Religion, Sex & Gender

'Cause We all know you can't find God with women around….

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‘Course, that doesn’t appear to be what they’re looking for, anyway:

Grand describes how the group’s members help each other through divorce, job change, death and anything else that affects their lives.
“We all want the same thing — a connection to God, a sense that our lives are holy,” he said. “But some were afraid to use those words.”
Other men in the session talked about their loneliness, the difficulty of making friends and how rarely their sons ask them for advice.
“I think we go to poker games and play on softball leagues and help our buddies move because we hope we’ll have an ‘I-thou’ moment,” surmised Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Judea in Tarzana, Calif., editor of “The Still Small Voice,” a collection of Reform men’s essays just published by the URJ Press.”

Clearly none of these things could happen with women around. It’s just TOO embarrassing to talk about being human and wanting God with people who have breasts.
I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve always been opposed to separate women’s groups: Rosh Chodesh groups, whatever (Although healing circles, contrary to what the article says, aren’ just for women), found sisterhoods to have boring activities, preferring to play baseball and having barbecues (which is what all the men’s group’s in shul I know do, while the women are often snorting tea and discussing the moon). I’ve always had male friends – pretty much all my life had at least as many male friends as female. Never confused the guys I was dating with the ones I was friends with, never felt that friendships with guys were inherently different and always felt that separating off genders was asking for trouble. And guess what, I was right. At least that seems to be the excuse that the Reform movement is using, “but they did it first…..”
The Reform, who claim to see flagging numbers of boys are desperately grabbing at straws by trying to fix that problem under the assumption that 1. Boys would feel safer and better by not having girls around and that they’ll start showing up if they don’t have to share space with girls, and 2. That it reflects a social trend they need to cater to, rather than undermine.
This attempt to start men’s groups is not really news – they – and the Conservative movement oh, yeah and let’s not forget Robert Bly and his drums, have been experimenting with this for a while, even as women still have trouble getting higher paying jobs in the Jewish world, many Jewish institutions can’t be bothered to provide maternity (let alone parental) leave in most places, women rabbis still have trouble getting hired, and when they do it’s for smaller jobs and with fewer benefits, let alone salary, women lead very few philanthropic institutions, synagogue boards, and so on… shall I go on?
We have not arrived. Feminized my a**.
And, otoh, surely, numbers are flagging not because services are boring, or top-down or because there’s no one in the family teaching them that they’re part of a community, or telling them that soccer just might be less important than tefila – or that being connected to other Jews is important or because no one wants to talk about God or mitzvot, or because they don’t actually live in the community and so don’t actually have a connection to the people who belong to their shul outside of shul, or because Judaism is treated like a hobby rather than a discipline that requires work to get something out of, and so if it isn’t immediately interesting, it’s abandoned (and don’t even start to mention that even some hobbies often take discipline too, to get something out of them) or becasue everyone is so damn busy that they can’t find time to spend with other people….
NO, It’s because men need menspace.
Reform – and anyone else who is thinking that Judaism is becoming “feminized” -whatever that means, and why we should worry about it (if only men were showing up, do you think there would be such a tizzy? I don’t) let me clue you in: It’ s not about gender. Do you remember the old intermarriage brou-ha-ha? a few decades ago (not many, though), it was mostly men marrying out. Women just didn’t do that. So nobody worried about them. Everyone focused on the men marrying out, until guess what, a few decades later, women were freer, and had more options, and now the numbers are pretty much even.
If you start down the gender separate path, it’s not going to bring the boys back, but I’ll tell you what, it sure will alienate the girls. You don’t even have halachah to blame, just sexist underlying assumptions. Society is already not unbiased: maybe you could focus on fixing some of the attitudes underlying your assumptions, rather than trying to recreate separate but equal. Anyone remember how the last separate but equal effort turned out in American society?
Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman, URJ’s worship director, asks, ” If the women’s movement has inspired them to [articulate and express what it means to be a Jewish man today], how fabulous is that?”
Well, that would be great – but I highly doubt that women’s movement was what inspired them; if it had been, maybe they could have been inspired to build something together – with women.

29 thoughts on “'Cause We all know you can't find God with women around….

  1. This is a huge issue in the camping movement, where boys are vanishing from the scene. We have to work 4x as hard to book boys into camp bunks as girls, and this is not an isolated “liberal” Jewish summer camp problem. It is pervasive across all movements and even outside of Judaism.
    “Where are the boys?” was the keynote at a Jewish summer cmaping event I attended a few years ago. People are doing all kinds of things to address the problem: setting up boys only events, creating sports tracks, creating adventure travel teen programs….my institution ran with the sports track to some success, as well as the adventure travel thing to less.
    A lot of camp people think the drop-off isn’t about the feminization of anything. It’s simply about video games. Boys want to stay home and play Halo, and girls want to go bunk it up with their friends (and enemies). Parents are often powerless to change their sons’ minds. I see it all the time.
    This attendance disparity then trickles up the food chain into lessened male participation in all aspects of community life.

  2. feminization is a real issue. It may not be the right word, but something is keeping the men away, and not the women. We see that at our local C shul.

  3. I’ll buy feminization when -not even more, but equal- numbers of women are hired in the same numbers as rabbis and cantors (and are equally paid and get decent benefits), when women head equal numbers of Jewish institutions, when there are just as many women presidents of shuls… you get me? I’m willing to go just for equal numbers, not even more women than men, Until then, I’m not buying.
    BOys don’t go to camp because their parents aren’t willing to push them a little, not because there’s something girly about camp – I mean, seriously, 50 years ago, just try to get girls to camp -it was all about the boys.

  4. I’m going to stand up for a few unofficial Jewish male support networks around NYC and say, “Yes, gender matters.”
    I need guy space. And while making caveats to all the glass ceiling assertions above, I think these mens groups are needed, badly. At least the NYC Jewish professional scene for young adults, it’s 60% – 80% female. At minyanim, at work, at volunteering, and more often than not at social gatherings, I’m around a majority of women. Which is great, because so far I’ve rarely seen gender dynamics be a barrier to professional or social interactions. But I say “rarely” because it does happen.
    The phenomenon is not unique to the Jewish scene. At my Catholic university, guys sometimes represented only 10% of spiritual and social justice related participants. Some set up a men’s group and pissed off a lot of women for the same reasons as Kol Ra’ash here. But sometimes, it’s an overload, and I attest to it myself frequently.
    I make all appropriate caveats to the glass ceiling frustrations above, but I think men’s groups are very useful, relevant and rewarding for those who need them. Not to say anything of men who may be socialized with a starker male/female construct than those from, say, Wesleyan or Oberlin educations. If they’re inhibited from talking about their sensitive feelings around women, then we should let them have their men’s groups. I find myself in need of one.

  5. Beef with Rosh Chodesh groups? Do you see value in spending time completely alone with your thoughts? Among Jews/politically like-minded folks/folks in the same career or academic track? I don’t want to see any institution hijacked by a single-sex agenda, but surely we can all agree that some gender-separate time is a good thing?

  6. Before getting any further… woman are certainly oppressed and receive unequal treatment and power everywhere including the Jewish world. Also, many people (including myself) are not entirely ‘male’ or ‘female,’ but for many of us the titles are useful and help us to engage with the world.
    That all being said… do you really not see the difference in energy between groups led by strongly feminine women, by men and women, or by masculine men? I was sitting recently in a maariv service led by three deeply feminine women. It was ecstatic, powerful and nothing like the ecstasy I have experienced at the carlebach shul, where men sing the same melodies.
    Personally, I really like experiencing the different energies at different times. That is the reason why when I doven with a tri-chiztah it is my minhag to spend the first half of the service up until lecha dodi on the men’s side dovenning there. After that point, I move to the pan-gendered space. This makes the welcoming of the feminine shabbos bride more palpable by actually entering into a space with more feminine energy.

  7. Sorry, but a technical question: Did I miss something? Was there an opening paragraph that got deleted, or was this post a direct response to another post that I didn’t see? The post seems to jump into an argument mid-thought, and I’m not sure, even after reading it, what the beginning of that thought was. I’m not trying be critical – I just genuinely am not understanding the context of this post. What is the quote at the top of the post from? The quote in the title? The photo?

  8. there is nothing anti-feminist about constructing an all male space. there is a crisis of masculinity in our society, and it’s healthy to have safe spaces where men can perform their gender identities.
    not to say that these spaces should be mandated, as in other corners of the jewish world, but, in a pluralistic mode, there should be separate gendered spaces at times.
    the feminist philosopher luce irigaray is very intent on equality not meaning sameness. not to say there are essential(ized) differences between genders, but people who identify as a certain gender should have spaces to perform and learn how to construct that part of their identity.
    when people talk about (liberal) religion being feminized, what they are commenting on is the sociological reality that women tend to be more religious than men. they tend to be more active in church, they tend to pray more etc. orthodox judaism and other right wing religions tend to stave off this trend by giving men a privileged place in their world. when that privileged place is taken away (justly, imho) people tend to see this trend manifest.

  9. KGR wrote,
    “I’m willing to go just for equal numbers, not even more women than men, Until then, I’m not buying.”
    You have not allowed for the FACT that some women choose to decline to place as much emphasis on vocation as many would like, because of issues conflicting to some such as motherhood and traditionalism. The population of the women for these positions is simply not the same. There is no reason on earth to expect it should be equal. In ritual issues particularly, you are excluding the vast majority of Orthodox Jews, and saying their numbers are irrelevant to your demand for 50/50.
    Be fair to the population as a whole. The Orthodox aren’t going to become “egal” because you are going to hold your breath until they do. And they are, especially the Modern Orthodox, disproportionately engaged with Jewish and Jewish organizational life.
    Just that alone skews the numbers. And forever preempts your 50/50 fantasy.

  10. Gregg writes:
    The post seems to jump into an argument mid-thought, and I’m not sure, even after reading it, what the beginning of that thought was.
    I think the first line of the post (“‘Course, that doesn’t appear to be what they’re looking for, anyway”) is responding to the title. But I don’t know whether these are quotes from elsewhere.

  11. Siviyo writes:
    Beef with Rosh Chodesh groups?
    I don’t have a problem with occasional women-only groups (insofar as they are needed as a temporary measure until full equality is achieved), but I do have a problem, in a milieu that strives to be fully egalitarian (i.e. not the Orthodox milieu that DK writes about), with making them “Rosh Chodesh groups”. The idea of Rosh Chodesh as a “women’s holiday” comes from a time and place when the other holidays were, explicitly or implicitly, men’s holidays. In a time when areas of Jewish life previously reserved for men are now open (at least in theory) to men and women, there is no place for reserving other areas for women only. If Talmud study and public prayer belong to all of us, then so does Rosh Chodesh.

  12. I was pretty skeptical of women’s groups (I found them boring and flighty) until my senior year of college, when I gave one started by a good friend a try. It was wonderful.
    So now I’m pretty open to men wanting that kind of space.
    There’s a huge difference between mandating gender segregation, and having gender-specific spaces as one of many options.
    I also think there is (or can be) a difference between women celebrating rosh chodesh together, and calling it a “woman’s holiday”.

  13. Yes I am off topic but I find it interesting that the JTA published so many more articles about things that happened at the Reform biennial then they published about what happened at the Conservative biennial. It seems JTA agrees with the idea that basically whatever Reform does the Conservative movement will eventually follow.

  14. invisible_hand: heh, “crisis of masculinity”. I happen to be of the same opinion, but I fear your definition is different than mine. Can you elaborate?

  15. This post seems to conflate two separate, albeit at times inextricably linked, issues: identity and social justice.
    The post posits a view where simply the demands of the latter always trump the needs of the former. Also, given the history of “mandated,” separated social spaces being a prime battleground that Jewish feminists have engaged, the dogmatic dismissal shows a lack of humility, ignores the fact that masculinity has never been more difficult to construct and projects one’s own negative experiences across a whole category of “private spaces.”
    The simple, basic human need to have private spaces in which to discuss one’s personal identity issues with the same gender will never go away. On the social justice front, there certaintly seems to more effective issues to engage in, then essentially telling men, “just deal with it.”

  16. hmm. Exchange the word “white” for men, and “black” for women – no seriously. How about a white guy starts working at a historically black college as a professor. He comes home at night and finds himself thinking, “I’m surrounded all day by people who aren’t white like me. It’s not that there’s something wrong with them, they’re just culturally different than me and I really need to have some space with white people where i can feel comfortable.” Discuss.
    Also, keep in mind that while I like and respect KFJ, and by NO means consider him sexist, his comment, At least the NYC Jewish professional scene for young adults, it’s 60% – 80% female. At minyanim, at work, at volunteering, and more often than not at social gatherings, I’m around a majority of women. Which is great, because so far I’ve rarely seen gender dynamics be a barrier to professional or social interactions. But I say “rarely” because it does happen. while it might reflect his internal experience doesn’t really tell us anything interesting.
    Let me explain: we know empirically that women are still more likely to be in jobs that pay less than men. In fact, when a particular profession gets “feminized” that is an indication that salaries will go down in the field. The interesting exception to this is that men in such a profession still tend to be in positions higher up in the hierarchy, better paid, more administrative and more “authoritative.”
    So, if it’s the case that KFJ finds himself surrounded by women most of the time professionally, it isn’t because gender dynamics isn’t a barrier professionally (we know empirically that it is). What it might tell us is that KFJ works in a low-paid profession, which if KFJ works in a social-justice profession, is likely to be true, since they are very low-paid. Furthermore, we know empirically that women are more likely to take a year off to do things like volunteer years, where they work with the poor, or things like that, because there is still less social pressure on women to be “the provider.” WOmen tend to be encouraged to be able to support themselves, not so much others, but they are socially encouraged to be “helpers” even at great cost to themselves (e.g. the “gap generation” who does or will care for young children and elderly parents).
    SO it is true that there are different social expectations of men and women – I don’t think anyone would doubt that. However the problem is what we do with that difference. Gender is a performance, and we train people to do it. Historically, Jewish men were considered “feminine” and Jewish women “masculine” by outsiders because our internal gender assignments were quite different than those of the cultures around us.
    When we started assimilating, we adopted the gender expectations of the surrounding culture. I don’t argue that Judaism was less sexist, only that the gender being performed was extremely different than that we perform today. We have the power to mold that gender performance, but we can’t do it by giving in to it.
    Is it okay to say that if we need retreat space from people of other (fill-in-the-blank) it’s okay? If we do, why does it need to take place in minyan (I’m not, here, speaking of Orthodoxy, which is undergoing its own struggles, but of the Reform who do not have their interpretation of halakhic issues to deal with, so Orthodox readers, do not get bent up here).
    For example, a perfectly good reaction to KFJ’s dilemma might be instead of implementing guy space, to ask why the numbers are so distorted and work on fixing that, perhaps by paying a better wage in whatever profession he is working in. That would be a great social justice solution that wouldn’t involve locking some people out. Or, let’s put it back in racial terms: why does Mr. X have to hang out with white people, when in reality, black people undergo his experience every day all the time; similarly, women do as well – my major in college and grad school and my current profession are all heavily male dominated. “shrug* big deal. I was used to it by the time I got to seminary. Instead of spending my time talking about needing to be with People Like Me – whatever that means, since in my mind, “people like me” are people who read a lot, listen to interesting music, can speak intelligently about literature, like to argue, can put together a rational and logical argument about anything,and like to study text in Hebrew and Aramaic – perhaps we need to start thinking about how we have set things up so that “people like me” could be someone of any shape.
    By the way, anyone interested in hanging out and listening to some weird music you’ve never heard of? Breasts not required.

  17. “How about a white guy starts working at a historically black college as a professor. He comes home at night and finds himself thinking, “I’m surrounded all day by people who aren’t white like me. It’s not that there’s something wrong with them, they’re just culturally different than me and I really need to have some space with white people where i can feel comfortable.”
    Absolutely legitimate in my book. Absolutely.
    “Gender is a performance, and we train people to do it.” That is only part of gender. The insistence that gender in its entirety is a social construct is most speculative.
    “Is it okay to say that if we need retreat space from people of other (fill-in-the-blank) it’s okay?”
    Yes.
    “By the way, anyone interested in hanging out and listening to some weird music you’ve never heard of?”
    Always.

  18. I don’t have time to fully formulate this, but I’d like to chime in with a place holder for the “please don’t forget we don’t all buy into the gender binary” argument, which I think is part of what the initial post was hinting at when we talk about treating the root problems instead of the symptoms.
    I don’t disagree that some people benefit from single-gender space. But creating that space can cause detriment to others.

  19. This doesn’t have to be a one or the other issue. The liberal Jewish community is suffering from both the problem of gender imbalance among engaged members at all ages as well as a lingering glass ceiling problem. The idea that we should ignore the first problem until the second one is solved is absurd. Especially since the glass ceiling issue is one in which the liberal Jewish community is making progress.
    On a personal level, I am happy to participate in communities that are primarily female. I don’t understand the appeal of “men’s club” and I certainly don’t feel “holier” in single-sex settings, I would daven Orthodox. But I can’t speak for all men. And I do know that I would have been much more likely to have joined USY if it had a decent basketball league in my area. And the fact that my Hillel had a basketball team was an entryway into the Jewish community that was responsible for my development as a active Jew.
    For reasons that are driven primarily from wider American cultural trends, it is an uphill struggle to engage boys and young men in Jewish communal life. The glass ceiling problem should not be used to squelch discussion of creative ways liberal communities should employ to address this issue.

  20. I agree with mhpine. The post is conflating two separate issues.
    Glass ceiling aside, we should meet people where they are, not where we might like them to be. A commitment to pluralism is fake if we behave otherwise. It is unfair to decry the creation of voluntary, self-selected gendered space if people need it gendered in order to make it safe.
    I think if KRG proposes that gendered spaces are as offensive as racial spaces, then the burden of proof falls on KRG to prove that race and gender are interchangable social constructs. I mean, we have Jewish spaces on campuses and Jewish organizations in everyday life, so why is that not offensive? That argument is non sequitur.

  21. dlevy– I think it’s important to have some gender-specified spaces out there; I also think it’s important to make sure that they aren’t the only option for [fill in the blank] that’s out there.

  22. Kung Fu Jew says:
    I mean, we have Jewish spaces on campuses and Jewish organizations in everyday life, so why is that not offensive? That argument is non sequitur.
    In all such Jewish spaces that I’m familiar with, non-Jews are welcome to show up.

  23. Kung Fu Jew writes:
    Glass ceiling aside, we should meet people where they are, not where we might like them to be.
    And for precisely that reason, we have to consider the associations that real people have with things, rather than ask people to pretend that these things are happening in a vacuum with no historical context. Some commenters on this thread might envision an ideal world where every area of Jewish and secular life is equally open to everyone regardless of gender, and yet see a need, even within that ideal, for single-gender spaces, not to imply any sort of superiority or hierarchy, but just to have a “safe space”.
    So if that’s the case, then if you want to avoid the perception that you’re setting up a hierarchy, it would be best to avoid segregating specific activities that have strong historical associations. Even if one makes the argument that single-race spaces are ok, one would probably agree that it’s inadvisable to locate these spaces at the front and the back of a bus, or at a lunch counter. Likewise, if one wants to avoid the perception of gender hierarchy, it’s inadvisable to have an all-men shacharit as described in the article (associated with communities that still exist today where the privileges and responsibilities of public prayer belong exclusively to men) or to have an all-women Rosh Chodesh group (associated with a midrash about how women are better than men; one could read this literally as misandrist, or understand it as part of a male-dominated literary tradition and see it as an apologetic for women’s inferior place in that society along the lines of the contemporary “women are on a higher spiritual plane” arguments; either way, it’s an unacceptable message for an egalitarian society).

  24. what a terrific thread.
    i would like to bring the concept of oppression into this discussion–it will, i think, clarify the “need” for single-gender spaces. (or what shall we call them? my community’s Rosh Chodesh group is open to ‘self identified women’ and includes several transgender women. discuss. points deducted for bringing up the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.)
    Jewish oppression, of which racialized anti-Semitism is a subsystem, has landed on women and men in different ways throughout history. as noted above, our gender socialization as Jews looks strange (studious men? opinionated women? and that’s only the broadest of stereotypes) to a Christian mainstream. So yes, Jewish men and women and everyone who doesn’t fit in those two boxes are going to need settings in which to construct valuable identities that are not just the Other of the mainstream.
    at a time when many of our communities have become “egalitarian” in our spiritual practice, it still remains to ask–why did we merely open earlier men’s practice to women? and how can we reclaim and nurture lost women’s practice in a way that does open to men’s participation? in a religion with HEAVY patriarchal messages and structures it’s a daunting project. self-reflection is key: what emotions, feelings, thoughts are coming before me when i do X or Y? when i davven with a mechitza or with a small mixed group in a living room? when i have sex after going to the mikva? am i retreating into a same-gender space in order to feel superior, or to feel powerful and supported? am i learning something?
    so, Jews are going to need time just with Jews, and just with their ‘own’ gender. also time with secular Jews, and time with religious Jews (of any movement). we need to take each other seriously as individuals, yes, as KRG argues. but BZ goes too far in trying to ‘avoid hierarchy.’ there are people who will distrust whatever you do, and the answer is not to mouth platitudes about egalitarianism and make everyone do the same davvening and spiritual practice all the time–that just kills diversity.

  25. Rebecca (not M) writes:
    at a time when many of our communities have become “egalitarian” in our spiritual practice, it still remains to ask–why did we merely open earlier men’s practice to women? and how can we reclaim and nurture lost women’s practice in a way that does open to men’s participation?
    I agree completely. As previously male practices become open to everyone, previously female practices shouldn’t continue to be classified only as “women and Judaism”.
    and the answer is not to mouth platitudes about egalitarianism and make everyone do the same davvening and spiritual practice all the time–that just kills diversity.
    Believe me, I’d be the last person to suggest that everyone should do the same davvening and spiritual practice all the time. I’m all in favor of diversity. But the diversity in these preferences doesn’t correspond precisely to gender differences (biological or constructed), even if the correlation coefficient is nonzero. There are women who want to daven as fast as possible and be yotzeit, and there are men who want to sit on the floor and talk about their feelings.

  26. My feeling, based on personal experience as a facilitator and participant, is that women can talk about certain subjects, and experience certain parts of themselves, in more open ways when they are together, and I think the same is true for men (though that’s not based on personal experience but on the testimony of others). Some of this is due to oppression, gender socialization, etc., and some of it also has to do with body experience.
    I think that same-gender spaces are okay some of the time (provided that proportionally more time is spent developing healthy and equal whole-community spaces), and I personally benefit from those same-gender spaces. For example, the Elat Chayyim women’s mikveh has remained one of the highlights of my spiritual life.
    I do recognize the difficulty this can present for transgender folks and see the need for same-gender spiritual contexts to stretch themselves on that issue…

  27. “Clearly none of these things could happen with women around. It’s just TOO embarrassing to talk about being human and wanting God with people who have breasts.”
    It is El Shaddai, isn’t it?

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