The Destruction of the Modern Orthodox Woman
by Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn
Gender war is alive and well in America. Men have their organizations to fight women, and women have their organizations to fight men. Children don't have their own organizations, but there are plenty of people who want to help and destroy children. The "helpers" think they are helping. Family is suffering. For a long time, the Orthodox community was not so involved in this destruction. Now, times have changed. Not only have times changed, but the future will probably be worse, much worse. As of this writing, we hear mostly from angry women, not men. However, the success of the women will precipitate a counter-attack by men, eventually, and then, we have what the Talmud says is worse than the pre-Messianic wars.
America is filled with open gender wars. Colleges first took up the cry of the feminists. Today, more women than men attend colleges. So pronounced is the feminist attitude of colleges that some colleges have outreach programs to attract men, but many men are not interested. One lady professor in Boston was fired for driving all of the men out of class, claiming that males spoiled the atmosphere. Now this kind of hate is coming into the Orthodox world, especially the modern Orthodox. The Aguna issue propels it. That is the common perception. But this is wrong. The problem is much deeper than that.
The terrible split between the genders in the Orthodox community, at this point, is mainly, but not exclusively, in the modern Orthodox world. We cannot appreciate the problems women have in that world until we start talking the truth, something nobody wants to do.
There are enormous numbers of angry women in America, even in the Orthodox community. Why are they angry? One reason is that they hate men. Why?
The feminist movement was inspired by Gloria Steinem, who taught her enthusiastic followers to reject men entirely, and to become lesbians. "Women need men like a squirrel needs a bicycle," she taught. Recently, at the age of 67, Gloria married a man. Her followers were scandalized. At any rate, this proves one point. Angry women can hate men, and if they do, they can pretend to be lesbians, until they had enough. They then return to men. They are trapped. So, the trend today is to reject feminism, as New York Time's columnist Maureen Dowd has famously written in columns and her new book. So what does that get them? Maureen Down has for decades been writing about her personal life. A lovely and chaste woman, she writes that her chances of marrying are small. And yet, there is such a void in her life without marriage. She made a mistake. Using her brains to rise to the top of her field destroyed her chance of marrying. She tells how women who graduated from Harvard Business School will never mention that to a man. They call it the "H Bomb," because no boy wants to marry or even date a brilliant and successful girl. As Ms. Dowd points out, the kind of men she wants to marry refuse her and instead marry their secretaries, anyone who is lacking the driving brilliance once thought to bring women everything they always wanted. It doesn't work that way.
Women taught to succeed in life by becoming a professor or a doctor may need to delay marriage and children for many years. This is deleterious to any woman, but to Orthodox girls it is very bad. Other women, with the pill, can have both worlds, even if having children and maybe even marriage have to be postponed. If they, like many other successful women, miss the boat, so it's not the end of the world. There are at present in the secular world no taboos on being single or childless.
The Orthodox lady has it much harder. She must marry. She must have children. She can't run around. Are we asking too much of her? Yes.
Decades ago, in the seventies, I worked as a traveling chaplain to some area colleges. I lived in Monsey, NY, a sheltered and ultra-Orthodox community. I was very naive, and people had to explain to me certain things, and some times, after much puzzlement, I figured out myself. I remember those days for something that changed my life, my family, for ever. I girl came over to me and asked for help. "The boys don't want to date us," she said. I didn't believe her. Jewish boys refusing to date Jewish girls? Preposterous. But I followed up on her complaint, and spoke to some boys. They were not talking. They didn't deny it, they refused to talk about it. I pestered them, and one day, a boy took me aside and told me that yes, it was true. And he told me why. Something about them being spoiled, or whatever.
At any rate, I heard the words, and for one of the very few times in my life, I was stunned into complete silence. I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. As Shakespeare said, the hangman's noose tends to focus the victim's attention very well. Something clicked in my mind. Yes, this poison, this gender war, it will begin here, in the secular colleges, but it will travel, closer and closer to home, until... I ran for my hundred dollar Chevy with the hole in the floor and fled for home. We talked things over and decided that if the world was going to treat women like that, we were getting out. My daughters went to new schools, as far away from the cultural wars as I could find.
My friends stayed where they were. The sad stories, the misery, the daughters who don't marry, the confusion, blah, blah, blah. I am so happy I got out. My children are happy they got out, although only the oldest daughter understood what I was doing. She thanked me for it on the day of her wedding, just before she left the house.
Now, back to the modern Orthodox woman. Here is a girl, filled with the false promises of America, the same false promises given to all American girls, but guess what, she is ruined even more than other girls. She is Orthodox. She dresses to kill every day, sits in an office or classroom with all types of men, and her hormones are fine, thank you. What do you think is going to happen? Tephilin dates. In case you don't know what a Tephilin date is, I am not going to explain it here. Or, maybe I should. After all, isn't this article about the things that women have to suffer from? What could be worse than having to accommodate men in such a way that they have to bring their Tephilin on a date?
Every woman who has to give without marriage hates men. The pain of a woman who gives a man pleasure and he doesn't pay for it is beyond a man's ability to understand, but it is awful. Gloria Steinem started her vicious feminism hate of men precisely because she was a bunny for a few years. That can make you hate men. What if you are an Orthodox bunny? Now, that is hate.
Modern Orthodox man, you are a predator. The community leaders who talk about women's rights, why don't they talk about Tephilin dates? Why don't they stand up for their own girls who have to become prostitutes? A little truth hurts, but it is better than simmering anger that has no goal except to hate and hurt. When such a woman marries, what chance is there? Can you sit with a man you know had you for dinner a few times without paying, and if not you, a hundred other helpless women? This is the father of your children? And when the sparks start to fly, as they must, the bitterness erupts, the man reacts, the stage is set for AGUNAH number 5432.
The issue is not AGUNAH. The issue is modern Orthodoxy itself, a religion that falsely teaches you can have it all. You can't. If you tell you daughter such lies, you should be horsewhipped, although that doesn't fit the crime, it is the best I can think of in this frame of mind.
There are groups of women, joined by rabbis and enthusiastic men, who will shout and deride publicly a man who doesn't give his wife a GET. Maybe the man wants to settle the differences because of the children, but no, he is evil, just give a GET and you have no rights. Okay, let us accept, for argument's sake, that this man is evil, that his wish to save the family is wrong, etc. and etc. So, he is the evil one, right? Okay, again, for argument's sake, let him be the evil one. What should we do to him? Yell? Scream? Insult him? Attack him at his job? Drive him from shull? Okay, let's accept all of this for now, for arguments sake, because I then want to ask you, if you are one of these activists or rabbis who condone and support this: Why don't you yell at the quiet young man in the shull who dates Orthodox women, is in no hurry to marry, who doesn't always make it to minyan in the morning, and whose Tephilin get around?
Answer me.
Unfortunately, there is an answer. Yes, unfortunately, but we must be fair.
The answer is as follows: "I am a young man,
virile and my hormones are boiling. I go to movies, watch television, sit in
offices and schools with young women who are dressed to entice me. What do you
expect? I can't last for decades until my professional career allows me to
marry. I can't expect my date to wait until she is professionally up to snuff
and ready to marry. Nature takes its course. Do you want us to end up like the
Haredim who marry young and get support from parents? Better to be a
prostitute than to live like that."
That is the issue. Is it better to be a prostitute than to live like that?
For shame. Not for shame on the girl and boy, but on the rabbis and community that allows the pressures to exist. "The weasel doesn't steal from the garden until it finds a hole in the wall," says the Talmud. "The hole, not the weasel, is the thief." This means that when we see something evil, we must go to the source, to the enabler, and remove it, and then we can have ethics and morality. Raising people to be professionals and thus have to be prostitutes is evil, unethical, and utterly against the Torah. It has to stop.