The status of women Early photos of Israel often show pioneer women rolling up their shirt sleeves and working along side men, tilling the fields, and guarding kibbutzim in a dramatic show of gender equality. But even during the State's earliest days, reality didn't always match the myth. Though Israel is far more family-centered than the United States in areas like maternity leave and affordable day care, Israeli women share most of the same problems that confront women in all industrialized countries. Israeli women face unique burdens, however, due to the complex interplay of traditional cultural and religious norms, the Orthodox monopoly over matters of personal status, and demeaning attitudes toward women in the military.
Israeli women experience many forms of economic discrimination.
While the percentage of women in the work force approaches fifty percent, the wage gap between men and women doing comparable work is among the highest in the Western world. Moreover, women also confront discrimination in ownership of shares in cooperatives, discrimination by the health care system, and income tax inequities for married women. In the political realm, women are sorely under-represented in positions of power. While Israel is one of the few countries to have had a female prime minister, only six women have held cabinet positions since the founding of the State. Israeli Arab women face even greater and more delicate challenges.