Its about time | Imamother

amother

Lime

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:14 pm

southernbubby wrote:

When my husband and I were first married 41 years ago, I went to the bank to change the name on my account and tried to sign it the way my mother always had, Mrs John Doe, and the bank clerk said it was no longer legal because it was not my first name. At that time, it was even questionable whether or not a woman should change her last name when she got married and it was considered perfectly legitimate to either retain the maiden name or hyphenate it with the married name. It even became viewed as anti-feminist and outdated and quaint for a woman to give up something as intrinsic to who she was as her own name.
And when you think about it, marriage does change a person's status but should it change who the person is or what she is called?

Among my group of married friends there are probably two camps

A) I'm so happy to finally be Mrs. Newman.

or

B) I'm so happy that I married Chaim Newman.

farm

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:30 pm

amother wrote:

The Bamboo Cradle was just reprinted with the womens face on the cover.
Stories straight from Mommys Heart has the mom on the cover.
Mimmy and Simmy (recently reprinted) has the girls on the covers.
'How does she Manage?' has drawings of womens faces on the cover.

But the idea why women are omitted from magazines etc is because women are special. You wouldnt display a diamond outside for everyone to see. You would keep it in a safe place and treasure it. It comes from the parsha where it says "Hinei Sara B'ohel".

But honestly I couldnt care less either way.

Did you notice that the ad for the reprinted Bamboo Cradle had "back in print" plastered right smack in middle of Devora's face to block her in all the Frum magazines?
Again, you gave examples of 'girly' books (and mostly old ones!!). I am looking for a regular book with a regular family that includes brothers and sisters (and a mother and father) in the plot, and preferably on the cover. You know- like Arthur or Clifford or Mr Putter and Tabby, A-Z Mystery series? HARD TO FIND. There is no way this is not intentional in the frum major publishing houses.

farm

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:33 pm

Hmmm. Expensive and special sparkly beautiful jewelry dripping with gems and diamonds are often found within the ads of said publications.
She was likely inside because she didn't feel comfortable in the company of strange men without their wives present. An appropriate reaction that we should learn from.

Fox

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:43 pm

amother wrote:

Funny, I can probably count on one hand how many times I've come across a woman who prefers Ms. to Miss or Mrs.

But it's kind of a disparity. With Mr., we never know if he's married or not.

I've also met many women who didn't like "Ms.", but I never understood why. They'd claim they didn't like its feminist connotations, but then they'd turn around and complain that they found it devaluing to be called "Mrs. John Doe." If you then said, well, that's the purpose of "Ms.," they'd say, "But I'm proud of being married!"

As Six said, a lot of women use a different name professionally, especially if they married after establishing a career with their original name. It has less to do with feminist ideology than whether the people who contract your services will be able to find you easily or check your credentials without any difficulty. I also have friends who use their birth name professionally to honor the fathers who put them through graduate school.

If it's important for some reason for my physician/lawyer/dry cleaner to share his/her marital status, I presume I'll be told. "Ms." works perfectly, allowing me to focus on my dry cleaning rather than the personal lives of the professionals who do the work.

keym

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:52 pm

What annoys me the most are the obutuaries.
We regret the loss of Rabbi Chaim Schwartz blah blah blah.
He is survived by his sons Dovid and Yitzchok and sons in law Moshe Stein and Shimmy Cohen.
Look im sure his sons in law are sad and all but their wives WHO ARE THE ONES SITTING SHIVA are the ones to get the consolation.

keym

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 2:59 pm

farm wrote:

Are you not reading my posts? I know there are "girl" books available, I am looking for a normal gender neutral book or series like Ron Roy's, Danny and the Dinosaur, Cam Jansen, etc.
and once again (but irrelevant to my point), Dina Dee is old.

I was actually excited when Yossi and Label had a baby sister. But then the stories ended so there went that.
I mentioned in a different thread that the 2nd yiddishe kup had a few ladies in a few pictures. They must have gotten backlash but its still not enough.
And true. The only comic book ive seen with a women as a main character is a Purim story.

iluvy

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 5:03 pm

To those who say, "why do you care":

Rav Yitzchok Breitowitz said the following to frumwomenhavefaces.com:

Quote:

"In the vidui of Rabbeinu Nissim, the penitent begs forgiveness for a variety of transgressions, among them is, "What You declared pure I deemed unclean... what You have declared permitted I deemed forbidden." Erasing women from photographs or blurring their faces even if they are modestly dressed has not been the practice in klal yisrael, and to take on a stringency over and beyond anything required by gedolai yisrael is not only arrogant and pretentious but profoundly offensive and demeaning to women as a whole. A chumra beyond normative halacha ceases to be legitimate at the point that it violates basic kavod habriyot. Moreover, the very highlighting of women as the "other " who must be eliminated is in itself counter to the norms of tzniyut and can itself trigger the evils it was supposedly designed to alleviate."

If you think this is appropriate or desirable, you're entitled to your opinion, but be aware that's an extremely radical opinion that goes against millenia of Jewish history and all published psakim of today.

And thanks to the above poster who mentioned Tmunah Jr.! It's a children's magazine (aimed at 6-11) whose mission is to provide entertaining, educational, Torahdig content that portrays women respectfully and reflects Torah values instead of a profit motive.

Tmunah Jr. on Amazon, Facebook, digital downloads (free!), Instagram
(assuming I'm allowed to post this? it is a completely volunteer-produced labor of love)

soap suds

Thu, Jun 07 2018, 9:21 pm

To all those who oppose omitting the woman's name from invitations: Who determines what gets printed? Isn't it up to the baal simcha to decide which wording to use? If it bothers you, why not print your name? And don't tell me there will be backlash or your kids will be thrown out of shool, cuz that's just hogwash.

amother

Blue

Fri, Jun 08 2018, 10:47 am

soap suds wrote:

Disagree with the bolded. For whatever reason women's names are omitted, it's NOT because they are disrespected.

So for what reason ARE they omitted? It's definitely not for tznius reasons, because even the Torah (gasp!) printed the names of the women.

Leaving out a person's name is considered a lack of respect, lack of acknowledgement or a belittling act. When a name or contributing author is mistakenly left out of an article, or attributed to the wrong person, an apology is quickly posted the following week. Why is that? Isn't that because it does not acknowledge the work and/or success of that respective individual? Doesn't our hard and never-ending work of raising our children deserve more of acknowledgement than being referred to as an unnamed wife?

When someone I'm affiliated with meets my husband, they take the time to ask him his name and to respectfully refer to him as such - instead of referring to his as my husband. That is done to treat him respectfully, because calling him as 'so and so's' husband would be considered a lack of respect. And the same holds true for women, regardless of how many rationalizations people come up with.

amother

Olive

Fri, Jun 08 2018, 1:00 pm

farm wrote:

And once again.
Malky and Yossele is at least 10 years old.
New Jewish children books with both girls and boys in the plot and on the cover is hard to find. Not impossible, but hard enough that it bothers me. A lot.

As far as I know, Malky and Yossele still comes out with new books. And, like I said, most children's books have a boy and a girl.
Checked Eichler's online just now;
Adina - fashion book
Rabbi Yisroel Salanter
Hello Heddy Levi (yes I know it's an old book)
Toba's Passage
The New Girl
The story of Rus
All Aboard to Fairville
Penina series

Whatever - I don't have time to look, but no girls on cover is definitely not a thing.

pesek zman

Sat, Jun 09 2018, 10:35 pm

LovesHashem wrote:

History.
Why do you take your DH's last name and not keep yours?
It's an old practice that no one ever changed. It's not like people ae BIDAVKA leaving the woman's name out.

Heads up. Taking husbands names is NOT universally accepted. I didn't. Many of my friends didn't. My sister didn't

Boca00

Sat, Jun 09 2018, 11:01 pm

amother wrote:

All the frum magazines publish the full names of the female authors, editors and letter-writers unless requested otherwise.

amother

Yellow

Sat, Jun 09 2018, 11:08 pm

A lot of these girl books mentioned are made specifically for girls. They are not necessarily marketed as unisex. I think the problem people have is “family” books, are all about boys. So anything not marketed specifically to girls - well girls are out. I think this is wrong. Girls as the central theme are only “risked” when the book is obviously directed to only girls.
(My brothers read Bakers dozen. Definitely had lots of action coming from the boys, even though the quints were girls.)

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Jun 10 2018, 4:02 am

It would be wrong to say that things were always done a certain way. Paper invitations are themselves fairly recent.

Rav Reuven Feinstein's wedding invitation (which I have seen) is signed Moshe Feinstein ve-rayato Sima. No titles, her name included. And yes, lots of people used Harav X ve-rayato too.

You weren't less frum if you used a wife's name, and you weren't more frum if you left her out. Believe it or not, there are some things which are guided by personal preference and are not within the purview of halacha.