Abstract
Religion has long served as a powerful institution in which gendered identities have been defined, prescribed, embodied, and maintained. Religious groups assert that these gender distinctions are commanded by God, the ultimate authority on everything. Claiming the divine being has created these norms and religious laws provides powerful support—in a way that claiming gender is socially constructed never could—for the conservative religious doctrine that women and men have unique physical and personality characteristics which are the basis of their distinct, embodied gendered identities. For feminist intellectuals and activists, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton who took scissors to the Bible and cut out all the sexist sections, ending with a very short document, indeed, to current scholars who debate whether religion is inevitably and irredeemably sexist or can be reformed, religion provides a rich site for explorations of the sources and consequences of gender inequality in society.
The Men’s Section is a well-written and fascinating study, situated within the scholarly discourse on how members of conservative religious groups do not simply take on strictly differentiated gendered religious prescriptions—rather, they negotiate, redefine, and enact new constructions of “femininities” and “masculinities.” Studies of contemporary Fundamentalist Christian congregations illustrate the complex ways that Scriptural notions of male headship and female submission are upheld in speech even as they are continually negotiated and reconstructed through words and deeds. Ministers, in particular, seek to build strong families by advocating a conception of masculinity that replaces stereotypical male qualities of aggression and domination with those centered on the home and domestic relationships. Women in these communities may verbally adopt the notion of female submission even as they subvert it by skillfully negotiating with their male partners to become more responsive to their needs and increase their involvement in family life.
Orthodox Judaism is similarly based on strict gender differentiation. In the realm of synagogue life, rabbinic law requires men and women to be segregated into two sections, with a partition dividing them. Its mandates prohibit women from leading central parts of the service, in effect denying women full participation in public ritual practice. Men daily thank God for not creating them as women, and prayers emphasizing the holiness of God can be expressed only when a quorum of ten men is present; women are not counted among the ten. Some Orthodox Jews also insist that men refrain from hearing women sing.
Feminist students of religion have long debated whether these ancient traditions are so deeply and fundamentally sexist that egalitarianism is impossible within their frameworks, whereas others have asserted and tried to show that they can be reformed to become gender inclusive. Female and male scholars have published critiques recently; however, many have also explored the new ways these conceptions of gender are being expanded upon to create a space within these groups for creating an egalitarian approach. Many women in these conservative congregations accept these restrictions, but a growing number have been seeking changes that allow them to participate more and expand their roles within churches, synagogues, and domestic settings.
In her fascinating and illuminating book, Elana Maryles Sztokman, a feminist Orthodox woman, studied “partnership synagogues”: places where women participate in services that enact egalitarian practices such as women leading prayers, giving speeches, and reading from the Torah. She herself is a member of such a congregation in her neighborhood in Israel. Her insights from participant observation in these services were supplemented by over fifty interviews with Ashkenazi (of Eastern European origins) Jewish men from such diverse places as the United States, Israel, Russia, Great Britain, and Australia. These synagogues, based on egalitarian premises, provide a context for the reconstruction of new Orthodox ideologies and practices that seek to redefine Orthodox femininity and masculinity.
Sztokman began her study with the assumption that the men who chose to give up some privilege to attend these more egalitarian prayer services have a well-developed understanding of gender inequality and a newly developing feminist consciousness that seeks to end the inequality embedded in Orthodox laws, values, and religious rituals. She quoted “Isaac” who said “Judaism without equality is an empty shell.” These men are changing themselves and their communities through practices that promote egalitarianism.
The adoption of this particular religious practice, however, did not sufficiently challenge the essential tenets of Orthodoxy that remain fundamentally unequal. The majority of the men were not deeply or fully committed to egalitarianism in their religious lives. Several of them admitted they attended partly to satisfy their wives. The male members of these partnership services remained committed to fully observing the strict, exclusionary Orthodox laws such as those forbidding women from active participation in all aspects of synagogue life—they are permitted to lead only those parts of the service which also can include children leaders. Most of the men interviewed recognized that for major and significant changes in gender valuation to occur, Halacha (Jewish law) must be reviewed and reinterpreted by Rabbinical scholars who were themselves deeply committed to developing a fully egalitarian Judaism. Until then, Jewish law remains oriented toward men, with women being the others rather than equal, card-carrying members of the Orthodox world.