For the longest of times, women are portrayed… No. Not even portrayed. Simply, “Women belong to the kitchen,” they say—a phrase that can be traced back to Eve, who was deemed good for nothing but plucking an apple from forbidden trees. Her granddaughters, too, were confined to domestic tasks: collecting berries, cooking soups, and brewing mint tea. In my house, it was always clove tea, its scent a reminder of home.
My grandma smiles as she poured tea- “The kitchen is the powerhouse of our home.” The kitchen.. The kitchen.. The bloody kitchen and women belonging merely to it.
The kitchen has been wielded as a tool of oppression, reducing women’s value to domestic servitude. But what happens when that very kitchen becomes a battlefield? When the same boiling water used to nourish a family and make tea before bed is weaponised to defend the very same house?
With trembling hands, a mother holds a pot of boiling water, standing between her children and the invading force. In that same moment, she turns the simple act of cooking and feeding into an act of resistance. The mother, often associated with softness and domestic vulnerability, becomes a fighter and protector of the household she maintains.
This is no different for Arab women. In times of conflict, when soldiers breached walls or oppression knocked at their doors, these women, bound by tradition to their homes, refused to be powerless; they could not stay in their kitchen, imprisoned by traditions of stereotypes, and they turned the silent space that domesticated them into the alley where they prepared the weapon while making tea.
During uprisings such as the First (1987-1993), and Second (2000-2005) Intifadas, Palestinian women turned their homes into fortresses of resistance. While men engaged in street protests and armed resistance, women defended their homes, sometimes using boiling water, stones, and other household items to deter Israeli soldiers from invading or demolishing their houses.
The act of throwing boiling water holds a very paradoxical symbolism: the water, a source of substance, life, and growth, is weaponised to protect that very life from violence. This mirrors how Palestinian women used their nurturing personalities and their familiar, and often redeemed as basic, surroundings to create a sense of survival and defiance. Palestinian women, who are frequently portrayed as victims, reclaim their agency through such acts, showing that they are not passive observers but active participants in the resistance.
This is often depicted in the stories of the Midwife my grandma always told me. The Midwife, boiling water to help a woman in distress to give birth, in tents and endangered homes- long before this horrifying Israeli terror was normalised. The Palestinian midwives are crucial to the preservation of life, tradition, and community. Midwives in Palestinian society have long been revered as figures of strength, knowledge, and wisdom, serving not only as healers but also as protectors during times of conflict and war.
During a raid, a midwife might be called to help deliver a baby. She must protect the mother and child from invaders who threaten to disrupt the birth. Using resourcefulness, she hides the family in a safe space within the home, perhaps using boiling water, herbs, or household items to defend them until the danger passes. The very boiled water helps bring the baby safely, makes food for the mother, and is used as a weapon that burns the faces of occupation soldiers who dared invade such a sacred moment.
In times of genocide against Palestinians, women always gathered around the mother who was giving birth- with water, prayers, and resistance. While men were in the streets trying to face a hungry and brutal occupation, women were hand in hand, caring for babies and boiling water to protect themselves. Midwives were often called upon not just to help with the birth itself, but to ensure that the family was protected from evil spirits or bad omens, and to make sure that the baby survived the Israeli raids; ensuring a new generation of Palestinian kinship.
The act of throwing boiling water at Israeli soldiers can be seen not only as a form of physical defence but also as a poignant reflection of Palestinian women’s labour—both the labour of survival and the labour of resistance. Women’s labour in Palestine, or the whole Arab world, has long been undervalued and rendered invisible, but in moments of extreme oppression, it becomes a powerful act of reclaiming agency.
The boiling water thrown by women at occupying soldiers can be understood as a manifestation of this resistance, a way to take what is normally considered “women’s work”—the preparation of food— the care of the home—the sweeping —the making of tea and transform it into a symbol of defiance. In an environment where everything, from the land to the home, is under threat, the labour of women becomes a crucial act of survival.
In the grand narrative of resistance, these acts of incredible courage, often rooted in women’s everyday labour and tasks, offer a profound perspective. They make us believe that resistance is not always loud, but often occurs in the smallest, most intimate acts of survival and co-existing with our surroundings.
Today, I’m boiling water to make tea—chatting with a friend or simply unwinding from the day. It feels like such a small, everyday thing, but I can’t help thinking about how it connects me to the women who came before me. As I stand by the kettle, I think about the generations of women who stood in their kitchens—not with the luxury of leisure but with the weight of survival. For them, boiling water wasn’t always about comfort or catching a breath after a long day. Sometimes, it meant sustenance. It meant protecting their families, and standing strong when the world outside tried to break them.
This privileged act of self-care is the offspring of resourceful ancestors who made sure to keep my family tree safe. Today, I’m making tea while I write about the labour of women, one that rarely goes unnoticed, but life cannot go without.
I’m boiling water; for tea and the enemy.
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What inspired me to write this piece is an inside joke that runs through my family. My love for tea is a ritual, and my family has a saying: “If Rawan ever says no to tea, that’s a sign she’s been kidnapped, and you should call the police.” I never say no to tea because, in my family, it’s a symbol of unwinding, collective love, and warmth. I’m writing this sitting at my kitchen counter while my mother half-jokingly complains about making five cups of tea, five times a day… like prayer… like labour. And in the context of this essay, like resistance.
