ABSTRACT
The little sociological research that exists on women in national elite positions in Western industrial societies has noted the small number of women in these positions and has suggested that structural-institutional impediments can explain their absence from them (Acker 1992; Epstein and Coser 1981; Kanter 1993; Moore 1988). The scant research on women in national elite positions in Israel has reached similar conclusions (Bernstein 1987; Etzioni-Halevy and Illy 1981; Izraeli 1979, 1991, 1994; Toren 1993). Thus, in both groups of studies there is a consensus regarding the dearth of women among national elites and the reasons for this fact. In light of this agreement, I thought it worthwhile to approach this topic from a different perspective, that is, to identify those factors that characterize the women who already are in these elite positions. Therefore, this study concentrates on examining the sociological factors that might explain the recruitment of these women into national elite positions in Israel.
