ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an account of the efforts by the Palestinian women's movement to advocate for greater sensitivity to gender differences in new civil legislation, particularly laws that affect women's lives, such as the penal code and the family law. It deals with the effects of the barriers erected within the region and the fragmentation of the land by Israeli policies, and how women have coped with both. The fact that the Palestinian women's movement today is by necessity deeply linked to the political context of Palestine gives it a different nature than that of many other women's movements in the world. In particular, the deterioration in the Palestinian political situation has brought more violence against women in the Gaza Strip. As for the quota of women in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the battle was different due to changes introduced to the electoral system.
