6:6;

Deuteronomy, 32:2).

Education and acquiring knowledge is one of the main values in Jewish society, accompanying till now regardless of religiosity or secularity.

Marriage to an educated man was the peak of ambition of every Jewish family, enabling crossing the boundaries of status. But education was also a source of gender division of roles, preserved till today in religious

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society, where the man studies and the woman, in addition to caring for the house and family, goes out to work in order to support the family and the husband who often studies Jewish material. In modern Israeli society, this situation enjoys a far-reaching social interpretation, mainly as regards the civil social obligations, when Yeshiva students enjoy full exemption from the obligation of recruitment to the army due to their belief entailing full time study of Jewish sources.¹⁰⁹

Like most of the ancient cultures in the world, Jewish culture was also not a written culture at the outset, but traditions transferred orally from father to son. The few who knew how to read and write were the priests and Levites. This connection between education, knowledge and religion accompany humanity of all three monotheistic religions in a distinct patriarchal institution, that of necessity influenced education and the roots of patriarchialism, of education.

Learning and education were originally connected to obedience - to the person of authority (father, teachers, the wise man). The ideal student was defined as silent, i.e., a person in control of himself, restrained, modest and not a gossip. The acquisition of knowledge and learning was through listening; the concept of 'listen' is also defined as attention but also as obedience (Shupak, 1999). One can clearly see the education scheme as education connected to authority and authority meaning responsibility.

Therefore the responsibility is patriarchal (religion, the father) and also authority is such

Laquer (1990) notes that until the 18^th century, a pattern of thought was common that referred only to males as representing humanity in all areas of life, including education. The history of psychology is full of theories regarding female inferiority relative to males. Freud's theories only reinforced this belief and have been accepted as scientific theories in use till today. Our social environment determines diverse behavioral values regarding men and women. For young girls and women, the recommendation was an approach of dependency while for young men and males it was one of independence and authority (Bem, 1993).

The right of women to study concerned many philosophers, including Rousseau, who saw women as wives and mothers, as he stated in his book Emile (1762) - woman's education must be planned in relation to man

109 The subject changed somewhat with the introduction of the Tal law that enables recruiting Yeshiva students to the army. Similarly, objection has developed in Israeli society to a situation that is perceived as parasitical, and there is nowadays a tendency to go out to work of Yeshiva students while determining the time of study.

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because she will always be subject to a man and she will never be free to set her own opinion. In contrast to him, Wollstonecraft (1792) was amongst the first to identify women as needing alternative behavior in order to attain different things and therefore developed female wiliness, which is the opposite of female power that rocks female honor. She saw the neglect of their education as the source of their misery.

The French revolution had implications on the approach to education in general and to educating girls in particular, as we can learn from de Gouges (1791), who demanded better education for women. She saw education as a right deserved by women no less than men. de Talleyrand based his

statement that girls would learn together with boys until the age of eight on this demand, as mentioned in his report on national education in France (1791), which may have been the first harbinger of national education even if in his time the report was not applied.

The education of the child and girl in Jewish society were also neglected (Ofaz, 2000) based on the approach of religious Jewish law manifested in Maimonides who said that "whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as if he teachers her rubbish". This was supported by the Jewish Code of Law, set by Caro in 1563¹¹⁰ (Greenbaum 1999).

The national Zionist awakening contributed to change in attitudes in the context of educating girls in Jewish society. "The daughter of Israel grows up in her home as a foreign body...and only with the start of the national movement in Israel did they begin to deal somewhat with her Jewish education (Berlovitz, 1989). Zionism recognized the importance and need for education for girls and therefore demanded change in the perception of education for them. The girls mainly followed secular studies and professional education that opened the way for their leave-taking for work outside the home as teachers and kindergarden teachers (Sitton, 1998-9). They managed in parallel to be included in educated groups and to learn Hebrew, thereby opening access to canonical texts, the Bible and the Talmud, on the one hand and to modern texts on the other belonging to the general culture (Grinbaum, 1999), exposure that generates different awareness of their condition as women and to the connection to religion and this situation.

Under the influence of education for women the foundation for non-religious education was laid, contrary to what had been common in

110 Known in Hebrew as the "Shulhan Arukh"

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Jewish society for generations, with the penetration of liberal ideas to traditional society, or, distancing from the distinct patriarchal source.

One of the foundation stones of the feminist struggle in general, and of the Jewish struggle in particular, thus focuses around the question of education:

1. Recognition of the need to educate girls 2. The very providing of education for girls

3. The content of education with a gender focus and context

4. Recognition of the status of education for girls as identical to that of educating boys

One may claim that, the goals were attained in Israel apart from point 3;

nowadays these targets and the compulsory education law pertains to girls exactly as it does to boys. Furthermore, girls and women are integrated in all educational frameworks from the kindergarten age through to University. The problem remains with respect to the learning content.

The content pertains to the sexist approach deeply embedded in all layers of education. Examination of the text books conducted by the previous Minister of Education, Limor Livnat¹¹¹ in 2002(Ministry of Education 2002), proved again that the changes are at the declaratory level only.

Moreover, the students of education in Israel (and perhaps in other places in the world) are demanded to study psychology and philosophy of education as they must study other subjects, according to a syllabus that has not changed and has not taken into consideration the gender stereotypes embedded in the foundations of their education, as well as the cognitive and behavioral processes.

This researcher finds that educators in the State of Israel, who are mainly women, are one of the groups objecting most stridently to the recognition of the need for egalitarian gender education, based on the absolute denial of the reality and ignoring its implications.

Nowadays, the educational approach to women sees the way to social change as based on a scheme for changing women, under female responsibility, for their benefit .This educational activity occurs on a basis of understanding and acceptance that the activities and existing rules of

111 Examination of the learning materials and substance was conducted several times by Minister Ora Namir, in 1978, tracking the report by the Women's Lobby in 1987. Another committee was appointed headed by Dr. Zofia Meller in 1991 (www.lib.cet.il).

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behavior are shaped by men and determine the life reality of society in general and of women in particular (Cohen, 2006).

The educational activities are manifested at two levels:

1. Through the development of tracks in the formal academic realm –

"Women's Studies" has become "Women and Gender Studies" or, over the years, just "Gender Studies". This niche uses informal tools and approaches within the formal system and creates a new path.

2 Through developing empowerment courses for women in the informal arena, and within the institutional (formal) and informal institutional establishment arena.

These two planes rely on another pedagogy the ' feminist pedagogy' to be detailed later.