Three years later, what the government dismissed as theatrical exaggeration is increasingly viewed as prescient foreshadowing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which relies upon the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, is moving Israel toward a more religious and conservative future.
Alongside broader efforts to weaken the Supreme Court – long the cornerstone of Israeli women’s equality – have come specific threats to women’s rights. Netanyahu’s religious partners have pushed bills expanding religious authority over civil life, including gender segregation in cultural events and education. With the power to collapse Netanyahu’s government should they withdraw their support, the religious parties have been able to bend the secular prime minister to their will.
The decline in women’s rights is measurable. Israel’s global standing on gender equality has plunged in recent years. In the 2025–26 Women, Peace and Security Index, produced by Georgetown University, Israel ranks 84 of 181 countries – behind Albania, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Before the current government came into power three years ago, it ranked 27.
The precipitous drop parallels a sharp decline in women’s representation in public life. Today, only six of Israel’s 33 ministers are women and few have senior roles. The current government has not made a single permanent appointment of a woman as director-general across over 30 ministries. No woman currently heads a major political party, and Netanyahu’s coalition includes two parties that have zero women on their lists.
“The deterioration in Israel’s gender equality ranking is unprecedented, placing us in the lower half of countries worldwide – a stark contrast to decades in which Israel ranked among the leaders and was known as a pioneer in advancing women’s rights,” said Daphna Hacker of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law and Gender Studies.
Hacker ticked off a list of historical accomplishments for women’s equality in Israel: the 1951 Equal Rights for Women Law, considered revolutionary at the time; Golda Meir serving as one of the first female leaders in the world in 1969; the military’s mandatory conscription of women.
But Hacker, who also serves as the chair of the Israel Women’s Network, said women are now “virtually absent” from key decisions. “There’s no doubt women’s status has waned in recent years,” she said. “We’ve never experienced such a backlash.”
One bill under debate at Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, which could be finalized in the coming weeks, would dramatically expand the authority of state-run religious courts to handle civil disputes. These courts, staffed exclusively by men who rule according to Jewish law, already oversee marriage and divorce proceedings, including for secular couples. Under the proposed legislation, they would gain power to rule on financial disputes, business matters, and potentially child custody issues.
“This bill seeks to place women’s fate in the hands of a religious judiciary that inherently discriminates against them,” said Bonot Alternativa, the women’s protest group that once led the Women in Red. “We will not allow the government to force us into marriage with a system that despises us,” it said in a statement while its members protested as gagged brides in chains outside a rabbinical court in Tel Aviv earlier this month.