Looking Like a Mathematician

    My father recently sent me a big box of memorabilia, including a "book" I wrote at around age seven.  This book is several sheets of paper stapled together, and its text in my handwriting explains counting and using different bases and place value.  The book is entitled Mathematics.  I also added an author's name, a very White Male name, complete with a fake author bio and picture on the back cover.  My parents loved this book and were very proud of me and my mathematics.  But it didn't occur to any of us circa 1980 that someone should have said, "why didn't you put your own name as the author, Leah?"  I guess we figured that authors of mathematics books would not be little girls.

    About a dozen years later, I was a math major at MIT.  After attending a semi-formal party, a group of us went back to my then-boyfriend-now-husband's suite and worked on some number theory problems.  I loved how it felt, to be wearing my royal blue brocaded dress while sitting and doing math - Math!  At MIT!  In a ball gown!  This is the life, I thought.

    I was working on a problem from one end, while four men in the suite were working on the other end - the final answer would be a very long integer with certain properties.  At one point, I overheard one of the guys say a string of four numbers which matched what I had found, and when we overlapped our work, we had solved the problem!  I signed my name with a flourish on my page and stepped out to go to the bathroom.  When I came back, my husband's roommate was making fun of the fact that I put my name on my work.  In fact, he wrote some nasty comments below it on my paper.  I wish I had defended myself.  I wish I had demanded credit for my work.  I wish I had told that guy to unpack his overstuffed backpack of male privilege and take a flying intercourse.  Instead, I made a dumb comment about how I always write my name on my work and said I was sorry.  Too bad I hadn't remembered the author of Mathematics and written his name instead.

    That wasn't the only time I encountered sexism about math at MIT, not even close.  There was the time a professor implied that I might have trouble in what ended up being a trivially easy class.  There was the complete lack of women professors in the department, and the matching lack of women's bathrooms in Building 2.

    Interestingly, I disagree with naming as sexism something that also happened around that time.  My very favorite math professor from MIT (with whom I have recently restarted correspondence) used to mention when girls had gotten the highest marks in his advanced courses.  He would tell the class, "the highest grade was earned by a girl in this class!" in what I thought was a joyful celebration.  In the early 1990s, it wasn't considered feminist to notice gender, and he faced criticism for calling out that a girl had done particularly well.

    But I think my favorite professor meant to call attention to the problem that sometimes, women at MIT were not encouraged, and we were not celebrated for doing well in math.  I'm glad that he saw this very real problem, and wanted to encourage us.  He is a true champion of women in mathematics.

You (Apparently) Can't Take The Orthodox Out of Me?

Yesterday was Parents' Day at Prozdor Hebrew College, where my kids go for Jewish supplementary education.  It was a very impressive day!  I very much enjoyed the classes that I sat in on, about the Jewish legal system, American Zionism before and after the 1967 War, a Kahoot game about Chanukah trivia, and a lecture on stereotypes of Jewish women over the last hundred years.

During the Jewish legal system class, something very interesting happened.  The course is taught by Rabbi David Ehrenkranz of Sharon, MA, a well-known and respected Orthodox rabbi and educator.  He was focusing on some of the differences between courtrooms in the USA and in a Jewish halakhic setting.

If you're reading my blog, you won't be surprised that when Rabbi E said, "what is something you don't see in a Jewish courtroom but that you see in an American courtroom?" (Juries, Lawyers) I said, "Women, as witnesses or judges."

This is where it got interesting.  Rabbi E said, "Actually, in many beit din contexts, we do accept some testimony from women, though of course they're not judges and they can't sign documents."  While I was pondering how a nice guy like him could have inserted so much Othering into one sentence, another parent in the room raised his hand.

"Well, this is only for Orthodox Judaism, right?" he said.  It was like he'd broken the fourth wall - that was the extent of his recalibration of my reality at that moment.  Yes!  Of course!  There's a whole other Jewish world out there, and I don't have to keep banging my head on Orthodoxy.  But I kind of do, because somehow, no matter what I do, say, and believe, apparently Orthodoxy still shapes how I think during all these discussions.

I'm apparently like Shalom Auslander, whose hilarious and poignant work can be summarized by the idea, "For someone who doesn't exist, God really has a lot of influence on me."

Or like the questioner in the joke told to me by my brother-in-law Ernest, about the Atheist Jew who still follows all the halakha because he doesn't mind and enjoys celebrating Shabbat.  His friend says, "But don't you want to do something, just to bother God?"  The response is, "Whom would I be bothering?"

It also reminded me of a passage from Tova Mirvis's memoir, in which she attends a Yom Kippur service at a Chavurah, and when she feels guilt about driving there, participating in an egalitarian service, etc., she describes her realization that this is a religious, positive experience for many Jews.  And that for them, it's actually a guilt-assuaging activity on Yom Kippur.

By coincidence, there is currently a discussion of the meaning of "Modern Orthodox" on a curated (censored) email list called Mail.Jewish, on which I've participated for over 25 years.  I thought it would be helpful for that discussion to write up sample responses from along a stream of Jewish perspectives, about a story that I sent to M.J years ago.

The story was that my son Ezra, after reading a Percy Jackson book, grabbed a cup of juice and declared, "I offer this to Poseidon!" which shocked the rest of us.  I thought it would be a very interesting topic for M.J (though I sent it anonymously for fear of the kind of meanness that I sometimes experience on that list).  In fact, two responses emerged, the ultra-Orthodox (Chareidi) view that this is the problem with reading secular literature, and the more modern, still Orthodox, view that essentially, education can conquer any issue that might come up.

While I was writing up the sample responses, an internet acquaintance of many years, who is an editor of M.J, suggested that the Reform Jewish response might be something like, "we don't have to listen to ancient texts".  I thought this was striking.  I've never met a Reform Jew who starts there when addressing a Jewish question.  That's how an Orthdox Jew thinks a Reform Jew thinks.  But in my extensive experience in non-Orthodox communities, I see all Jews struggling with how our tradition (and texts!) should inform and influence our lives today.

Here is what I came up with - I do think that there are outlook differences, of course.  It's not even on the radar of most Jews that they would have to ask a Rabbi what to do, or that it would be an option to censor all secular literature:

Reading the recent posts on what MO might or might not be, reminded me of a post
a while back on MJ about a young boy who read the Percy Jackson books and
learned about Greek mythology, and then took a cup of juice and proclaimed, "I
offer this to Poseidon!" prompting a bit of a panic. (Cup was kashered; juice
was thrown away; education was provided.)

I remember specific responses when I discussed this on-list and off-list, and it
illustrated to me where MO falls in a spectrum of Jewish practice/belief:

Chareidi Orthodox response: This is why we shouldn't allow children to read
secular books! I'm going to take away those books and rebuke my child for such
blatant avoda zara. The cup and juice are already in the trash.

Modern Orthodox response: Can the cup be kashered? Ask a Rabbi, but I think we
have to throw out the juice. This is a great learning opportunity, because how
often does this issue really come up in real life? And we know that this kid
does not actually pray to an ancient Greek idol; we're not worried about that
nowadays. It's a time for discussion and education about what it means to be
Jews. We would never forbid secular literature because it would cut out a great
light of humanity, itself perhaps a manifestation of Hashem's influence on what
people can achieve.

Conservative response: I'm not so comfortable with anyone drinking the juice,
but come on, the cup should just be washed; there's no way it's treif. Who
believes in idols these days? We're obviously Jewish, but I don't need to ask
any Rabbi about what to do. My kids know they're Jewish and we don't daven to
other "gods". I'll talk to them to make sure they understand that.

Reform response: That was an inherently non-Jewish thing for my kid to do. I'd
rather we put the juice away, at least for a while, because I don't want anyone
in my family to think we would eat an idol offering. Obviously no one believes
in idols anymore. In fact, my family wrestles with what the role of any "god" at
all would be in our lives. The reason I don't want my kid to pretend to offer
something to Poseidon is that it makes me spiritually uncomfortable in my own
understanding of being part of the Jewish people.

Secular (but Jewish-identified) response: That is disturbing, and for some
reason I feel like we shouldn't drink that juice. We're Jewish, and there's no
way I want one of my kids pretending to be another religion. When I think about
it, is it so different to pray to one god or another? But on some level, this
really does feel wrong. I'm going to talk to my kids about that. Some pretend
play crosses a line for me.

Since I'm the closest thing on M.J to a Conservative, Reform, or Secular Jew that most members there will ever read, I hope I got it at least close to correct.  :)

For a long time, I've thought that an Orthodox upbringing sets certain thinking parameters that are just different than how other kinds of Jews experience life, regardless of eventual belief or practice.  My friend and former colleague, Rabbi Shmuel Feld, once led a Yom Kippur shiur that I attended, in which he introduced the song "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls as a text source for the holiday, including the poignant verse:

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am 

Without exception, in the class, everyone from an Orthodox upbringing read the verse as coming from a penitent to God - and those from non-Orthodox upbringings read it as coming from God to the penitent.

I'm not sure what to make of this all, but I think it's the start of an answer to Ben, who often asks me, "why?" when I participate in Mail.Jewish, get offended during halakha shiurim, or in general, keep banging my head against Orthodoxy while trying to figure out what it means to me to be Jewish.

Teenagers and Criteria for the Supreme Court

I was outraged by the recent confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  So much has been written about it that I don't need to revisit all of the depressing themes.  For those who would like a good summary, John Oliver did a great job explaining it.

But something few people seem willing to criticize is Kavanaugh's drinking problem in high school.  Why do we give him a free pass, in this version of "boys will be boys"?  Not every teenager drinks alcohol, and not all who drink, do so excessively and repeatedly.  So it's grossly disrespectful to young people to imply that they do.  I take this accusation personally as a mother, but more significantly I take it personally as a high school teacher.

An adult told me recently that I have no idea if my students drink alcohol on the weekends.  This was probably true when she attended high school.  Certainly even longer ago, when I attended high school, we did not discuss drinking or other questionable behavior with our teachers.  But high schools and expectations have evolved over the two decades that I have been teaching.  Teachers are much more likely to know whether their students drink than they were in the past, and to be able to estimate data on the subject, because:

1. The culture has changed - a simple viewing of 1980s teen movies followed by Superbad and Mean Girls will begin to show what I mean about the significant culture shift.  Peer pressure has changed around alcohol, largely because of openness to reduce drunk driving and to treat alcoholism as a medical issue.  Students who do so, admit readily in school that they drink alcohol at weekend parties, and they discuss openly who does not drink.  In fact, they frequently discuss who will be a designated driver, who is Muslim, who is taking medications contraindicated with alcohol, etc.  It is not considered in any way a taboo subject.

2. We have social inventory surveys at school that give good, frequent, anonymous data.  Students participate in their Advisory classes, and we get excellent response rates.  I realize that this may be an artifact of teaching in a wealthy suburban area, but I think it's worthwhile to mention.  Our data shows interesting trends (e.g. away from alcohol and toward marijuana use), but also shows repeatedly that at most two thirds of our students have ever drunk alcohol with peers by the time they graduate high school.  Two thirds sounds like a lot, but it leaves many students who do not drink.

3. We have more social-emotional opportunities for open discussion among students and teachers.  There are entire classes at my own school about social norms and behavior, as well as many more informal times when students and teachers discuss alcohol, drug, and sexual choices.  When plenty of students admit to drinking alcohol, and plenty of students explain why they make other choices, teachers accumulate real data.

I don't think that drinking alcohol in high school should disqualify people from most jobs in life.  But if you are going to be interpreting and to some extent enforcing our law, in the highest court in the land, then it's reasonable to expect candidates to have a totally unimpeachable record about following the law themselves.  (Possible exceptions for moral reasons, such as sit-ins or protests that lead to trespassing arrests, can be examined openly if applicable.)

And should this unimpeachable record start at age fourteen (or younger)?  As to the argument that they're "just kids" - I know plenty of teens who make excellent choices, and I think that they are certainly old enough to be held accountable for those choices.  Although some brain development continues for up to another decade, teenagers are fully formed human beings who express opinions, write interesting analyses, and are fully capable of knowing right from wrong.  I leave it to my middle school colleagues to determine if this is true even younger.

We already, in fact, hold kids accountable for their choices.  In the age of social media, colleges rescind admissions for harassment and other inappropriate behavior.  Athletic team standards hold students accountable for unsporting conduct, which may include hazing, bullying, or substance use.

In the unlikely event that I am called upon to offer my opinion, here are my four basic criteria before anyone should be considered as a Supreme Court nominee:

1. No illegal use of alcohol or drugs, including underage use; no excessive use of any substance.

2. No cheating on any academic or financial matter.

3. No bullying, belittling, or hazing behavior.

4. No harassment or non-consensual touching of any other person.

This list will necessarily exclude a lot of people, both in and out of the public sector.  However, the good news is that the USA is not Sodom, where it's impossible to find a quorum of good people (notwithstanding Lot's legacy admission to Canaan).  For our highest court, I think we deserve it.

Thoughts and Texts

I awoke on Sunday with an earworm from the Book of Amos (*).  Maybe it was matza overload ("hunger for bread").  I kept hearing the song:

יא  הִנֵּה יָמִים בָּאִים, נְאֻם אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה, וְהִשְׁלַחְתִּי רָעָב, בָּאָרֶץ:  לֹא-רָעָב לַלֶּחֶם, וְלֹא-צָמָא לַמַּיִם--כִּי אִם-לִשְׁמֹעַ, אֵת דִּבְרֵי יְהוָה

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but [a famine] of hearing the words of GOD.

The confluence of my youngest son's transfer to public school, with my mother's recent illness and death, has meant that I have been reading more Jewish texts than usual.  My son and I study Torah and Mishna together, and I was part of groups learning Psalms and now Talmud, in my mother's honor and memory. (**)

Just last week, I began to teach Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) to my youngest, as my father taught it to me and my sisters.  Going in, I was pondering the popular parts of the text, including the secrets to wisdom (learn from every person) and wealth (be happy with your portion).  And of course, Rabbi Hillel's timeless wisdom about urban snow-shoveling:

הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתַי    1.14

1.14  He [Rabbi Hillel] used to say: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?

And then, with my Cambridge-raised innocent child by my side, I came upon:

1.5  יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹחָנָן אִישׁ יְרוּשָׁלַיִם אוֹמֵר, יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָּתוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתֶךָ, וְאַל תַּרְבֶּה שִׂיחָה עִם הָאִשָּׁה. בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ אָמָרוּ, קַל וָחֹמֶר בְּאֵשֶׁת חֲבֵרוֹ. מִכָּאן אָמְרוּ חֲכָמִים, כָּל זְמַן שֶׁאָדָם מַרְבֶּה שִׂיחָה עִם הָאִשָּׁה, גּוֹרֵם רָעָה לְעַצְמוֹ, וּבוֹטֵל מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה, וְסוֹפוֹ יוֹרֵשׁ גֵּיהִנָּם

1.5  Yose ben Yochanan, man of Jerusalem, says, "May your home be open wide, may the poor be members of your household and do not increase conversation with the woman." They so stated with his wife; all the more so with the wife of his friend. From this, the sages said, "Any time that a man increases conversation with the woman, he causes evil to himself and neglects the words of Torah; and, in his end, he inherits Perdition."

It was hard to know how to handle this - censoring it would go against everything I believe about speech being best countered by "more speech".  Explaining that some people were sexist in the olden days seemed like my best bet.  A few days later, I came upon a wonderful column in the B'nei Jeshurun blog, "Worse than Invisible:  Ruminations on Women and Talmud Torah" .  The whole piece bears reading, but here is a sample:

Why should women or feminists even bother engaging a literature that is so antithetical to our values, that so undermines our sense of self? We continue to learn because we believe that Talmud Torah is the gateway to Jewish life; that Talmud Torah, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote, “makes the Jew a partner in the cultural legacy and spiritual program of Judaism.” (Leibowitz, Yeshayahu. Amudim, No. 449, p. 267) Because we know that to deprive women the gift of Torah study is “a negation of a basic Jewish right,” (ibid, p. 168) beneficial neither to Jewish women nor Jewish men, and in fact destructive to the community as a whole. Those who affirm the importance of women’s study believe that our lives are intricately tied to the lives of those who came before us and that, as Jews, that eternal connection was established and is perpetuated through our sacred texts. We also know that we can neither criticize nor transform that which we do not first know intimately.

So...this is something to think about.  I don't remember now, how my father dealt with these passages, as he read to his daughters, "don't talk too much with women" - not only did this statement insult his entire family, but he is in any case a self-declared feminist who would object to such a sentiment in general.  Perhaps he will read this and comment!

When Jewish texts contain misogynist passages, they are not merely problematic because of surface content, but also because of the not-so-subtle message:  the writer and the reader are expected to be male.  Likely married males, and tangentially, married males with adequate funds.

Teachers and learners in the modern era are supposed to be attuned to cultural privilege.  What is the "hidden curriculum" in classes or books about who is entitled to learn?  This is an important part of exposing students to content in ways that will support and nourish them as learners.  As a physics teacher, I am expected to find examples for momentum and force that do not make assumptions about my students' gender, race, sports knowledge, or other cultural markers.

So I'm repeatedly irritated and surprised that more teachers in the Orthodox world haven't raised more objections to using misogynist texts.  What do they say?  What do they do?  I have not read or heard of satisfactory answers on a large scale.  However, since I am external to that world, I am free and empowered to name the problem - and revisit why my ancestral text might have been written as it was. The B'nei Jeshurun blog continues:

I love the teachings on justice and liberation too much to abandon the texts to those Jews who read with blinders on – those who are not scarred by the chauvinism etched on its pages. I recognize the Rabbis as deeply wounded individuals, disempowered by the political world, attempting to grasp control where they can: in the religious and social spheres. But wounded though they are, they remain my family, my community, and I therefore cannot disregard their voices.

And this made me more sympathetic - these men who wrote our ancient texts were, in some cases, exerting power over the only people left under their control.  Not a pretty conclusion, but easier to explain to my kids.

Which then reminded me of this week's Torah portion:  Acharei Mot.  We previously read about the seemingly-divine deaths of Aaron's sons, after they brought "strange fire" to the altar.  I am tempted to assume that their deaths were accidental, as a result of playing with fire (in imitation of their elders).  However, the parsha this week details extensive penitence rituals, including those presumably undertaken in an attempt to find absolution for the boys' sin.  And this parsha's content is one of the major sources for traditional Yom Kippur liturgy.

Losing a child must be the most horrible thing that a parent can experience; losing a parent is hard enough, even though that is the "natural" way of things progressing.  My recent experience has bludgeoned me with reality on this point, unfortunately.  I miss my mother so much, and even though her death was expected, and even though our grief began during her long illness and suffering, it is still hard to face the finality of mortality.

And, human to human, I can understand the efforts that Aaron felt he had to go through, to re-exert control over his religion and his idea of God.  This is extended to the parsha's odd inclusion of a list of sexual instructions.  Again, it is Aaron's attempt to exert control over uncontrollable impulses and people, in the desperate hope of avoiding tragedy, which he would have viewed as divine punishment.

Others have said it more elegantly before me, but it seems clear that we have to acknowledge cultural baggage that surrounded the writers of our texts, in order to get the most out of studying them.  It's a good thing that my religion enjoins people to struggle and engage, instead of requiring only surface reading.

---


(*) "Amos" is pronounced in our family the Hebrew way, i.e. so that "Famous Amos" cookies are as un-rhyming as the kosher product slogan "Reach for Rokeach".

(**) A shout-out here to the Koren publishers (no affiliation with me), who have been releasing wonderful and fairly-priced Judaica for years, but increasing their scope.  Some of their newer hard-bound editions are now available in Hebrew-English on amazon, and I have been pleased to expand my library.   I also like that while on amazon, I can order a tikkun for my boys that includes a table of contents and some more instructional material, unlike the old "black tikkun" that we grew up with - which I like to refer to as the "ha-mei'vin yavin tikkun" because it is so obtuse.

On Bake Sales

So I'm finally a Cranky Cantabridgian.  Ok, so I don't really live in Cambridge, though I can see it from my house.  My crossover into true crankdom occurred yesterday, when my boys asked me to participate in a fund-raising Bake Sale for team sweat-shirts.

I don't mind baking, giving my time and resources when it's for someone who will appreciate it.  I bake bread weekly, and I bake other things like cookies, soft pretzels, pies, cakes, and brownies at least a dozen times a year for my family and friends.  But a Bake Sale is considered a "fund-raiser" because of the implication that $1 per brownie represents free money to those holding the sale.  It's only free money, though, if you don't pay attention.

Bake Sales, I told my kids are anti-feminist and illogical.  Here is why:

1. It's how they used to oppress us.  This is analogous to why some Orthodox parents get the heebie-jeebies about Jewish kids celebrating Halloween or even St.Valentine's Day ("it used to be the occasion for a pogrom!").  I have to admit that the dark-house cowering on October 31st, afraid of petty vandalism, gives modern relevance to their point of view.

During second-wave feminism, advocates for stay-at-home-motherhood were known for judging employed women by whether their volunteer contributions were home-made, beautiful, etc. - in short, whether the cookies, as proxies for mothering, were up to par.  I offered to buy Oreos for the event, but my kids seemed to think that only home-made items would be acceptable.  And that's why it's oppressive.

2. The idea of bringing in "free" baked goods devalues what I spend on ingredients.  In our home, we try to buy high quality food, including good vanilla extract, high-end chocolate, and so forth.  I'm unwilling either to consider this food disposable, or to support agro-industry buying inferior products for a volunteer project.

3. The idea of bringing in "free" baked goods devalues my time.  When I do freelance work, I am paid between $100-$200 per hour.  If someone wants to cut into my family time, I would require even a higher hourly wage.  This raises the labor cost of a pan of brownies somewhere into the range of the price of a medium-good bottle of Scotch.  Can you imagine requesting that each kid bring in a $150 bottle of Scotch for a fund-raiser?  I understand the class implications of this objection - but everyone involved in the story is of the same socioeconomic group.

4. No one needs more baked goods.  There's already enough fat-shaming in this world, so I won't belabor the point, but the intended Bake Sale customers have access to plenty of other, healthier calories in their lives.

This topic reminds me tangentially of when I was part of a discussion about "reasons to breastfeed" on a mothering listserv years ago.  There are many reasons to breastfeed babies, and I nursed each of mine until age 3yo.  However, it is an anti-woman claim that "breastfeeding is free".  Breastfeeding is expensive in time and energy and effort - and the choice to breastfeed should be acknowledged as choosing to pay a high price for something very worthwhile.

Let me close in gratitude that I do live close to Cambridge, in a community where we can discuss and ponder issues of whether brownies are appropriate.  I read a set of incredibly disturbing articles in the New York Times about how ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is encouraging the violent sexual abuse of women.  I can't do much except publicize that this is happening, and hope very much that our national and global leadership can put a halt to this kind of oppression, wherever it occurs in the world.

Culture of Patriarchal Oppression: My Bad Hattitude

It is almost a cliche that men's clothing is designed for function while women's clothing is...not.

There are ongoing debates about "dress codes" and "slut-shaming" and other related issues, but fundamentally the problem is that human bodies and their coverings are still defined by the CPO.  When men dress up for work, they have comfortable shoes, pants with pockets, full coverage in layers, and no expectation of new outfits.  When men go to formal parties, they wear very similarly-shaped garments to what they wear normally.  And when men win major awards, they are still wearing the same comfortable outfits, maybe with a different shape of necktie or jacket.

And in real life, what do I suggest that my female students wear to win their academic awards?  It pains me that these girls have to choose either a sexy dress or the fate of looking uncool, while their male friends have the choice to look both professional and fashionable with little effort.  I had given up a long time ago on party clothes having any kind of parity in this vein, but I also spent many sad minutes looking at googled images of Nobel Prize winners to find the same issue prevalent.  With the exception of some "ethnic" dress, there was no fancy, formal option for these brilliant, accomplished women that would approach the comfort and non-sexualization of the men's options.

I'm not saying that women shouldn't look sexy or wear revealing clothes if they want to - it just shouldn't be a prerequisite for dressing "up" - any more than it is for men.  To believe otherwise is to accept that men are the normal, functional humans, whereas women are decorative or sexualized in all contexts.  Women are not truly equal, even if they win Nobel Prizes, until they have equal fashion expectations to those of their male counterparts.

Well, at least in secular USAmerica, it's only fashion expectations.  No one is explicitly giving offensive instructions to women.  Not so in the religious world!  And there are so many, many examples of this.  But in this post, I want to examine one tiny facet - hair-covering for Jewish women.  As a religious Jewish woman, the norm would be for me to cover my hair/head, perhaps always, but certainly when attending synagogue.

I am in open rebellion against this expectation.

First of all, Jewish men of all ages are considered functional humans - as an effect of this, religious Jewish men are required to wear a head-covering in the course of their ongoing relationship with Gd.  Grossly offensively, women, even spiritually-engaged Orthodox women, are not considered important enough - perhaps not considered human enough - to be in this same conversation.  This is why despite many years of attempts at change, it is still unusual for women to wear kippot as a daily fashion.  To do so would be unusual socially, and certainly discouraged religiously.  It will surprise no one that I reject the usual explanatory apologetics about how women are in a "different relationship" with Gd based on their gender.

Rather than our relationship with Gd, our relationship with men is supposed to determine headgear for religious women.  In particular, the reason that "married women wear hats" is that their hair has become the sexual property of their husbands.  Single women, in the modern Orthodox Jewish tradition, do not have to cover their hair/heads.  So it's not as though there is any sense of hair as immodest (side note - I also take issue when things are defined as "immodest," but I will fight that CPO battle another time).

It is bad enough that synagogue communities sometimes ostracize singles and treat adults differentially based on family status.  It is awful when they state different rules for married adults (e.g. tallis, hat, and so forth).  I spoke recently to an Orthodox man who described nonchalantly how his elderly [single] male friend was disappointed that he was excluded from a "Married Men's Shiur" (*).  I asked him, was the content sexual?  He was uncomfortable with the question, but I guess the answer was probably, yes.

But it's beyond the pale that our culture somehow accepts the idea that a part of Person A's body, which was once free for her to show as she pleased even within that same religious tradition - will be forever concealed now except if Person B wishes to see it.  Of course, with zero reciprocity of any kind.  This odious sexual ownership has no place in a feminist's life.  It gets even worse.  According to some rabbinical opinions, a divorcee/widow must keep covering her hair - to indicate, presumably, her "used" status sexually.

I used to wear a hat to shul.  When I was a little girl, it was just assumed and expected that when you get married, you start wearing a hat to shul.  I remember davening in the summer just before our wedding, and feeling the sun on my head and thinking, "I guess that's that."  But I cannot be complicit in such an offensive practice.  So for a while, I went bare-headed.  And that did not seem sensible either - my husband and sons all wear kippot, so why would I be bare-headed?  But I wasn't going to wear a kippah, because, well, it seemed too weird for me.  And then I commissioned "New Hat" as pictured in the last post, from a lovely artist on Etsy.com.  I didn't exactly want a kippah, but I certainly wanted more of a kippah than a shul hat.  And I wear it to daven, not because of my family status.  I don't expect that every woman will find that same compromise, but it works for me.  Sometimes I wear a fascinator instead, and yes they are too still in fashion. :)

And thus I paused emotionally, when I read the "hats for married women" requirement to attend a recent simcha.  I was fine with requirements for "all adults" to cover their heads in synagogue.  I was fine with requirements for "all adults who come to the bima" to wear a head-covering as well.  I was even fine with accommodating certain aspects of prayer, such as a different liturgy or variation in shabbat practice, when going to simchas that were held by those in different Jewish traditions than mine.  But it gives me legitimate pause when people start expecting me to be complicit in my own lack of sexual autonomy.  That, I think, goes beyond Pluralism.

I'm still waiting for a Truth-in-Advertising take on a shul's sign, maybe something like this:

(*)  Good luck to anyone trying to exclude the unmarried, or the unmale, from an internet download:

Chol Hamoed Sukkos 5753 Open Q&A -for married men only: Makkas Nida; Shaking woman's hand; Using doctor of opposite gender; Going to mikva during day; Gedolim story books in bedroom; Staying in room with a lot of seforim; A man shaving the hair of the nose, ears and between the eyes; Is hair an erva when a woman is a nidda; Is there a set time for hachana for tevila; Shaving private area; Zman for moch dachuk; Delaying zman tevila; Wearing tzizis when playing sports; Woman going to mikva with no one in the room; Being machmir on certain nights to avoid tashmish; Tashmish b'yom; Calculating l'el tevila in Alaska; Boys and girls swimming together; Negia on a koruv

Alt-Neu Hat

It's b'nei-mitzvah season!

My seventh-grader has a wonderful cadre of pluralistic Jewish friends, and one of the nicest things is how everyone shares bar- and bat-mitzvah celebrations.  Because there are observances all over the religious map, each family sends an instructional email.  There are a lot of comments about headgear.  Which reminded me of a certain book....  Thanks to the bar-mitzvah boy's brother, Mr. Old Hat, for help with the pictures!