Abandoning The Sisterhood?

So to be honest, I’m a bad feminist.

First, I’ll tell you the external reasons that would make Mary Wollstonecraft turn in her grave and then I’ll tell you the internal ones that would make Tamar Ross shudder.

Firstly, as you know, I'm domestic. Cooking, cleaning, crocheting, the whole deal. I’d prefer to do any of those tasks rather than play contact sports or go hunting. I wear make-up and am pretty scrupulous with grooming.

Additionally from a religious perspective I’m a bad feminist. I wear skirts. Even when exercising. Necklines and sleeves to the letter. I’ve never layned, never been a shaliach tzibbur and I don’t always do a women’s zimun. Yes, I’m going to be a lawyer but a family lawyer for goodness sake. I’ll spend all my time arguing over who gets the kids and then getting paid like a teacher (who am I kidding I could probably work as a garbage collector and get paid more than a teacher here, and get more respect).

It doesn’t get much better when we take a look inside my head. Sometimes staying at home appeals to me. Making quilts, knitting jumpers, baking my own bread. Not having to compete for grades. Not having to write essays or finish readings. Not having the pressure of having to be financially independent. I could just get somebody with a Y chromosome to pay for all my stuff. All the decisions could be made by him. I wouldn't have to pick how much of my income to invest and where. I wouldn't have to work out tax stuff (tax...ewww).

I suppose that sometimes I can't be bothered fighting for equality. Is it really worth all my effort everyday trying to be taken seriously? Can I really be bothered telling another person off on the bus? I could work 60 hour weeks but I still won't get paid the same amount as a guy working half that. I could know shas off by heart and hilchot shabbat from the tur to ovadia yosef but I still won't be a Rabbi. Sometimes it just too hard.

Sometimes I just want to take the easy way out. To just be a nice maidel. To give in to patriarchy.

The truth is though, that you can never go home. A woman once educated can't forget what she's learnt. A person once liberated can't go back to slavery. Once you've been to the knesset you can't go back to the kitchen.

Sorry Ms. De Beauvoir. I'll try harder.

Maybe I'll start by changing my blog to the marital-status-neutral littleMSbogan?

How I am not a Man

I’ve recently spent at least 10 hours studying the laws of war. I will be spending at least another 40 hours studying this topic before December. This experience has taught me a very important lesson.

First: that sometimes it doesn't matter if the lecture is in English, you can still have no idea what's flying.

Second: I am not a man.

As much as I am in many ways just as component as a man and have the same natural entitlements and obligations as a man when it comes to violence we are talking about apples and oranges.

I am quite simply not violent. I will never use force to get what I want. Additionally I have never been nor am I likely to ever be in an army or a war. As such, the world of perpetrating violence is not my world and I can't understand it.

Now if we want to talk about victims of violence I get it. Without actually having experienced any significant violence against myself, I still know what it’s like to be afraid and know that I have no real means of defence.

I know that this is not the experience of all women. Obviously not. The fact that I’m 5 ft nothing and just a smidge over 50 kgs and generally adorable makes me inherently vulnerable. But additionally violence simply wouldn’t be an efficient method for me to get what I want and that’s why I use other methods to get my way. Like smiling, hair twirling or logical arguments. I don’t think ever about using violence and I can’t understand people who do use it. It simply doesn’t run through my decision making process ever. Even if other people threaten violence with me, counter violence doesn’t even play in my mind as a means of defence.

As such, there is a whole part of the world, of the man’s world, that is not part of my world. Now this realisation is significant in two ways

1) It’s something, which is at least partly biological (though also cultural) that differentiates me from the masculine, this is an uncommon reality b/c in most other ways I am the same as men, b/c ultimately we are all just people

2) I probably cannot be a human rights lawyer, at least where human rights relate to war or conflicts. B/c I just don’t get violence or war. I don’t understand it and hence would make a totally shit lawyer in this area. Goodbye potential job opportunities in the middle-east.

So does it bother me to not be a violent man? Not really. But it would be nice if even men weren’t violent in the first place.