Frum & Colonial Women

My feminist opinions have taken control of my education. This term, I'm taking a course called, "U.S. Women's History" because I figured, "If I want to change things, I'd better know how they were changed in the past."

I'm only at the very beginning of the history right now and I'm finding similarities between modern frum societies and early Colonial American societies. The patriarchal system that ruled families, called "Domestic Patriarchy", in particular, has a lot in common with expectations in the frum world.

Let's start with education. Like in the frum world, boys and girls growing up in Colonial times received differing educations based on the roles that were set up for them in society. They all received "moral education," like the Jewish studies classes both boys and girls get in the frum world, but when it came to practical studies boys were taught reading, writing, and math, and girls were taught "French, sewing and knitting". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.98)

Granted today in frum society girls are also taught those basic subjects, but we're taught them so that we can care for our husbands and children, which pretty much equates with why Colonial girls were only taught "French, sewing and knitting". It was, "Parents [instructing] their children to take their proper place in [...] society by training them to perform tasks appropriate to their sex." (Delegard & Hewitt, p.97)

As for the life of those girls when they grew up, they were "encouraged to practice submissiveness to authority. [...] Gentlemen insisted that wives be submissive to their husbands, and women tolerated, and even on occasion supported, a subordinate role within the family". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.86)

I read that sentence and said to myself, "That could have been written about frum society today!"

And how about this: "A woman could expect to give birth every two to three years from marriage to menopause". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.89)

Another similarity.

I'm not necessarily writing this as a criticism, although I do find patriarchy appalling; I'm just noticing the similarities and am looking forward to studying how these women progressed in society, because I think the frum world needs a model to work from.

List of Works Cited:

Delegard, Kirsten and Hewitt, Nancy. "Women, Families, and Communities: Readings in American History." 2nd ed. Pearson Longman: New York.

Women can be Geeks too

I have no data to back this up, but I think that we can all agree that there are more male geeks than female geeks. As a female geek myself, my personal experience has shown me to be a minority among women.

Take the LOST finale party I attended last week. There were eight guys, and then there was our hostess and me. That's a 1:4 ratio. Not a scientific calculation by any means, but it sounds about right to me. Whatever the numbers are, we are a minority.

You'd think that the mere fact that we were attending a LOST finale party would be enough to prove our geekness, yet still we were treated with suspicion.

"You women over there," our host warned us, "No talking!"

"What?" I asked. "Just because we're women that means we're going to be talking throughout the show? We want to see the finale just as much as you guys! That is so sexist! This is totally going on my blog!"

To be fair, once the show started, the hostess and I did have to be shushed. We couldn't keep from laughing out loud because the guys were all leaning in toward the screen with looks of rapt adoration on their faces. Can you really blame us?

Post dedicated to Holy Hyrax. ;)

Human Trafficking

Speaking of slavery, (as I did in my last post,) I have a comment\retraction that I'd like to make about my previous post, "Slavery Today." 

In that post I wrote about celebrities trying to build awareness of modern-day slavery, and I demonstrated my ignorance by saying, (ironically - or, perhaps egotistically,) "Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to."

I guessed, in that post, that the celebrities were referring to slavery in Sudan or Rwanda, and didn't take much notice of the comment from aztecqueen2000 that, "In the United States, human beings are the third most trafficked commodity behind drugs and weapons. They are used for domestic service, sweatshop labor and prositution." 

I should have taken notice, because that's a seriously frightening statistic, but it was just words to me... Until I got a view of it for myself. So to speak. It was while babysitting last week, with the child asleep, that I was doing what babysitters tend to do - watching television. (Oy gevalt! A frum girl watching television! What is the world coming to? Yada yada yada. Get over it.) 

And the movie that I wound up watching was about human trafficking. Googling it now, in fact, it turns out that the title of the movie is, "Human Trafficking." 

"It follows the fictional cases of young women around the world, lured or abducted, sometimes right off the street, into a world of unspeakable brutality--which the filmmakers show in almost overwhelming detail at times.[...]  And while sometimes almost unbearably harsh, the film serves as a reminder this terrible situation still exists and thrives; and told through the characters, is also a well-paced thriller." (-A.T. Hurley, Amazon.com Review)

I believe in divine providence to the extent that I believe that everything that happens to me happens because G-d wants it to. I believe that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that if I see something, I saw it for a reason. That's why I believe that G-d wanted me to see this movie. 

It's scandalous to say so in the frum community, where movies are considered evil, but I think that this movie needs to be seen. I imagine that it was censored for television, and am glad of that, but it nevertheless showed the pain and horror of human trafficking in a way that just talking about it doesn't. 

That's why I'm posting the trailer for the movie here. But when I say, VIEWER DISCRESSION ADVISED, I really mean it. Don't watch this if you will be bothered by images of, "Young women around the world being lured and abducted" into horrible situations. When I say that this movie needs to be seen, I'm not saying that everyone needs to see it. If you're under 18, or are very frum and haven't been exposed to such things, DO NOT watch this. 

Having said that, I still believe that people need to see this. People need to know that this is going on. In the world of politics in this country, nothing gets done unless the People desire for it to get done: publicizing this issue until we refuse to ignore it anymore is the only way that we can end it. And in the spirit of Pesach, (Passover) the holiday where we celebrate our freedom from captivity, we should remember those who are not so fortunate. 

Rock the Women's Right to Vote

This is an email going around and I thought it very appropriate that I post it here. It is especially important for women voters to vote this coming election in California with initiatives important to women on the ballot such as requiring parental notification before giving a minor an abortion.

Register to vote at http://www.rockthevote.com/

---

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE.

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.

She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so
hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.