Sabrine Hujeirat, 38, a Ph.D. candidate in public policy, is unmarried. Originally from the Bedouin town of Bir al-Maksur, she lives in Jaffa.
Your study on sexuality among unmarried women in Arab society was recently published at Bar-Ilan University. Tell us about it.
"This is a study I conducted under the supervision of Prof. Orna Sasson-Levy as part of my master’s degree in gender studies. The goal was to examine the sexual perceptions and experiences of unmarried Arab women.
"As an unmarried Bedouin woman, this was a subject that interested me deeply. I interviewed 10 unmarried women, some not in relationships and some in relationships but not married, ages 25 to 39. They are career women, all from the Arab sector: Muslim, Christian, Bedouin and Druze. By the way, the percentage of unmarried women in Jewish society is higher than in Arab society up to ages 45 or 50, and then the picture flips and there are more unmarried women in Arab society. This is a one-of-a-kind study in Israel, and it was very challenging to find women and get their consent to participate."
Why was it challenging?
"Unmarried Arab women almost never agree to talk about sexuality, certainly not to be exposed. It is considered an absolute taboo. Women told me the topic was never discussed, not at home, not in school, not with friends. If they had heard of it at all, it was in whispers, in secret. One of them told me, "The first time I really thought about it was at the university." Even when something related to sexuality appears on TV, they feel embarrassed and quickly change the channel. The act of talking about sex is seen as crossing a red line.
"This happens across all religions in Arab society. Arab women have entered academia and the workforce and are going through modernization processes, but the body remains the final taboo. A woman who talks about sex, or even just thinks about it, can pay a price."
What price will she pay?
"In Arab society it is forbidden for a woman to have sex before marriage, and even to go out with men. In the past, if it was discovered that an unmarried woman was seeing men, she could be murdered for harming the family honor. That fear is ingrained from a young age. One interviewee told me, "I’m afraid that if I do something, my brother will kill me." Another said she does not talk about the subject even with friends for fear they will inform on her.
"Today murder in such cases is less common, but even if it does not happen in practice, there is a psychological and social price. An unmarried Arab woman who meets men is seen as a prostitute. She is stigmatized in the village and in the family. Her name is burned and she is ostracized from society, while a man who does the same does not receive that treatment and is not punished."
So how do they cope anyway? What did you find in the study?
"This is perhaps the most interesting finding. These women developed three different strategies to survive this tension. The first is creating two identities. There is the "me" who lives at home, in the village, within the family. She is disciplined, "as she should be." And there is the second "me," the one that exists in another, distant city. There they allow themselves to experiment, love and experience. They go to big cities like Haifa and Tel Aviv, and there they can feel free, date and have sex. This strategy is not only meant to satisfy sexual desire, but to take ownership of themselves and break the walls built around them.
"The second strategy is internalizing the rules and turning them into mine. Instead of directly resisting social norms that restrict them, they adopt them knowingly but with a sense of control.
"They tell themselves, "It’s not society deciding for me that I won’t have sex before marriage, I decided that." In this way they take ownership of the rules implanted in them from a young age and translate them into a feeling of strength and personal choice. It is a kind of mental solution that lets them preserve a strong self-image even as they accept society’s boundaries. They create for themselves an illusion of control over their bodies and lives until the moment they truly feel ready to challenge those boundaries and make a change. In the third strategy they actually try to create change."
How do they do that?
"By gradually testing the boundaries. The women in this group, probably the bravest, do not want to live double lives and are not willing to internalize the social rules that restrict them. So they tell stories, supposedly about other women.
"For example, one of them will tell her mother about a woman in the village who was caught having sex and ask, "Why is everyone only talking about her? Why not about the man? Why does the woman always pay the price?" That way she tests the reaction and slowly softens the family’s stance until she can be accepted.
"One interviewee told me she did this for five years, raising theoretical questions again and again, until one day her mother asked her to tell the truth. In that moment, the daughter felt she could finally reveal herself and say she was in a relationship."
What do the women in the study say about their first sexual experience?
"That it was frightening. Some cried, others immediately went to a doctor to check that "nothing happened." All of them live under enormous pressure around the concept of virginity. They said they did not know if they were doing the right thing, and they also did not know how to express themselves in a sexual context. They could not find a language for sexuality because it is associated with prostitution or sin."
Still, is there a change in Arab society on this issue?
Definitely. Contact with Jewish spaces, especially in mixed cities, gave these women inspiration. They saw other models of femininity and sexuality, and it gave them courage. It amazes me. The state, which is sometimes seen as oppressive, created a space of freedom for them. They say, "Here I can be myself.""
What are your conclusions?
"Women who initially experienced fear of the sexual space managed to turn it into a source of power and strength. The moment they dared to break the boundaries society set for them and developed their own strategies for navigating life, they discovered a sense of control, freedom and ownership of their bodies. Through that experience they grew stronger, learned about themselves and shaped a more independent and confident identity. The sexual space, once considered threatening and oppressive, became for them a field of self-discovery and a new female consciousness."
Sex tip: "Ask questions. Through exploration, women discover who they really are."