A Twist

I recently saw an event advertised for a women's only concert at a secular Jewish venue. The woman singing is frum and observes the laws of kol ishah. She does not sing in front of men. The only thing is, this secular Jewish event space decided to be pc and the ad said that this is a women only concert  and for  those who identify as women. Well... biological women are women but those who identify as women , except for biological hermaphrodites are men. Is it kol ishah to sing in front of trans women? Aren't they really men? They often transform to women who like women not women who like men . Isn't that the what the whole issue of kol ishah is? Biological men who who desire women no matter how they dress? It really upsets me that this venue had to put into writing their desire to include men who identify as women in this kol ishah event. I would think that this would make this more of an issue than if they happened to let men who identify into the event in a don't ask, don't tell type of admittance. If a man who identifies as a woman shows up to the event and the singer did not realize they would be in attendance then I bet it would be less of a kol ishah issue. If the singer knows that this is going to happen then it would seem like she thinks this kind of kol ishah is permitted, which I would guess that it is not. If these transgender women like men then I think it would be less of a kol ishah issue. Gee whiz. These are  issues I never thought I would be contemplating.

Women , Rabbis , etc

     Growing up it never bothered me that women were not allowed to be rabbis. I never thought much about it and I was much to shy to ever want to be one. It was kind of like the idea of kol ishah to me. I never really wanted to be a professional singer so kol ishah did not effect me much.
      I never found the women's prayer groups too enticing to me either. Being on the more modern orthodox side I like going to a regular shul and afterward there is a co-ed kiddush. Why would a women's only kiddush be better?
       There are many men who have no interest in being rabbis or chazzanim  and would love not to need to have a minyan to daven.
       Perhaps if I grew up reform or conservative I might feel different, but it never especially bothered me that I could never be an orthodox rabbi or be counted as part of a minyan. I guess I never felt that those things were the pinnacle of Judaism. I always felt that it was wonderful to be a woman and not have to have a minyan to optimally  fulfill the mitzvah of davening.
       I wouldn't say think that everything in Judaism is totally fair for women but for me these are non-issues . Which turns out to be a good thing. I have a few less things to be annoyed about.

Blurring Women's Faces

     I always feel uncomfortable when I see ads from frum publications that blot out women's faces or exclude women from the pictures altogether. Maybe it is because I am single. Then again I think its just because I am a woman. Most of the time this issue does not bother me because the frum people who I choose to associate do not agree with those who want to blot out women's faces from frum publications.
      The strangest part of all is that I believe that the elimination of pictures of women from ultra-frum publications is counter productive. If there aren't any photos of modest religious women then there will only be photos of less modest and less appropriately dressed women around. Is that really better?
If I were living in an extreme muslim society where women were not in any publications anywhere around me then it would not bother me, but in the United States , even in boro park you can go to the news stand and buy a secular magazine that has pictures of women in it. Instead of taking the opportunity to make a kiddush Hashem and having positive role models of women in print the extreme frum would prefer to eliminate woman altogether from their publications.

 When I saw this ad  recently it really  made me sad. I am orthodox, but not charedi so even if I had a daughter it would be a little easier for me to explain.  Tzniut is important, but I think that the fixation with it in frum society as the reason for all of society's ills is a bit misguided. I think that introspection and a fixation on honesty in business would be a better fixation than focusing on a mitzvah that only pertains to women. Or maybe just take turns focusing on each of the 613 mitzvos in a rotation.  Its like  women  aren't important until its time to blame someone for the ills of society. Its all ridiculous anyway. So often the one who has the loudest voice creating these  illogical chumrahs is just all worked up because this is his biggest yetzer harah.

The Role of Women

     The other day a friend of mine mocked women who are makpid on davening at the proper time of the day for neglecting their children. I found this to be quite absurd. The laws for leniency in certain  time bound mitzvot for women is so women won't feel bad that they won't be able to do things at the proper time because sometimes when women are taking care of their children it can make it hard to do things at the specified time. I totally get this. So often women, especially very frum women , work part time so they are not at home with their kids . They are still not bound by certain time bound mitzvot when they are not with their kids . Maybe there isn't an easily explained reason but its the reason anyway. Maybe women are not  bound by time bound mitzvot just because sometimes women need not to be so every woman is not bound by it. Maybe it is not as important for women to have time bound mitzvot than it is for men to .

On Having Children

      To be sure women get the short shrift when it comes to how long they are able to have kids. Biologically after a certain point it just is not going to happen. Men always seem so cocky about this. I find this hilarious. Maybe a woman is not able to conceive a child at a younger age but really men do not have that much longer to have kids. Its maybe ten years longer than women do , but its not unlimited. Perhaps a man could sire a child at 60,  70 or 100 years old but what does that mean? He most likely will not get to see that kid grow up. He most likely won't be able to play catch with that kid. Even if he does get to see his kid grow up he may not be in the best of health. He will be more of a grandfather than a father figure.
       A lot of times older men are seeking much younger women to stoke  their egos. I get that.  In  reality no one has an unlimited time to become a parent. 

the truth about jewish women

often jewish women who live in new york have been given the stereotype of being pushy and overbearing. sometimes people think that a religious woman would be subservient . well, of course maybe a religious woman of a faith other than jewish would be. but give me a break  with the stereotypes. when does loudmouthed ,overbearing and subservient describe the same person?
i dont't think that religious jewish women are subservient to men and i don't believe in the common stereotype of the loudmouthed jewish new york woman.
i do believe that jews of both genders often stand up for what they believe in  and stand up for the underdog. does this make one pushy and loudmouthed? i don't think so , but  no one asked me.

avoiding the other "F" word

as a child i was always thin. until i graduated college i  never needed to pay attention to what i ate. it took me awhile to admit that i had packed on the pounds. it finally had dawned on me that if i did not take drastic measures i would be that dreaded  "f" word. i would be fat.
when  i realized that i needed to reduce i had no clue how to achieve my goal. i didn't want to be just svelte . i wanted to be svelt and healthy. the first time around i went the start fresh (a boro park based weight loss program) route. i lost thirty pounds in three months.
while start fresh helped me achieve a goal weight that i maintained for quite a few years eventually i regained the weight and then some. i wanted a new weight loss route so  the second time around i chose weight watchers.
through weight watchers i reached my goal weight after seven months of hard work. the weight watchers diet was not as rigid as the start fresh version was which was just what i needed the second time around.
while the weight watchers diet was better for weight loss , i'm not sure it was as good as start fresh was for weight maintenance. then again, the second time around i was a little older so that might have been why it  was more difficult to maintain.
  i am back at weight watchers. now there is a new plan. there are also new weight watchers meetings leaders and a new way of counting points. both of these things are making my third weight loss journey more "exciting".
the best part of weight watchers in brooklyn are the meetings. you get a multi-cultural crowd. there are a lot of frum jews and a lot of catholics and everyone speaks to each other. though there are mostly women in the group there are also always a few men even a few frum men. (gasp!)  its also fun to see how even non jewish weight watchers leaders make sure everyone knows which weight watchers products are jewish. there is even one leader who made sure to talk a little bit about how to deal with an upcoming (shavuos) holiday at the end of a meeting because she knew a lot of the members were frum.only in brooklyn!

don't humor me

many women say that they are looking for a guy with a good sense of humor . not me .  i like men who are able to laugh, just not the comedian types. when every word a man says is a joke it gets old fast. i can never have a simple conversation  with him because he first has to make light of whatever i am saying before i can actually tell  him what it is i've been trying to say.
if a guy always has to joke and tease i always wonder what it is he is trying to distract me from finding out .
comedians are fun to watch on tv or in a comedy club, but not so much fun to date.

playing hard to get

ever wonder why when one isn't  interested in a guy he is always calling, but once one actually becomes interested in him he becomes ambivalent and barely calls? i don't wonder . i know why . when someone is chasing after me they never have to evaluate whether or not they are truly interested in me because it is still a fantasy. once i become interested then it becomes a reality. then he actually has time to obsess about his actual feelings now that it could be a reality. this is why guys like it when women play hard to get (and vice versa). reality is much tougher  to fall head first into than mere possibility.

the accidental feminist

i recently finished watching the first season of the cable tv series mad men .  though it was fun to watch the glamour of a bygone era i feel grateful to be born after that time period. the gender discrimination that women suffered in the workplace in those days was appalling. nowadays sexism hasn't been eliminated, but its a million times better for women in the workplace today than it was in the early 1960's.
i often  hear  in women my mother's age saying that young women these days have no idea how good they have it and how the women of the sixties and seventies really paved the way for young women currently  in the workplace. i never realised how much they were correct until i watched the series mad men. we've come a long way.
so much for the 'good old days'. as carly simon put it into song, these are the good old days.

timing is everything....

this is something that many of the females in the audience can relate to . you talk to a guy at a party for a long time . you think he's interested and then lo and behold he does not ask you for your number. so obviously you figure this guy isn't interested . of course he just might not be divorced yet , just bored and needed to look like he was talking to an actual woman or he is socially awkward and isn't able to step up and actually ask  you for your number. either way, you as a woman are out of luck . obviously the next time you see this romeo you aren't exactly going to be so enthused to engage him in extensive conversation.
on the rare occasion that a mr chatty  does decide to ask for my number after meeting and chatting me up at many singles functions i always wonder why its taken him so long . then again that's if im still interested. a socially awkward guy really shoots himself in the foot if he waits until a subsequent meeting to finally ask a girl out. what had once been interest has now turned into annoyance or indifference . so really he has made it even harder for himself to get a girl's number. seizing the moment can be fraught with much anxiety. not seizing the moment can be even worse....

for better or for worse

the only issue that men have worse than women in dating is the height issue. short women have an easier time finding a spouse than a short man. however, this issue is only equal to the beauty discrepancy between men and women. a beautiful woman will date an ugly man. even an ugly man will not likely date an ugly woman.
the second place position where men could have it worse is parnassah. if a man is unstable in the money making department he wont get very far. less men are concerned with how wealthy their future spouse is (unless of course he is jobless and then he cares very much), so a womans wealth is less important.
THATS IT. i suppose the height issue is worse than the parnassah issue. one can change ones employment status, but one cant change ones height.
i still dont pity short men. nothing trumps the age issue . women always have it worse. even an old man wants a much younger woman. a short man can wear platform shoes. no one can actually get younger.

where's the middle road?

it is so easy for a new baal tshuvah to go the extreme route. the frummer the better. why try to coast and find a heter when one can just blindly follow the strictest view.(yes, i know that all new bts are not like this, but im just trying to make a point) .

in my parents era the accepted view was that women would get married and be stay at home moms while the men would go to work and make a living. these days if one chas v'shalom wants to be a stay at home mom it is quite frowned upon. there just is no middle of the road. whatever happened to doing what is best for ones self instead of abiding to a bunch rules made by who knows who. why does it always have to be the extreme view? why must everyone abide by only one view?

the worst is when certain hair types are in style. the blowout is always in style with curly haired jewish women, but in the outside world sometimes curly perms are in - shirley temple, the 1980's, and sometimes straight is in as in usually. the thing is one was born with a hair type and weather be damned, there isnt always anything one can do about it.

i think that religion is very extreme these days. the frum are moving further to the right and the non-frum are moving more to the left (if this is even possible). we should all be who we are, ultra- orthodox or ultra-reform, but i do think that there are plenty of us who are somewhere in the middle and the middle is okay too. people dont fit into pat categories. the idea is what direction one is headed, not how far the journey. are we all striving to do mitzvot at our own levels?

i never get how people are so all or nothing about judaism. if they dont do everything then why bother? NO ONE is perfect at anything . i guess it takes a certain extreme personality to take the all or nothing approach. then again, all or nothing is the easy way out. doing the best one can is much harder. it requires much more stamina. when one is a do the best one can type, one may have setbacks, but one owns what one does do. its all about where one is going. part of my day job is teaching. ive taught adults, ive taught children. the one thing ive learned is that there are many ways one can reach the same endpoint. everyone doesnt think the same way , one just has to find what works and go with that. one will eventually "get it" . we all have individual hashkafahs that we have to "go with" and this will help us get closer to hashem.