Unthinking Egalitarianism

I'm in the process of editting a section of my thesis on gender roles, and going through some comments that hannahlinn left for me on it, I was surprised at how much I assumed that certain aspects of egalitarian ritual were non-issues which actually were, and how I ended up sounding rather disapproving of traditional gender roles for such a purpose, when in fact I am often surprised at how much I like and tend to preserve them in my own life. Part of this is that I don't live with someone who would be equally responsible for a meal. But I tend to wrestle with this: it's part of the "how egalitiarian is egalitarian and what does that mean" issue. Part of it is that I don't want to hog meaningful spiritual experiences (e.g. candlelighting) when I'm adopting others (e.g. tfillin). But I think I was unaware how innovative even the Orthodox community around me generally is: there's no fuss about the gender of the person making motzi, or usually even kiddush...

I presumed that it was very, very traditional and rather old fashioned for just the father to bless children, and that any family who tends towards any sort of egalitarianism would share that role. Turns out this isn't the case. I guess one shouldn't go around making assumptions from the behavior of JLI rabbis and a few friends' parents.

Now back to revamping that section so it sounds more unbiased. It feels very odd to be going through my own writing taking out biases I didn't even know I had...

Unthinking Egalitarianism

I'm in the process of editting a section of my thesis on gender roles, and going through some comments that hannahlinn left for me on it, I was surprised at how much I assumed that certain aspects of egalitarian ritual were non-issues which actually were, and how I ended up sounding rather disapproving of traditional gender roles for such a purpose, when in fact I am often surprised at how much I like and tend to preserve them in my own life. Part of this is that I don't live with someone who would be equally responsible for a meal. But I tend to wrestle with this: it's part of the "how egalitiarian is egalitarian and what does that mean" issue. Part of it is that I don't want to hog meaningful spiritual experiences (e.g. candlelighting) when I'm adopting others (e.g. tfillin). But I think I was unaware how innovative even the Orthodox community around me generally is: there's no fuss about the gender of the person making motzi, or usually even kiddush...

I presumed that it was very, very traditional and rather old fashioned for just the father to bless children, and that any family who tends towards any sort of egalitarianism would share that role. Turns out this isn't the case. I guess one shouldn't go around making assumptions from the behavior of JLI rabbis and a few friends' parents.

Now back to revamping that section so it sounds more unbiased. It feels very odd to be going through my own writing taking out biases I didn't even know I had...