--Emmeline Pankhurst

Back in November or so, a college friend of mine, a Women's Studies major, referred to me as one of the two most strongly feminist men she knew on campus. Naturally, I felt flattered. And proud. But also a bit unsettled, which surprised me a bit. So, being myself, I had to try to figure out just what I found unsettling about it.

Others have just been surprised that I hold feminist views in the first place. After all, I'm Orthodox Jewish, right? One of those right-wing religious fanatics? Aren't they all a bunch of misogynist savages, stuck back in the Stone Age, with no respect at all for women as people?

Hold those thoughts for a minute, okay?

And as I read on, finding out that one in four college women surveyed in the mid-80s were victims of rape or attempted rape; that 83.5% of college men surveyed agreed that "some women look like they're just asking to be raped"; that 51% of boys aged 14 to 18 agreed that it's okay to force sex on a woman if she gets him sexually excited; that 1 in 12 male students surveyed admitted to committing acts that met the legal definition of rape; and on, and on, and on, with examples and anecdotal evidence galore, all of it pointing to an utterly screwed-up society with dating and mating social structures that are confused at best, and downright malicious at worst... well, I couldn't help but find myself thinking, "Thank goodness this isn't my culture."

See, my particular subsection of the Orthodox Jewish world has utterly different rules for male-female interactions. Which is to say that the twain very rarely meet as they grow up. It's a "separate spheres" ideology, carried to the hilt. Boys and girls go to separate schools, and really don't have much to do with each other, until they start dating. Perhaps as a result, the teenage years don't focus on sex the way they seem to elsewhere-- I never heard anything resembling a "locker-room" conversation until I got to college. I never heard women being called, umm, any of the terms a particular college acquaintance of mine persists in using at the drop of a hat. The people I grew up with wouldn't even know what many of said terms mean.

Among men, women aren't objects of either idealization or denigration... they're simply other people who lead separate lives of their own, who don't have much to do with us. (When working on my own dictionary of yeshivish slang some time back, I jokingly suggested defining "women" as "a theoretical concept found in the Talmud.") Okay, except mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, and occasional sisters of friends, but that's about it, really.

That men and women are kept separate, and do serve different roles, in no way implies that one sex is inferior or superior to the other, any more than ascribing different roles to the Army and the Navy makes one better than the other. They're equally important, just different.

As for dating, it takes place only when the participants are ready to get married, and serves the sole function of mutual life-partner evaluation. If, after as many dates are necessary, they decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, they get married. Otherwise, they stop dating. As few people as possible know that a given couple is going out, unless and until they get engaged, to minimize the potential embarrassment for both parties.

And as for date rape... well, in my neck of the woods, boys and girls don't even touch each other until they're married. When the bride and groom march down the aisle, hand-in-hand, after the wedding ceremony, that's the first physical contact they've ever had.

Fact is, not only isn't feminism a contradiction to the culture from which I come, but said culture almost demands such an outlook. Almost.

First, I am aware of the fact that what I'm presenting here is my subjective view of a small section of a small group, and that even within that fraction of a fraction of Jewish culture, there are others who would disagree, both with my description, and my assessment of it. In fact, it's distinctly possible that my view is a minority one.

Second, my little corner of the Orthodox Jewish world doesn't demand a feminist outlook as such; rather, it has an utterly different system, with (I think) healthier female roles. And therein lies the source of my discomfort in being called a "feminist," back at the start of this entry.

See, feminism is basically devoted to the radical idea that women are real people. And it works to fight the way women are subordinated to men throughout the entire culture. And this, I think, is pretty obviously a Good Thing. And, when dealing with the outside world, I can apply this all over the place.

But in my culture... yes, there are areas to be worked on, no question; it's not the absolute vision of perfection I've been making it out to be throughout this entry, and, trust me, I expect later entries to dwell on some aspects of the culture that do bother me. But, on the whole, it's a completely different system. And, on the whole, I don't see feminism as such applying to it very well.

This puts me in the uneasy position of noting that my role as a feminist is largely that of an outsider, criticizing a culture that isn't really his, without feeling threatened by an implied indictment of his own outlook.

The above is true, on the whole. There are admittedly exceptions. Certain articles in a certain community publication have caused my blood to boil in the past, but I like to think that these are the exception, not the rule. Either way, it's not the underlying philosophy that's the problem there, but rather the failure to adhere to it properly, I think.

None of this is likely to stop me from posting a withering feminist critique of my culture somewhere down the line. Hopefully a more accurate one than some of the ridiculous stuff I've seen directed at it in the past.

Finally, as you may have guessed, if I really fit into said culture, I probably wouldn't be keeping this journal in the first place. Nor would I have even heard of Mary Anne or Columbine, let alone be a (currently delinquent) staff member at CleanSheets and a semi-regular poster on the Mouth Organ message board. A walking bundle of paradoxes am I, just now.