How Egalitarian is Egalitarian?

[debka_notion]

So in the last big-Jewish-post (on counting non-egal women in an egal minyan, where egal is gender-egalitarian, for my pickier readers), I remembered that Egal here also has an interesting attitude (which has been changing and vacillating: it's definitely an in-process thing) on people who don't use certain ritualwear. A lot of it is based on long-term social norms from the larger (read: Orthodox) community, certainly. But it certainly isn't gender-egalitarian in its assumptions there.

The particular issue I'm thinking of is divided into 2 areas, and I freely admit that I'm often as guilty of both as the next person. But I'm working on it.

Part 1: If a man shows up to the minyan, especially say, on a weekday morning, when people tend to assume that it's only people who are strongly committed to observance in an egalitarian setting who show up (little else will get a college student up to be somewhere at 7:45 when it isn't absolutely required), someone will dig up a spare kippah and offer it to him- and get offended if he declines (this has all happened). So for a man to be there with his head uncovered comes across as offensive or unacceptable at the very least. But there are generally several women there, often women who do wear a tallit or even tfillin at the appropriate times who don't cover their head in any way, and no one objects at all. No one offers them a kippah or other headcovering (and Egal is the only egalitarian minyan I've seen without a supply of the lace-doily-things. Kippot can pretty easily be seen as beged ish, even though I don't see them that way, especially the sorts that hand around in public-kippah-bins. Maybe minyanim (pl. of minyan) ought to keep a supply of cocktail hats*?). I know head covering is only minhag- but then why make such a fuss if a man chooses not to wear one?

Part 2: Both men and women are given assorted honors in the community, and with the exceptions of hagbah (lifting the torah) and candle lighting, these are given quite gender-neutrally. (I see another piece of writing coming up- but that is Off Topic For Now.) But when a man is given an honor and he is not wearing a tallit, he is often offered someone's for the period that he is specifically in public sight, and he will rarely refuse. There are men who don't wear a tallit customarily because they don't have one or think it is not necessary, and there are men who don't wear one because they wear a tallit-katan (a 4--cournered undergarment with the knotted fringes on each corner that fulfill the mitzvah-requirement that the tallit fulfills in a more decorative and prayer-time specific way), and don't believe that unmarried men should wear a tallit except when actively participating in a service. Either way, the offer is made, and usually accepted. Women (who yes, are less likely to wear a tallit: some folks feel like it's men's clothing, and therefore forbidden, or they jsut aren't interested in wearing one.) are less likely to be offered a tallit. I've noticed this even at mincha (the afternoon prayer) where no one besides the people actively participating wear a tallit. So a woman who normally wears a tallit in the morning will have an honor and not be offered a tallit when a man who doesn't wear one except when asked to will be offered one and accept. Here the folks at the minyan are getting better about offering- but it's an interesting statement that they/we have to think consciously to do so, when with men it's an assumption.


*Preferably the ones without veiling over the eyes: religious head coverings ought not to send sexual signals. I've swapped into footnotes here because I was stacking entirely too many parentheses.

Comments

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

My understanding of egalitarianism was that women were obligated in all the same manners as men. This is perhaps because most of my education was in a reform setting where the question was, arguably, moot. However, if you're saying that women should take on these mitzvot, does that mean that if they don't, they aren't considered equals in the minyan? To me it seems that any position other than equal obligation should mean something other than egalitarianism, since if men are obligated by definition and women are supposed to take on said mitzvot, then women have to work for what men have by birth- and that isn't really egalitarian at all. I have this strange desire for things to actually match their titles. Also, how can one justify counting people for a minyan who don't have the same obligations (aka, women who have not, by that definition, taken upon themselves all the pertinent mitzvot)?

I don't so much care whether or not women are required by the minyan to wear a tallit for honors- I just care that they are offered them in the same manner as men are, and that if women are not so required, that men are not either.

Same goes for kippot. It's mostly just a shorter word than headcoverings: hence my references to those doily-things (clearly also simply symbolic but unmistakably feminine, even if ridiculous), cocktail hats, or alternatively a supply of scarves, berets, straw hats, balaclavas or even things like my apparently frightening red hat. But if people freak out when men don't have a somehow covered head, why don't they even notice when women don't cover their head if we're really so egalitarian? Especially when I've noticed it's mostly younger women who don't wear anything on their head- the older women at the shul I go to at home wear doilies or hats or kippot pretty darn reliably. Maybe it's my background again where I don't see kippot, silly or not, as something that is mostly male.

[navelofwine.livejournal.com]

if men are obligated by definition and women are supposed to take on said mitzvot, then women have to work for what men have by birth- and that isn't really egalitarian at all.

I agree that this is a problem, but for me it is essentially academic. It becomes a practical problem only if one takes the position that only women who have assumed the obligation of prayer are eligable to be counted in a minyan. The Israeli mesorati movement justifies counting women in a minyan by other means (http://www.responsafortoday.com/vol6/1_4.pdf). (English summary here (http://www.responsafortoday.com/engsums/6_5.htm).)

I don't think that gender egalitarianism necessarily entails abolishing gender. Judging from the number of women I've seen wearing conspicuously feminine tallitot, I don't think people generally want to abolish gender. Since one of the prime expressions of gender is through clothing, and since a kippa (or other head covering) is little more than an article of clothing, I don't think it's important for a woman to wear one unless it is expected of her. Showing up for shul without a kippa is a lot like showing up for a wedding without a tie. It's disrespectful when a man does it, simply because we've invested ties and kippot with some sort of vague cultural significance. That doesn't imply that men are superior, or more highly regarded by society, in any way. Let me be clear: I have nothing against women wearing kippot. If it's meaningful to you, great. But it isn't a mitsva.

Wearing a tallit gadol is not really a mitsva, either, although a tallit certainly has greater religious significance than a kippa. I think that women should wear tallitot, since tsitsit are an ancient religious symbol and since wearing a tallit gadol is often viewed as a sign of dignity or status. However, I'm not sure it's necessary to obligate women to wear tallitot. Again, we're talking about clothing.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

From a practical standpoint, I assume that women who habitually show up for an egalitarian minyan hold themselves obligated to the same extent that they hold men obligated unless they tell me otherwise, and that's enough for me. But on an ideological level, I feel like if people are going to behave equally for something, they should really mean it, otherwise what's the point?

Part of this is coming from the fact that until very recently I didn't realize that the Conservative movement hadn't fully obligated women who are egalitarian by definition, and the idea still sits oddly with me. Not that I want to abolish gender either- I'm fond of it, I'm not of the sort of feminist who thinks that women and men have to do the exact same things all the time in teh same ways. But somehow differentiating in prayer when the obligations are the same (which I presumed they were, and still Feel like they are, even when I *know* differently) feels different.

Once again you're specifying kippot- is that referring to all headcoverings? In any case, I'm taking issue in reality more that they aren't offered equally than that the offer is accepted less often. Ditto tallitot, although I intellectually feel a bit more strongly about that one since it is a more weighty symbol. Again, I sometimes feel like minyanim should stock a few clearly feminine tallitot. Someday maybe I'll make a few (once I learn to make such things, but it's on the to-do list) and donate them to this minyan/future minyanim I G_d willing attend.