Agents of Patriarchy Teach Gender

Abstract

This article discusses veteran instructors who were employed by the ab-sorbing establishment as instructors for women immigrants from Yemen who settled in moshav-type cooperative settlements in Israel. The findings indicate that the instruction messages in the first stage after the Yemenite immigrants settled on the land included a blurring of gender. However, differential instruction was created when the permanent homes were constructed: male instructors taught the men the hard physical labor, and female instructors taught the women their roles within the domestic sphere. The instruction system recruited to the new moshav-type cooperative settlements thus perpetuated the gender division of labor and used an effective “tool” for transmitting the patriarchic messages of the absorbing establishment.