Since February 1972 I have been doing fieldwork amongst the Bedouin of
the Northern Negev. Since my period of fieldwork continued until May
1973, I cannot present you with any conclusions or definitive
generalisations. Therefore this lecture is more in the nature of a
progress report with a few general observations added.

The focus of my fieldwork is Bedouin woman. Much has been written on
nomads and nomadism, but these accounts have been written almost
entirely by men and about men. Bedouin women have been neglected because
of their relative inaccessibility and thus little is known or understood
about them by people who are not Bedouin. Lady Anne Blount a British
traveller of the late 19th century , was one of the few European women
writers to spend some time in Bedouin society. She does not mention
Bedouin women in any detailed way until page 397 of her book where she
says:

'So far I have spoken only of the men .... Of the Bedouin women a
shorter description will be enough.'

Her total description consists of only four paragraphs in the entire
book.

Many anthropologists have written books giving much information on the
habits and customs of their subjects but they have written little or
none on their own position and method of working in the field. This
makes it difficult for the reader to evaluate the validity of their
information. In order to avoid this defect and to enable you to assess
any material I present, it is important that I discuss my field method .

I came to Israel in January 1972 with an M.A. in Social Anthropology,
and some theoretical knowledge of Bedouins from a course on the Middle
East but in reality Bedouin society was something very strange and
unfamiliar to me - outside all my previous experience. My past fieldwork
had been amongst French Barge People in North East France. Living with
them had been relatively easy. First of all, my French was fluent before
I worked with them and secondly their way of life although on the water,
was far closer to my own.

In spite of this strangeness I arrived at a point where I could work and
live comfortably amongst Bedouin in a comparatively short time and this
is how I did it.

On arriving I had three immediate priorities:

- to master the language
- to get to know the people and their environment
- to develop my own acceptability.

It seemed to me that the best way to achieve these aims was to have a
job amongst the Bedouin and so from February to June I taught English
three days a week at the Bedouin school of Ksaeffe.

My Arabic is now fairly fluent although spoken with a strong English
accent. To most Bedouin it is perfectly comprehensible but non native
Arabic speakers have some difficulty in understanding me. When I arrived
I had studied Arabic for three months in England and therefore I needed
as much linguistic contact with the Bedouin as possible. I talked to the
teachers and pupils at the school: and visited their homes. They were
very helpful and patient in equipping me with a basic vocabulary.
Besides learning many basic words I began to get acquainted with the
environment....... How to sit in a tent, how to approach a tent, how to
eat, what people eat and other such things.

I tried to get to know as many people as possible and in this my car was
particularly useful. I would spend much time visiting peoples either by
direct invitation or by taking others to visit their own relatives and
friends in my car. A mother would suggest we go and visit her married
daughter, or a woman would ask me to take her home to her parents. I am
also indebited to various government officials such as Ari Efrat and Uri
Mor for acquainting me with people and the area and to various Bedouin
such as Sheikh Aude Abu Mammr and Ibrahim Abu Rgaik and Ead Abdullah al
Jibali for smoothing my way.

My teaching position besides enabling me to improve my Arabic and meet
people, had another important side effect: it made me acceptable to
Bedouins. I was introduced by a Bedouin I knew to other Bedouins I
didn't know as 'the British teacher from Ksaeffe'. As an anthropologist
I was very concerned about what impression I was making: one problem
amongst others was how to appear, what clothes to wear. Women seemed to
comment favourably when most of my body was covered and express a
dislike of foreign girls and Arab girl teachers who wore miniskirts and
sleeveless dresses. So following this lead, I began wearing jeans and
long sleeved smocks constantly. Another problem was establishing myself
as a neutral entity. When seen in the area with government officials my
respectability in one sense was enhanced but I was asked repeatedly how
much I was paid by the government and if my car was from the government.
So as soon as I felt sure enough I tried to travel around the area with
Bedouin and see officials when I needed to, in their offices.

A problem for Bedouin was how to treat me. Both men and women seemed to
be uncertain of how to categorise me. A 23-old unmarried girl without
her family has no place in Bedouin society - they can envisage no role
for her. I found that I could use this uncertainty to my own
professional advantage for I found that it allowed me to sit with and
move among both men and women. Also by virtue of being a girl I was
never treated as an important guest. People do not feel compelled to
slaughter for me or disrupt their day's activities when I arrive. They
offer me tea and coffee and then if they are going to the well, or going
to thresh the corn, I go too.

Thus to summarize. My first few months in the field were spent teaching
at Ksaeffe and learning the language through visiting various families
amongst the settled Bedouin of the North Eastern Negev. At the end of
June I gave up teaching and by this time I had begun living almost all
the time with a family who lives near Tel Sheva. My first contacts were
thus amongst settled Bedouin. I soon realised however that for a rounded
picture of Bedouin life and in particular the life of women, I needed
more contact with pastoral less settled Bedouin. Here Professor
Evanari's desire to know about the food preferences of sheep and goats
provided me with an opportunity and a legitimate reason for spending
time with pastoral Bedouin.

In order to obtain my samples I have spent days going to pasture with
the women and the flocks of sheep and goats of Wadi Mashash.

So I spend most of my time in two areas - Tel Sheva and Wadi Mashash,
based in two families of two different tribes, one settled and one
pastoral. I live with one family and I walk with the sheep of the other,
besides sleeping there occasionally.

There may be a tendency to becane overinvolved with the two families I
am based with, by focussing too much on their activities, but I try to
overcome this risk by working out from them amongst their neighbours and
relatives. I feel that for an unmarried girl studying Bedouin women
within the framework of Bedouin society, there is no other option than
to be family based. My fieldwork is carried out in the anthropological
tradition of Participant Observation - 'a process of observing,
registering, recording and interpreting everyday life.' I write daily
fieldnotes and collect standardized data. I am neither a complete
participant nor a complete observer, but rather a participant who
observes or an observer who participates. Perhaps the best way to
describe my position amongst Bedouin women is to quote one who said
'Gillian hiya bint, laskin indha Nureeya mithl rajul.' Gillian she is a
girl but she has the freedom of a man.

I would now like to share with you some general observations about
Bedouin women. Since I am in the middle of my fieldwork, I would like
to stress that these are purely interim observation but that they may be
of general interest.

There is a Western stereotype of Bedouin women which I would like to
examine, to see in what way it compares to reality. People who are not
bedouin often place bedouin women at somewhat the same level as slaves
because they are bought, easily divorced, constantly worked and
subordinate to their men. On the basis of these observations Western
observers conclude that Bedouin women are unhappy. These observations,
except for the last, are for the most part true but in essence they are
false. I would like to show you how false by explaining to you the
position of Bedouin wanen in their society. I would like to make it
clear that when I use the term 'Bedouin women' I mean specifically
married Bedouin womens rather than girls or old ladies. I would argue
that Bedouin women are subordinate and hard worked but at the same time
they have the compensetion of being protected and secure to a far
greater extent than any liberated Western women.

From my conversations with Bedouin men and women, it seems that a girl
has no choice over whom she may marry. Her father or brothers arrange
to give her to a man who asks for her and whon they approve of. ldeally
they do not tell the girl whom they have selected and the way she
usually finds out is through her girlfriends. (I should mention that a
divorced or widowed woman unlike a girl has the right to refuse a men
who asks for her.) In the Negev a man pays about 15,000-16,000 IL for a
girl who is not his cousin; he pays much less for a girl who is related
to him. Women are much cheaper in Gaza. A man pays about 4500 IL on
average. However he pays more if she is educated. This money shouldn't
be regarded as payment. The anthropological explanation is that the
money is a canpensation to the girl's family for loss of manpower, and
the money gained from the loss of a daughters is often used to obtain a
wife for a son. Often two men exchange sisters and then no money is
involved in the transaction. Thus to summarizes when a Bedouin girl
first marries, she has no say in the matter and her family receives the
money.

In the Koran it is written:

"Men are in charge of womens because Allah hath made the one of them to
excel the other, and because they spend of their property in the support
of women. So good women are the obedient."

Girls obey their fathers, wives obey their husbands, sisters obey their
brothers. Men assume that women and children will do errands for them
and give out orders which are obeyed. However there is no contradiction
between obeying orders and being respected. A man may be discussing a
problem with his wife or mother and simultaneously be interspersing the
conversation with orders and requests . This emphasis on obedience does
not mean that a woman never disobeys her husband . If he infringes the
socially accepted ways of treating a woman she has a definite course of
action. I cannot at this point in my research give you a list of a
bedouin woman's rights, or a list of the norms governing conduct between
men and women. But the surest indicator of these norms is when they are
abused. Thus when a woman feels that her husband is ill-treating her,
she goes home to her parents or brothers and remains there until her
husband or an intermediary he sends, can persuade her to return. Her
family on these occasions mediates, protects her rights, and chastises
her husband or herself as necessary. They may at times exact money from
her husband which she keeps .

For example a newly married woman I know, walked 6 kms to her brother's
home and there sat crying saying that her husband had beaten her, that
she was having to work like a donkey whilst he sat drinking coffee. Her
husband came later and told the brother that his wife was refusing to
harvest the wheat. The brother having listened to both aggrieved
parties, told the husband not to beat her and told his sister that she
had to harvest the wheat. So subdued they both returned haze.

A woman may also use her family as a base from which to bargain for new
rights. For example there seems to be amongst settled Bedouin a fairly
comnon mother-in-law problem. A woman often lives in the same tent as
her husband's parents when she is first married. Often as in Western
society, there is friction between the two women. Most women can only
tolerate this for a certain length of time and eventually go home to
their father and stay there till their husband gives them their own
home. For example a woman I know shared the tent with not only her
mother-in law, but also her sister-in-law. She and her sister-in-law
were constantly arguing and so after the birth of her first child the
woman repeatedly went home to her father and stayed there four months
until her husband prepared a tent for her. Another woman I know had to
live with a particularly jealous mother-in-law and she after a year and
a half returned home to her widowed mother and brothers where she stayed
until her husband gave her a hone some distance away from his mother.

In both these cases the women used their family as a base from which to
bargain. Their husbands were happy with their new found privacy. One of
the women described her husband as weak and inexperienced ...... at the
beginning of their marriage and I would argue that the men were
reluctant to defy their parents and so let their wives force the issue
by using their family as a bargaining resource.

Thus to summarize - women obey men. They marry according to their
father's or brother's choice and obey their husband. However when a
woman's rights are infringed, she has a definete course of action. She
uses her family as a protector-mediator and bargaining point.

Now I would like to tell you about the work of Bedouin women. Their role
in the family's economic life. They are hardworked but their work is
important within their family's economic framework. As this framework
changes so does their role.

When a Bedouin makes his living from his flocks and crops, his family
unit, that is, his wife or wives and children are his labour force.
Everyday besides cooking and caring for any small children, the woman
helps in walking with the flocks, fetching the water and collecting
wood. She has additional seasonal activities such as preparing leben and
semen in the spring, helping harvest the winter wheat and barley in May,
threshing and storing the grain in June, and weaving strips for the tent
at the end of summer.

The amout of work a woman actually does depends on the alternative
sources of labour that are available. A woman's daily workload is
lightened considerably if she has the help of children between the ages
of 10-15, or another wife, or her husband's widowed mother. Two wives
may take it in turns walking with the sheep. One one day and the other
the next day. Or the children may go and get the water. Thus the only
tasks reserved exclusively for women are cooking, childbearing, weaving
and making leben and semen. Therefore for a pastoral Bedouin, his family
is his labour force and the workload of the woman decreases as the
number of children increases but certain activities remain her sole
perogative and responsibility. The workload of the woman is also
lessened when her husband has a regular job in town. He tends to
decrease his flocks and often acquires more domestic animals like
chickenss turkeys and rabbits. The woman has less activity outside the
home. Her days are occupied with cooking, the children, fetching water
and visiting. A settled Bedouin woman tends to live near other families
and has time to visit other women during the day. By contrast a pastoral
Bedouin woman is much more isolated from other women, and even if she
meets them in the course of her day, she is seldom idle to sit and chat.

Thus when a Bedouin becomes a wage labourer the importance of his family
as a labour force decrease and the women have less work to do and less
share in their husband's daily worklife. Instead of sharing in his work
and flocks few women know where or at what their husbands work. They
only know it is 'fee Seba' - in Beer-Sheva.

Although pastoral Bedouin women are kept busy and have a full working
day. They derive satisfaction and enjoynment from their work. First of
all they know that their contribution is essential to the family's well
being and survival. Like all people who know they are needed, they feel
secure and happy. Through their efforts the flock grows. They help in
the lambing, they see that the lambs and kids get their equal share of
milk. They make the semen which they offer guests and eat themselves as
a staple food throughout the year particularly in winter. When their men
are absent for long periods such as when they are trackers in the army
or work in citrus groves in the North, the women bear all the
responsibility of the home and flock in their absence .

Bedouin women have had less contact with Israeli society then their men.
They are encapsulated within their families and are isolated from the
outside world. This helps them to retain a quiet pride in their way of
life, even when they know something of Israeli society. A pride which in
many cases their men have lost. Their belief in their own way of life is
exemplified by their attitude to polygamy - meaning for those not
familiar with the word, the practice of having more than one wife, at
the same tim. Polygamy is illigal according to Israeli law but
legitimate amongst the Bedouin. By this I mean that although it is
officially illegal it is the contrary in the eyes and minds of many
Bedouin. Most pastoral Bedouin women do not know that it is illegal
according to Israeli law. They accept it without question. Many settled
Bedouin women know that it is illegal according to Israeli law but still
regard the Law as something that doesn't effect their lives. Since many
of them are children of polygamous marriages they accept polygamy as
inevitable although some are beginning to become self-conscious about
it. For example I know a young girl who is the second wife of a Bedouin.
The first wife is jealous of her and is trying to use the Israeli law to
get rid of her. She reported her husband to the police and he now has a
possible court case in the near future. The second wife is un-concerned
with the possibility of her husband going to prison for a few months or
she herself being divorced for as she explained to me - in reality
nothing would change. He would divorce one of them but in reality keep
both of them. He has no alternative. The first wife has two baby girls
which neither the second wife nor the husbandws mother want to take care
of, and he doesn't want to lose his second wife whom he is fond of and
has given him a son. Thus polygamy remains legitimate amongst the
Bedouin although defined as illegal.

To conclude - Bedouin women have a quiet pride in their way of life and
work. They are subordinate to their men, and hard-worked but are also
secure and protected, deriving satisfaction and a feeling of importance
from their work. It is a mistake to think of them as unhappy as few are,
and few would change their way of life even if they had the opportunity
to do so. The Western liberated women's preoccupation with freedom of
choice and equality causes her to overlook the validity and dignity of
another way of life such as this one.

I hope this has given you some idea of my field method and glimpse of
Bedouin women whom I have grown to like admire and respect and fram whom
I have learnt a great deal of purely personal significance during my
eleven months fieldwork.