Gender and Political Support: Women and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

• Book Author(s):Minna Cowper-Coles
• Published Date:2023
• Publisher:Routledge
• ISBN-13:9781032011493

Minna Cowper-Coles’s quantitative and qualitative research on the gender gap in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) shows that women are more likely to support Hamas. Gender and Political Support: Women and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Routledge, 2023) gives a detailed analysis of the findings of the research, against a backdrop of Israeli colonialism and military Occupation.

Cowper-Coles notes that Western gender gap literature does not necessarily explain the gender gap in the oPt, given that the research in the West focuses on post-colonial societies, not territories under occupation. The book consistently keeps the focus on Israel’s military Occupation and commences with a succinct overview of Palestine’s history, showing the political trajectory and the various grades of oppression which Palestinians face from Israel, as well as the repression attributed to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Studying the gender gap in the oPt enables one to find possible explanations for the divergent political support and opinion between men and woman in relation to the PA and Hamas.

Gender and Political Support: Women and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories