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How could pre feminist women have thought...
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 12:59 pm
Due to my ambivalence and uncertainty on the topic I didn't post on any of the threads about how women are regarded in the frum world.( I personally view the issue in the larger context of "why is life unfair?")

But this is a question that has always bothered me. I remember women who had grown in the early part of the 20th century. They seemed very OK with regarding women as inferior. To give but a few examples (1)my great aunt had a granddaughter and commented "It is not so bad that they had a girl this time. They already have three boys" (2) My grandmother once very neutrally commented "They were extremely upset they had a girl" (3) In seminary I knew a girl who said that her grandmother tells her grandfather as a (morbid) endearment "I'll be lucky to be your stepping stool in Gan Eden"

None of the women referred to above were stupid or pushovers and none of them had a Bais Yaakov education or were particularly frum. Yet they seemed to have no issue with thinking that way. Why not? I'm no feminist and I'm appalled at these concepts. Why weren't they? No one told them to say or think such things. They just took for granted that this the way the world works. How?
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amother
Amethyst


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:18 pm
if you're appalled, you are a feminist. Why do you think you aren't?
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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:25 pm
I don't get it either. Nor is this attitude entirely dead in the 21st century.

The best explanation I can think of is that growing up in a world like that, where these qualities were seen as signs of femininity, it may have been deeply ingrained as a neutral or even positive aspect of womanhood.

I am not a math brain. I also can't sing. I say it without shame. But I would find it insulting to be told that all women are bad in math or can't sing because of their chromosomal makeup. I guess they would not.
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:27 pm
I'm not a feminist because I have no problem accepting that women are different and have a different role . I can accept that a single boy who is spending his whole day learning is doing something of more value that a single girl who isn't etc. But the examples I gave imply that are women are almost worthless. You don't have to be a feminist to be appalled by it.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:27 pm
You're living in a very different world from your grandmother's. You're no feminist but you grew up in a feminist era. Equality for women is acknowledged on a par with equality for other groups who are not white Anglo-Saxon males.

That being said: A. there are still women who have the same attitudes as your grandmother and her cronies, and B. Even back then there were women who resented and disagreed with prevailing attitudes. They just got a lot more grief about it.

Those of us who enjoy the rights and opportunities we have now owe a tremendous and usually unacknowledged debt of gratitude to those early pioneers of women's rights. Even if you don't ever bother voting, you can appreciate having the right. Can you imagine not being allowed to vote because you are female? Preposterous, right? Yet women got the vote in the US less than 100 years ago. Can you imagine a woman getting paid less for doing the same work as a man? Preposterous, right? And yet...
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:34 pm
Neither of my grandmothers had such views.
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amother
Amethyst


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:44 pm
amother wrote:
I'm not a feminist because I have no problem accepting that women are different and have a different role . I can accept that a single boy who is spending his whole day learning is doing something of more value that a single girl who isn't etc. But the examples I gave imply that are women are almost worthless. You don't have to be a feminist to be appalled by it.


what you described is not feminism. We can't change what Hashem values. (though we may argue with interpretation of what that is).

Feminism is about rights, not values.

perhaps we value people who have rights?
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amother
Chartreuse


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:47 pm
op I shall add more to your confusion. when I was young, say, 10-12 and it was shabbos before the meal and all of us had to go wash for challah, since I am a twin to a brother other people in the family would say to me your brother should go first "hes a boy". what utter ridiculousness! and that is after my father saying how important women are. that they are like the kohen gadol bla bla blah.....

yes women have value. the poeple who dont believe it or are mysogynists are sick and they have the problem. all these people with all these ridiculous comments just show how much they valued themselves. op never mind what they said. we all know the truth, and it says in the torah that the jewish identity is from the mother. now talk about value!

dont let them put you down. they dont value themselves well so they put others down.
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Chayalle




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:48 pm
Like sequoia, I have never heard these views from my grandmothers. I've had strong women role models in my family, and I never heard of them being de-valued like that.


My maternal great-grandmother ran a very successful business in pre-war Czekoslovakia. She started the business when as a young bride her husband was drafted into the army to fight for WWI, and she wanted to move out of her in-laws home and be independent. She took a loan, rented a small home, and opened a business. By the time her husband was discharged from the army, she had purchased the property and they had their own home, with the business in the front room. They had two daughters (and a son who R"L died young) whom they raised and educated well, with private tutors for Hebrew subjects in addition to their public school education.

I'm named after another great-grandmother. She was privately educated and could learn and read Hebrew seforim. She was a Rabbi's wife and the mother of five sons, and from the stories I've heard of her, she could hold her own quite well.
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:50 pm
sequoia wrote:
Neither of my grandmothers had such views.

Nor mine.
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 1:57 pm
OP here

My grandmother who made that comment had a college degree in political science. Very rare for any girl let alone a frum one to get in the 1920s.

Had she not happened to have made a comment in my presence about how upset they were about having a girl I never would have thought she considered such a viewpoint acceptable. Ditto for my great aunt who made the "It is not so bad that they had a girl this time. They already have three boys" comment
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 2:18 pm
I'm not a feminist for feminists, basically - but I don't know anyone normal thinking so. Or saying it if they did.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 2:21 pm
amother wrote:
OP here

My grandmother who made that comment had a college degree in political science. Very rare for any girl let alone a frum one to get in the 1920s.

Had she not happened to have made a comment in my presence about how upset they were about having a girl I never would have thought she considered such a viewpoint acceptable. Ditto for my great aunt.


Did your g-mother say SHE was disappointed, or the child's parents were? If the latter, she was reporting an event. She didn't say she agreed with them, did she?

Have you never heard of a woman feeling bad about having a daughter because her life is bound to be more difficult than if she were a boy? I think it's not too different from parents being unhappy about a child marrying or adopting someone of a different ethnicity, not because they have anything against the ethnicity but because they know that such families are often ostracized or worse.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 2:24 pm
Ruchel wrote:
I'm not a feminist for feminists, basically - but I don't know anyone normal thinking so. Or saying it if they did.


How can you say so? Did you not read the thread about I.Want.A.Girl? There were women who did not want girls at all. Yes, 21st century women currently of child bearing age.
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shoshanim999




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 2:51 pm
I think it's simply a matter of society conforming their belief system around what is normal for that time and in that place of the world. Blacks were actual slaves a few hundred years ago. I don't think most people thought it was crazy. 60 years ago blacks rode separate busses and used separate bathrooms. Again, society for the most part considered it normal. In certain parts of the world people are beheaded for various alleged crimes. I'm sure a disproportionate % of people in those regions consider it normal because that is what they are used to. 50 years ago a rebbe would smack a child for misbehaving. If the child continued to misbehave, the rebbe would smack harder the next time. People didn't complain. Pretty normal. Today there would be riots and a thread 300 pages long on this site condemning the rebbe.

Last edited by shoshanim999 on Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ally




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:01 pm
I often wonder whether our kids will ask that about todays frum society.

As much as the status quo digs in its heels (or shifts to the right), I don't see how the disconnect between the role woman can take in the secular and frum worlds is sustainable.

How can you really explain to a woman who has made partner at a law firm that she isn't capable of becoming a rabbi?
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amother
Amethyst


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:12 pm
ally wrote:
I often wonder whether our kids will ask that about todays frum society.

As much as the status quo digs in its heels (or shifts to the right), I don't see how the disconnect between the role woman can take in the secular and frum worlds is sustainable.

How can you really explain to a woman who has made partner at a law firm that she isn't capable of becoming a rabbi?


Is capacity the argument?
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amother
Denim


 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:21 pm
sequoia wrote:
Neither of my grandmothers had such views.


Mine did.

My maternal grandparents only had girls. They insisted that their daughters take the "business" (ie, secretarial) track in high school, although their school recommended that they be in the academic track. They helped send at least one of their nephews to college, but wouldn't entertain that idea for their own daughters. When I was accepted to a prestigious graduate school program, one great aunt commented "oh, I guess she didn't find a husband in college." Another ranted about how I was taking away a slot from a man, who would use the degree.

But I suspect that is a generation removed from your grandmothers, who are more likely the age of my parents. My parents encouraged -- or more accurately demanded -- academic excellence from all their children, considered college a given, and are just as proud of their daughters' accomplishments as they are of their sons.
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:23 pm
zaq wrote:
How can you say so? Did you not read the thread about I.Want.A.Girl? There were women who did not want girls at all. Yes, 21st century women currently of child bearing age.


That's what I think. No one normal wants no girl unless there's a reason behind it much deeper than girls being "less".
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etky




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 05 2017, 3:23 pm
ally wrote:
I often wonder whether our kids will ask that about todays frum society.

As much as the status quo digs in its heels (or shifts to the right), I don't see how the disconnect between the role woman can take in the secular and frum worlds is sustainable.

How can you really explain to a woman who has made partner at a law firm that she isn't capable of becoming a rabbi?


Not capable or not allowed?
Not capable is an answer that I suspect most women nowadays, regardless of denomination, regard as unacceptable - at least privately.
Not allowed pertains to another sphere already.
A traditionally minded woman will accept that this is off limits to women -the same way she will accept other inequalities in halacha.
Women in more liberal circles will demand (and already are demanding) change in the unequal status quo, in those areas of halacha that are less intractable than others.....
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