Many ways of becoming a woman: The case of unmarried Israeli-Palestinian "Girls"

Unmarried Israeli-Palestinian women are normatively expected to remain virgins and social juniors, yet in practice their handling of their sexuality, and by extension their femininity, produces a range of social personas. While some indeed remain submissive and suppressed, others undergo sexual maturation. Detailed ethnographic attention to their lifestyles, and particularly to their sexuality, disproves any stereotypic impressions held of this group of Arab women. As liminal persons, unmarried women serve not only as delineators of normative female sexuality, but also as agents of change who expand the norm and make it more inclusive. Contextualizing the phenomenon historically, the analysis considers how this adjustment of gender responds to larger concerns with modernity and marginality. (Sexuality, virginity, gender, liminality)