Mouth Full of Argument and No One to Argue With

So this is a conversation I had with a friend about a week ago:

Me: Did you see the post on Blog X?

Friend: You mean where he put up a picture of a poster in Williamsburg that tells women to move to a side when men are likely to bump into them?

Me: Yep, that’s the one.

Friend: Ugh, disgusting. The frummies keep making up new chumrahs every day.

Me: But that poster is just put up by one meshugane guy. Same guy who hires a car with a microphone every chol hamoed, shouting that no one should go and see the plays and presentations performed at different venues. He’s a fruitcake.

Publications Represent The Ideal: My Response to Amy Davidson in the New Yorker

I received an email from a friend informing me that my Photoshopped Hillary post was mentioned in the New Yorker. Intrigued (and not a little flattered), I clicked on the link my friend provided. Well, turns out, I wasn’t exactly mentioned in a New Yorker article (*sigh*), but someone did recommend my post in the comment section on a piece called, “The Bin Laden Raid and the Vanishing Women,” by Amy Davidson.

Although it was quite deflating to find out no one at the New Yorker had noticed my lovely blog, I was actually glad I’d gotten to read Davidson’s short essay. Not because it was an enjoyable, funny little read—although it was!—but because I disagreed with a point she made and wanted to comment on it. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t register with the site, and you have to be registered in order to comment. (If anyone knows how to go about registering, please let me know. My email to the mag went unanswered.)

The Photoshopped Hilary Clinton Brouhaha

Ultra-Orthodoxy (aka Hasidism) is one of the most misunderstood denominations, and the brouhaha over the photoshopped Hilary Clinton picture is the latest example. The general assumption is that women being refused “face space” in ultra-orthodox publications is due to a tacit attempt to “silence” the female voice as well as the overall lack of respect for women in ultra-orthodox society. Although several pundits—Albert Friedman, publisher of Di Tzeitung, and Dov Hikind, NYS Assemblyman, among them—have attempted to explain that not publishing images of women is merely a modesty standard that the Orthodox abide by, few people are listening.

And small wonder. Hilary Clinton is not what one would think of as a sex symbol. To say that cutting her picture is necessary in order not to incite lustful thoughts seems, to the world at large, a ludicrous explanation. Furthermore, feminist discourse has (thankfully, in my opinion) become commonplace, and so, the phrases “silencing the woman” and “dominant male ideology” are part of the layman’s lexicon, springing instinctively to mind in a situation such as this. Never mind that bookstores catering to the Orthodox are filled with books about inspirational women and/or by female authors, belying the silencing of women claim, and that the ultra-orthodox were on the whole, exceedingly supportive of Hilary during her run for presidency, negating the lack of respect for women claim. These facts are dismissed and ignored. As is typical with stereotypes and preconceived opinions, the popular viewpoint prevails, despite evidence to the contrary.