Again with Orthodoxy and Feminism

My favorite room on campus and where I spend many hours a week, is also the one that I sometimes feel that I least belong in. I walk into what sometimes feels like a sea of knee-length skirts and high necklines in my jeans; and I study academic books that engage in the textual criticism of the text while the women around me glean wisdom through the traditional study of it. Yet, a women’s beit midrash is something we did not have on campus even a few years ago, and a number of years before that we did not have them at all. And so as an act of solidarity with the Feminist spirit that established this space, I prefer it to the Judaics library that my fellow students favor. (Although, if truth be told, people like me who have attention deficits often cannot stand the sterile silence of a library, and besides, the beit midrash is always warmer.) And all this was my way of introducing why I often eavesdrop on conversations that are neither meant to include me nor apply to my life and the way I choose to live it.

One day I was sitting in the beit midrash within earshot of a frum young woman with a diamond displayed prominently on the ever so promising finger of matrimony was animatedly talking to a Rabbi. She said that as happy as she was to be getting married, she simply could not get past the phrasing of the Mishna that describes the beautiful ceremony she was about to experience, “The woman is acquired…” After reading both books that dealt with the law and the philosophy of marriage she was turning to her Rabbi in the hopes that he would make her feel less like chattel.

I knew what I would tell her.

First, I would say, you should read Judith Romney Wegner’s “Chattelor Person?” in which she claims that the Mishna displays some tension in its treatment of women – at times they are seen as objects and at others they are seen as people. When it comes to marriage, the woman – specifically her sexuality and reproductive capabilities – are seen as a commodity that is sold to her husband. Only once a woman is married does she acquire legal obligations and rights; but the unwed virgin has no personhood in the eyes of the Mishna. Then I would tell her that if she reads Simone De Beauvoir’s critique of marriage in “Second Sex” in which she suggests that the institution of marriage is linked to the desire of man to achieve immortality through his children, and that the only way to insure that his offspring remain his and that they are in fact biologically linked to him was to possess the bearer of said children. And to round it out, I would suggest that she watch Merav Michaeli’s persuasive TED speech in which she calls for the cancellation of marriage because it only further enables the patriarchal subjugation and domination of women.

All in all, I would tell her that many people find tremendous love and companionship and meaning through their marriages. And I would tell her that marriage does not have to be an oppressive institution, it can be egalitarian and enabling.  But, on the other hand, it is important to be aware that those who phrased the Mishna as they did, “The woman is acquired,” were describing a different kind of marriage altogether. They were codifying the law in an androcentric world and they were quite simply wrong.

In case you were wondering, that is not how the Rabbi responded.

We are all familiar with the Apologists and Revisionists in the world of Orthodox Feminism who attempt to explain away the differences between men and women in the eyes of halakha. But, sitting there in that Bet Midrash listening to this Rabbi twist the text to suit his student’s modern sensibilities, I wondered if perhaps it was not time to be honest about how we got here

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On the heels of this incident a friend of mine sent me a video that was published on the Forward website about the JOFA conference. I have a lot to say about JOFA, but there were a number of things that I had never really thought about that struck me as I was watching this video. First it was that women were for the most part dressed in accordance with the laws of tzniut, something which I view as sexist by design and incredibly problematic as a product of patriarchal and androcentric legislation of women's bodies. Then, Dassi Fruchter (a second year Maharat student who has featured on this blog before) began talking about “feminine energy” and “masculine energy” which really reflects a fairly outdated form of Difference Feminsim which has all but made way for third wave Feminists who tend to view gender as a social construct. And, of course, the clear lack of Queer presence at the conference (exactly TWO sessions dealt with LGBTQ issues) which is pretty unexpected in a conference devoted to Gender. All in all I was left with a feeling that I was watching a stale relic of Feminism as opposed to something that reflects me and my secular Feminism. For the sake of clarity I will reiterate that I am a huge fan of JOFA and the amazing work that they do, and that if it were not for women like Blu Greenberg and Tamar Ross I probably would not have survived High School and definitely would not have survived seminary. It’s just that, from what I can see, the Orthodox Feminist rhetoric really does not seem to have developed much over the years.

But more to the point at hand, there were two people who were featured on the video who really spoke to what has been bothering me. The first was Ari Hart from HIR who said, “My understanding of Orthodoxy is that it is not egalitarian, but there are tremendous roles that women can and should be playing in the community…” The second was a blogger named Talia Weisberg who said, “We can’t fit halakha into Feminism, we have to fit Feminism into halakha.” To me that was validation that there is a clash between two values here with Feminism on the one hand and halakha on the other. Or, as Rachel Adler put it in a life changing article that I constantly quote, "All of this can be quickly rectified if one steps outside of Jewish tradition and halakha." By definition, the codification of law by men in an androcentric and patriarchal society does not readily invite the liberal and egalitarian values of Feminism, and therefore one must be tweaked in favor of the other. Which is fine. Everyone is free to choose whichever suits them, but I think it is high time that people admit that the clash exists.