How many times have you opened a newspaper or magazine and seen ads for a dinner honoring "Mr. and Mrs. So and So" with a picture of a very happy smiling man? Last I checked, a couple included a man and his wife.
I understand that the world we live in keeps women out of the spotlight, but then don't honor couples. Don't have a video presentation where only one half of the "ticket" gets to speak or be shown. For that matter, don't honor any women teachers, because then there are no video tributes apparently possible. Well, that's not true. If she teaches girls under fourth grade they could video tape them talking about what a great teacher she is, and of course her male bosses, and her husband. You know, the guy who will accept the award for her.
Yeah, yeah, let's all wring our hands at the scourge of frum men, who obviously NEVER leave their houses, being subjected to unclean images in their homes (see: newwpapers/magazines above) or at a dinner, when they know going in who the honorees are.
It's something we shake our heads at and wonder what the world is coming to in a tsk, tsk way, but truthfully it's a really big deal.
We are raising a generation of women who are growing up in a culture that so diminishes them, and then ties it to religion. How do you argue with religion? what's WRONG with you? So what's the end game, in this culture that the boys are growing up in too? Do we end up with girls who don't understand that marriage is an equal partnership, and are unable to communicate their needs and wants to their husbands because they've been brought up in a society that seems to relegate them to secondary status? How can we expect more from young husbands who have been taught throughout society that women are "the other?"
I was sitting at a party the other day, and a woman from a town in NJ was talking about all the snow they had one weekend, and how she was trying to walk through huge tractor tire treads, but every time she saw a man approaching she had to move off the treads into the 20 inches of snow. Ummmm...this woman is shorter than me. Why would she not think for a minute to let the MAN let HER pass? Most men are taller than five feet (this woman is not, as I mentioned, she's shorter than me), 20 inches of snow would come up a lot lower than on a woman in a skirt.
I'm sure many of you have heard me tell the story of my niece's eighth grade graduation. There was a guest speaker who stood up and told over the story of R' Akiva and his wife Rachel. What better message for girls about to embark on a tough road to high school, and the road to real adulthood, then to tell them they have no mitzvah of limud torah, but if they want a piece of it they don't need to wait until their husbands are learning and they are facilitating it. No, they should "have a plate of cookies waiting for your brothers when they get home from Yeshiva. Better yet, bake them cookies."
Nothing about ways to better serve God on their own, and nothing about how to better connect through prayer, and the beautiful Mitzvos that women ARE obligated in. No we focused on how to have religion by proxy. How to subjugate yourself for someone else, because we all know that that is the best way to serve God.
A society that both diminishes women and then expects the world of them at the same time. It makes no sense. What does make sense is that God is true and just, those who have co opted his "P.R.," so to speak, are miles away.
3 comments:
Wow, FBB, I didn't know you were such a liberal!
Excellent post! I could not have said it better.
The question remains: How do we correct the trend. Everyone actually complains about the extreme examples that you write about, but then they dismiss it as though it will go away by itself.
It will go away, but we won't like the reaction that will cause it to go away.
I was just thinking this same thing when I got an invite in the mail to a dinner honoring couples with only the man in the picture. Either don't use pictures or don't honor couples.!!
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