DOI: 10.4324/9780429281013-30 337 Gender is a subject more appropriate for a voluminous tome than for an article, as gender rela- tions intersect, intervene with and transform all other spheres of life. Moreover, gender is not equivalent to “women” and does not indicate any single, uniform group. Analysis of gender relations must relate to women, men and nonbinary social groups, and in particular to the struc- ture of their relations. Thus, analysis of gender relations must start out from an intersectionality perspective, whereby every social group is shaped by multiple and intersecting axes of power and oppression that include, gender, race, status, sexuality and in Israel – also religion and nationality. Since the feld of gender relations is vast, we choose in this article to focus on four main gendered conficts in contemporary Israel, as represented in public discourse: (1) assaults on women’s body and sexuality; (2) the implications of the neoliberal economy for marginalized women and counter-struggles; (3) women trapped between church and state; and (4) the nego- tiation of women’s roles in the military. Each of these four conficts is also an issue of controversy between diferent groups of women, as well as a basis for women’s activism, acting out of diverse intersectional positions, whether in civil society organizations, in protest movements or through legal action. Background: Women’s Status in Israel Can we characterize gender relations in Israel as continually improving or deteriorating? The past few decades have seen signifcant processes of improvement, as well as stagnation and regres- sion. This section will provide a background on these processes in three areas: employment, education and political representation. Other spheres of life will be examined in the following sections through the discussion of the four conficts. Labor force participation. Women represent an impressive 47% of the Israeli labor force, fol- lowing constant reduction in the gender gap in employment over the last decades. As in most developed countries, Israeli men’s participation in the labor market has dropped due to the intro- duction of migrant workers, welfare allowance reforms, increased higher education enrollment and the growing share of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Palestinian-Arabs (hereafter, Arabs) in the general population. The ultra-Orthodox belong to a “learners’ society” whose men are expected to dedicate their time to religious studies, while Arab men sufer from various structural and informal barriers to employment. Conversely, women’s participation in the labor force is on the 25 TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK Gender Relations in Contemporary Israel Tair Karazi-Presler and Orna Sasson-Levy