Yesterday, women across the country gasped in horror at the scenes of women being violently chased out of Bnei Brak by an angry mob of ultra-religious men. It was a vision of some of our worst fears coming true. The women hid in garbage cannisters until their police rescuers arrived, according to some reports in the Hebrew press. It was a mostly unharmed ending to a terrifying situation. But it could have gone many different ways.

As horrifying as this was, it was hardly surprising. Religious violence against women has already become a norm. And the antipathy of haredi men towards people wearing the IDF uniform was recently etched into Israeli government policy, as I wrote about last week, with the army creating “sterilized” locations for haredi men — that is completely absent of women. So given this reality, why are we surprised to see those sentiments acted upon by a mob? The violent swarm was a natural conclusion to years of acculturation that has now become the official norm.

This is only part of the story of erasing women

The government’s willingness to kick women out of army locations has many far-reaching implications for women and society in general.

For one thing, army service is a crucial station in Israeli society for determining leadership and decision-making. As such, the consequences of women’s exclusion from the IDF roles are broad.  Despite all the very hard-earned gains that women have fought for in their army service, the IDF is treating women as expendable, and is willing to put women’s advancement backwards in order to accommodate religious men. Religious leaders are ready to turn women’s exclusion into formal policy and law.  

There’s more. These exclusions can potentially affect women’s entire lives. Women’s exclusion from army leadership and visibility also potentially affects the rest of their professional lives. Indeed, the army has long served as one of Israel’s most powerful institutions for shaping social norms, authority, and access to leadership. In Israeli society, the IDF hierarchy is the single biggest determining factor in who gains political and economic power. To wit, almost all the leading candidates to be next prime minister are former army elite – Netanyahu, Bennett, Eizenkot, Gallant, Gantz, and even left-wing Yair Golan. These guys are all generals or army brass. In an election year in which not a single party is led by a woman, and not a single government office has a female Director-General, we can very clearly see this overlap. 

In short, in Israeli society, army leadership is equated with political leadership. 

IDF leadership also forms business leadership. The dominance of military hierarchies also flows into the economic ecosystem, where army commanders are more likely to become hi-tech managers and CEOs, and who will end up controlling much of the wealth in the country. The hi-tech industry is also overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly led by army commanders. According to The Women in High-Tech 2025 Status Report by the Israel Innovation Authority, although women’s representation in Israeli tech has increased to 33.5% of the workforce, women remain severely underrepresented in leadership, holding only 17.6% of senior management roles in private companies, holding only 10.6% of startup CEO positions, and receiving just 4.3% of funding,  indicating a significant “funding gap”. And in 40% of active venture capital funds in Israel, there is not a single female partner.

These patriarchal systems all overlap. When women are excluded from army advancement, they will have a harder time advancing in business and political leadership as well. 

Hardly surprising then, that last year, Israel’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index dropped significantly to 83rd place out of 146 countries, down from 60th the previous year. The sharp decline is driven by widening gender gaps in political empowerment and economic participation, as well as large wage disparities and low representation in senior management.

Political implications of women’s exclusion

You don’t have to look far to see the implications of all this. As Israel enters an election year, not a single political party is headed by a woman.

And meanwhile, of the 32 government ministries, not ONE is headed by a female Director-General.

This is despite the law which demands women’s representation, despite a 2025 High Court Ruling led by an IWN petition calling for women’s equal representation, and despite the government’s own declarations that it aspires for 50% women’s representation. None of that matters in the dark corridors where appointments are made and where men in politics continue to appoint other men to positions of power. 

Women’s exclusion is the status quo. It is not an aberration but the norm. And so here we are in this self-perpetuating cycle of women’s absence and in some cases purposeful and intentional erasure. 

We need to be shifting values 

To be clear, personally, I am vehemently against this army-dominated culture in Israel, and the way the militaristic ethos affects everything. I am completely over the take-no-prisoners macho-rambo patriarchal Israeli culture that I encounter on the streets, in education, and in everyday activities and relationships. The pictures of all-male conference tables deciding not only war but also education, welfare, and economics, are archaic and infuriating, and we are still living it. And this Jewish patriarchal militarism hangs like a dark cloud over the entire society, blocking us from connecting with normalcy and human empathy, not to mention how it affects the non-Jews among us.

Similarly, the fight to get more haredi soldiers into the draft does not interest me. I don’t want more soldiers – I want fewer soldiers. While I fully support the idea of “equal burdens” from an economic perspective and am intensely opposed to the mountains of free cash that flows into the pockets of religious men who don’t work, I don’t particularly want more militarism and war. I want less.

Also, I don’t identify at all with the goal of “Victory!” as has been presented to us for over two years, which as we know is just a macho fantasy and doesn’t even exist and is just an excuse for this violent government to do whatever it wants to whoever it wants with impunity. I want the country to stop fighting wars, not look for ways to extend them. We need to look for ways to end the fighting and not prolong it. If we have witnessed one life lesson from the past two years it is this: You cannot stop violence with more violence. You can only stop violence by stopping violence. The only way to end the war is by sitting down and negotiating a diplomatic settlement. We did it with Egypt. We did it with Jordan. And it is way past time for us to do it with the Palestinians.

I mostly want to see women to be in positions of leadership to end the wars, not to do more fighting. 

Nevertheless, while advocating for that ends, I also understand that wherever men are making decisions that affect all of our lives, women need and deserve to be there as well. So I fight for women’s full inclusion in the army while standing with women who are actively working to bring peace and reconciliation, and to advance a culture based on shared society and shared humanity. I do both at the same time – fight the patriarchal militarism while fighting for women’s equal inclusion in it –  as painful as it all is. 

This is what we’re up against

The campaign against women’s inclusion and advancement across government institutions and in everyday life, coupled by the public’s apparent willingness to tolerate real violence against women such as physically kicking a woman off the elevator for daring to fix her ponytail, is not an aberration. It is the reality. 

And it is is coming for all of us. 

As political commentator Tal Schneider argues, this is a coordinated political force aimed at sending women backwards.  

We’re already seeing it. Makor Rishon published an opinion piece screaming that “Feminists are turning equality into a religion!” As if equality is the work of Satan or something. 

Women’s organizations, including the Israel Women’s Network, have warned that this creates a cascading effect. Tal Hochman, CEO of the Israel Women’s Network, warned that these trends “mark a dangerous turning point that will not stop at army bases, but will shape women’s place in Israeli society as a whole.”

We are in the midst of an inflection point, where powerful political actors are trying to convince society that women’s equality is a dangerous thing. When professional and communal spaces are designated as women-free, women’s invisibility becomes normalized. Women’s powerlessness is given some kind of moral legitimacy. As Chen Artzi Sror writes in Yediot Aharonot, “The struggle to preserve the coalition has whetted the appetite of reactionary-militant organizations that see this moment as an opportunity. For them, Israel must exist in their image — or not exist at all.”

Get ready. Election campaigns are here. Along with all the anti-women propaganda they entail. It’s all coming for us: Victory or equality. 

And prepare yourself: You may find yourself having to remind your friends that women are people, too.

Here is a way to take action in order to protect women’s equal rights through the Israel Women’s Network: 

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is finalizing the wording of the draft law right now to allow for the creation of “women-free” or “sterile” spaces within the military. This is our last window of opportunity to ensure that MK Boaz Bismuth, chair of the committee, hears our voices.

Our demand is basic: clear protection mechanisms for women soldiers must be written into the draft law. Equality for one group cannot be advanced at the expense of another. Women have proven their courage, strength, and indispensability as part of the IDF’s operational needs.

This is our moment to ensure that everything we have fought for is not taken away — and to make sure we are not pushed backward.

Click here to send an email to MK Bismuth  

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)