Reuven Castro

A beautiful woman: We asked a question that is not pleasant to ask about Ayelet Shaked

Does Ayelet Shaked not pass the blocking percentage because she betrayed her values ​​or simply because she is a beautiful woman, and this time she doesn't have the "right" man?

This is an unpleasant question to ask, but we had to.

We sat down for a difficult conversation with Marev Batito and Efrat Shalom Danon ("The Teams" here 11)

Mia Agassi

10/28/2022

10/28/2022

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You may not agree with her political agenda, with her inner compass and with her values ​​(you may as well), but one thing is hard to disagree with: Ayelet Shaked is made of special material.

With a purposeful look and determined actions, Shaked worked her way to the political top, starting in 2006, when she began serving as Netanyahu's chief of staff, through her meteoric rise to the crash in the polls ahead of the elections for the 25th Knesset - the fifth election cycle in a period of four years.

It always seemed that there was something different in Ayelet Shaked, from the Star Quality of the political jungle in Israel.

Who is Ayelet Shaked?

How did she reach her impressive achievements and why didn't she reach even more impressive achievements?

We spoke with Efrat Shalom Danon, creator of the series "The Chosen Ones" and with Marev Batito, Yediot Ahronoth journalist, investigator and TV presenter.

Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett (photo: photo processing, Reuven Castro)

Why doesn't Ayelet Shaked pass the blocking percentage?

Because she lost her credibility following the abandonment of political values, or simply because she is a woman, without the "right" man by her side?

"There were a thousand men before her in politics who crossed the lines without getting confused, moved from one agenda to another and changed opinions like socks, no one remembered it the next day" states Merev Batito "Shaul Mofaz, Ehud Olmert, Tzachi Hanegbi, Gadi Barkan, Ehud Barak and many other good ones changed parties and the next day continued as if nothing had happened. Shaked has never changed her value agenda. Countless times I have criticized the extreme line she led as Minister of Justice and Minister of the Interior towards minority populations in Israel. At the same time, I could not ignore her determination to promote issues." Feminine" such as the legislation to criminalize consumers of prostitution and the war on polygamy. At the national level, this is a female personality the likes of which has never been here before, and in my opinion this is the main reason she receives such ridiculous criticism as "abandonment of values". What are you talking about? What if she had been recorded like Smotritz ' who one day insults Netanyahu, calling him a "liar"And wishing him a natural process of accelerated aging and the next day receiving a public apology from Netanyahu, they would have impaled her a long time ago.

Shaked pays the heavy price of a charismatic, good-looking, slim figure, secular Tel Avivian, half-Eastern and fair-skinned woman.

She is an excellent politician with sharp senses, and she knows how to conduct goal-oriented negotiations without personal appeals, but she is in no way related to the rabbis of religious Zionism, does not look like a settler, does not speak like her religious, and does not behave as is expected of her in the national religious public.

Shaked is the right woman in the wrong camp.

She chose a woman-hating bloc for herself, and if she passes the threshold - and I wish for all of us that she passes it, the ultra-Orthodox who exclude women from the Israeli Knesset as if we are still in the 1950s will sit next to her, the leaders of Likud who did a favor and reserved a few places for women and left them to fight with each other deep in the rear will sit next to her The backers, and worst of all, will sit next to her former friends from religious Zionism who only want to bring her back to help women."

Ayelet Shaked and Yoaz Handel (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"Shaked was in partnership with Bennett from the beginning," says Efrat Shalom Danon.

"There was one time when she got and led the first place. It was after they did not pass the percentage of blocking and her popularity was at its peak then. She also tells in the series that she is the one who learned from Bennett how to conduct negotiations and today she uses it and the tools she acquired to take advantage of an opponent's weaknesses political.

She says how impressed she was that Bennett promised her the court case and she didn't believe it would happen and that he would be able to convince Bibi after he promised her - 'about me'.

Shaked is the only woman in Israel who has ever headed a right-wing party and that cannot be ignored.

She also mentioned it in her speech, when she was elected the head of the party.

In total, only 9 women headed a party instead of the state, which is almost zero.

Women have a great difficulty in politics and in particular to head a party.

You see a lot of men who start a party, very few women start a party out of nothing, but usually enter the party in an unwarranted situation.

This can also be seen with Merav Michaeli and Sheli Yachimovich, who also took the party from its lowest moments.

It's part of the whole story."

This "part" of the whole story corresponds to the idea that women take the reins of leadership mainly in moments when an organization is in distress or crisis.

For example, a political crisis, a drop in the polls and the difficulty of tickling the blocking percentage.

Some studies have suggested that when organizations are in crisis, there is a tendency to appoint women to leadership, with the assumption that they are the ones who will help get out of the crisis.

An assumption that turns out to be true, since the findings show that in the business world, in most cases, women have improved the performance and achievements of companies in times of crisis, after being appointed to head them.

"Usually" is the key word because of course there are exceptions.

For example: Liz Truss, who became the leader of the Conservative Party in Great Britain after Johnson resigned and as a result, also became the Prime Minister.

Terras managed to hold the position for only 50 days, before she resigned in disgrace following the harsh criticism of the political and economic moves she led in Britain, which is in a cost-of-living crisis and experiencing political fluctuations.

Sound familiar?

In any case, with this trivia detail, Terrace also broke a particularly dubious record and became the Prime Minister who served the shortest time in Britain.

The comparison to another, strong and beloved Liz, who broke an impressive record and reigned for the longest time in British history, is almost inevitable and amplifies the slander of Terras many times over.

But back in Israel, Marev Batito reminds everyone: "Shaked didn't pass the threshold even in the second round election, remember? So actually Bennett was next to her. Come on, these are all poor arguments by people who are used to male politics. Shaked is not just a minister or a member of the Knesset In the future, she is also the leader of a party. She is the head of a party, which may again put her in the center of decision-making. In a certain constellation, perhaps for the defense cabinet and who knows what military operation they will want to carry out in the middle of the night, I prefer that at least one woman be there. She has two children, I know she won't be in a hurry to send other people's children to the battlefield just because there is an election coming up. As far as her electorate is concerned, Bennett had to go home. Note that she has remained relatively clean of this move and is steadily scraping down the block percentage. She is paying the price for all that has gone wrong in the Israeli right today, and in fact reflects a reality in which the majority of right-wing voters are a religious crowd that would prefer to elect a male leader."

"Yes. Both with Ayelet Shaked and Shelly Yachimovich, she talked about the fact that the party was in a precarious situation. From Rav Michaeli, in the first interview, she was still an MK.

It was really imaginary that she would be the head of the party but then the party was almost buried and she fought for it.

We experienced this reality while filming," Shalom Danon recalls, "and the theory proved itself in the field.

So yes, it is easier for women to accept the party when it is not strong, except for Tzipi Livni.

It's a slightly different story."

"Backing up Bennett" Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Walla! system, without)

What makes Livni special?

"Tzipi Livni reached achievements that no one else had before her. She came the closest to Golda Meir and broke through many, many glass ceilings at the political-governmental top. Livni always had a strong ambition, she very much did not identify with femininity or feminism and it may be that this played in her favor."

In "The Chosen", Dalia Itzik says that she had to adopt a firm tone and also Limor Livnat points out that she had to change her appearance, speak in a low voice and a firm tone, in order to be seen and heard, literally.

"Women have adopted 'masculine' elements for many, many years," says Efrat.

"Today it has changed. Today you can see many beautiful and feminine women in politics and that can always help. Ayelet Shaked is in a different time than Livni's time. Ayelet Shaked is no longer asked the way Livni was asked if she uses her femininity to promote herself. It was done here way".

Shalom Danon claims that appearance opens doors and this claim is based on something we all know intuitively, but not long ago a study was published that claims the opposite and especially in the female context.

Although the research deals with the business arena, as in the context of the "Glass Cliff", it is possible to draw a lot from it on what is happening in the political arena.

According to the study, with great beauty comes great responsibility.

Beautiful women "suffer" from the "femme fatale effect" which leads to the fact that the more beautiful they are, they are perceived as less reliable.

The study consisted of two phases:

In the first stage, a group of people were asked to rate how handsome they thought women and people appeared in the photos.

In the second step, the researchers divided the photos according to the rating levels of the people photographed and attached them to an article that presented them as spokespersons for a certain company.

They showed the articles to another group of people and asked them to rate how credible the message was in their eyes.

The findings revealed that beautiful women were seen as less reliable in general and as leaders in particular and more deserving of dismissal.

Among the men, there was usually no difference between the perceptions of more or less handsome men.

When there was a tendency in a certain direction, it was one that she took from the handsome men as more reliable.

The findings of this study are very reminiscent of the preoccupation with another femme fatale, section darling Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

As we have already written before, the 36-year-old Marin receives quite a bit of criticism for the non-diplomatic look she has adopted, which includes short and fashionable clothing, sequined dresses and cleavage-baring tank tops, with which she goes wild at home parties, dance clubs and music festivals.

It seems that Marin's critics are not at all concerned with her political activities and photogenic pastimes are seen in their eyes as unreliable behavior.

Ayelet Shaked's toned appearance is also something that is hard to ignore and indeed, they are not ignored.

During my gigs, the words "Ayelet Shaked Yaffe" appeared explicitly as a recommendation for similar searches on the subject, and some public figures also did not spare their attention to her appearance: the former Minister of Infrastructure, Yosef Pritsky, wrote about her: "Well, this is the first time in Israel that the Minister of Justice can star in a calendar When he was criticized for this comment, he said: "Ms. Shaked appears day and night in all kinds of magazines, in fashion shows of one kind or another. After all, this is not a person who abstains from the camera in order to present his appearance. It is not God forbid that I took someone who has never posed as a model in front of the camera To demonstrate her beauty, and she is very beautiful - like many of the women of the Reich."

The journalist Mati Golan wrote in the context of Shaked: "We have an intelligent and beautiful politician - why not take advantage of this for the benefit of foreign relations?"

It is important to note that the reference to the external appearance of female politicians is not a trivial matter.

A 2013 study revealed that any such reference erodes the politician's status in public opinion and negatively affects the way she is perceived as popular, confident, influential and qualified for the position.

Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Is Ayelet Shaked's appearance something that came up in the series?

"It came up in the investigation, because there is reference to women's appearance, much more than men's," says Shalom Danon.

"Women politicians steal much more than men and they also talk about it in the series. Merav Michaeli quoted a researcher who claims that 'women are only allowed to make a mistake once' and we also talk about the fact that the women carry the 'Golda effect' - 'We once tried a female prime minister, It didn't work out, let's move on.' Shelli Yachimovich said in the series that if you're young then 'you don't know anything' and if you're opinionated you're seen as evil. Did Ayelet's beauty hurt her or promote her? We didn't address that in the series, but it does show that she I feel that she paid a greater price in politics, because she is a woman."

"It's like asking if the sun rises in the east."

Tito answers sharply, "Yes, it helps. Yes, it's impossible without it. Yes, a woman who looks like Golda Meir would not pass today. She is beautiful and that's good for us, I need her to look great when she meets with world leaders, I need her to wear the best suits and feel A million dollars when she comes to speak on behalf of the Jewish people, yes I want to be flattered when I see her being interviewed on CNN broadcasts even if she sometimes says horrible things to me. So what would you prefer? That she dress like - God forbid no offense is just less my taste in recent years - Like Orit Struck? Like Daniela Weiss? She is very unique in terms of her social identification, and that doesn't go down the throats of many of the national religious public."

"It's part of the political game and Ayelet Shaked knows it," says Efrat.

"Today you are up, tomorrow you are down. But I think that no matter who you are, there is a broad context here, of a very masculine space in the political arena, which does not always allow women what it allows men. This is not a glass ceiling, this is a concrete ceiling. Ayelet Shaked She breached many such ceilings, both as Minister of Justice, as Minister of the Interior and in other positions. These ceilings are not unbreakable, but it cannot be separated from the wider context. Golda Meir was an exceptional case and she does not reflect the majority of women in Israeli politics."

Do you think the world has changed enough to allow women to live and die with dignity in Israeli politics?

"Unfortunately, I don't see a situation for Israel to have a prime minister, because there is no situation for a woman to take over a ruling party. First of all, most of the political map in Israel is not made up of democratic parties. There are no primaries and the chairman of the party is the one who decides.

I am also very pessimistic about a woman establishing a party that will become a ruling party.

It is difficult for women to hold on to the political system.

They fall out of it and for men it happens less.

It is difficult for women to survive because of all the objective barriers they have.

There is no reason why someone like Tzipi Livni should not be in politics," says Shalom Danon, "but we don't see women growing old in the Knesset.

There is no 70-year-old woman in the Knesset.

It's not exist.

On the other hand, we interviewed Zehava Galon back in the period when she was out of the arena and then she returned to politics, to the head of the National Assembly. So there is room for optimism. Maybe they will be expelled, and will come back."

Efrat Shalom Danon is the producer of the series "The Chosen Ones", with Esnat Trabalsi and Lior Elefant, which was broadcast on the Kaan 11 docu-strip

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