Kibbutz women and their children rebel

Press, 13 April 1982, Page 16

Kibbutz women and their children rebel

By

CHAIM BERMANT

The kibbutz movement is now over 70 years old which, given the ephemeral nature of most Utopias, is ancient, and it is. showing every sign that it is here to stay.

What is more remarkable, it still remains substantially loyal to the visions of its founders.

It is an egalitarian society, not only in material term’s, but in the distribution of work; for there is a continuing rotation of labour to make sure that no one is lumbered permanently with the more menial jobs, and no one has lasting claim to the more prestigious ones. The only people who in this respect are rather less equal than others, are women. They too benefit from the rotation of labour, but they have become almost invariably confined to cooking food, cleaning clothes and, above all, minding children. A new book on the kibbutz by Amia Lieblich. a psychology professor at the Hebrew University, suggests that kibbutz women are not only tied to what have traditionally been regarded as women’s occupations, but that they have rather less chance than other women of escaping from them. "Generally speaking, the kibbutz was established by men for men's sake.” one veteran told the professor. “Women have always played a secondary role, whether strictly as men's servants, or as housewives in the most conservative manner." Professor Lieblich confines her attention to one large kibbutz founded about 50 years ago with 17 members, which now has a population of about 1200, including 400 children; No two kibbutzim are quite alike, but the more established ones have enough in common for general inferences to be drawn from the experience of any one. It is clear that whatever the kibbutz may have done for Israeli society as a whole, it has done nothing to alter the situation of women except in one sense, and one sense only. . It has made it easier for them to have large families, which may explain why a third of the population of this particular kibbutz consists of children. And children are at the source of the trouble, if trouble it is. They are given the first claim on the resources of the kibbutz and on the time of its members. The .attention begins prenatally. Pregnant mothers are relieved of everything save the foetus (and they can be relieved of that if they are so minded). Once a child is conceived, the mother is put on light work and is encouraged to take a daily nap. and when she gives birth, the baby is put in the charge of a trained nurse in the baby-house.

The mother remains off work for six weeks and goes to the baby-house' as often as the child needs feeding, but the drudgery of washing, changing, coping with small ailments, is left to the staff.

All young mothers also receive a break in their working day known as sha’a le' ahava, "an hour for love’’ ’(which is not what it sounds, though given the high birthrate, it could be), in which they visit their children in the nursery.

When a child can walk and talk it is put in the children's house in the charge of a metapelet, who combines something of the functions of a nanny, governess and mother-in-law. The children remain among their own peers in their own compounds till they are 18, and of an age to enter the army. No body of children has been kept under such close surveillance since the decline of the European middle class of 100 years ago and, as with that class, children are brought down from their nurseries to see their parents for an hour or two after work. They then return to their own "quarters. All of which may seem idyllic, at least for the parents, but in fact the whole system has been a grave source of contention in this as well as in many other kibbutzim, and its days are numbered.

In the early days of the kibbutz, children lived in their own houses .because there wasn't money available to provide proper accommodation for adults, who were still living in tents; and what began out of need soon hardened into principle. By segregating the young, the kibbutz could feel that children were not merely the progeny of one particular

couple but of the whole chevra. And more important, by freeing women of domestic drudgery they hoped to make them available for more productive efforts. It hasn't happened. It is rare for a woman to seek election to one of the more important offices in the kibbutz. and it is even rarer for her to be elected.

She can, if she persists, get work in the fields or with animals, but one woman, for example, who got work in the cowshed and loved it, found that it interfered with the visiting hours of her children, and she felt compelled to give it up.

Moreover, a lot of children need a lot of looking after (among the .infants the ratio is about two attendants to every three children) and as a result in many kibbutzim something like 80 per cent of the women are involved in child-care in one way or another.

It is almost universally assumed that only women are capable of such duties and thus, instead of looking after their own children, they look after those of others, which they find less satisfying and more nerve-racking.

Nor are all the children, particularly happy with the system. Many sneak out to stay overnight with their parents, even if it means sleeping on the floor. As a, result, a growing number of kibbutzim have stopped , building infants' quarters ’and are enlarging family apartments to accommodate children. The family will out. There was a time when kibbutz women were something of a rarity, and in a society in which everything was settled by majority vote (as it still is) they could always be out-voted even on issues which primarily con-

cerned them; and it could be argued that by the time they were numerous enough to assert themselves, the kibbutz was too set ’in its ways to be changed.

But' the fact remains that kibbutz life .can be changed, and is changing, largely at the behest of its female members. Most established kibbutzim, with their green lawns and hissing sprinklers, their blazing flower-beds and their tree-lined walks, their swimming pools and their play areas, now have the aspect of an American country-club estate. If their womenfolk are reverting to the role of the middle-class housewife, it is not because they are compelled to do so by" chauvinist males anxious to defend their prerogatives, but. because they are among the few women in Israel who can afford to do so. Copyright — London "Observer” Service.