It is so sad really that because in part of my own stupidity about the real world and its intersection with Orthodox Land, and in part of the fact that I’m female, I’m basically trying to be on the run from the Valley of the Dolls. Anywhere but that. I feel like if I stayed too closely I’ll forever be the object; I get told really shocking things all the time. I was surprised that I commented this back to my mother, but I really don’t tell her anything because I don’t want people to know that I’m hiding as much as Shalom Auslander, of the Foreskin’s Lament, did at the same age. I’m not out to destroy careers here. I could potentially destroy my own. I’ve though about setting up a seperate blog to discuss this scathingly, but I can’t get around Disqus and me being ShanaC. Sexuality is one of those things…Particularly women’s…
Young people IMO tend to be a bit silly/stupid. Being one of course 
Some of this involves my own mistakes growing up. I’m sure we all have some. Beware of ranting below. A lot of ranting. I’m infuriated, and I’ve been keeping secrets. I’m still keeping secrets. I’m trying to write this in such a way without exposing everyone and hurting myself in the process. I hate so many little things. Little oppressive things. They’re endemic to where I come from. It’s not me whose saying it anymore. I’m just so angry and so beaten down and shocked and horrified, that I don’t want to be there anymore. It hurts too much. But I love little things about community. AVC gave me parts of it, I’m slowly discovering parts of it in a late college bloom, and probably will discover more as I get older. It will put huge distance from where I grew up, which for me, was a Valley of the Dolls.
Note: I’m really ranting. There are definitely more positive ranters. Like Aliza Hausman. I just snapped one night. And started crying, because I don’t know what to do. I don’t think anyone knows fully. FYI, in case you are curious, this is how you can see the full effects of the internet on my life: I learned a huge amount about being Jewish from the internet, including some of its more radical states, as well as learned that I don’t have to tolerate the status quo, or that I have to keep the identity that I grew up with. The ability for me to both passively and actively interact with so many different kinds of people, both Jewish and not Jewish, probably has radically altered the Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jewish community. People like me should not exist, the internet caused them. So below is probably an intriguing document of that fact, because of the sheer amount of linkage to material about this rant, and that is only a surface gloss for a long rant…In the abstract, it might be intriguing about how interaction on the internet can in fact change societies and individuals. We’ll see how it plays out.
If you feel like skipping this, that’s ok. The entire post is close over 5000 words, so I’m really lost in emotion here. No one will blame you. I’ve kept this inside for a while, and below is kind of long rant. This is probably healthy, no one should keep all of this inside for so long…and this probably about half of what I am thinking too…Screwed up people.
I locked up my anger so deep I don’t know what to do though. Today, I was trying to convince someone for the umpteenth time over the past two years that no, I’m not going on a date with him- we’re both products of the Orthodox establishment, though I guess at this point I’m a heterodox (Which by definition means I need the Orthodox community to define myself, anti and all that Jazz, I have some deep love for y’all) He won’t take no. Women don’t tend to be aggressive where I’m from. Aggressive women are a product of second wave feminism and beyond. Parts of second wave feminism are only now starting to hit where I grew up. While at the same time back-lashing. So you can be learned, but get locked in a kitchen. And only now are starting to get out, but only on the guys terms which are sort of specific and weird, while they argue about your role. For the average lay person who would be active, because community and religion and ethnic background are somewhat important, I’m sickened. I’m sitting there, past them, third wave feminist or post-feminist if anything;I’m even worried about Men’s Choice and gendering of men.
Where I come from these sorts of issues has yet to fully blossom, the ceiling is getting lower to shatter, because of moves from the righter wings of orthodox Judaism. I’m officially banned from the highest levels of non-rabbinic power in my parents synagogue as of a few years ago (I can’t be elected president of the board because I’m female). My voice is beautiful, and the radicals of the community put out an argument in the early 00s that women should be able to lead the sections that men are not obligated to- that’s been banned by the largest organization of Orthodox Synagogues in the US. They’ve also banned the support of women meeting privately to do their own thing, especially if it involves actual readings from a Torah. Oh and we have fake women rabbis, as of this year, (she’s real when beyond the exams, she’s accepted into the community, and that’s not happening) and that is extremely controversial, and she’ll never get any higher: She can’t sit on a Jewish court of law, the halls of power for conversion, technical issues of marriage, and of divorce, because no one would dare give her Yadin Yadin Semicha. She is basically barred from making any really binding decision, because like all women, she cannot be a witness under most circumstances. So what’s the point? Just like me, forever locked out: And those in power will never notice, unless there is a huge push otherwise. And every time….someone dislikes us.
I watch my friends get up and go socialize in kitchens over babies, clothing, and food, while the guys sit down and talk about work and the economy at the table during long Shabbos meals. I never belonged in that mess. I’m not so radical that I don’t understand why taking away male spaces of power isn’t important, and that there needs to be spaces for guys to be guys (in fact because I raised in such an environment, I think it is really important to teach the power of masculinity) But right now my life is totally screwed up from it. I don’t have a place to be female and wanted. That hurts.
I don’t have choice, my choices are being argued out by people who don’t even care about the general behavior of those around them. Even better, they don’t have a clue when they make such a choice, because they are the perpetrators of actions that make this system endemic, and hurt the women involved.
I was being asked on a date today by someone on Facebook IM. He’s been asking on and off for over two years. I said yes once, and got stood up. Even though I shouldn’t have. This is a guy that still won’t take no.. And still isn’t. This behavior is condoned. Theoretically there are more good women than men in the community, even if only barely affiliated, so I should take what I can get.
Today He insisted that he won’t take no. And the only way I’ve been managing to avoid is by not giving away when I am in New York and what I’m doing. And that the 18th century version of him would have gone pshhh to my letters, and essentially ride off with me. Clearly he’s not reading manner guides of the period. Or even about say the behavior of the women and men from Pride and Prejudice, where if you read closely, their always watched over by the old ladies of the community. he wouldn’t have a hair on my head. Today, he can leer, partially because of the Internet and other forms of media have allowed secular barriers to leak through in bad ways, and I have become an object. On top of that, the communal resources that would have said no are in utter terror of utter stupidity, of looking bad mostly. (That’s barely getting cleaned up, mostly because of that article. The furor surrounding that…and it was because men were raped not women. Yes the modern Orthodox community has this problem. Baruch Lanner, CF the last link, was raping girls from communities similar to the one I grew up in.) There is no one central source of what it means to be Jewish, so Authenticity issues are always in question, for silly reasons (see what I managed to pull out of Zemanta, elevators, they’ll lock people on upper floors…). You end up with some really bad issues.
I dislike it. I’m not Madame spunky ethereal who you must have a conversation with because she can hold one about something, and therefore you must chase. Just because communication is efficient, doesn’t mean you should be communicating. It took three years to figure out this one (Thank you AVC.com, you gave me some power back in my life…)
Constantly being treated in this lightly second class way is frightening, when the system I’m from helps impose it on you. I’m not even sure why its frightening, but it is. I’m being told instantaneously that my desires are not important. The only way out is to block someone via the same digital means. And that is a weakness of the system, that there are no alternatives because the barrier is so low to prevent someone from doing this to me.
And its really endemic behaviorally where I’m from. The system is really screwed up. There have been books written about the subject already. Cellphones and computers are everywhere, even in the places, like my cousin’s house, where they may or may not be banned. So communication and the way to get around rules have become easy. You can pretend to hold by whatever religious opinion, and sneak away to something else. I hated myself for doing this. A lot of people are too afraid to just accept people for who they are, and to just give them the help they need for the opinion they agree or disagree in. Religion and ethnicity, especially in the Jewish world where I am from, will be in flux throughout your life. That’s life. To force people in a box is a strange idea. But that’s how I grew up. I need a box apparently. It would be much easier to accept people along the way and help them into the religion if they want to be there, rather than specifying a box…
Technically everyone is supposed to stay innocent and sweet until marriage. I doubt my friend Josh Yuter, (or Rabbi Yuter 2.0*) who really is a wonderful nice guy and a great rabbi at a great welcoming synagogue in New York City’s Lower East Side (Go Josh!! Go Stanton Street Shul!!), would really be totally innocent at 31?. And while I don’t speculate on his private behavior, because he is a nice guy who has been a friend and mentor for a good chunk of my life, I really can’t say he’s innocent at age 31 (This is on various assumptions about lives and how people live. Though I do know 31 year olds who are more innocent than most. Even still…
(He’s a mensch, and is one of the few people who will ever mention Claude Levi-Strauss and Spaceballs in a Shabbos Speech. Plus he is a coder who cares about his flock of shul goers. You should go to his synagogue, it’s like the Orthodox Version of Fred Wilson Family’s Synagogue, The New Shul, down to the fact that Josh is also a Clal Fellow, much like their former Rabbi. Weird, though I knew Josh before he got the rabbinic posting and the clothes to go with it 
, which is why I get to call him Josh. )
I do expect people to be menschlict. I expect not to be made fun of for my political beliefs, (though polite questions are welcome, emphasis on polite). I expect not to be expected during a meal to hang out in a kitchen with a bunch of women and talk about babies or clothing or food, though I happen to like clothing and babies, and do frequent blogs and whatnot that talk about clothing and food (at least). I expect not to be maligned for being more liberal than a good chunk of where I come from, or for hanging out with my non-Jewish friends who like the art world and their crazy movies, or the ones who do comp sci and like bashing around with code.
I primarily expect to be treated like a person when you meet me first: Not a piece of meat to see how your babies are going to turn out, or how well I am going to impress your male friends from the community/your office (Your office if it happens to be a high profile bank or law firm type, quite a lot because I can make conversation about contemporary art and interesting books and the economy and fashion and food, I’ve been well trained for that situation. The synagogue, they’ll hate me, but think you’re damn lucky to get a hot person in bed, and I’ll hate them for objectifying me with the gaze.)
Treating me like an object is not menschlicht. Knowing Orthodox rabbinical students who are uhh grinding with supposedly nice Jewish girls on the dance floor: Also not Menschlicht. Knowing an Orthodox Rabbinical Student is sleeping with many people, and how he is getting them into bed (It starts with an A and ends with an L): Also not Menschlict. It signifies that there is an abuse of power going on. And that when other issues pop up (like umm, the fact than in a religious Orthodox marriage, I have no recourse in a divorce, a man must give it to me, but I cannot give one), these are people I must rely on for decisions is terrifying. They already do not treat their women counterparts with respect when it comes to sexuality. I’ve been banned from purity rituals because I’m tempting as a single woman?, yet they’ll treat me badly anyway!
They also don’t seem to be taking their own sexuality, among other issues, with some sense of gravitas. I’m just disgusted, shocked and horrified. How can I rely on them? They barely seem engaged with who they are, and their position. I’m more engaged with it than they are. I don’t care how many sources you know (at this point you can use CDs to look it, you just need textual fluency to be able to read and to ask the right questions), I ask that you maintain sensitivity to a real world. That seems to be lost to a sense of self pleasure, including not. The best line I’ve ever heard from a rabbinical student (paraphrased) “I don’t worry about raising money- it is not effective to ask my congregation- I’ll just ask the richest guy” It’s out of touch, and symbolizes that not only are they not engaged with some of the more basic elements of Jewish thought, they also risk leveraging and pissing off wealthy donors. (Don’t believe me, believe the Gotham Gal… The guy who gives $5 now could end up being wealthy later. And sometimes a large base of support is what keeps you going in lean times. It’s how the top tier schools keep their endowments huge, by asking their entire classes to give a gift from the start, and then asking every year, even if it is only $5. You never know.)
Further, due to some other random issues in my life, I’ve actually tried to approach major leadership in the past to engage in dialogue. And while I can’t say I’m the best at keeping my email under control (I’m horrible), they’re even worse. Authority literally seems out to centralize its powerbase by keeping them uneducated, otr educated only in a certain way so that they behave closely alligned to the establishement, because when I came, I had looked up a bunch of sources already (This makes me strange where I come from….). That should be something celebrated. Someone actually interested and curious. Being ignored is hard when you approach in full faith and earnestness.
What should I do? Hide? Basically it means I only trust Josh Yuter. And you can’t only trust one rabbi in an establishment.
Think about the dichotomy!! Meanwhile, on some level, I reguarly get treated like an object by the rest of the community because the leadership is clearly condoning it, so now it is considered normal behavior. I’ve been told by women my own age that my goal should be pleasing a guy, especially in bed. All about him.
Hi, do I exist? Should I? Or should I dissapear into the background into some pretty clothing as an object on your arm? That’s a little too much even for me. While I think a relationship is important, and making the guy happy and supported is important, most empircal evidence shows the opposite!!! My influence on a male is more important than his on me. (Thank you Dr. John Gottman.) This backwards approach will lead to gendered distances and seperate communicationn spheres, where it is not so clear why I’d be married to said person. It’s even starting to show up in the Orthodox community, where there seems to be ancedotal evidence of both a rise in divorces and a rise in cheating spouses.
Locking me into a gender role, and then taking advantage of the fact that I am tall, thin, leggy and 23, and make a mean kale and bean soup to impress your friends is not a marriage, a relationship, an anything. It’s a way to lock me up and throw away the key crying as a brown curly haired barbie doll. And I feel like I’ve been running from that for a while. It’s not helping. And I’m trying to figure out what will.
I don’t like knowing that some girl got an abortion while in Stern/YU official description here (not that girl though, she’s more on the innocent side, having met her in person). WTF. I don’t like knowing someone from YU, (totally different) was cheating on his girlfriend with someone in Europe on a Vacation. WTF. I don’t like the fact that there are nicknames for my area that are totally inappropriate, because the women got married too young and now there are rumors of bad sexual things happening. WTF. Get a Divorce, and stop marrying as children, and then having children and being bored because your parents are supporting your wife while you figure out what to do. WTF are you doing until then? WTF WTF WTF. Stop locking people like me up into these horrid roles. Let me go.
I am still not fully normal the way other girls my own age are because I’m told that my body is in some way shameful except in marriage under certain circumstances, and that guys will only look at my body (The mp3 in the last link has a Rabbi in a popular class going about how women are slightly silly because they get more emotionally tied from a very famous Gemara quote and has him going on a couple of time saying “Men are animals.” Yes I really grew up hearing messages like that.). I don’t know how to treat people as a result. It took me drawing nudes to totally appreciate people as people. It was so hard. And I hated parts of that, because it was so hard. And now I am obsessed with people and the body and all sorts of things I missed out on. And I’m obsessed with how the message gets passed on, since it is so much easier with the internet.
As a result, I have to say the following:
If you are going to get them into bed woman or man, please be in a normal relationship, and stop dancing around the issue of what we all call Shomer Negiah, (Some more links) or the fact that technically none of us are not supposed to touch each other. Also stop dancing around the gay/lesbian issue. None of the real world where you live outside of religious land, in these big cities, tend to care. I know its awkward, and that the most religious in the community will hate you for admiting normalcy. I just want to treat you as normal. I recognize you as a sexual being, and also as a person. And I know its frustrating to find the balance so we all can get married and move along in life, but the behavior now normal is unacceptable.
In the interim:
This blog about the dating process is abnormal. It leads to abnormal behavior because she is an object. She’s being tested to see if she looks alright, behaves alright, cooks alright, and says the right thing. And it filters down to anyone connected to the community.
It creates situations that are equally abnormal such as the following, if you are raped, you can’t let anyone know, lest someone not let you marry someone suitable for you, because you’ll be blacklisted as something wrong with you. Same thing as having an abusive boyfriend. (Had to deal with rape issue one night for a friend’s friend, had to find crisis hotlines that dealt with issue. A different friend of mine is the last remaining friend in I think an entire synagogue of over 500 people after a girl put a restraining order on her ex who was beating her up: The community blamed her for stirring the pot.)
Look up the sources involving Shomer negiah, Damn Jewish people, including the Yerushalmi Talmud, for some honest conversations about the subject. Stop sounding pretentious when you hide the fact that you are having sex or not having sex with so many people, often without a condom, and then claiming in public, especially while in positions of authority, that you are in fact mostly or probably shomer negiah. You turned the women in your life into objects, into toys. We now rely on you. It makes life confusing for the rest of us looking on trying to figure out what is what. It also hurts because some of us have to figure out what it means when you approach me. I’m sorry, that’s wrong. You are morally culpable for hurting people along the way who get caught in your undertow.
You’ve taught me to be scared: Maybe you will eat me and my reputation alive by calling me a whore for having sexuality outside of your defined boundary of cute married women in your kitchen. Why? A short skirt with a long sleeved shirt is wrong. I’m wrong even when I am dressed right, all covered up. I’m still your object. I’m wrong for asking, for thinking, for wanting something more than my kitchen, my little job for spending money, and some children. I’m wrong for even wanting to have a body that I am proud of, and when I have one, suddenly I’m a slut. Stop that, now. I’m wrong for having desire that extends from the body, from the mind, from the spirit. These things are linked. Why do you own me in this way.
It makes life confusing because it means the definition of femininity is absolutely screwed up. I’ve lost control over my sense of being. That’s my spirit you own. Give it back. I’m completely defined by my smile (which is not often enough in the Jewish community, sadly, and I have been told I have a nice one). I have no idea what you all want from me. I don’t belong in a kitchen. I don’t belong trying to worry about getting married. At the most right now, I should worry about getting along with someone and finding common values and common behaviors.
Mostly I should worry about being Shana, who should worry about how to best make the world a better place, and get involved with tech and art because that is what I like (ok?). Stop judging me. And when you are not judging me, and then deciding to find me fascinating, can you stop trying to get laid for about five minutes to treat me as a person. I can make a decision afterwards, like a normal adult.
You’re all creepy until then. Go away. Really. Go away. Because I’m scared of going out and talking to you now. You all disgust me. And make me feel so alone, because I have to go running around deciding whether you can even be a friend. And that is the worst feeling in the world, because it means I don’t know if I can value you or me as a human being.
I hate it, I’m so angry. I’m so angry that I can’t believe I wrote this. There is something terribly wrong with me. Most people are never this angry ever. And I’m tired of being angry, it’s not healthy. So go away, unless you can make something better. Really. Go away. You are an embarrassment to your forefathers as a community, because if you read something like Chaim Grade or Isaac Batshevis Singer, someone like me never appears as an object hiding cutely behind a mechitza.
The worst part of all this watching, smiling, and not saying:
I really love being Jewish. It’s the third of my three passions in life (Art, the Internet, and being Jewish, in no particular order). I feel like I cannot in any way rely on the community I came from. To the point where even though I desperately want to educate my kids Jewishly on a very high level, higher than I was (if you are going to b e a heterodox, you better know a lot of stuff), I’m starting to have problems seeing myself with a Jewish guy long term. I don’t want my marriage based off just being Jewish. I want it based off common values, and the way I keep getting treated makes me want to walk away. This is despite being one of the few laypeople who sat down and read the National Jewish population Survey for both 1990 and 2000 and knowing the success of Jewish education and Jewish behavior of those children, and what causes them to behave Jewishly.
I want them to expereince a Friday night shabbas table with some of the songs I sing, or used to sing, before realizing how angry I was and that no one cared. Those are good things, things I adore and care about, and I don’t want to lose them to the mist. I want them to read a Jewish text more fluently than me. It’s so hard knowing this won’t happen, because if I can watch my counterparts treat me any which way and not enough people speak out, or barely speak out…it really hurts.
I realize that I admire the apparent blogging happiness of Fred Wilson’s and TheGothamGal’s marriage. I admire a lot of their values, not everything, but a lot. (It’s ok to diagree, and I am sure if they are normal, they have their disagreements too, and I am sure they find ways to work it out.) and I would be so much happier with that…I wish I knew how they handled what they are handling, since probably after reading this you realize I grew up with a certain set of cultural assumptions about my life that I seem to be bad at doing. I always assumed I would do and be certain things, and it is turning out that I am not…and I sort of wish I knew how other people handle other options, mostly because I don’t know what mine are. And that’s the scariest part of all.
/rant.
*sigh* This nows puts me in the same group as all the old school Yiddishists as an anti-establishment crazy woman. How else do you think those first unions started. It was those Jewish mom characters with a slightly radical conscious, and I seemed to have inherited that dollop of craziness from at least some of my family members. It doesn’t help that at least one of my names Lee, is after a woman who owned her own business, owned racehorses, and apparently liked to daytrade….I feel strange… *sigh* Thank You Great Aunt Lee, I have inherited parts of your unconscious behavior along with your name.
*In case your curious why Josh Yuter is called Rabbi Yuter 2.o, his father, Rabbi Alan Yuter, is also a very famous rabbi in his own right who broke from the Conservative Movement over Ordaining Women (I think). Josh is also a famous Jblogger, coder, and an up and coming Rabbi himself, having been quoted in a number of books, including one on some very technical points of Jewish law, and once recently by the Wall Street Journal. He gave his father the label on his blog Rabbi Yuter 1.0 when his father started to blog here. Which makes Josh Rabbi Yuter 2.0. This is what happens when you have a blogging and tweeting educated Orthodox Rabbi who is slightly anti-establishment in my own perception…
Just so you can see what started it:
Not that it was any of your concern:
I’m angry at some people in NY who are my age. They tend to be involved in the Rabbinical Student scene (at least one is a Rabbinical student), and they are basically passing women between them when they are out partying because they’ve read too much of the book “The Game”
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-S…
I’m angry because they essentially treat me like an object to look at. I’ve stopped talking to a number of people because of it. It’s lonely and isolating, because at the same time, I’m keeping secrets that there are a cabal of rabbinical students that are out partying and getting women drunk to sleep with them.
I’m angry enough to kill them because when there are actual issues, then they crack up and give no real respect for the situation. It’s like pre-1968. I stopped talking to them. I’m just smarter than to name names. Not everything is about you.
Sometimes its really about where do I fit in with people my own age.
One last thing: When you tell me at bridal showers to not ask questions, and to just accept what’s going on, you protect those people, and the fact that I and some other people can name names of people who went and got abortions in places like Stern. While the guys didn’t care. And this sickens me. Really sickens me. Sickens me in a way you will never understand, because in the end:
It seems like for both me and those girls, I just have to be one more girl from the Valley of the Dolls, pretending that there is nothing wrong.
Blocking out the old world: some thoughts on sexual politics, me ranting.
It is so sad really that because in part of my own stupidity about the real world and its intersection with Orthodox Land, and in part of the fact that I’m female, I’m basically trying to be on the run from the Valley of the Dolls. Anywhere but that. I feel like if I stayed too closely I’ll forever be the object; I get told really shocking things all the time. I was surprised that I commented this back to my mother, but I really don’t tell her anything because I don’t want people to know that I’m hiding as much as Shalom Auslander, of the Foreskin’s Lament, did at the same age. I’m not out to destroy careers here. I could potentially destroy my own. I’ve though about setting up a seperate blog to discuss this scathingly, but I can’t get around Disqus and me being ShanaC. Sexuality is one of those things…Particularly women’s…
Young people IMO tend to be a bit silly/stupid. Being one of course
Some of this involves my own mistakes growing up. I’m sure we all have some. Beware of ranting below. A lot of ranting. I’m infuriated, and I’ve been keeping secrets. I’m still keeping secrets. I’m trying to write this in such a way without exposing everyone and hurting myself in the process. I hate so many little things. Little oppressive things. They’re endemic to where I come from. It’s not me whose saying it anymore. I’m just so angry and so beaten down and shocked and horrified, that I don’t want to be there anymore. It hurts too much. But I love little things about community. AVC gave me parts of it, I’m slowly discovering parts of it in a late college bloom, and probably will discover more as I get older. It will put huge distance from where I grew up, which for me, was a Valley of the Dolls.
Note: I’m really ranting. There are definitely more positive ranters. Like Aliza Hausman. I just snapped one night. And started crying, because I don’t know what to do. I don’t think anyone knows fully. FYI, in case you are curious, this is how you can see the full effects of the internet on my life: I learned a huge amount about being Jewish from the internet, including some of its more radical states, as well as learned that I don’t have to tolerate the status quo, or that I have to keep the identity that I grew up with. The ability for me to both passively and actively interact with so many different kinds of people, both Jewish and not Jewish, probably has radically altered the Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jewish community. People like me should not exist, the internet caused them. So below is probably an intriguing document of that fact, because of the sheer amount of linkage to material about this rant, and that is only a surface gloss for a long rant…In the abstract, it might be intriguing about how interaction on the internet can in fact change societies and individuals. We’ll see how it plays out.
If you feel like skipping this, that’s ok. The entire post is close over 5000 words, so I’m really lost in emotion here. No one will blame you. I’ve kept this inside for a while, and below is kind of long rant. This is probably healthy, no one should keep all of this inside for so long…and this probably about half of what I am thinking too…Screwed up people.
I locked up my anger so deep I don’t know what to do though. Today, I was trying to convince someone for the umpteenth time over the past two years that no, I’m not going on a date with him- we’re both products of the Orthodox establishment, though I guess at this point I’m a heterodox (Which by definition means I need the Orthodox community to define myself, anti and all that Jazz, I have some deep love for y’all) He won’t take no. Women don’t tend to be aggressive where I’m from. Aggressive women are a product of second wave feminism and beyond. Parts of second wave feminism are only now starting to hit where I grew up. While at the same time back-lashing. So you can be learned, but get locked in a kitchen. And only now are starting to get out, but only on the guys terms which are sort of specific and weird, while they argue about your role. For the average lay person who would be active, because community and religion and ethnic background are somewhat important, I’m sickened. I’m sitting there, past them, third wave feminist or post-feminist if anything;I’m even worried about Men’s Choice and gendering of men.
Where I come from these sorts of issues has yet to fully blossom, the ceiling is getting lower to shatter, because of moves from the righter wings of orthodox Judaism. I’m officially banned from the highest levels of non-rabbinic power in my parents synagogue as of a few years ago (I can’t be elected president of the board because I’m female). My voice is beautiful, and the radicals of the community put out an argument in the early 00s that women should be able to lead the sections that men are not obligated to- that’s been banned by the largest organization of Orthodox Synagogues in the US. They’ve also banned the support of women meeting privately to do their own thing, especially if it involves actual readings from a Torah. Oh and we have fake women rabbis, as of this year, (she’s real when beyond the exams, she’s accepted into the community, and that’s not happening) and that is extremely controversial, and she’ll never get any higher: She can’t sit on a Jewish court of law, the halls of power for conversion, technical issues of marriage, and of divorce, because no one would dare give her Yadin Yadin Semicha. She is basically barred from making any really binding decision, because like all women, she cannot be a witness under most circumstances. So what’s the point? Just like me, forever locked out: And those in power will never notice, unless there is a huge push otherwise. And every time….someone dislikes us.
I watch my friends get up and go socialize in kitchens over babies, clothing, and food, while the guys sit down and talk about work and the economy at the table during long Shabbos meals. I never belonged in that mess. I’m not so radical that I don’t understand why taking away male spaces of power isn’t important, and that there needs to be spaces for guys to be guys (in fact because I raised in such an environment, I think it is really important to teach the power of masculinity) But right now my life is totally screwed up from it. I don’t have a place to be female and wanted. That hurts.
I don’t have choice, my choices are being argued out by people who don’t even care about the general behavior of those around them. Even better, they don’t have a clue when they make such a choice, because they are the perpetrators of actions that make this system endemic, and hurt the women involved.
I was being asked on a date today by someone on Facebook IM. He’s been asking on and off for over two years. I said yes once, and got stood up. Even though I shouldn’t have. This is a guy that still won’t take no.. And still isn’t. This behavior is condoned. Theoretically there are more good women than men in the community, even if only barely affiliated, so I should take what I can get.
Today He insisted that he won’t take no. And the only way I’ve been managing to avoid is by not giving away when I am in New York and what I’m doing. And that the 18th century version of him would have gone pshhh to my letters, and essentially ride off with me. Clearly he’s not reading manner guides of the period. Or even about say the behavior of the women and men from Pride and Prejudice, where if you read closely, their always watched over by the old ladies of the community. he wouldn’t have a hair on my head. Today, he can leer, partially because of the Internet and other forms of media have allowed secular barriers to leak through in bad ways, and I have become an object. On top of that, the communal resources that would have said no are in utter terror of utter stupidity, of looking bad mostly. (That’s barely getting cleaned up, mostly because of that article. The furor surrounding that…and it was because men were raped not women. Yes the modern Orthodox community has this problem. Baruch Lanner, CF the last link, was raping girls from communities similar to the one I grew up in.) There is no one central source of what it means to be Jewish, so Authenticity issues are always in question, for silly reasons (see what I managed to pull out of Zemanta, elevators, they’ll lock people on upper floors…). You end up with some really bad issues.
I dislike it. I’m not Madame spunky ethereal who you must have a conversation with because she can hold one about something, and therefore you must chase. Just because communication is efficient, doesn’t mean you should be communicating. It took three years to figure out this one (Thank you AVC.com, you gave me some power back in my life…)
Constantly being treated in this lightly second class way is frightening, when the system I’m from helps impose it on you. I’m not even sure why its frightening, but it is. I’m being told instantaneously that my desires are not important. The only way out is to block someone via the same digital means. And that is a weakness of the system, that there are no alternatives because the barrier is so low to prevent someone from doing this to me.
And its really endemic behaviorally where I’m from. The system is really screwed up. There have been books written about the subject already. Cellphones and computers are everywhere, even in the places, like my cousin’s house, where they may or may not be banned. So communication and the way to get around rules have become easy. You can pretend to hold by whatever religious opinion, and sneak away to something else. I hated myself for doing this. A lot of people are too afraid to just accept people for who they are, and to just give them the help they need for the opinion they agree or disagree in. Religion and ethnicity, especially in the Jewish world where I am from, will be in flux throughout your life. That’s life. To force people in a box is a strange idea. But that’s how I grew up. I need a box apparently. It would be much easier to accept people along the way and help them into the religion if they want to be there, rather than specifying a box…
Technically everyone is supposed to stay innocent and sweet until marriage. I doubt my friend Josh Yuter, (or Rabbi Yuter 2.0*) who really is a wonderful nice guy and a great rabbi at a great welcoming synagogue in New York City’s Lower East Side (Go Josh!! Go Stanton Street Shul!!), would really be totally innocent at 31?. And while I don’t speculate on his private behavior, because he is a nice guy who has been a friend and mentor for a good chunk of my life, I really can’t say he’s innocent at age 31 (This is on various assumptions about lives and how people live. Though I do know 31 year olds who are more innocent than most. Even still…
(He’s a mensch, and is one of the few people who will ever mention Claude Levi-Strauss and Spaceballs in a Shabbos Speech. Plus he is a coder who cares about his flock of shul goers. You should go to his synagogue, it’s like the Orthodox Version of Fred Wilson Family’s Synagogue, The New Shul, down to the fact that Josh is also a Clal Fellow, much like their former Rabbi. Weird, though I knew Josh before he got the rabbinic posting and the clothes to go with it
, which is why I get to call him Josh. )
I do expect people to be menschlict. I expect not to be made fun of for my political beliefs, (though polite questions are welcome, emphasis on polite). I expect not to be expected during a meal to hang out in a kitchen with a bunch of women and talk about babies or clothing or food, though I happen to like clothing and babies, and do frequent blogs and whatnot that talk about clothing and food (at least). I expect not to be maligned for being more liberal than a good chunk of where I come from, or for hanging out with my non-Jewish friends who like the art world and their crazy movies, or the ones who do comp sci and like bashing around with code.
I primarily expect to be treated like a person when you meet me first: Not a piece of meat to see how your babies are going to turn out, or how well I am going to impress your male friends from the community/your office (Your office if it happens to be a high profile bank or law firm type, quite a lot because I can make conversation about contemporary art and interesting books and the economy and fashion and food, I’ve been well trained for that situation. The synagogue, they’ll hate me, but think you’re damn lucky to get a hot person in bed, and I’ll hate them for objectifying me with the gaze.)
Treating me like an object is not menschlicht. Knowing Orthodox rabbinical students who are uhh grinding with supposedly nice Jewish girls on the dance floor: Also not Menschlicht. Knowing an Orthodox Rabbinical Student is sleeping with many people, and how he is getting them into bed (It starts with an A and ends with an L): Also not Menschlict. It signifies that there is an abuse of power going on. And that when other issues pop up (like umm, the fact than in a religious Orthodox marriage, I have no recourse in a divorce, a man must give it to me, but I cannot give one), these are people I must rely on for decisions is terrifying. They already do not treat their women counterparts with respect when it comes to sexuality. I’ve been banned from purity rituals because I’m tempting as a single woman?, yet they’ll treat me badly anyway!
They also don’t seem to be taking their own sexuality, among other issues, with some sense of gravitas. I’m just disgusted, shocked and horrified. How can I rely on them? They barely seem engaged with who they are, and their position. I’m more engaged with it than they are. I don’t care how many sources you know (at this point you can use CDs to look it, you just need textual fluency to be able to read and to ask the right questions), I ask that you maintain sensitivity to a real world. That seems to be lost to a sense of self pleasure, including not. The best line I’ve ever heard from a rabbinical student (paraphrased) “I don’t worry about raising money- it is not effective to ask my congregation- I’ll just ask the richest guy” It’s out of touch, and symbolizes that not only are they not engaged with some of the more basic elements of Jewish thought, they also risk leveraging and pissing off wealthy donors. (Don’t believe me, believe the Gotham Gal… The guy who gives $5 now could end up being wealthy later. And sometimes a large base of support is what keeps you going in lean times. It’s how the top tier schools keep their endowments huge, by asking their entire classes to give a gift from the start, and then asking every year, even if it is only $5. You never know.)
Further, due to some other random issues in my life, I’ve actually tried to approach major leadership in the past to engage in dialogue. And while I can’t say I’m the best at keeping my email under control (I’m horrible), they’re even worse. Authority literally seems out to centralize its powerbase by keeping them uneducated, otr educated only in a certain way so that they behave closely alligned to the establishement, because when I came, I had looked up a bunch of sources already (This makes me strange where I come from….). That should be something celebrated. Someone actually interested and curious. Being ignored is hard when you approach in full faith and earnestness.
What should I do? Hide? Basically it means I only trust Josh Yuter. And you can’t only trust one rabbi in an establishment.
Think about the dichotomy!! Meanwhile, on some level, I reguarly get treated like an object by the rest of the community because the leadership is clearly condoning it, so now it is considered normal behavior. I’ve been told by women my own age that my goal should be pleasing a guy, especially in bed. All about him.
Hi, do I exist? Should I? Or should I dissapear into the background into some pretty clothing as an object on your arm? That’s a little too much even for me. While I think a relationship is important, and making the guy happy and supported is important, most empircal evidence shows the opposite!!! My influence on a male is more important than his on me. (Thank you Dr. John Gottman.) This backwards approach will lead to gendered distances and seperate communicationn spheres, where it is not so clear why I’d be married to said person. It’s even starting to show up in the Orthodox community, where there seems to be ancedotal evidence of both a rise in divorces and a rise in cheating spouses.
Locking me into a gender role, and then taking advantage of the fact that I am tall, thin, leggy and 23, and make a mean kale and bean soup to impress your friends is not a marriage, a relationship, an anything. It’s a way to lock me up and throw away the key crying as a brown curly haired barbie doll. And I feel like I’ve been running from that for a while. It’s not helping. And I’m trying to figure out what will.
I don’t like knowing that some girl got an abortion while in Stern/YU official description here (not that girl though, she’s more on the innocent side, having met her in person). WTF. I don’t like knowing someone from YU, (totally different) was cheating on his girlfriend with someone in Europe on a Vacation. WTF. I don’t like the fact that there are nicknames for my area that are totally inappropriate, because the women got married too young and now there are rumors of bad sexual things happening. WTF. Get a Divorce, and stop marrying as children, and then having children and being bored because your parents are supporting your wife while you figure out what to do. WTF are you doing until then? WTF WTF WTF. Stop locking people like me up into these horrid roles. Let me go.
I am still not fully normal the way other girls my own age are because I’m told that my body is in some way shameful except in marriage under certain circumstances, and that guys will only look at my body (The mp3 in the last link has a Rabbi in a popular class going about how women are slightly silly because they get more emotionally tied from a very famous Gemara quote and has him going on a couple of time saying “Men are animals.” Yes I really grew up hearing messages like that.). I don’t know how to treat people as a result. It took me drawing nudes to totally appreciate people as people. It was so hard. And I hated parts of that, because it was so hard. And now I am obsessed with people and the body and all sorts of things I missed out on. And I’m obsessed with how the message gets passed on, since it is so much easier with the internet.
As a result, I have to say the following:
If you are going to get them into bed woman or man, please be in a normal relationship, and stop dancing around the issue of what we all call Shomer Negiah, (Some more links) or the fact that technically none of us are not supposed to touch each other. Also stop dancing around the gay/lesbian issue. None of the real world where you live outside of religious land, in these big cities, tend to care. I know its awkward, and that the most religious in the community will hate you for admiting normalcy. I just want to treat you as normal. I recognize you as a sexual being, and also as a person. And I know its frustrating to find the balance so we all can get married and move along in life, but the behavior now normal is unacceptable.
In the interim:
This blog about the dating process is abnormal. It leads to abnormal behavior because she is an object. She’s being tested to see if she looks alright, behaves alright, cooks alright, and says the right thing. And it filters down to anyone connected to the community.
It creates situations that are equally abnormal such as the following, if you are raped, you can’t let anyone know, lest someone not let you marry someone suitable for you, because you’ll be blacklisted as something wrong with you. Same thing as having an abusive boyfriend. (Had to deal with rape issue one night for a friend’s friend, had to find crisis hotlines that dealt with issue. A different friend of mine is the last remaining friend in I think an entire synagogue of over 500 people after a girl put a restraining order on her ex who was beating her up: The community blamed her for stirring the pot.)
Look up the sources involving Shomer negiah, Damn Jewish people, including the Yerushalmi Talmud, for some honest conversations about the subject. Stop sounding pretentious when you hide the fact that you are having sex or not having sex with so many people, often without a condom, and then claiming in public, especially while in positions of authority, that you are in fact mostly or probably shomer negiah. You turned the women in your life into objects, into toys. We now rely on you. It makes life confusing for the rest of us looking on trying to figure out what is what. It also hurts because some of us have to figure out what it means when you approach me. I’m sorry, that’s wrong. You are morally culpable for hurting people along the way who get caught in your undertow.
You’ve taught me to be scared: Maybe you will eat me and my reputation alive by calling me a whore for having sexuality outside of your defined boundary of cute married women in your kitchen. Why? A short skirt with a long sleeved shirt is wrong. I’m wrong even when I am dressed right, all covered up. I’m still your object. I’m wrong for asking, for thinking, for wanting something more than my kitchen, my little job for spending money, and some children. I’m wrong for even wanting to have a body that I am proud of, and when I have one, suddenly I’m a slut. Stop that, now. I’m wrong for having desire that extends from the body, from the mind, from the spirit. These things are linked. Why do you own me in this way.
It makes life confusing because it means the definition of femininity is absolutely screwed up. I’ve lost control over my sense of being. That’s my spirit you own. Give it back. I’m completely defined by my smile (which is not often enough in the Jewish community, sadly, and I have been told I have a nice one). I have no idea what you all want from me. I don’t belong in a kitchen. I don’t belong trying to worry about getting married. At the most right now, I should worry about getting along with someone and finding common values and common behaviors.
Mostly I should worry about being Shana, who should worry about how to best make the world a better place, and get involved with tech and art because that is what I like (ok?). Stop judging me. And when you are not judging me, and then deciding to find me fascinating, can you stop trying to get laid for about five minutes to treat me as a person. I can make a decision afterwards, like a normal adult.
You’re all creepy until then. Go away. Really. Go away. Because I’m scared of going out and talking to you now. You all disgust me. And make me feel so alone, because I have to go running around deciding whether you can even be a friend. And that is the worst feeling in the world, because it means I don’t know if I can value you or me as a human being.
I hate it, I’m so angry. I’m so angry that I can’t believe I wrote this. There is something terribly wrong with me. Most people are never this angry ever. And I’m tired of being angry, it’s not healthy. So go away, unless you can make something better. Really. Go away. You are an embarrassment to your forefathers as a community, because if you read something like Chaim Grade or Isaac Batshevis Singer, someone like me never appears as an object hiding cutely behind a mechitza.
The worst part of all this watching, smiling, and not saying:
I really love being Jewish. It’s the third of my three passions in life (Art, the Internet, and being Jewish, in no particular order). I feel like I cannot in any way rely on the community I came from. To the point where even though I desperately want to educate my kids Jewishly on a very high level, higher than I was (if you are going to b e a heterodox, you better know a lot of stuff), I’m starting to have problems seeing myself with a Jewish guy long term. I don’t want my marriage based off just being Jewish. I want it based off common values, and the way I keep getting treated makes me want to walk away. This is despite being one of the few laypeople who sat down and read the National Jewish population Survey for both 1990 and 2000 and knowing the success of Jewish education and Jewish behavior of those children, and what causes them to behave Jewishly.
I want them to expereince a Friday night shabbas table with some of the songs I sing, or used to sing, before realizing how angry I was and that no one cared. Those are good things, things I adore and care about, and I don’t want to lose them to the mist. I want them to read a Jewish text more fluently than me. It’s so hard knowing this won’t happen, because if I can watch my counterparts treat me any which way and not enough people speak out, or barely speak out…it really hurts.
I realize that I admire the apparent blogging happiness of Fred Wilson’s and TheGothamGal’s marriage. I admire a lot of their values, not everything, but a lot. (It’s ok to diagree, and I am sure if they are normal, they have their disagreements too, and I am sure they find ways to work it out.) and I would be so much happier with that…I wish I knew how they handled what they are handling, since probably after reading this you realize I grew up with a certain set of cultural assumptions about my life that I seem to be bad at doing. I always assumed I would do and be certain things, and it is turning out that I am not…and I sort of wish I knew how other people handle other options, mostly because I don’t know what mine are. And that’s the scariest part of all.
/rant.
*sigh* This nows puts me in the same group as all the old school Yiddishists as an anti-establishment crazy woman. How else do you think those first unions started. It was those Jewish mom characters with a slightly radical conscious, and I seemed to have inherited that dollop of craziness from at least some of my family members. It doesn’t help that at least one of my names Lee, is after a woman who owned her own business, owned racehorses, and apparently liked to daytrade….I feel strange… *sigh* Thank You Great Aunt Lee, I have inherited parts of your unconscious behavior along with your name.
*In case your curious why Josh Yuter is called Rabbi Yuter 2.o, his father, Rabbi Alan Yuter, is also a very famous rabbi in his own right who broke from the Conservative Movement over Ordaining Women (I think). Josh is also a famous Jblogger, coder, and an up and coming Rabbi himself, having been quoted in a number of books, including one on some very technical points of Jewish law, and once recently by the Wall Street Journal. He gave his father the label on his blog Rabbi Yuter 1.0 when his father started to blog here. Which makes Josh Rabbi Yuter 2.0. This is what happens when you have a blogging and tweeting educated Orthodox Rabbi who is slightly anti-establishment in my own perception…
Just so you can see what started it:
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