Negotiating distinctiveness and building resilience: Arab and Jewish women's acts of micro-emancipation in the context of Israeli municipal councils

Abstract

The paper narrows the research gaps on women's performances enacted to ascertain their voice and influence in perplexing environments and how these attempts evolve in the particular social, political fields of local government. It shows how women use negotiation to build resilience, cope with persistent gender inequalities and exert influence in strategic management forums of local governments. The findings are based on content analysis of semistructured interviews with 20 Arab and Jewish women members of municipal councils. Three main themes emerged from the analysis of the interview data: “noisy silences”—subtle counter-moves, disrupting the field and planting new trees and the mysteries of success. These themes encapsulate marks of micro-emancipation, illustrating women council members' acts of resistance—transforming the imperfections attributed to them by their male counterparts, into opportunities—, allowing to sound their voices and exert influence at the unhospitable and chilly political field of local governments. Women are capable of adapting their negotiation repertoire to the emerging circumstances. The task of changing the playing field of municipal councils is markedly more arduous for women in Arab towns, nonetheless some of them engage it.