Armed & Feminine

A few months ago I wanted to show off a new hat to a friend of mine, an American soldier (Hooah!) recently returned from Iraq. Here's the hat:

Yes, I'm an NRA member.

Cue: Shadchanim run away screaming

My friend responded, "That's funny. I thought that religious women don't have the right to bare arms."

For a second I stared at her, mentally running through all the Jewish laws that I could think of which might prohibit women from using guns... Until I realized she was talking about the Jewish laws of modesty, (which I talk about here.)

Boy, was I relieved.

In the latest issue of "America's 1st Freedom" magazine (published by the NRA), there's an article that cites the growing numbers of women interested in guns. "Of our 54% growth rate in 2007, 66% of that represented people new to shooting. And 40% of the 54% were women," says a shooting range owner in the article.

Apparently women want to be able to defend themselves. I know that's why I'm an NRA member.

I can admit that here on this anonymous blog, where only a VERY few of my viewers know who I really am. I wasn't completely kidding when I cued the shadchanim running away screaming. It's dangerous to be a feminist who likes guns in frum society. I told my mom today, after reading the article about women and guns, that we could eliminate (from the shiddichim business, not literally,) great numbers of guys if we told shadchanim that I'm a member of the NRA.

She was not amused.

I have to keep my gun enthusiasm quiet if I want to be accepted in frum society. So if you're out there reading this and you know who I am, keep quiet about it, will ya?

Moving this blog along...

In one of the comments on one of my blog posts, someone pointed out that while it's true that the community looks down on women going to college and having ambitions in the business marketplace and wants them to marry young, the frum community's attitude is not limited to women. It frowns on men going to college and working in the secular world and on men who don't marry young as well.

While there are different frum communities with different takes on this issue, I think that this commenter might be right. I can't say that I know enough about the issue to make an absolute statement, but I know that it is true of some sects within the Orthodox world.

That doesn't mean that it's okay, but if it's true that many of my complaints about how women are treated within the frum world goes for men as well then I can't really blame it on misogyny.

Most of this blog, so far, has been about the frum community's attitudes toward women. With the exclusivity of that attitude being towards women being questioned, I'm finding that I might have to change the direction of this blog.

I still believe in women's rights, and if that makes me a feminist, then I am one. Since I am also frum, that would also make me a frum feminist. So now that the question of whether I'm a frum feminist has been answered, I think it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

Thus, my ongoing tirade against the frum community's attitude toward women will no longer be the sole subject line of this blog, though I doubt that I'll drop it completely.

Some people see feminists as outspoken, opinionated women; I'm definitely opinionated and might be considered, by some, to be outspoken. So from now on, the "frum feminist" aspect of this blog will be the fact that I'm a frum, outspoken, opinionated woman speaking my piece.

Stick around. It's sure to get interesting.

Can a Conservative be a Feminist?

That's what I'm wondering today: can a Conservative be a Feminist? Feminism is generally seen as a Liberal movement, (as in, "Women's Lib."?) so if I consider myself a political Conservative, can I be a feminist?

I bring this up because I'm in the middle of reading a few essays written about how to interpret the Constitution and former Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist is one of the authors. [For those who don't know, Rehnquist was an extremely Conservative Justice on the Supreme Court.] And as I read his essay I keep saying to myself, "I love this guy! He's a genius!"

In other words, I think that his Conservative views are really brilliant, which brings to light me being a Conservative and the question of whether I can be a feminist if I am.

You see my problem here? The reason why I'm not sure whether I'm a frum feminist? It just seems oxymoronic.