Recession in a failing religious system
In my real life, I am about to lose my job. Furious networking and frantic emailing have left me little time to write anything other than job applications and embellishments on my resumé (all job offers welcome). However, I have had a lot of time to think about what the recession means for Orthodox women, and how paid employment differentiates the role of women across various segments of the Orthodox community. In the charedi community, especially in those sections where the men are in full-time learning, women are childbearing and bringing home the proverbial bacon. They generally have relatively low-paid jobs such as teachers, secretaries, beauty therapists or shop assistants that provide the basic infrastructure for a community to function. Rarely are they in business (unless it's sheitels [wigs] or housecoats) and even the recent Israeli initiatives to provide computer training and jobs found that many women were willing to take lower pay for working in an all-female work environment with flexible hours. The Tehillim tipping point
In the latest attempt to resolve the 'shidduch crisis,' women across the religious globe have been scuttling to each other's homes to huddle and recite Tehillim (Psalms), entreating God's kindness for a good shidduch [match] for all the single people in their community. In London, one matchmaking organization, Made in Heaven, offers regular classes for women on Shmiras Ha Loshon (not speaking slander) as a means of mystically helping single people. Women are the corrections of a community: when disasters strike, the rabbis often blame the women for gossiping or immodest dress (gossiping while dressed immodestly is a double whammy). As if women don't have enough to do, now they are responsible for the marital and spiritual well-being of a whole community and have been instructed to say Tehillim to avert further disasters. What was the Tehillim tipping point? How did these verses come to substitute serious learning and empowerment for women? Isn't it strange that while women's voices are accorded tremendous power to change the divinely ordained course of events, they have virtually no voice in the decision-making process of a religious community? Smart is out, mediocre is in
"These clever girls," a friend said to me the other day, "they're taking it too far now. My son isn't going to want such a clever one. It's not going to be so easy for her to settle down, make a home..." "My daughter is doing brilliantly at university," said another. "But I don't know what good it's going to do. It wouldn't hurt her to be a little less clever....at least in public." For the first time in Jewish history, mothers are encouraging their daughters to underachieve. They shouldn't be too pretty, too smart or too competent for fear of scaring the boys away. It's particularly nerve-wrecking for Orthodox mothers who are concerned that their daughters are pricing themselves out of the marriage stakes with all their accomplishments. "With a PhD under her sheitel," thinks the anxious mother to herself, " a man is going to worry that my daughter will never be happy changing nappies and making kugel." Netball and Jewish women
Recent news that the Israeli netball team found glory in Ireland brought a warm glow to my face that I almost confused with the beginnings of a hot flush. What is it with religious women and Sex and the City?
The text message on my phone the other day read: "Come and see Sex and the City and raise money for underprivileged kids.at the same time." Hundreds of religious women are flocking to see Sex and the City. 'It's a charity thing,' said one. 'It's just a bit of fun,' protested another. Seems to me that the money collected might be better spent on a bit of stomach stapling for these SATC doppelgangers from the London suburbs of Hendon and Hampstead Garden Suburb. |
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