Do you find this profile of Judge Rachel Freier inspiring

kjb

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 8:34 am

I don’t think it’s an either/or situation with Judge Freier as in either a home maker and devoted wife who prioritises drum family values OR a modern career woman. This woman really does seem to have done it all. She’s raised 6 children at least one of whom (son mentioned in article) is over 30. She supported her husbands torah study, then she supported him through college when he decided it was time to earn a good living to support his family. By that time the kids might well have been school age so not so much need for ‘outsourcing’ the role of mum. And THEN her husband agreed that she could have a go at college. And even now she’s a judge she says she still does as much baking etc as she ever did.

Not everyone wants to be a Judge Freier and nor should they feel pressure to be like her. But I agree with the posters who say that seeing frum women in authorative community roles negates the idea in the wider world that chassidic women are just doormats. And judge Freier occupies an authority role not just within the orthodox community but in the community as a whole, where she gets to see the worst that the secular world has to offer. And she seems to be doing it with unusual sensitivity and understanding. Kiddush Hashem.

crust

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 8:34 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

Crust, in my world it is the opposite. Women who choose to stay home and NOT spend their entire salary on babysitters and cleaning help are looked down on, while women who work, especially in a job with a career, are looked up to. Even if their kids are being raised by non-Jews.

My only issue with her profile is that she mentions that she decided she will do everything - cook and bake while working in law and going to school on the side. IMHO, this is not realistic, and this is not something the average woman can do. She is raising the bar too high. There are just too many korbonos that I know of, and many women who tried to do it all and literally fell apart, both physically and emotionally. So in this area I don't know that she's a good role model.

Now... quickly ducking the tomatoes...

Can we agree that there are superwoman? Maybe not 20 but 1 or 2 in a community. Smile

Can we agree that she is no fool to tell you in the article exactly how much help she has? Can we agree that she can sneak in a Greens babka instead of baking it for Shabbos at times? Smile

I did pick up that disrespect (jealousy?) vibe from some posters here. While it is true that women are respected for having a career I think that that's only untill they cross a line that no one else has crossed yet.
OT PT SW etc? Ok. Judje????? Noooo....

Its just my own observation doesn't have to be its correct.

Alternative

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 8:37 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

My only issue with her profile is that she mentions that she decided she will do everything - cook and bake while working in law and going to school on the side. IMHO, this is not realistic, and this is not something the average woman can do. She is raising the bar too high. There are just too many korbonos that I know of, and many women who tried to do it all and literally fell apart, both physically and emotionally. So in this area I don't know that she's a good role model.

Now... quickly ducking the tomatoes...

I agree. On my facebook page, people were writing about how she is a judge and she still makes challah from scratch every single Friday. They were saying what an eshet chayil, and how we should be inspired.
I don't need to be inspired to 'do it all'. I think it's a wrong expectation, and it's dangerous to tell young girls they should be 'inspired' to be Superwoman.

iluvy

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 8:43 am

Fox wrote:

We simply need to give them an answer they'll understand:

"This may seem counterintuitive to you, but we have a long history of not mingling casually with members of the opposite gender. It helps prevent misunderstandings and helps avoid situations in which people might be vulnerable to abuse or intimidation. Unfortunately, current headlines suggest that many women in contemporary society suffer greatly without clear social barriers to dictate behavior between men and women. Think of it as a 'safe space' that allows women to interact with one another freely, without regard for male behavior or attitudes. Perhaps you would like us to organize a separate meeting of women so that you can hear their ideas or concerns."

If the past month has taught us anything, it is that they are the ones with the problem. While there are clearly times and places in our communities in which women's opinions are not adequately respected, it's also pretty evident that some degree of separation between men and women isn't a wacky idea.

Fox, I try to be polite on the Internet, but I am literally shaking with anger at the specious garbage you just wrote. I apologize for the strong language but your post is so incredibly damaging and harmful to women while trying to to coopt the language of people care about women.

Our community desperately needs women in positions of leadership and power. We need women rabbis, whatever you want to call them. We need gender parity on the committees to choose the rabbis. We need women on school boards (Bais Yaakov and yeshiva), mikvah boards, tzedakah boards. We need frum female politicians and frum women liaisons to politicians. A community run by men is barren, dysfunctional, and frighteningly vulnerable to abuses of power.

How dare you use stories of women of being harmed to advocate for harming women? Almost every story of s-xual harassment that has recently emerged is a story of power imbalance. When women have the power, almost all of these stories would disappear.

How many of these gvirim and machers do not have female secretaries? For so many of these people who ch"v can't sit around a table with women and respectfully listen to what they have to say, mingling with women is suddenly okay when the woman is paid by them, several socioeconomic steps beneath them, and dependent on them in many respects. Which of course is not at all conducive to harassment and assault. Thanks so much for keeping the bottom of the ladder a "safe space" for women Rolling Eyes

Simple1

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 8:46 am

Alternative wrote:

I think she doesn't have young kids to look after at this point (correct me if I'm wrong). If she did, then it's much less realistic.

SpottedBanana

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 9:19 am

iluvy wrote:

Thanks so much for keeping the bottom of the ladder a "safe space" for women Rolling Eyes

This is not Fox, this is Judaism as G-d intended it. See the shelo asani isha thread for sources -- I dare you to explain them away.

Are you saying that in the times of Bayis Rishon, women were oppressed and the community was "frightening" because there were no women in power?

You, my friend, have been taken in by the liberals. Women were never meant to be equal, except in Reform Judaism and maybe Switzerland.

Mommyg8

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 9:29 am

iluvy wrote:

If you want to make up a new religion, go right ahead. Just don't call it Orthodox Judaism.

iluvy

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 11:03 am

SpottedBanana wrote:

G-d did not intend women to be inferior. If S/He had intended it so, S/He would not have created women with equal talents, capabilities, and intelligence. S/He created women and men as a single autonomous being and separated them into two so they could help and give to each other.

After the sin of the Eitz Hadaas, G-d CURSED women to be ruled over by men. A world in which women are subordinate is a cursed, flawed, damaged world. As the world comes closer to perfection and yemos hamashiach, we come closer to the world that G-d intended: childbirth is no longer as dangerous or painful, earning a living is no longer as physically demanding, and women are less powerless.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the times of Bayis Rishon, but you are extremely mistaken if you think it was a utopian time in which everything was exactly the way G-d wanted it to be. And yes, women were oppressed then. This is a historical fact.

I have read all of the sources cited on the shelo asani isha thread with great interest. The explanation is simply that the meforshim who stated that women are fundamentally inferior are wrong. They were operating in a cursed and flawed world and speaking the truth from that perspective.

Mommyg8

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 11:05 am

iluvy wrote:

I don't have time to really post, but I just wanted to quickly say that I actually saw something similar in a sefer by Rabbi Dovid Cohen. I was trying to find the sefer to quote it, but it seems to have disappeared...

He says that as Moshiach is coming closer, many of the curses of Adam are disappearing. Think - womens lib, epidural, etc... I really wish I can find this sefer.

iluvy

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 11:14 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

Yes, these ideas are discussed in The Moon's Lost Light by Devorah Heshelis (pseudonym). I like her sefer but disagree with her on several points (maybe another thread Smile

)

Fox

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 11:46 am

iluvy wrote:

I apologize for the strong language but your post is so incredibly damaging and harmful to women while trying to to coopt the language of people care about women.

Which people would those be, the ones who care so much about women?

I think we can all agree that stalwart champions of women's and children's well-being don't actually exist in the entertainment world.

What about the political world? Not so much, either. Though to their credit, our political actors seem willing to wait until their prospective partners hit puberty.

Perhaps they've all congregated in journalism, the better to teach the rest of us how to behave? Whoops! Plenty of bad-behaving boys there, too.

The jig is up.

The vast majority of famous and influential men who are accused of impropriety said all the right things -- for decades: they respected women; they treated them equally in the workplace; we need more women in the [fill in the blank] field. Many of them accepted awards and accolades for their progressive vision of women's equality.

There is a joke going around right now that when a public figure says he's a male feminist, you can start the countdown until the rape or harassment charges become public.

So now your solution is to strip power from men? Exactly how do you propose to do that? Ban men from starting businesses? Prevent them from being promoted to positions of authority? Check their blood work and make sure high-testosterone men aren't allowed to be supervisors, managers, or executives?

I completely support women pursuing paid work in connection with their talents, interests, and passions.

Judge Freier is interesting and inspiring. But is she more inspiring simply because she has a career that is uncommon in her community? No. What is inspiring to me is that she pursued her passion at an age when many of us would have written it off.

Do we need more women in public life? Maybe. Maybe not. Surely we've seen enough examples that women can be just as craven and wrongheaded as men. Though they're more likely to abuse employees by verbally abusing them and making them do personal errands than by s-xually harassing them.

As Sequoia has pointed out, I have a bit of an affinity for certain radfem ideas. I think it's perfectly fine to separate the s-xes for a lot of activities. Men -- even seemingly nice men who know the right things to say in public -- can be exceptionally piggish given the opportunity. Millenia of reform movements have not changed this.

People who claim to care about women yet who willingly sacrifice individual women in order to live in a fairytale world deserve to have their language coopted. They actually deserve far worse, but coopting their language against them to illustrate their moral bankruptcy is uniquely satisfying.

dancingqueen

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 12:05 pm

Fox wrote:

Two issues here: first, I'm beginning to wonder if we should consider the NYT as anything but a crackpot outlet pandering to bigotry and prejudice. Obviously not as bad as The Daily Stormer but a lot more deceitful and insidious.

A while back someone linked to a hateful article regarding modest clothing. The thesis of that article was, basically, "You don't have to be a religious weirdo in order to want to cover up a little!" Here we have an article for which the thesis seems to be, "Woman overcomes her backward community to achieve real success!"

Of course, executive editor Dean Baquet has admitted to the bigotry. He just happens to serve constituents who are fine with it.

As for Judge Freier herself, it's obviously a great story. I love to read about women's lives and how they've pursued various passions and undertaken responsibilities. However, I am not inspired simply because someone has pursued a job that, for whatever reason, is unusual in her community. For every Judge Freier that the NYT deigns to cover, there are dozens of women who have found ways to use their binah, nurturing capabilities, and interpersonal skills in novel ways. Some run businesses; some work as professionals; some have created large non-profits or small chesed organizations; some serve as matriarchs of their families. Their stories and lives are every bit as interesting.

It is the worst kind of misogyny to respect and admire women solely because they have proven they can do jobs previously or generally done by men.

Whether it's the NYT or, l'havdil, Jewish outlets, it is the nature of news media to cover "man bites dog" stories. It's unrealistic to think that Judge Freier's story is not newsworthy. In fact, I can think of dozens of questions for Judge Freier connected to her personal story or to the nature of her career and job. Interesting people are always . . . interesting. But the whole, "frum woman exceeds community expectations" narrative is demeaning and facile.

Aren't you one of the posters who is against everything being so PC? So now there can't be an article about a successful career woman who would be noteworthy in any community, but is more so in her own, because that implicitly demeans SAHMs and the womanly arts? So we should never praise anyone, especially a woman, because others will feel hurt then.

SpottedBanana

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 12:15 pm

iluvy wrote:

Asking respectfully: so if you, iluvy, can determine that some sources are "wrong" because they "were operating in a cursed and flawed world," what makes you believe that the very same chain of mesorah is to be trusted for halacha, if they were so susceptible to flaws in perspective?

(Obviously, I am not suggesting that each individual tanna, amora, rishon, and acharon was a perfect person, but I question why someone would be frum if they don't believe that the crux of the mesorah is flawless and unchanging. And yes, I believe that while women serving men is a curse, it is still the framework for marriage we are meant to have, as shown by the midrash of the sun and the moon, two kings cannot wear one crown etc.)

Mommyg8

Tue, Nov 21 2017, 12:23 pm

iluvy wrote:

By "women rabbis" I mean women in a position to counsel, advise and admonish the community, who are given the deference traditionally accorded to male rabbis. Like I said, I don't care what you call them.

Right. So, as far as I know, women cannot have positions of power, or as you say, cannot be in a position to receive the "deference traditionally accorded to male rabbis", in Orthodox Judaism. Like I said, if you would like things to be different, you would have to go outside of the framework of Orthodox Judaism. Again, as far as I know.