Being an Ultra-Orthodox Woman

-


Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman, means hearing other people talk about me like I’m a fish in an aquarium.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means being told by Ultra-Orthodox male politicians that I am not interested in having women representing me in government. That I should vote for men, and they know best.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman in Hi-Tech, means working for 15+ years, holding a graduate degree, and still hearing secular men, professors of sociology, lecturing in conferences about promoting my participation in the workforce, like I am some kind of science project.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman in Hi-Tech married to a Kollel student means paying taxes, but reading in Facebook comments that I’m a parasite. Because somehow, despite feminism, households with stay-at-home-moms are fine, but heaven forbid the mother should be the one working, not the father. 

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means paying city taxes and school tuition, and sending my children to study in caravans instead of a school building. Terrified when the sirens go, because they don’t have a bomb shelter.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means that if I want to write for the magazines I read, I have to self-censor every word I write, and most of what I say I need to erase before it ever hits the keyboard.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means being told by magazine editors that I don’t want to see photos of women in the magazines I buy. Looking up to female role-models while all I get to see is their hands, their homes, or their husbands.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means needing to tell my seven-year -old daughter, when she builds a magnatile castle with her brothers – that her brothers’ photo can be in the kid’s magazine, but hers can’t. I can’t bring myself to use the word immodest, talking to my seven-year-old little girl. She must remain the builder behind the scenes.

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman means that anything I say that doesn’t jibe with the party line- means I’m not really Ultra-Orthodox. I can go to the right schools, wear the right clothes, pray in the right Shul, and send my sons to a Talmud Torah - but if I think anything I'm not meant to -and kal v'chomer if I say it or write it - I'm obviously a fraud. 

Being an Ultra-Orthodox woman, means staying silent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connection over Kiruv

-
I asked a girl for directions today, and we ended up chatting through the rest of our shared ten minute walk from the train station. I felt happy. Not because I saved a soul, not because I helped a secular Jew see the light, but because I made a friend. Just like Yeshivish Harry says perfectly in his post on being friends with secular Jews , relating to other Jews shouldn't be all about Kiruv, it should be about conection, and caring. Hopefully, the next time that my ten-minute-friend thinks of Chareidim, she won't think of the men throwing stones in the Meah Shearim, but of a girl who's a lot like her inside, even if she is dressed a bit differently. And you know what, even if that doesn't happen, even if our conversation changes nothing about the way she views religious Jews, it doesn't matter. Because for a few minutes, two Jewish girls were friends. And I bet that when we were smiling, God was too.
Read more

Mikvah Madness

-
It was too late. I was naked when I found out the truth. I clutched the towel around me and stared at her in horror. I was trapped. Only I could make such a stupid mistake. I missed all the clues- the sandy path that was longer than I remembered; the sign post for the Mikvah Keilim I didn't recall; the type of women inside- I should have known something was wrong when I saw the women. Nine of them, lined up in a row, one empty chair in the middle that they seemed to have saved for me, ready to interrogate me; the questions- how long I'd been married, how many times I'd been here before; the blessings that I wouldn't need to be back the next month. "I've been married six years and this is my fifth time at the Mikvah" one woman proudly told me. I tried to do the math in my head, while the other women congratulated her. The woman sitting behind the till wore a thick turban. She wasn't Simcha, the Mikvah attendant I'd come back here for. I'd
Read more

A Girl's Guide to Tznius Shopping in Jerusalem

-
Warning: Men should stop reading this right about now. So you're in Jerusalem, the holy city. And you want to be holy, and dress modestly. But you don't want to look holy . You want to look good . Never fear. I'm a secret Shopaholic. And arriving home loaded with shopping bags tonight, I suddenly felt like sharing my accrued wisdom with the world. This is going to be an exceedingly shallow post. 100% Chitzoniyus and Gashmiyut. My only defence is that a girl in Shidduchim has got to be well dressed! Frum stores I'm not so into shopping at Frum stores. Something about the idea of being dressed exactly the same as every girl in Bnai Brak and Sanhedria Murchevet gives me the shivers. But if you're aiming for a Frum-yet-classy look for a Simcha, where you want Tante Baila to approve of you and suggest a fine Bochur for a Shidduch, then check out One-of-a-Kind (Location: Go down Rechov Haturim, which is off Malchei Yisroel, and then turn either left or right, I
Read more