Occupying masculinities: fathering in the Palestinian territories

Abstract

Under occupation, Palestinians face a range of challenges such as poverty, lack of mobility, decreased access to social and health services, and violence. Fathers in Palestine have had to raise children in such a context, yet little is understood about their experiences. We conducted research with 18 families in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem in order to understand the experiences of fathers in the face of occupation and violence. Applying theories of masculinity and fatherhood, our analysis suggests that occupation has challenged or obstructed the performance of three quintessentially masculine acts inherent to fatherhood: provision, protection, and modeling. The first refers to the role of the father as ‘breadwinner;’ the second to the role of father as ‘protector;’ and the third to the role of the father as masculine ‘model’ from whom children can learn masculine traits. We conclude by providing suggestions for future practice and research.

Keywords:

• masculinity
• fatherhood
• Palestine
• violent conflict

Introduction

For almost a century, Palestinians and Israelis have been at the center of one of the most bitterly contentious and protracted conflicts on earth. At the same time, Palestinian men continue to get married, become fathers, and raise children amidst violence and instability. While such a situation is conceivably dominated by a number of practical considerations, some natural to fatherhood and others specific to the situation, fatherhood is an inherently multifaceted role. In this paper, we consider masculinity as one such facet, which in the Palestinian experience, like fatherhood, is influenced by the ongoing conflict. We begin by providing a brief overview of the social and economic context within which Palestinian fathers live. Then we present the theoretical framework that scaffolds our research. We briefly describe our research methodology before turning to the data. Our analysis of the data indicates that the occupation challenged or obstructed the performance of three masculine acts inherent to fatherhood: provision, protection, and modeling. The first refers to the role of the father as ‘breadwinner;’ the second to the role of father as protector;’ and the third to the role of the father as masculine ‘model’ from whom children can learn masculine traits. We conclude this paper by providing suggestions for future practice and research.

Background/context

To better understand the development of masculinity among fathers and sons in light of occupation, the following presents background on the social and economic context within which Palestinian men find themselves. Since the end of the second intifada over a decade ago, in the name of Israeli national security and supported by the international ‘war on terror’, Israel has established a network of restrictions in Palestine dividing Israelis and Palestinians and controlling Palestinian movement. These policies contribute to what Halper (2000) has identified as Israel's ‘matrix of control’ and others have identified as a form of colonialism and apartheid (see Davis, 1989; Farsakh, 2003; Peteet, 2009). In addition to the checkpoints and the wall, the matrix of control includes use of outdated laws to confiscate Palestinian land (Bunton, 1999), the construction of Israeli-only access roads (Biesenbach, 2003; Misselwitz & Rieniets, 2006; Weizman, 2007), policies of closures (Brown, 2004; Hass, 2002; Roy, 2001), the development of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land (Campbell, 2005; Gordon, 2008; Halper, 2000; Weizman, 2007), the doling out of differentiated identification cards and travel permits (Abu-Zahra, 2008; Tawil-Souri, 2010), policies of land ownership and residency registration (Khamaisi, 1995), and the demolition of Palestinian homes when these regulations are defied (Jones, 2012).

The number of males in prison represents another major challenge to Palestinian families. According to the prisoner support and human rights association Addameer (2013), as of August 2013, 5042 Palestinians were being held in Israeli prisons, often for political rather than criminal reasons; approximately one-quarter of these Palestinians being held in Israeli prisoners were arrested for being in Israel illegally (B'Tselem, 2013). Of those, 134 Palestinians were under administrative detention, which means that they have not been charged and are being held indefinitely and without trial. Human rights groups claim that Israeli military courts violate international standards of fair trails by denying access to lawyers, using confidential evidence, and giving briefings in Hebrew without Arabic translation (Asser, 2003). Detainees face an increased use of solitary confinement, a ban on reading materials and television, a halt of transfer of funds from family members for prisoners to purchase basic food products, and the discontinuation of academic studies for distance learning. Furthermore, allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in Israeli jails have been documented by Amnesty International (2012), Human Rights Watch (2012), and B'Tselem (Wolfson, 2010). Palestinians consider Israeli's detention of Palestinians as not only punishment for the individual, but also collective punishment for Palestinian families, who face increased economic hardship and targeting by Israeli forces as a result of the imprisonment of their fathers, sons, and brothers. As Segal (2015) notes, ‘husbands’ absences … may demand a great deal of labor – emotional, financial, and social – on the part of those left behind’ (p. 31). Due to the illegal transfer of prisoners outside the occupied territories, a large number of Palestinian prisoners cannot enjoy family visits, thus further straining family relationships.

Not surprisingly, the ubiquitous occupation, the imprisonment of Palestinian men, and all of the related difficulties ‘[have] ripped apart the social fabric of Palestinian society, leaving families more and more dependent on their dwindling resources and frequently cutting them off from potential support coming from kin and social networks’ (Abu Nahleh, 2006, p. 103). Not only do Palestinian families have to struggle to secure their daily livelihoods, but they also must contend with very real threats to their physical and mental health (Abu Nahleh, 2006). As a result of the ongoing Israeli policies of closures and mobility restrictions related to the matrix of control, many male breadwinners have seen an impact on their livelihoods and have become impoverished (Abu Nahleh, 2006). As a result, this paper explores how the performance of the quintessentially masculine acts inherent to fatherhood has been challenged and compromised.

Theoretical framework

Our theoretical approach to masculinity is rooted first and foremost in a social constructionist epistemology (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Accordingly, we view masculinity as a phenomenon that is heavily influenced by human agency and as a result, we observe a constellation of ‘masculinities', each of which is theoretically related to the others in the complex of human culture. However, as Connell (1987) states, ‘not all masculinities are equal’, and so we note the disproportionate power of certain constructions of masculinity over others. Whether from a Foucaultian perspective, which emphasizes relations of power, or the structuralist approach upon which Connell's (1987) work relies, it is important to understand the manner in which certain traits are branded as ‘masculine’ and privileged over others at a given place and point in time. Connell's (1987) pioneering work in this area has helped to bring the term ‘hegemonic masculinity’ to bear on gender studies and on the social sciences more broadly.

‘Hegemonic masculinity’ or the ‘hegemonic ideal’ has been described as ‘embodying the currently most honored way of being a man, [requiring] all other men to position themselves in relation to it’ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 832). This theory implies that those individuals in a society who most closely represent the cultural ideal of the hegemonic male are socially, culturally, and economically rewarded, while those who fail to meet this ideal, said to be performing ‘subordinated masculinities’, are not. In consideration of the present study, it is important to underscore the agreement among scholars that there exists no universal definition of hegemonic masculinity. In other words, different cultures idealize different forms of masculinity, and, moreover, at different times. Although not integral to our analysis, we acknowledge the influence of Christensen and Jensen's (2014) call for a more nuanced understanding of hegemonic masculinity that incorporates theories of intersectionality, which is particularly relevant in an international context.

Finally, we adopt an aspect of the work of Ashis Nandy (1981), whose seminal study on the impact of British colonialism on Indian culture, identity, and gender relied upon a crucial assumption about the manner in which seemingly ‘different’ cultures interact. Opposing an essentialist position on differences among cultural groups, Nandy (1981) argues that cultures are inherently internally diverse, almost infinitely so. As a result, aspects of one culture exist, according to this view, in others. The distinction one observes between groups is more a function of the manner in which members of a given culture prioritize these aspects at a particular time. Accordingly, if a given culture idealizes a certain cluster of masculine traits, a particular hegemonic ideal, from a Nandian perspective the ascendant position is less a function of an essential distinction or quality than it is a function of the manner in which internal and external dynamics have ‘re-arranged’ the ‘cultural priorities’ for, in this case, masculinity. We believe that this assumption is reasonable to adopt in light of the shifting prioritization of certain masculine traits over others among Palestinians in the context of political violence. Moreover, Nandy's work has the added bonus of emerging from within a post-colonial context, a term used by some to describe the current occupation (see, for example, Gregory, 2004; Hanafi, 2009; Reuveny, 2003; Ricks, 2009).

Palestinian masculinities

While studies of Arab masculinity abound (Amar, 2011), the portion of the English-language literature specifically concerning Palestinian men is relatively small. In part, it seems that this might be a consequence of the tendency to focus on women when considering the intersection of gender and war or violent conflict (Sharoni, 1997). On the other hand, the volatile climate itself has precluded the development of a robust scholarship in the most obvious ways.

Certainly, ‘[t]he context of Palestinian masculinity', as Hawari (2004) states, ‘is one of political subjugation and coercion’ (p. 35). Accordingly, the handful of studies on Palestinian masculinities has borne in mind this context as scholarship on the matter positions Palestinian masculinity in relation to Israeli occupation and the struggle for Palestinian nationalism (e.g. Massad, 1995; Peteet, 1994), including in some analyses in relation to Israeli masculinity (e.g. Johnson & Kuttab, 2002).

Peteet (1994), for instance, has powerfully described the manner in which physical violence against Palestinian men at the hands of the Israeli army during the first intifada was reconstructed by them from being shameful to a ‘rite of passage into manhood’ and a ‘ritual of resistance’ with implications for ‘political consciousness and agency', including for leadership (p. 31). With such a posture toward occupation, ‘the young male', she notes, ‘is a metonym for Palestinian opposition and struggle against domination’ (p. 36). Her observations are supported by the numbers: the vast majority of opposition against Israeli occupation, at least directly, occurs vis-à-vis the Palestinian, usually young, male (Johnson & Kuttab, 2002). This includes the disproportionate number of males who are injured or killed by Israeli police or military forces in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip (B'Tselem, 2015).

The gendered nature of opposition is part and parcel of what Joseph Massad (1995), himself a Palestinian male, describes as a ‘nationalist masculinity’ which formed among Palestinian men after 1947. However, with an unconscious similarity to Nandy's (1981) analysis of masculinity and Indian nationalism in the British Indian context, Massad (1995) critiques the similarity between the European construction of nationalism, including its attendant Enlightenment values, and Palestinian nationalist agency guided by this nationalist masculinity. He views nationalist agency as rooted in, or at least related to, these newly derived gender norms for men and women. According to Massad, these ‘new gender norms are modern inventions dressed up in traditional garb to justify nationalism's claim of a national culture for which it stands’ (p. 468). Massad argues this point by analyzing two documents issued by the Palestinian Liberation Organization which show the manner in which masculinity (and gender in general) is a pillar for the justification and sustenance of a purportedly inauthentic articulation of nationalism.

Perhaps it is not surprising that this gender–nationalism nexus is present among Palestinians living in Israel, too. As in the occupied territories, scholars who have explored masculinity among Palestinian men living in Israel underline the manner in which Palestinian masculinity has been reconstituted to suit the Israeli national context, albeit in different ways (Hawari, 2004; Sa'ar & Yahia-Younis, 2008; Strier, 2014). Hawari (2004), for instance, suggests that the Israeli national context has truncated the expression of a masculinity to encompass a narrowly practicable but politically non-threatening goal: day-to-day survival. Masculinity, or ‘manliness is herein defined by the man's capacity to avoid confrontation with the authorities’ and ‘[t]hus, masculine heroism [is] derived from the provision of daily sustenance and not from the resistance against humiliation or subjugation’ (p. 39). Notably, this masculinity is in stark contrast to the findings of Peteet (1994), who, during the first intifada, derived the image of the beating as ritualized rite of passage and an inscription on the body of resistance.

Palestinian masculinities and fatherhood

Perhaps, it is this reason – that is, the importance of male provision in the Israeli national context – for which Strier's (2014) more recent exploration into the effects of unemployment on Palestinian fathers has yielded supportive findings. From her interviews with unemployed Palestinian men living in Israel, there emerges a clear picture suggesting that in this particular national context, ‘being a father', to quote one of her participants, means ‘carrying the burden of the family's subsistence’ (p. 401). Employment and provision, as opposed to nationalism, emerge as the primary masculine trait to be fulfilled.

Massad's work (1995) appears to be among the few which mentions explicitly the connection between fatherhood and masculinity in the Palestinian nationalist context. Specifically, he notes that Palestinian national identity was defined by being ‘born of an Arab Palestinian father’ after 1947. In other words, with the connection between masculinity and nationalism in Massad's work, fatherhood can be viewed in the context of the development of a ‘nationalist masculinity'. This is more powerfully stated by Massad:

[W]hile the land as mother was responsible for the reproduction of Palestinians until 1947, the rape [of the land as mother] disqualified her from this role. It is now fathers [i.e., paternity] who reproduce the nation. Territory was replaced by paternity. (p. 472, emphasis in original)

Thus, the father–child/son relationship may be a site of contending Palestinian masculinities, a place where the struggle to define what a man is, how to be one, and how to do or perform manhood, is uniquely characterized by the complexities of at least one man in the institution of fatherhood.

The importance of fatherhood as a site of masculinity is particularly intriguing for a number of reasons in addition to those indicated by Massad (1995). For instance, to the extent that masculinities emerge and abide in institutions (Sa'ar & Yahia-Younis, 2008), fatherhood and the family are among the most formative and crucial for young children. Consider also what Birenbaum-Carmeli and Inhorn (2009) have pointed out, that ‘fatherhood is crucial to achieving masculine adulthood’ among Palestinians (p. 23). Peteet (1994) also indicated that Palestinian ‘maleness’ is ‘closely intertwined’ with fatherhood (p. 34). A chorus of scholars therefore point to the father–son relationship as significant, but no study has looked specifically at this relationship from the vantage of masculinity. Consequently, it is this gap that our paper intends to address, and hopefully doing so will provide an initial glimpse into the manner in which Palestinian men struggle with competing masculinities in the context of violence and occupation.

Methodology

Approval for research with human participants was obtained from McGill University's Research Ethics Board prior to commencement of the study. Due to the complex context, gaining access from the Israeli authorities and trust from the Palestinian participants was a priority throughout the research. A variety of local community ‘gatekeepers’ were engaged to gain access to communities and recruit families.

The data presented in this paper are from a larger research project exploring the experiences of Palestinian children and families (Akesson, 2014). From this research, it became clear that fathering was an important element that warranted its own examination. In 2010, pilot interviews were conducted with Palestinian children, families, and organizations. Research continued in 2012, with a sampling of three families from various administrative regions of the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, for a total of 18 families. Sampling from multiple sites – in various settings (refugee camp, village, city, encampment), under a range of territorial control (Israeli and/or Palestinian), and with different population densities – provided diverse examples of family experiences under occupation.

Representing the immediate family (a'ila), a minimum of three family members (parent, older child (aged 9–18), and younger child (8 and under)) were invited to take part in a collaborative family interview focusing on their experiences with place. Fathers were present for 9 of the 18 family interviews and mothers were present for 16 of the 18 interviews. Even when the father was not present (due to, for example, work, imprisonment, or death), the family interviews still produced data relevant to fathering. In only four of 18 households, the father had completed tarjehe (secondary school). In nine out of 18 households, the father was unemployed. Interviews often included members of the larger extended family, or hamula, with some interviews including up to 12 family members: uncles, cousins, grandparents. The inclusion of the hamula uncovered valuable data in regard to the importance (and messiness) of family interactions and differences in generational perceptions.

An Arabic-speaking research assistant attended all interviews in order to translate first the consent process and then the family interview. Interviews – lasting between one and two hours – were conducted by first obtaining the full and informed consent of each family member. Written consent was initially sought from each family member. However, participants expressed hesitation to sign their name to a document, considering their past history of having mistakenly signed away land deeds to Israel (Norman, 2009). Therefore, oral consent was obtained from all family members. Participants were guaranteed anonymity and assured that all information would remain confidential and used only for research purposes.

To further ground the data, 10 interviews were conducted with key community informants who work with Palestinian families; these key informants were also parents themselves, and therefore often reflected upon their own experiences raising children alongside their explanations of working with families. Sixteen of 18 family interviews were conducted in Arabic, using a translator. Eight of 10 key informant interviews were conducted in English. With the participants’ permission, interviews were audiotaped and transcribed.

Dedoose – a web-based platform for qualitative data analysis – was used to facilitate coding and analysis. Bree Akesson – this article's third author – collated all codes related to fathering. We all carefully read and annotated the collated information so as to ascertain the meaning and significance that participants attributed to their experiences. Authors independently coded the transcripts and each generated concepts grounded in the data that were then categorized into themes. Interpretations of the themes were documented individually, and all three authors discussed, combined and categorized them by linking conceptually overlapping ideas. For the purposes of this paper, the three most salient themes emerging from fathers’ narratives of the tensions and concerns in parenting were related to broader concepts of masculinities and fatherhood.

Findings

The analysis of our participants’ narratives suggests that occupation has challenged or obstructed the performance of aspects of fathering that have often been linked to masculinities: (1) provision; (2) protection; and (3) modeling. The first aspect refers to the role of the father as ‘breadwinner;’ the second to the role of father as protector; and the third to the role of the father as masculine ‘model’ from whom children can learn, presumably masculine, traits. These three seemed to be seriously challenged as a direct consequence of occupation, hence the title ‘occupying masculinity'.

Challenges to traditional ‘masculine’ role of father as provider

Fathers’ breadwinning and provisioning role has traditionally been identified as the hallmark of fathers’ care of, involvement with, and responsibility for their children and families. From a biosocial perspective, Lamb et al.’s (1987) explanatory models of fathering describe the task of responsibility as fathers arrange resources for their children. Hammami (2013) describes how following the second intifada, the historic Palestinian male image of the heroic fighter was viewed in stark contrast to Palestinian men's lack of power and agency. Both of these images have since given way to the father's breadwinner role representing the refusal to be swayed from procuring a daily existence. Breadwinning has come to symbolize daily resistance against the occupation and men's sense of being men and having some sense of agency.

Masculinities scholar Morgan (1992) suggests that masculinity can be ‘put on the line’ when men are unemployed. Our analysis confirmed that the occupation systematically denies Palestinian men the opportunity to secure resources for their families, particularly through economic means, thereby challenging men's role as breadwinner and provisioner. Fathers’ ability to provide adequately for their families is challenged by multiple interacting systems including poverty, un(der)employment, disability, as well as inadequate physical living conditions. This unfavorable environment influences the degree to which fathers feel adequate in this role, as 35-year-old Abu-Younes explained:

[I]n my family I have six members and earn 50 shekels daily. In your imagination, do you think it's sufficient? … Gas is 70 shekels, vegetables and fruit are both expensive, everything here. My neighbor has nine members of his family just working and earning 70 shekels daily. This is affecting us.

Consequently, we might surmise that men's performance of the provisionary aspect of the traditional fathering role is obstructed, and men like Abu-Younes are consciously affected by it. In fact, Abu-Younes went on to note that the structural violence from poverty and un(der)employment was actually worse than the physical violence, as reflected in the following exchange between him and a research assistant:

Abu-Younes:

[We suffer more from] the economic problems.

Research Assistant:

But [the economic problem] is part of the invasion (occupation).

Abu-Younes:

Yes, but the Israeli soldiers, we are used to them. But we suffer from the economic situation more.

Economic marginalization understandably affected Abu-Younes's ability to perform the role of provider of his family's needs, thereby challenging the position he occupies in society and challenging the overarching masculine role of the provider father.

The economic challenges that compromise the masculine role of the breadwinning father affect not only his immediate family, but also the broader community. Forty-seven-year-old Abu-Majd explained that ‘Until 1996, I was contractor and 50 employees were working with me. I was responsible for 50 families by giving salaries to my employees.’ This role of responsibility not only to his children, but also to other families in the community, represents these fathers’ extended caregiving role in the community. Because of the economic challenges facing the fathers, they are not able to provide for those in the hare (community), the extended hamula, nor within the immediate a'ila. Kelly (2008) has also pointed to the importance of work for Palestinian men who not only construct their masculine identities through provision of resources for their nuclear families but also by fulfilling kinship and practical responsibilities to their extended family and community.

Under these challenging economic circumstances, fathers must not only recreate their identities, they must also juggle competing priorities. Thirty-seven-year-old Abu-Ahmed explained how his pregnant wife was both physically disabled and experiencing illness related to her pregnancy, and she needed an expensive medication:

When my little child asks me for shoes for school, I can't buy it for him, because I [have to] buy medicine [for my wife]. You know it's something more important than school, like this is the priority. I can't take on any debt, because I don't have another salary and I can't pay it later on. So, I can't afford my children needs.

The necessity to prioritize the needs of his family, rather than being able to provide for all of their needs is a great source of stress in Abu-Ahmed's life:

I can't buy food. As I told you, I have to buy this medication [for my wife]. This makes problems with the money for home rent. Hamdollah! (My God!) I just want somebody to understand the situation!

In this example, Abu-Ahmed is faced with the difficult dilemma related to the role of provider and protector of his family. Given the lack of resources, he prioritizes his wife's needs over his children's needs, perhaps because of the urgency of his wife's medical issues. The structural oppression that influenced Abu-Ahmed's ability to provide economically perhaps influenced his position in the ‘internal hegemony’ (Christensen & Jensen, 2014) in relation to other men; from the perspective of ‘external hegemony’ as caregiver to his wife and children, he dispelled the traditional hegemonic ideal that profits from the subjugation or oppression of women.

The consequences of the occupation are far-reaching for fathers and infiltrate their embodied experiences. Prior to the first intifada, 47-year-old Abu-Majd was a building contractor within Israel. Like many young Palestinian men at the time, he was arrested and imprisoned for engaging in non-violent resistance activities during the first intifada. The physical conditions in the prison left him partially paralyzed. Upon his release and due to his disability, he was unable to secure a job, and therefore has not been able provide for his family:

 … I can't hold one kilo, if I want to buy one kilo of tomatoes. I'll ask my son to hold it, because I am sick … .because of the occupation … . Paralysis of five vertebrae in the spine. It is damaged. I had to have an operation, surgery.

In a context where there are few services available for people with disabilities or those who are un(der)employed, challenges such as those faced by Abu-Majd are compounded. Palestine has the highest levels of multilateral per capita foreign aid in the world (Le More, 2005) resulting in a large number of non-governmental organizations. Yet, as 37-year-old Abu-Ahmed explained, ‘ … there are no societies to take care of us. The Red Cross, they were helping me personally, but they were coming to my father and not me.’ Abu-Ahmed's observation supports criticisms of humanitarian funds in Palestine, which ‘have come to be seen as morally dubious, directed by people with private political interests’ (Allen, 2013, p. 79) rather than addressing the actual needs of Palestinians.

When a father is unable to provide for the family, the economic struggles of the family may be passed down to the sons. For example, when the research team asked Abu-Ahmed's 12-year-old son, Fahim, where he plays with his friends, Fahim looked down at the floor and did not answer. After a few moments of silence, Abu-Ahmed curtly explained that Fahim had to leave school so he could work with his uncle selling shoes. Abu-Ahmed's inability to provide economically for his family challenges his role as a father, thereby influencing his self-concept and identity. And in some cases, mothers have turned to formal salaried work to help contribute to the family economy, further challenging the traditional view of the male economic provider as a hallmark trait of fathers. In a predominantly patriarchal society, the movement of women/mothers to the workforce represents a ‘failing’ of fathers, as the traditional breadwinners. This is aligned with other research with Palestinian families that illustrate mothers’ ability to manage financially on their own and the threat this poses to the traditional construction of masculinity among fathers (Abu Nahleh, 2006). The increasing difficulty for men to maintain their breadwinner status (Foster, 2011) has been associated with fluctuations and strategies used by their wives and children to accommodate, resist, and negotiate the gender order to sustain fathers’ respect and authority (Muhanna, 2013).

The absence of a social safety net, limited resources and strained financial means compromise fathers’ ability of both provision for and protection of their families. When asked if he thought his dream to have a safe home for his children was achievable, 30-year-old Abu-Jabar replied,

Well it's kind of hard. My abilities are limited. And over here, the prices of the land and houses are so expensive for anyone to afford it. The only thing I keep thinking about, is that if anything happened to me – like an accident or any kind of illness or disease – what will happen to my children?

Protection of his children is tied with economic means. All of these elements reproduce Palestinian men's experiences of disempowerment and marginality. This all suggests a potentially cumulative effect on Palestinian fathers over time. Near the end of the family interview, 37-year-old Abu-Ahmed exclaimed, ‘ … no one is helping … . I can't sleep thinking of what to do. I can't work. I'm tired of this life (shouting)!’ As Abu-Ahmed's frustration illustrates, the fathers in this study face limited material resources to provide for their families leading to a sense of hopelessness/helplessness.

‘We all feel frightened’: leveling the parent–child protection hierarchy

In addition to providing for their children, the notion of fatherhood conjures images of protection. We found that the protection hierarchy, which typifies the parent–child relationship, tends to be ‘leveled’ off between fathers and their children in this study. This hierarchy is conceivably defined, at least in part, by masculinity specifically and gender more generally, and certainly within the context of patriarchy. In other words, under ordinary circumstances, within a patriarchy, the male head or father of a family is responsible for the protection of its members, including children. We observed, however, that the structural effects of the occupation, including violence and poverty, strongly militated against the fulfillment of this responsibility, and instead, mediated the ‘leveling’ of the protection hierarchy. For instance, 30-year-old Amir remarked:

[W]e as elders can't protect ourselves. How about our children? Sometimes, we feel that we see the death through our eyes. Other times, you are safely sitting, and you will see a bomb being thrown through walls, and it will explode into you, your house, through your eyes.

While some, particularly younger, children seemed less aware than their parents of this situation, others were aware of this vulnerability among the ‘elders’ or adults to the violence of occupation. Twenty-three-year-old Adil recounted an event during the second intifada when he was a child:

[W]hen the police center [near my house] was attacked, I saw my father run away in the front of me. So like I think that my family couldn't protect me on that day. It was like, OK, he is trying to protect me, and at the same time, he is trying to protect himself. And no one care about the other as much as he cares about himself. So everyone is trying to rescue himself first, then they rescue the others … .

Adil's story illustrates his awareness of this leveling of the protection hierarchy in the face of violence. He spoke more about the impact of the occupation on the capacity of fathers to protect their children from violence:

Like, whenever, like [my father] he see like a really bloody scene on the TV he was trying to like shut the TV off or trying, like, ‘Don't look at this,’ or something like that. But he really doesn't have that much tools to protect me or my brother, because he has no means really. Like he's just a regular person as me. Although I [was] still a kid, and he [was] a grown man, but he doesn't have that ability to do so.

In this way, both children and their fathers become aware of their own vulnerability, vulnerabilities that are wrapped up in one another. This ‘leveling’ can be viewed as support for the ongoing social displacement of ‘elder’ males by younger, presumably more physically robust males, ‘due to the elder's inability to physically confront the occupation forces’ (Hawari, 2004, p. 37).

‘It's difficult to control them’: competing masculinities between father and son

Perhaps as a result of this leveling, we observed among fathers and sons a shift in the performance of what might be considered an aspect of hegemonic masculinity, or even of the ‘nationalist masculinity’ described by Massad (1995). Specifically, fathers expressed concerns about their sons’ more aggressive expressions regarding resistance to occupation. Accordingly, fathers’ expressions of masculinity seemed to differ from those of their sons, by being far less aggressive, and perhaps more ‘mature'. We observed, therefore, fathers’ less violent, one might say stoic, masculinity ‘managing’ their sons’ more aggressive impulses. Abu-Younes, said, ‘It's difficult to control them, because we all feel frightened,’ illustrating the pervasiveness of fear among Palestinians. Thirty-five-year-old Abu-Rachid described:

You know what [the male children] are thinking about it? When we come to speak to our kids, we say, ‘OK, what do you think about tomorrow?’ [He says,] ‘I am not thinking for tomorrow. I want to be a man, to fight, and to have my house back. I want to say what is happening in the [occupation] how the police throwing us [out of our homes], how the police beat my dad and my mom.’ They [are] not thinking about tomorrow.

Apart from viewing his son's impulses to ‘be a man’ through the lens of a more ‘mature’ masculinity, Abu-Rachid, like many fathers, relied on the wisdom of his experience. Having spent over 10 years in prison for political activism, he described what he felt to be the futility of certain forms of resistance and worried about how his own past would unduly influence his son's future. He experiences his son's frustration and desires to protect the family and sees how instability, worries about displacement, and concerns over police violence have marred his child's ability to dream about a future.

Abu-Rachid goes on to describe how occupation and military domination have altered everyday life, particularly for children who grew up during what he called the ‘mini-intifada’. His son's world is unrecognizable to Abu-Rachid, and he worries about how this perception will play out in his son's future. Subjectivity plays a major role in the expression of masculinity in Palestine, particularly when men chose alternate forms of resistance (Hammami, 2013). Abu-Rachid's patient, controlled, and contained expression of masculinity is juxtaposed against his son's impulsive, aggressive and volatile expression of being a man. Here, Abu-Rachid describes a difference in upbringing, which underscores the importance of context:

[T]he way that I was raised was a very good one … .We had good people to help the other. I meant about this kind of situation … we have here in Silwan for about two years, a mini-intifada. And most of the time, children are talking about throwing stones and jail and soldiers.

If the young male is indeed a central component of resistance, then these male children arguably are thrown into adulthood. This father explains how the occupation and invasive interference from different levels of government have created mistrust and ‘hate’, forcing boys to ‘become men before their time’:

[T]he new generation. There is no fear. Now, there is hate. Honestly, what are they doing – the government, the settlers, the municipalities, all these organizations? Now I feel the kids in this generation right now, they are not just children. They became men before their time. It's like what they have experienced now. I will give you a small example, and maybe you can realize what I mean. Once, there was a child about 12 years, he said, [inaudible] he said, ‘Wow, it is too much. I cannot handle the situation no more like this.

Conclusion

War often conjures gendered images. But when it comes to men, these images are arguably often exemplars of a more militaristic and aggressive performance of masculinity. While not entirely unrealistic, the prevalence and force of these images seem to belie an important reality: that the context of political violence provides a site for the subversion of these images and a potential to open up and reimagine new forms of masculinity. We have attempted to take a step in this direction, by providing an analysis of the narratives of Palestinian fathers, which suggest a manner in which fatherhood in the context of war is a site for the performance of masculinities among fathers and sons. Our analyses suggest that among fathers and sons, three masculine acts – provision, protection, and modeling – were obstructed because of the occupation. Fathers in particular were affected as occupation had seemingly interfered with their ability to perform as breadwinners, protectors of children and families, and models of masculinity.

Connell (2005) describes masculinity as a multiple and often conflicting range of masculine identities that are hierarchically structured around a ‘hegemonic’ ideal that shifts over time and in different contexts and geographic locations. According to Connell (1995), oppression positions certain men at the bottom of the gender order to that of subordinated masculinity. Conversely, men who are complicit with the ‘hegemonic project’ through their association with particular practices, but who do not meet the prescribed standard for ‘hegemonic masculinity’ will benefit from the patriarchal dividend. Oppression and the subsequent exclusion from normative life tasks influence and reduce the repertoire of masculinity choices available to men in Palestine. It is within these complexities that the fathers in our sample reside. Across the constellation of masculinities identified by Connell (1995) spanning from hegemonic, complicit, subordinated and marginalized that point to men's’ positions in relation to one another and to women in a given society, time and place, where do these fathers sit? Given their particular lives, social, and historical context, and the traits, attitudes and behaviors exhibited by fathers in our sample, where can we position them across this spectrum? The answer lies within the borders of a narrow repertoire of embodied masculinities available to these fathers and how their enactments, concerns and performances are understood, accommodated and accepted by those around them. On the one hand, they are marginalized from accruing hegemonic rewards because of their race and ethnic position in relation to the broader social and cultural forces that rule their daily lives. On the other, they are complicit. Though they cannot benefit from all of the rewards, the quiet practices of children and wives to maintain provision and breadwinning in the family allow fathers to reap the benefits of respect and authority connected to this ideal.

Palestinian men living in Israel are excluded from accessing the hegemonic options of militaristic-heroic masculinity and non-violent, productive patriarchal masculinity including labor force participation and involvement in political life because of issues related to social class and national identity (Sa'Ar & Yahia-Younis, 2008). In the current context, fathers in our sample neither performed acts of aggression or domination characteristic of militaristic males nor were they completely complicit with that hegemonic ideal, reaping from its patriarchal dividend. An examination of these Palestinian men's lives unveils just how vulnerable the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ can be both across and within cultures and in and across changing historical contexts. When men and boys are denied access to social power or resources necessary for constructing hegemonic masculinity, they must seek other resources for constructing gender that validates their masculinity (Messerschmidt, 1993). Fathers in our sample modeled masculinity through their stoic, quiet and persistent resistance in the face of scarcity of resources and absence of employment. Their families made room for these performances by assuming untraditional responsibilities (such as breadwinning by women and children), yet not denying these fathers the dignity and respect afforded to that role. While fathers’ primary concerns and worries centered on their constrained ability to provide instrumentally for their children, families and communities, their secondary concerns were centered on the legacy they were leaving their sons. More specifically, these concerns centered on modeling appropriate and fruitful ways of ‘being a man’. Fathers had to choose from a menu of behaviors. Outcomes of past behaviors, particularly those representative of hegemonic ideals typically reinforced and promoted in times of war, had disadvantaged these men and caused their families, in some cases, to suffer the consequences of their absence, physical disability or death (as we learned from their families). These fathers strived to educate, discipline and help their children see a life outside of the current struggle, a life that could provide more hope for brighter futures.

Implications for practice and research

This research highlights the importance of listening to fathers’ voices in the context of conflict. Whereas many studies focus on children and mothers (e.g. in the third author's work) in conflict, attention should also be paid to fathers who contribute to their children's development in varied and unique ways. Approaches should focus on supporting fathers’ caregiving roles and should ultimately consider father's multiple roles as provider, protector, and model both in relation to their families, but also within the community. Using a strengths-based perspective, practice with fathers who feel as if they do not fulfill the traditional ‘masculine’ roles within society may eventually see the importance of their role within the family.

Finally, we suggest three concrete directions for research here. First, because our findings are part of a larger study with a broader focus, future research might look more specifically at fathers and sons in the context of conflict, either in Palestine or elsewhere. Second, we did not uncover an intersection between masculinity and religious ideology in our interviews, despite there being evidence that such currents might exist (Hart, 2008). Therefore, an exploration into how religion, and specifically Islam, grafts onto masculine performance would be telling. Third, researchers might consider exploring Israeli and Palestinian masculinities in relation to each other. While masculinity has been considered in light of resistance to occupation (e.g. Peteet, 1994), potential complicity to it (Kanaaneh, 2005), and Israeli masculinity in relation to the notion of national security (Herzog, 1998), we were unable to find a comparative study that brought together these important strands of research. It seems unlikely that one can understand Palestinian masculinity without understanding Israeli masculinity, as both are intertwined geographically and historically.

Notes on contributors

Ravi Gokani is a doctoral student at Wilfrid Laurier University's Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work.

Aline Bogossian is a doctoral candidate at McGill University's School of Social Work and the Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF).

Bree Akesson is an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University's Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work.

Acknowledgments

The authors would also like to express deep gratitude to the study participants who opened their homes and hearts to the research team.

Funding

This work was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council under the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) program, as well as support from the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University and McGill University's Faculty of Arts.