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Feminist Changes in Israel

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Handbook of International Feminisms

Part of the book series: International and Cultural Psychology ((ICUP))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how different feminist ideologies have affected Israeli society in general and the psychology of women in particular. It deals with the impact of feminism more than with the assumptions of any specific feminist approach. Specifically, this analysis examines the social-psychological impact of feminist ideas in three periods: (1) the hegemonic socialist era of nation building, in which feminism had only a minor influence on the psychology of women and on social processes (up to the late 1970s); (2) the liberal opening to “imported” Western ideas like capitalism and individualism, a period in which feminist psychology contributed to changes in the gender schema, and the gendering of traits, roles and stereotypes (the 1980s); and (3) the multiculturalism and globalization period with its local nuances, in which feminist psychology influenced the perception of the female body, leading to a significant change in the presentation of menstruation as “unclean,” hiding the pregnant body, and, more recently, open and natural breastfeeding in public places (since the 1990s).

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Moore, D. (2011). Feminist Changes in Israel. In: Rutherford, A., Capdevila, R., Undurti, V., Palmary, I. (eds) Handbook of International Feminisms. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9869-9_4

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