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Alice Miller has remained a household name and symbol of Israeli feminism since her legal victory in 1995. But did Miller's battle truly help the women of Israel? To some it leaves the impression that women are moving ahead, when in reality the underlying issue of inequality still remains.
One of the leading legal battles for the advancement of equality for women in Israel was that of Alice Miller. Miller, an aeronautical engineer holding a civilian pilot's license, applied for admission to the prestigious pilots' course of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in 1993. Her promising qualifications notwithstanding, the IAF turned her down outright on the basis of its long-standing policy of not admitting women to the pilots' course in principle, a policy consonant with that of not assigning women to combat duty.
The Defense Service Law {which defines and regulates the obligation of service in the Israeli Defense Forces} enacted by the Knesset does not specify any formal restrictions based on gender, but since the 1950s the policy of relegating women to auxiliary-secretarial and service-jobs established itself. This policy was based mainly on three factors: the traditional societal role of women as mothers and wives, a defense force based and dependent on the reserve structure (and the fear that combatant women could not be called up once they became mothers), and the uneasiness felt at the prospect of women falling prisoner. For many years there was no real public discussion of this subject, and the policy was accepted. Miller's challenge was directed at these assumptions.
Miller petitioned the Supreme Court residing also as the High Court of Justice in 1994. In 1995, the court accepted her petition. Miller's legal victory is considered a significant milestone in the struggle for women's equality in Israel. In their ruling, the majority of the justices (two of them, women) ruled that the army's policy regarding the pilot's course should be changed, in the absence of any legal restrictions...