Crossing gender borders and performing national belonging among Israeli-Palestinian women journalists

Extending current intersectional approaches to minority women’s workplace integration, this study demonstrates how journalism’s distinct professional characteristics interact with intersecting exclusions based on gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Through thematic analysis of narrative interviews with 24 Israeli-Palestinian women journalists in Israel, the research reveals a complex negotiation of identity boundaries. The study’s key contribution lies in uncovering a dual dynamic: these women simultaneously transgress and conform to cultural expectations. By choosing journalism – a profession requiring public visibility and voice – they challenge patriarchal gender norms that confine women to the private sphere. This boundary-crossing creates significant social penalties, particularly in terms of marriage prospects. However, this same professional choice empowers their national-political identity, as they view journalism as a vehicle for Palestinian advocacy and representation. This finding complicates existing theories of economic integration for minority women. Unlike other professional Palestinian women in Israel who pursue lucrative, stable careers (physicians, lawyers, engineers) as a path to civic inclusion through economic participation, women journalists choose precarious, low-paying work driven by political commitments rather than material benefits. Their case demonstrates that understanding minority women’s professional integration requires attending to the specific characteristics and political meanings of particular professions, not just broad occupational categories.