Apologetics about the role of women in Judaism

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In a Facebook discussion, someone brought up a 2012 post of Eliyahu Fink's entitled "Dear Chaya" and I was looking through the comments and I noticed a couple of mine that were worth reproducing here.

One commenter wrote:

"The statement of  'women are second class citizens' , is absolutely against a true Torah ideology!!  ... as Jews we believe that women and men each have the equal opportunity to fulfill our DIFFERENT potential, not better, but different and unique!"

My response was:

"...that's a modern apologetic that all of us have heard ad nauseum.. And every person who presents it acts as if it's some giant revelation that those of us critical of womens' roles in Orthodoxy must have never heard before. Yes, it's become the defensive party line, but that doesn't make it any less a manufactured apologetic... just because you are happy with your role in Orthodox Judaism doesn't mean that you speak for all women in Orthodox Judaism."

Later in the discussion another person wrote:

"I think the real issue is that everyone equates equality with sameness. You can be on the same 'level' as someone but be completely different, have different strengths, different weaknesses. Women are not allowed to testify because we are more compassionate and more likely to bend judgement in favor of compassion. That does not mean we are unequal, it means we are made differently. Today's society is so focused on everyone being the same, they forget that in reality people are different, and that's ok!"

My response to that comment:

"Sigh. That same apologetic again. Where have I heard the concept of separate but equal before? Hmmm. Oh, right, in the south under Jim Crow, black people had a different role to play from white people. To paraphrase your comment, that does not mean they were unequal, it means they were made differently. Today's society is so focused on everyone being the same, they forget that in reality people are different, and that's ok! So black people had a special role to play. Sitting in the back of the bus, not allowing them to drink from 'white' water fountains or enter 'white' restaurants was all part of respecting their higher plane."

Comments

  1. TuvJanuary 3, 2015 at 11:24 AM

    Good stuff. The apologetics of the kind you showed here are truly beneath the thinking Jew. The thinking anybody.

    Jewish apologetics are generally so beyond dumb, this is why the whole of OJ takes place in a closed community. G-d forbid emes should be on the table – or a variety of opinions. We are doomed. Sort of.

    Dumb f&^ks love apologetics. The dumber they are, the more they love them. By dumb I don’t mean low IQ necessarily, I mean just moronic. The turn on of fundamentalism is that every dumb yoked steroid jack off is a mounting erection in the face of stupid, facile, self serving, stuff of legend shit.

    The rabbis would have it no other way, or so it seems.

    ReplyDelete

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