Gender-based violence is often discussed in terms of individual victims and perpetrators. Our research focuses on Arab-Palestinian women in Israel, who occupy a structurally marginalized position as members of an indigenous national minority suggests that understanding violence also requires listening to the social worlds surrounding women: families, communities, cultural expectations, and the institutions to which women may- or may not- turn for help.
Across our interviews, women repeatedly described silence. Yet this silence was rarely simply a personal choice. Women spoke about fear of the abusive partner, but also about shame, family reputation, expectations of loyalty, and pressure to preserve the family. Disclosure could itself be perceived as violating accepted social norms. In this sense, silence was socially produced and reinforced.
But our research also reveals significant change.
Looking across generations, we found a gradual movement from silencing to un-silencing. Women increasingly questioned the expectation that suffering should remain private. Breaking silence was rarely a single dramatic moment. It was a process: first recognizing that they had a right to speak, and then finding ways to act on that recognition.
Children- and particularly daughters- often played an important role in this transformation. For some mothers, seeing how violence affected the next generation became a turning point. Their resistance was therefore not only about changing their own lives, but also about ensuring that their daughters would not reproduce the same patterns of silence, dependence, and restricted choice.
At the same time, our findings caution against viewing culture and family only as sources of oppression. When formal institutions failed to recognize women’s experiences or provide meaningful assistance, some women turned to mothers, siblings, and other trusted relatives. Family networks that could enforce silence in one context could become sources of protection and resilience in another.
We describe this as indigenous knowledge: culturally grounded practical knowledge about whom to trust, where help can be found, and how resources within families and communities can be mobilized. One woman explained simply: “I turned to my family and my brothers… they understood… they stood by me…”.
These findings remind us that social change does not necessarily require rejecting community and culture. It can also emerge from within them. Listening to women’s voices reveals both the mechanisms that sustain violence and the knowledge, relationships, and intergenerational transformations that can help challenge it.
References:
Alnabilsy, R., & Meler, T. (2024). Economic violence against Arab-Palestinian women in Israel: Coping mechanisms in social, cultural and structural contexts. Women’s Studies International Forum, 106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2024.102978
Alnabilsy, R., & Meler, T. (2026). Indigenous knowledge as an anchor from the perspective of Arab-Palestinian women in Israel: The case of economic Abuse. In Allassad Alhuzail, N. & Majumdar, K. (Eds.), Indigenous Women’s Resilience, Leadership and Social Change. Migration, Minorities and Modernity, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-07182-8_3 .
Meler, T., Alnabilsy, R., & Bernstein, M. (2024). Economic abuse: Coercive debt of Arab-Palestinian women. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 66(2), 349-371. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152241277204
Meler, T., Alnabilsy, R., & Hassan-Abbas, N. (2025). Insights regarding Children-to-Mother Violence from the Perspective of Arab-Palestinian Mothers. Journal of Family Violence. https://10.1007/s10896-025-00861-w
Meler, T., & Alnabilsy, R. (2026). An intergenerational view: Attitudes towards gender violence against women in Palestinian-Arab society in Israel. In Ruspini, E & Vidu, A. (Eds.), Generations of feminism and gender studies in Europe, 153–173. Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529243444.ch009
Associate professor in sociology and gender studies on research track at Zefat Academic College, Israel. Her PhD dissertation for the Program for Gender Studies at Bar-Ilan University deals with Palestinian-Israeli single mothers. Her areas of specialization are the sociology of the family, Arab-Palestinian women in Israel, the Arab-Palestinian family in Israel and economic violence towards Arab-Palestinian women.
(Ph.D.), Senior lecturer and researcher at the department of social work at Ruppin Academic College. Research interests focus on marginalized populations, particularly ethnic and gender exclusion, such as Arab-Palestinian women, young Arab- Palestinian women victims of domestic violence, children and adolescents exposed to abuse in Israel, young women and men at risk, students in academia from minority groups. The goal to which she aspires is to develop an innovative knowledge domain in subjects such as ethnic, social, cultural, political, and class contexts in Israel and their connection to social work practice.