Does anyone else feel uncomfortable going to their sons scho

amother

Tangerine

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 12:20 pm

Poor OP! Why is everyone attacking her?? I personally don't think I'm going to have a problem with it (only have a baby) but I can totally imagine why it would be uncomfortable for someone.

amother

Natural

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 12:24 pm

I went to my friend's son's school to drop off something he forgot. The menehel was outside and didn't want to take it from me. Talk about awkward.

I am comfortable within a group of men. I sarcastically asked him if he just wanted me to leave it on the sidewalk. OP, they probably aren't comfortable with the moms either.

chanchy123

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 12:24 pm

I knew women who grew up in a very segregated DL environment who feel the same way.

amother

Beige

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 1:23 pm

Dropping off forgotten lunches or assignments doesn't bother me. I'm a single parent so I'm the one to meet my children's teachers for conferences and such, and that's sometimes harder. My bar mitzvah son is in a more yeshivish school and sometimes it's uncomfortable meeting his rebbeim, because I'm one of the only mothers attending without a husband and some of his rebbeim are a little awkward with it. I try to be somewhat deferential to the rebbe, because that's how women in my community are expected to behave and I need to get along. At the same time I am aware that I must advocate for my son and am as direct as I need to be to do this.

OP, it took me a little while to get used to it, and sometimes it's still challenging and I have to be nice to myself afterward. Just remember that you are doing what you need to do to take care of your son and you will get used to it too.

amother

Honeydew

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 3:24 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I have never felt comfortable in a room Full of men and dont like when when I have to go to school to deliver a forgotten book/lunch. Is this crazy,?

Maybe, but if so, I'm as crazy as you. Despite being employed in a male-dominant field and being used to being the only woman in a room full of men (I barely notice any more), I am very uncomfortable being the only woman in a room full of FRUM men. Even if it's in shul and I'm behind a mechitzah that one can see through. It's not apprehension about my physical safety, which I feel if I notice I'm the only woman in a subway car, as I'm pretty confident I'm not going to be mugged or my purse snatched. It's partly a sense of being in a place where I don't belong (though I do belong in shul) and am not welcome, but there's something more I can't quite define or identify. A kind of "religious cooties" feeling, though who has the cooties, they or I, is unclear.

I blame this on artificial gender separation. My problem started in Grade 6, when our formerly coed classes were separated for limudei kodesh, with girls learning Mishna and boys learning Gemara. In the pm we were coed again for general studies. If the kodesh teacher sent me to the boys' classroom to deliver a message to the teacher, I had that same awful feeling. In the pm when we were mixed-gender classes, I was fine with being sent with an errand to another classroom.

FTR I attended a religious Zionist coed elementary, a religious Zionist girls' HS, was a member of a coed youth movement, attended coed religious Zionist summer camp and coed public university. I speak publicly to mixed-gender audiences and supervise male and female staff, so it's not as if I can't talk to men who aren't related to me. But I can't shake that icky creepy feeling. If I see a cluster of frum males on the sidewalk--even if they're just high school kids, lo kol sheken if they're adults--I cross the street to avoid them.

amother

Gray

Sun, Jun 30 2019, 3:54 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I have never felt comfortable in a room Full of men and dont like when when I have to go to school to deliver a forgotten book/lunch. Is this crazy,?

Yes

ShishKabob

Mon, Jul 01 2019, 10:43 am

If there are literally no women to be found I can understand you.
I have no issue walking into my sons school. That's because there are women around.