The Gender of Fossil Fuels: Oil and Domestic Perils in Mandate Palestine

ABSTRACT This article explores the gender dynamics behind the rise of kerosene – an oil derivative – as the main domestic fuel in Mandate Palestine. It argues that these dynamics were constitutive in determining who began to use oil, where and for what purposes, in turn demonstrating that women in Palestine were the promoters and targets of a campaign to introduce kerosene for cooking and laundry. Notions about gender roles attached to different domestic habits were tied to class and settler‐colonial hierarchies, resulting in a differential and unequal adoption of kerosene and the hazards its use entailed amongst Arab and Jewish women.