Respected and Ignored: British Women and the Arab Revolt (1936–39) in Mandate Palestine

ABSTRACT

This article aims to reinsert British women and their perspectives into our understanding of anticolonial resistance in Palestine. Historiography on the Arab Revolt (1936–39) has previously been built from colonial state archives that disproportionally speak with a male voice and, as such, rely on certain gendered assumptions to describe the historical participants and events of the period. This article focuses on the records of three British women who worked as teachers during the mandate period, examining how they experienced and understood the anticolonial resistance and violence that occurred around them. It contextualises them within the wider British archive of the Revolt and draws on other experiences across the British Empire to seek to unravel how gender, race and violence intersected in their perception of the events around them.