Arab Women in Management and Leadership

Stories from Israel

K. Arar, T. Shapira, F. Azaiza, R. Hertz-Lazarowitz

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137032935
• eBook ISBN: 9781137319333
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

An exploration ofthe life-stories of 22 pioneer Arab women who have forged their path to management and leadership in education and welfare, overcoming challenges imposed by a patriarchal society that sees female leadership as a threat.

Chapter 1

Introduction and the Women Leaders’ Stories

From 2007 to 2010, we interviewed 22 Arab women managers. Listening to their stories in their natural settings, we were able to learn about their leadership of the educational and social welfare institutions that they headed.

In-depth, open-ended interviews were conducted in the women managers’ offices or at home. They were tape-recorded and later transcribed. Eleven interviews were conducted in Hebrew by Tamar and her assistant, and eleven interviews were conducted in Arabic by Khalid, who also translated the transcripts of these interviews into Hebrew. The interviews lasted between 90 and 120 minutes.

Participants were asked to relate to two key issues during the course of the interview in response to the interviewer’s open questions: the first, “Tell me about yourself and about the family in which you grew up,” and the second, “Describe your professional development and your nomination to management.” Other questions to which they responded were “How was your nomination received in your village or town?” “What reactions did you receive from men and from women?” “How does the staff, react to the fact that you are a woman manager?” and “Describe your leadership style.”

Ten women were also asked about their transition to traditional clothing, which has been adopted by many Muslim women in Israel in the last decade. Their stories are presented in Chapter 6.

The interviewer also asked clarifying questions and occasionally included brief informal conversation with the interviewee.

Interviews were analyzed using The Listener’s Guide method (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2004) whereby the researcher reads the text several times, attempting to identify the different “voices” of the narrator, relating to each of them separately. This method enables researchers to expose the whole range of an individual’s relationships, with the self, with others in the environment, and with the individual’s society. It has been used in similar research studies concerning women in the Israeli-Arab education system (Hertz-Lazarowitz & Shapira, 2005).

In the research presented here, the interview analysis relied on four readings relating to the following issues: biographical and personal details, social aspects, professional aspects, and the transition to conservative clothing. These readings provided the outlines for the women’s life stories, described throughout the different chapters of the book. We introduce the reader to the women through their summarized profiles.

Introducing Our Interviewees

Manal* is a Muslim woman, aged 50, married to a journalist. She has three children and three grandchildren. Manal lives in an Arab city in northern Israel where, for the last three years, she has managed a primary school. She has a bachelor’s degree in education from Beer Sheva University and completed a managers’ course. She explained, “My qualifications fitted the role, but in the initial stages of the tender, I really felt it became a state political matter; especially since a man from the security services was involved in the selection. He even sat in the interviews. The political viewpoint of our local government was also influential, because the mayor had a voice in it too. He continually opposed me; he had people who were closer to him politically.”

Rasmiya is a Druze woman and a widow, aged 55, with four adult children and grandchildren. For the last 14 years she has managed a primary school in her Druze village in northern Israel. She has a master’s degree in education.

It was an extremely long path and very full with many things. It was not easy. I was born in a Druze village to a strictly religious family. At one time religious people did not allow girls to study. There was a period when they were not allowed to study at all or just in Grade 1 or Grade 2. But in my childhood they did allow us to study, but limited us to five grades. They said that we shouldn’t study further; that a girl should just know the fundamentals of reading and writing and then use them to study religious works.

Wardi, a Muslim woman, aged 50, is married to a teacher who has an administrative role. She has four children and four grandchildren. She has a bachelor of arts degree in history. For eight years she has managed a school in the Arab city where she lives.

I was awarded the job after the second tender. I had not supported the mayor who had won the elections, so he insisted that I should not win the tender. In other words, because I had not supported him, he supported someone else. I ran for the tender with all sorts of qualifications, I had won the Education Prize, and had filled many roles. Suddenly they pulled out a male teacher, with no career background. When I spoke with the supervisor, who had been at the tender, I said, “Is there any justice in him being chosen, rather than me,” and he answered, “Wardi, you’re looking for justice in the Ministry of Education? Well, that’s not the right place to look.”

Samar is a Christian woman, aged 41, married to a doctor and mother to four children. She has a master’s degree in social work, specializing in management. She manages a shelter for women and children in the Arab sector. She lives in an Arab town.

When I chose to study social work, my father wanted me to have a more prestigious job. He wanted me to be a lawyer. For my father, social work was not a profession . . . in comparison to medicine and engineering and prestigious professions, social work was a sort of female profession that was . . . less skilled. I worked as a social worker in welfare offices for several years. For the last 15 years I have managed a shelter for battered Arab women. You have to consider many careerist aspects in this job; also aspects relating to your image and public aspects: how society looks at you; how you assess yourself; and also how your family relates to your work, especially your spouse.

Ikram, a Muslim woman, aged 48, is married with three children. She has an undergraduate degree in social work, and manages the local government welfare department in the village where she lives.

At the age of two, I became disabled. I grew up in a family with many children; we were 14 in number, and I was the only one who studied. My mother wanted me to study because of my disability. She always told me, “Ikram, you have to study something.” In retrospect I know that my mother was right. Because of my disability, I really needed to study. Now I look at all the disabled women who did not marry. There is only one who is also an academic, and her disability is very difficult. She remained single and soon will complete her doctorate.

Salima, a Muslim woman, aged 48, is married to a teacher who works in mediation, and they have four children. She has a bachelor of arts degree in Arabic and Arabic linguistics. At the time of the interview she was studying for a second degree in education. For the last eight years she has managed an elementary school in the Arab village in which she lives.

It was by chance that I came to manage this school. I taught in another Arab town, where a colleague asked me to help him to advance, and I went to the principal and asked him to recommend that teacher. He told me, “Salima, why on earth should I do that? Why shouldn’t I recommend you? You have tremendous potential and I see that this school is too small for you, and although it is difficult for me to tell my good teacher to leave the school, nevertheless you deserve it.” And that’s exactly how it began. I told my husband, and a day later I came home, and he had already travelled from work to Nazareth and brought me the application forms, and he said, “Fill them in.”

Narin, a Muslim woman, aged 45, is married and a mother to three children. She has a first degree in sciences and completed a management course. She managed a village elementary school for four years and has now managed the school in the village where she lives for seven years.

I studied in a high school in [a Jewish town]. The daughter of our friend in Tiberias, studied in the regional Academic Teaching College, and he told my father, “Your daughter is so young, let her study to be a teacher, and once she is a teacher then she can study whatever she wants in the evenings”. So I went to Ohalo. I was the first Bedouin woman to study there. I had an interview and was immediately accepted. I graduated and immediately began to work in a Jewish city. I worked there for two years as an Arabic teacher, and then I went on to another Jewish junior high school where I taught both science and Arabic for 18 years.

Suheir is a nonreligious Muslim woman, aged 39 and single. She has a bachelor of arts degree in Land of Israel studies and completed a management course. She has managed the elementary school in the village where she lives for four years.

We were a rather special family, from a multicultural point of view. I have a grandmother, on my mother’s side, who is Jewish, while my grandmother on my father’s side is Christian, and we are a Muslim family. This is the education and the approach that we soaked up over the years. My father’s status as a school principal and the fact that he works in a unit for coexistence and democracy was a strong influence. So we grew up with a certain lifestyle that it’s difficult to see in other places. I grew up in three cultures, which is not simple, choosing what you want to adopt and creating your own personality as you want to and according to your personal needs. So I would say that that’s where it all began for me.

Samira is a Muslim woman, aged 38, married and mother to three children. She has a master’s degree in educational counseling and served as an educational counselor in the school before becoming principal. She has managed the high school in an Arab village for five years. She lives in a mixed Jewish-Arab town.

I have been here almost since the school was established, and I have really developed with the school, so that step after step, I have accompanied the school with its progress, with its development. And all the time I was able to use my personal touch to influence policy, the development of the organization. I made my mark. I was very involved. I initiated my involvement in all the processes. I felt that this was a place to which I belonged, a place from which I can develop my vision or realize my vision. So I attended all the meetings; I established relations with the homeroom teachers, with the parents, with the students, with the management staff. I was involved in everything.

Rim is a nonreligious Muslim woman, aged 48 and single. She has a bachelor of science in mathematics and completed a management course. For six years she has managed the elementary school in the village where she lives.

At first it was very difficult—difficulties that I had not expected. We are still a masculine society; there was resistance [to my appointment] in the school and from outside. It was not simple. All my students and almost all the teachers were from another hamulla [extended family]. I was both a woman and from another hamulla and differed from the school environment. All of this reinforced my determination—I wanted to prove what I could do, and I did not rest. Their resistance did not make me frustrated—exactly the opposite—it provided me with the faith and determination that I needed to struggle with all my strength but also sometimes to give way. I was very careful; a woman needs to be cautious and she should not exploit the fact that she is a woman. They think that a woman will give in to male requests quickly.

Iman, a nonreligious Muslim woman, aged 52, is married, a mother to four children, and a grandmother. She has a bachelor of arts in English teaching and completed a management course. She has managed her village’s elementary school for 13 years.

I knew that we were a society in transition, and there were no women in this position. I had to prove to them that I could be a principal. There were some people who were happy but they would have preferred a man. They said, “What, are there no more men in the village?” and “How can she sit down alone with men?” They were used to coming and sitting down to talk with the principal over a cup of coffee. “What shall we do now? If there is a woman, we can’t go into the principal’s office.” Islamic religion forbids a man and woman who are not married to sit down together behind a closed door. You need glass walls so that everyone can see what is going on, and no one will be afraid. So that’s what I did, do you remember the glass wall that I constructed?

Nadra, a Muslim woman who has become religiously observant, aged 38, is married and a mother to three children. She has a bachelor of science in physics, a master’s degree in counseling, and completed a management course. She has managed a high school for three years.

In the management course, they supported me and gave me the belief that I could do it. Even my environment supported me. The school was on the point of collapse. Since I worked in this school I knew ahead of time what I was going to do and that helped me to win the tender. I needed to be much better than everyone else in order to win outright. My faith in my ability helped me to pass the others. There were many others who wanted this job and there were even some who had already tailored their suits for it; they had tried to persuade the mayor in preliminary secret meetings. Some of them did not have any qualifications; I have a second degree in educational counseling and a management course, educational experience. It wasn’t something personal but rather my right, as the person worthy to present my candidacy; my winning the tender was something completely and solely professional.

Nasreen is a Muslim woman, aged 52, and mother to four children. She has a bachelor of science in mathematics and sciences and a master’s degree in education. She has managed a Teacher Training Center for six years.

I always wanted to be a leading school principal. I attempted to win tenders five or six times, I went through difficult processes. Their considerations were influenced by local government, the politicians; but I really impressed them. In one particular tender, I was appointed and what happened was really ugly; I received direct threats against my family, a bomb was thrown at us. I had to give in. The mayor even sent someone to persuade me to give the post up and said that in the next tender they would look after me. I’m known in the community as an excellent teacher; I have good relations with parents, children, and the management. I have a very good reputation in the community, but that did not help me; they fought against me. The parents’ committee supported me. They wrote letters, but that didn’t really help me.

Ibtesam, a Muslim woman, aged 43, is married and a mother to three children. She has a master’s degree in social work and has managed a social welfare office for five years. “I never thought about being a manager; I began this position unintentionally. My personal dream was to work in a mental health clinic and to help the Arab sector. I did my practicum in a mental health clinic in Petach Tikva [a Jewish town], and I had not thought about managing a welfare office. In my childhood, I loved to trace social problems; the books I read related to social and mental problems. That’s how I developed as an individual and as a professional. I am in a position to help.”

Rula is a single Muslim woman, aged 36. She has a master of science in chemistry and completed a management course. For three years she has managed a high school in a mixed Jewish-Arab city.

I came to a workplace where five male principals had been replaced in eight years. The entire staff watched and whispered, “What does she think that she can do? Well, she’ll last a few months and then leave! Does such a young woman think she can manage such a large high school?” They didn’t know that I have the strength to do things in a very quiet manner, to support, to push, to embrace, and to back others. The students also made remarks like, “What nice jeans! That blouse looks good on you!” I smiled at them and said, “Thank you.” My [successful] management added each year to my record and led more and more teachers to believe in my path. They unified arou...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Authors’ Personal Perspectives
• Chapter 1: Introduction and the Women Leaders’ Stories
• Chapter 2: Definition and Context
• Chapter 3: “They Didn’t Consider Me, and No One Even Took Me into Account”
• Chapter 4: Challenging Cultural Norms
• Chapter 5: Women in Male Territory
• Chapter 6: “I Was Always a Believer, Only the Clothing Was Missing”
• References