November 26, 2019 - Cheshvan 28, 5780
Frum Feminism
Supposed I said the following:
Never send a woman do to a man’s job.
The immediate gut reaction is to cringe at the sheer chauvinism needed to utter such a thing. This statement implies that a woman is incapable of performing a job designed for a man, indicating her essential inferiority. I would tend to agree that at least in certain cases such a statement may in fact indicate that sentiment.
Therefore, reversing the nouns in this statement should in theory end up with the reverse idea that men are less capable than women:
Never send a man to do a woman’s job.
The strange and unintended effect of the statement above, however, is quite unexpectedly the opposite. Instead of reversing the sentiment indicated in the first statement as expected, it is interpreted as well as expressing the equally chauvinistic concept that a woman is restricted into pre-defined tasks or careers.
In other words, saying “a man’s job” exists indicates womens’ general inferiority, but saying “a woman’s job” exists indicates womens’ being restricted into certain molds. You lose either way you cut it. It isn’t the syntax or grammar of the above sentence that forces this misinterpretation, but rather our pre-conditioned sensitivities to any subtleties that seem to imply sexism. It operates sort of like a heat-seeking device designed to search and identify any elements of chauvinism, even ignoring the general context of in which a statement is made.
Herein lies the interesting double-standard that seems to underline this dilemma that we find ourselves in. The modern expression of feminism is not about ensuring womens’ rights, suffrage, equal access to the workplace, equal pay for doing the same jobs, or freedom from sexual harassment. Today’s manifestation of feminism is almost purely ideological in character, seeking to establish the superiority of women while emasculating men. In its worst form it regards men as petty, miserable, useless, and gross. It is a gut reaction and hypersensitivity to even the most subtle indication that women need men in any way, shape, or form and sees it as a sacrilege.
The Effect on Religion
Suffice it to say that while this will certainly exact its toll on the already-suffering institution of marriage, it poses additional issues from the perspective of religiosity. Certain modern concepts of equality are supported by the traditional Torah perspective of Jewish living. In short, if something does not outright violate either the letter or spirit of Torah precepts, I imagine that there is room to consider it completely acceptable or even noble. The issue begins when a conflict arises between Torah values and modern values.
But without even mentioning feminism yet, it is noteworthy that the very Torah lifestyle is prescriptive and restrictive in nature, which is true whether the adherent is a man or a woman. Both men and women who are observant find themselves with obligations that they may feel contradict their personal desires in a number of ways. A Jewish man is required to wake up every morning for the rest of his life to pray with a
minyan. While he’s at work (if he works) he is required to drop everything in the middle of the day and
daven Mincha. When he gets home from work, when he may be tired and seeking the security of his family and home, is required to once again leave his safe circle and
daven Ma’ariv. Even on Friday mornings, which in Israel is not customarily a work day, on the only day that he is not susceptible to the daily run-of-the-mill and he can theoretically sleep in, he is required to wake up in the morning as on any other day. In most cases it is ideal or even obligatory for him not to eat until he returns from the prayer service, which can take up to an hour. If he is a working man, he may pray on the train and then hurriedly eat a small breakfast at work before starting his day.
Temporarily setting aside other requirements placed upon a religious man, it is clear that the scenario described above may prove difficult for many a man. However, while one may certainly perceive this as a conflict between Torah and modern values, we do not imagine that he has any right to reject it on the grounds that it simply doesn’t suit him. Many men struggle and fail repeatedly in this area, which is nevertheless entirely different than casting it off due to inconvenience or to some imagined concept of entitlement or immunity from it.
We can understand a religious woman’s struggle in light of the description above. A Jewish woman has her own set of day-to-day difficulties, many in response to obligations placed upon her either by
Halacha or
Minhag. I have heard several married Jewish women speak of the difficulties and discomfort of keeping their hair covered at all times in public and of abiding by regulations of modest attire. Their arguments are often not frivolous or trivial, but express a genuine difficulty from either a practical or ideological perspective, or both. I can empathize because I myself have my own issues with certain obligations that I have.
Ideological Struggle
The issue begins when we add the fire of ideological motivation into the equation. I have heard several feministically-inclined religious women express their revulsion that a man has the nerve to dictate the
Halacha for them. When a woman assumes that she is free from
Halachic obligations only on the grounds that the people who legislate
Halacha are men, she is in fact simply saying that she does not care what the
Halacha says. It is no different whether I as a man reject
Halacha or whether a woman does. I can certainly make the case that the rabbi’s cannot fully comprehend or appreciate the difficulties that I experience as a working, religious man. It makes no difference that we are the same sex, because aside from that similarity our lifestyles are completely different. In fact, many men who struggle with their observance to the point where they discard it often make this very argument –
the goals of Judaism do not line up with my own. In religious circles we have a term for that, it’s called “going off the derech”.
Could we imagine, for a moment, if the shoe was on the other foot? Could we imagine a parallel universe in which women were the rabbi's, and a women gave me a
psak to daven three times a day and that women are only required to
daven once a day? Would I have the right, or would it be sensible for me, to disqualify her
psak on the grounds that she was a woman? If women were the leading religious authorities, then their gender is completely irrelevant to the power vested in them to generate
Halachic legislation.
A married Jewish man expects his wife to be committed as he is to a lifestyle that they have each chosen, just as a married Jewish woman expects from her husband. It cannot work if one commits to this lifestyle while the other does not.
At the end of the day one must make a choice, whether man or woman, of whether to find the best optimal solution in light of a lifestyle that comes with obligations, knowing full well that part of the territory is occasional failure, or to simply reject that lifestyle.
