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This is in response to this post in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
faith_feminists, which was commenting on an article about religious modesty written in what I call nouveau doormat mode. Because it's a highly controversial topic, I've decided to put the bulk of my response here.
I'm trying to think of how to say this without offending anyone, and I'm doing my best but it's not easy. Please don't take offence: I'm complaining about problems within an institution, in this case Orthodox Judaism, and this is not an attack on anyone. As agreed in the post mentioned above, women have the right to dress and behave in any way they want. What I object to is when certain modes of dress and behaviour are forced on them. This is my view based on what I have seen of UK Judaism.
I believe that sexuality is something wonderful and can also be connected with the spiritual, but for a religious service it should be left outside the door. This does not mean trying to stamp it out, but rather ignoring it, just as it is inappropriate to focus on financial matters in a religious service. When I go to synagogue, I dress in my usual style, except a little more smartly, and I wear a suit for more formal occasions. If it is a particularly solemn occasion, say the High Holydays, I dress more sombrely. For instance, on the Day of Atonement I dress in plain colours, trying to include some white as is traditional, and do not wear jewellery or make-up. Necklines and hemlines are neither here nor there.
One of the reasons why I do not go to an Orthodox synagogue unless for weddings, funerals etc., is because I can't stand what is happening there with women. I feel that there is an unseemly preoccupation with sex, which is inappropriate to a place of worship. First of all, there's the fuss about how much forbidden flesh might be showing ("modest" dress codes forbid showing anything below the collarbones, or above the elbow or knee). Secondly, unmarried women are marked off as available by not wearing hats like the married women, and since women are in a separate section to men, they are objectified still further. The excuse is that it's so that men don't get distracted by thinking about sex. Some people say it's so that no one gets distracted, but many synagogues have the sections divided in such a way that the women get a clear view of the men, being seated above or behind them. Women are thus labelled as sex objects, and their own thoughts - on sex or on worship - are deemed less important than men's. In other synagogues, the partition is a joke.
In a Reform or Liberal synagogue, we don't fuss about who's single and divide people up in case someone gets reminded of sex (since when has repression stopped that?); people sit with their families and just get on with it. Yes, we've all seen teenagers wearing mini-skirts now and then, but they're just doing it to rebel, and they tend to grow out of it, especially if no one makes a fuss. The norm is to be focused on worship, not on sexuality in any form. (Women's sections in Orthodox synagogue tend to run to gossip sessions, sadly, probably stemming from the way men get prioritised in terms of worship and women are often excluded or semi-excluded.) I go to synagogue to pray with my community, not to be put on display and weighed up as a potential wife.
My community (Liberal) had an open service last Friday (part of an interfaith festival), and people came along from the Orthodox community, as well as non-Jews. One guy I'd never seen (and almost everyone at our services is a regular, no one knew him, so I know he wasn't one of ours, not to mention that no one from our community would dream of behaving like this) came bounding up to me after the service and was frankly ogling me, not to mention doing a good impression of trying to chat me up. I was shocked, and it felt like the kind of sexual objectification I've experienced in Orthodox synagogues. I was smartly dressed, the top I was wearing was rather low-cut but perfectly respectable, and I was wearing a skullcap which, I would hope, would indicate that I am moderately religious (women don't "traditionally" wear them, so the ones who do are usually fairly committed). My guess is that he was Orthodox and took my clothing as a sign that I was sexually available, comparing it to Orthodox dress codes, as in normal circumstances it would not have elicited this response. I'm also guessing this because I think a non-Jew would have been far more tentative in such unfamiliar surroundings, and would not have assumed a Jewish service was a place to try to pick up women.
Now, please tell me how this obsession with "modesty" improves matters?
faith_feminists, which was commenting on an article about religious modesty written in what I call nouveau doormat mode. Because it's a highly controversial topic, I've decided to put the bulk of my response here.I'm trying to think of how to say this without offending anyone, and I'm doing my best but it's not easy. Please don't take offence: I'm complaining about problems within an institution, in this case Orthodox Judaism, and this is not an attack on anyone. As agreed in the post mentioned above, women have the right to dress and behave in any way they want. What I object to is when certain modes of dress and behaviour are forced on them. This is my view based on what I have seen of UK Judaism.
I believe that sexuality is something wonderful and can also be connected with the spiritual, but for a religious service it should be left outside the door. This does not mean trying to stamp it out, but rather ignoring it, just as it is inappropriate to focus on financial matters in a religious service. When I go to synagogue, I dress in my usual style, except a little more smartly, and I wear a suit for more formal occasions. If it is a particularly solemn occasion, say the High Holydays, I dress more sombrely. For instance, on the Day of Atonement I dress in plain colours, trying to include some white as is traditional, and do not wear jewellery or make-up. Necklines and hemlines are neither here nor there.
One of the reasons why I do not go to an Orthodox synagogue unless for weddings, funerals etc., is because I can't stand what is happening there with women. I feel that there is an unseemly preoccupation with sex, which is inappropriate to a place of worship. First of all, there's the fuss about how much forbidden flesh might be showing ("modest" dress codes forbid showing anything below the collarbones, or above the elbow or knee). Secondly, unmarried women are marked off as available by not wearing hats like the married women, and since women are in a separate section to men, they are objectified still further. The excuse is that it's so that men don't get distracted by thinking about sex. Some people say it's so that no one gets distracted, but many synagogues have the sections divided in such a way that the women get a clear view of the men, being seated above or behind them. Women are thus labelled as sex objects, and their own thoughts - on sex or on worship - are deemed less important than men's. In other synagogues, the partition is a joke.
In a Reform or Liberal synagogue, we don't fuss about who's single and divide people up in case someone gets reminded of sex (since when has repression stopped that?); people sit with their families and just get on with it. Yes, we've all seen teenagers wearing mini-skirts now and then, but they're just doing it to rebel, and they tend to grow out of it, especially if no one makes a fuss. The norm is to be focused on worship, not on sexuality in any form. (Women's sections in Orthodox synagogue tend to run to gossip sessions, sadly, probably stemming from the way men get prioritised in terms of worship and women are often excluded or semi-excluded.) I go to synagogue to pray with my community, not to be put on display and weighed up as a potential wife.
My community (Liberal) had an open service last Friday (part of an interfaith festival), and people came along from the Orthodox community, as well as non-Jews. One guy I'd never seen (and almost everyone at our services is a regular, no one knew him, so I know he wasn't one of ours, not to mention that no one from our community would dream of behaving like this) came bounding up to me after the service and was frankly ogling me, not to mention doing a good impression of trying to chat me up. I was shocked, and it felt like the kind of sexual objectification I've experienced in Orthodox synagogues. I was smartly dressed, the top I was wearing was rather low-cut but perfectly respectable, and I was wearing a skullcap which, I would hope, would indicate that I am moderately religious (women don't "traditionally" wear them, so the ones who do are usually fairly committed). My guess is that he was Orthodox and took my clothing as a sign that I was sexually available, comparing it to Orthodox dress codes, as in normal circumstances it would not have elicited this response. I'm also guessing this because I think a non-Jew would have been far more tentative in such unfamiliar surroundings, and would not have assumed a Jewish service was a place to try to pick up women.
Now, please tell me how this obsession with "modesty" improves matters?
