Identification of Arab men and women with oppressive patriarchal practices

Abstract EN

Identification with the oppressor is a coping mechanism applied in many individual and collective contexts of oppression.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the application of this mechanism in Arab society, which is characterized as collective, authoritarian, patriarchal, and traditional.

We administered the Identification with Oppressive Practices Scale (IOPS) to 549 adolescent and adult Arabs in Israel.

Factor analysis of the scale revealed three factors: (a) protecting the family good name and honor (NH), (b) cross-gender relationships (CG), and (c) social functioning (SF).

In support of our hypothesis, our results show that the vast majority of adult men and women (81.6%) and a tiny majority of adolescent boys and girls (51.8%) adopt oppressive attitudes.

Arab women adopt more oppressive attitudes toward themselves than toward men, and men adopt less oppressive attitudes toward themselves than toward women.

The most oppressive attitudes of both genders concern NH, followed by CG.

Both men and women adopt less oppressive attitudes concerning SF.

It seems that the road map of change starts with adolescents and women in SF, conditioned by protecting the family name and honor and keeping cross-gender relationships within the bounds of propriety and under control.

This is the first quantitative research that studied the phenomenon of identification with the oppressor among Arab men and women.

Individual differences and more quantitative and qualitative research studies are needed in other Arab societie