OPINION:
One feature of the recent rash of campus demonstrations and encampments that has received only sporadic attention but needs more attention: A large and maybe preponderant proportion of those demonstrating are women.
If you look at photos of campus protests nationwide, you will invariably find that many, and in some cases, most of the protesters are female. Their faces are masked, but despite the perhaps intentional attempt to obfuscate gender, they are easily identifiable as women.
This is a particularly interesting and, sadly, relevant matter. It is equally interesting and relevant that it has been little commented upon, especially by the mainstream press.
Since George Washington University is rather close to my office, I had occasion to visit the encampment that festered there for over a week. I meandered through the encampment without much harassment. Actually, when I first approached the encampment because I was wearing a jacket and tie (my customary attire), a few of the demonstrators inquired cheerfully as to whether I was a professor. When I responded in the negative, the attitude became less cheerful. Clearly, the presumption was that any professor in the vicinity had to be a sympathizer. I was not.
Every demonstrator I encountered while walking along the periphery of the encampment was a woman. Many were women of a certain age and, therefore, not likely students. They were also not very willing to engage in a dialogue.
Why is it that this support for Palestinians and, by implication, for the terrorists of Hamas is so significantly feminine? How can it be that women, who are regularly subjected to legal, social and vestimentary restrictions in the Muslim world, are suddenly so ardently engaged in pro-Palestinian activities?
Two reasons come to mind. One is related to a demographic reality, and the other to a psychological factor.
Any observer of the evolution of American higher education will see that our universities’ student bodies are now predominantly made up of women. If you walk across any major campus, you will observe this reality. Well over half of the students meandering through these campuses are women. On some campuses, the ratio of men to women can be far more skewed in favor of women.
In light of this demographic reality, it cannot be surprising that those demonstrating and encamping reflect the composition of the campuses. Thus, as a matter of reflecting the makeup of student populations, it could reasonably be expected that women would be a substantial presence in any demonstration on any subject on a university campus. Nonetheless, based on the history of mass student movements, it could have been expected that men would dominate the current demonstrations, as they have tended to dominate campus unrest in the past.
But there is a second factor that may be responsible for the surge of female participation in the pro-Palestinian movement. This factor is tied to the agile and rather skillful use and abuse of social media by Hamas and its supporters.
Since the Israeli riposte to the horrific Oct. 7 attack, Hamas has been adept at projecting its messages all over the world. None seems to have been more successful than a message that tragically recalls anti-Jewish tropes going back hundreds of years: The Jews are child killers.
Whenever we are informed by “health” authorities in the Gaza Strip about the number of dead and injured, the authorities invariably identify a large number of children as victims. Seemingly, in every pronouncement, at least one-third of the victims of the ongoing war in Gaza are “children.”
Of course, any information emanating from Hamas has to be met with the utmost skepticism. Beyond the fact that Hamas terrorists have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not believe that there is any requirement to be truthful, they have learned to use the big lie as a powerful weapon. In many ways, they have not only learned the lessons taught by the Nazi Joseph Goebbels, but they have significantly expanded upon them. Free of any religious, ethical or political compunction to tell the truth, they are able to embroider falsehoods faster than a Beguine.
There are no definitional constraints imposed upon the Hamas public relations machine. Thus, “children” include young terrorists and anyone else that Hamas may deem useful if reduced in age. It is also true that with a population that is nearly constituted of individuals aged 18 and under, when Hamas hides among the entire population of Gaza, it is hiding behind children, who are susceptible to becoming collateral victims.
By highlighting the deaths of the young, Hamas has found its way into the hearts of women. Even though it may not be politically correct to say so, it is clear that the maternal instinct in women engenders great sympathy for suffering children. As a consequence, with Hamas depicting Jews as child killers, it is eliciting an emotion that resonates far more with women than with men, and that prompts a much stronger response from women than men.
Feminists should be appalled by this development. Women are being manipulated by men who have promoted the raping and brutalizing of women, as they amply displayed on Oct. 7. As though hypnotized by swamis, women are being used as objects for the advancement of a profoundly anti-feminist movement.
Beyond harming serious students and promoting terror, another terrible byproduct of the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations may be the unwinding of years of progress for women’s rights around the world.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. His book, “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” was published by HUC Press in 2022.
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