Jewish Feminism

י"א לחודש העשירי תשע"ג

Yet another set of clever aphorisms was making its way around facebook.  I just had to comment on one of them.

"Feminist until you get married..."

-The Hypocrite Diaries

A vast number of feminists are hypocrites, not all of them, but a vast number.

One of those non-hypocrites suggested the following:

"Lesbianism is the highest form of feminism. Anyone who claims otherwise is a fake.

'Political lesbians' are fakes.

Any 'feminist' who tells you that any form of heterosexual sex is 'oppressive,' tell her that she's wrong. It's rape."

My friend's sarcasm here was to emphasize the existence of hypocrisy amongst feminists.

So called "Modern Orthodox" feminists, both women, and, yes MEN, are simply doing what they want, and calling it Judaism.

You shout about how mutar (permissible) this is, or that is. It's irrelevant.

You do not seem to care about the big picture, just about what you want to do, and how best to force it down everyone's throats.

You are blind to your own gaivah (pride), and the men who surround you, who are unable to differentiate between Western values and sensibilities and Jewish ones, are your enablers.

I say "shout," of course, because, after all...

"Women are allowed to overcompensate for the aggression they have incurred over the millennia from the 'oppressive, patriarchal hierarchy.' Thus, a man who calmly and respectfully expresses his disagreement with a woman is, in fact, attempting to marginalize her and silence her,...or worse. He could be condescending to her. Whereas, a woman who appears to be shouting at a man in order to express herself is not actually being aggressive. Rather, she is asserting herself." 

This is the mentality of the feminist: Justifiable double standards.

Additional, classic examples include...

"HaZa"L* OBVIOUSLY edited out, if not destroyed, most of the women's voices from our Oral Tradition, in order to maintain the status quo of women's bondage.  A woman having to cover her hair after she is married, or to cover her body in the manner which men dictate to her are additional ways men keep woman down at a level lower than them.  Men proclaiming that women are on a higher spiritual level than they are, is just a clever strategy to keep them Torah-illiterate and ignorant."

Yes, Iam beign sarcastic again.  But, yes, I have also actually heard statements made just like these.  Assuming such statements are made by knowledgeable, Jewish women, they are nothing less than apikourusth (severe distortions of the Torah), if not kefirath Torah sheb'al Peh, a denial of the sanctity and authority of the Oral Torah, and its bearers.

We have many problems within the Jewish world, and in [what people think is] Judaism itself, men bearing much of the responsibility.  But, on the woman's side, her insistence on asserting Western "rights" to do everything that a man does, anything that she wants, is the antithesis of the humility of a Bath-Yisra'el.

Whether she can or cannot do this or that, is hardly the point.  When she gets all of her obligatory misswoth down, only THEN let her worry misswoth for which she is not obligated, such as Torah study, even more so, .

I was once overheard critizing the use of the word "seminary" to call women's religious schools.  I was asked, "Well, then what should we call them?"

My response?

"Kitchens."

When the horror in the faces of those observing this discussion eventually faded, I explained that the kitchen was where girls and young women learned all of the Torah and misswoth they needed to learn: Kashruth, Shabbath, how to relate to fellow Jews, or to non-Jews, and upon getting married, Taharath HaMishpahah (Family Purity).

Of course, I realize the "reality on the ground."  We must meet the danger of assimilation, and the challenge of bringing our brothers and sister back to Torah, head on.  And that includes the establishment of educational institutions which Jews growing up in the West are used to.  That includes providing men AND women with the understanding behind the misswoth which the Torah obligates us.  And, yes, that may necessitate in depth study of texts with commentators, such as RaSh"I,...I suppose.  I get that.  But, let us not fool ourselves into believing that such strategies are the end goals, and not simply the means to an end.

The oxymoron of a "women's minyan," the incredibly overused term "Rebbetzin," which has been taken hostage, and transformed into a new incarnation of a title by the Modern Orthodox, and even [English-speaking] Litvish communities, and the various, non-Jewish concepts being taught in the so-called "sems" are only a few examples of the part women have taken in preventing the progress of Ge'ulah (final redemption).

But when confronted with that old cliche, "Modernity and influences from Western culture are our reality," my response is always the same:

"We are here on this earth to do what HaShem wants, not what we want.  We are here to make Torah our reality, and "not simply accept whatever is thrown at us as the necessary reality of the world."

If the adjective "Jewish" is equated with "based in Torah," as I do, and as it should be, then there isn't anything in the least bit Jewish about feminism.

Thus, Jewish feminists do not really exist.

*********

*HaZa"L = Our Sages, May Their Memories be for Blessings