Seculars, stop excluding women
Op-ed: Before lashing out at haredi sector, seculars should tackle chauvinism in their own society – in army, government, television and beauty pageants.
These women claim that even when they did get the chance to write columns on political issues, they were required to conceal their identity and adopt a male pseudonym.
Why don't haredi woman even exist in society's public domain, and even more so – why don't they reach key and influential positions? Is it indeed only a question of "modesty," an expression of "kol kevuda bat melech penima" ("the glory of a king's daughter is within")? The answer appears to be a bit deeper than the automatic secular interpretation.
The haredi society of the past few decades directs men to study Torah as a way of life and as a supreme value – and the women have volunteered to assist in this "national" project. At the Beit Yaakov educational institutions for girls, teachers instill in their students the ideal that marrying a scholar is a great mitzvah and privilege.
The man's moral, religious duty to support his wife had been reversed – and the wife is now the house's breadwinner. The rationale behind this arrangement is simple: The man promises to dedicate his days to Torah studies, and the woman – to bear the brunt of livelihood. The spiritual reward from the studies is divided between the two of them.
Where are women news anchors over 40?
The man, a scholar specializing in the Torah discipline, stands therefore at the top of the pyramid, and only then comes the woman who assists him. She will not decide on public issues, will not find herself in key positions, and even the management of seminaries for girls will always be headed by a man. The female principal will be at his side as his subordinate.
There's no need to mention that the women themselves accept the male hegemony and really and truly believe that a rabbi who studied Torah and reached the status of a "scholar" has higher judgment abilities than they do – as intellectual as they may be.
And this is where the (feminist) daughter asks: Why are you accepting this male paternalism and patriarchalism? Why are women considered second class? Are they inferior to the man and are only meant to serve his needs?
But the picture which emerges from the media-institutional domain in the secular world is in almost complete adequacy with the haredi world. The presenter of the evening news, for example, will always be an attractive woman whose age does not exceed 40, God forbid, and whose main specialty is reading accurately and quickly from a teleprompter. Where have the 40, 50 and 60-year-old good-looking news anchors disappeared to? Not to Mea Shearim.
The important and influential programs will always have mostly men on them – with one woman attempting to create a ridiculous artificial balance.
Chauvinistic social order
And what about the institutions where the real things are taking place? The army is a male-chauvinistic body where female soldiers serve as clerks with a low military rank, and the dirty and repulsive jokes at their expense are heard by every soldier on his very first year.
In the Supreme Court womanhood hardly exists, and in the government – can anyone remember when a woman last served as prime minister or defense minister here?
There is no shortage of examples of secular patriarchal male domination. In the Department of Gender Studies in every university, female faculty members will gladly present a picture of a distorted, chauvinistic and repulsive social order – like the objectification of the woman's body in permissive commercials, or the famous primitive ritual known as the Miss Israel Beauty Pageant, which is broadcast live on television.
So dear seculars – and mainly secular women: Yes, there is a lot to improve in the haredi society in terms of women's status, and we, the sector's young members, have an obligation to create a change. But before lashing out at us, why don't you start by taking care of your status at home.
