The Price of an Education

This year Elder P began fourth grade in a new school.  While the dress code of her previous school (grades 1-3) permitted girls to attend school wearing trousers, her current school requires skirts. 

Over the summer Elder P received a lovely tunic that reaches mid-thigh, which she always wears with trousers.  I figured it was only a matter of time before she was told not to wear it to school, and I had even warned her, but left it up to her to continue wearing it or not.  

Last Thursday evening, right before bedtime (why do these things always come up right before bedtime?), Elder Princeski mentioned that her teacher had pulled her aside for The Conversation.  The tunic isn't long enough;  you need to wear something longer.  I was surprised it had taken this long.

* * * * *

Flashback.  Earlier in that same evening, Elder P and I are snuggled side-by-side on the sofa, huddling over my MacBook, reading aloud this article from the NY Times.

Afghan Schoolgirls Undeterred by Attack

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.

“Are you going to school?”

Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid...

I first read the whole article to myself, then hesitated.  Should I share this with my daughter? Shamsia is 17 years old, the age of Elder P's Bnei Akiva madricha (youth group counselor).   Other, much younger girls were attacked as well, along with teachers --fourteen women and girls in all.   It's nearly always a dilemma for me;  How do we educate our kids, especially our girls, without tearing down their (mis)perception that the world -- their world -- is a mostly-safe place? 

I decided to begin by showing her the accompanying slide show, which pictures the girls studying, playing and walking around the Mirwais School for Girls.  In the photos, Shamsia's scars are visible but not overwhelming. Then we went over the article, which exudes optimism.  Reporter Dexter Filkins writes that since the attack, all but a few girls have returned to school, that their parents are eager for them to go, and that the girls experience their school as a haven.  I was struck by the way that Shamsia and her family seem acutely aware of what is at stake, for themselves and their society.

“My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed,” said Shamsia, 17, in a moment after class. Shamsia’s mother, like nearly all of the adult women in the area, is unable to read or write. “The people who did this to me don’t want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things...

“The people who did this,” she said, “do not feel the pain of others.”

After reading the article, Elder P and I reviewed some of the ideas mentioned.  I tried to explain the concept of the Taliban and their agenda.  I was curious what Elder P had absorbed from our reading and accompanying conversation, so I asked what she thought about the article, and why, in her opinion, the girls had been attacked.  

It's sad. They [the Taliban] don't want the girls to lead.  They don't want them to go to school.  They want [the girls] to stay at home and not learn how to be in charge.

Sounds like she got the gist of it.

* * * * *

To the teacher's credit, Elder P was not at all upset about the skirt-length conversation, and she breezily accepted the dress code requirement.  I was relieved that she had been pulled her aside, and not embarrassed in front of her class. During the first parent-teacher conference of the year, this teacher told us that she emphasizes interpersonal relations and positive midot (personality traits) in her teaching, and I felt that her approach toward my daughter only supported this.

I don't wish to exaggerate, or find connections that don't exist;  even so, I couldn't help but feel the irony that evening.  The Taliban know that to control their society, they have to control the women of their society, by limiting how they dress, where they go, and what they learn.  The families there understand and oppose the Taliban's hurtful agenda.  The understand that modesty does not equal ignorance.

My daughter loves to read -- in two languages.  She loves math.  She's learning how to do an internet search, and how to write a book report.  For now, her curriculum and that of the boys in her grade (who learn in separate classrooms within the same school) is pretty much identical.  In a few short years, it won't be.  The boys will continue to study Talmud for several additional hours a week, while the girls will not.  If my daughter does well enough in school, she'll be able to go on to study anything she likes --  medicine, law, teaching, science, computers. Unlike Shamsia.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Gender Imbalance: The Examples Are on the Wall

Elder Princeski and I sat down yesterday afternoon to do her halacha (Jewish Law) homework. She has a textbook/workbook which she's not allowed to write in, so that the school can get several years' use out of it, so she writes her answers in a notebook.  

I do not like this workbook.  Apparently, it was designed exclusively for boys.  It contains little evidence that females even exist, and what scant evidence there is, is not encouraging. By this I mean that the book has almost no mention of girls, with the following seven notable exceptions (and yes, I went through the entire book):  

1.  A girl's name is cited in a question asking whether women are exempt from ritual handwashing.

2.  A woman's name is mentioned in connection with preparations for her wedding.

3.  A boy's mother is mentioned as taking care of him when he is ill.

4.  One exercise cites an unnamed female teacher posing a question to her [male] pupils.  

5.  A question cites a girl as having cooked on chag (a holiday), and her two brothers arguing whether her actions were permissible or not.

6.  Another exercise in the same chapter presents an example of a woman operating a washing machine to launder baby clothes during chol hamoed, and a man chastising her for doing so.

7.  Finally, in the chapter discussing the laws of gossip, girls' names suddenly appear in one-third of the exercise questions.  (I smudged out the author's name here, since I have no desire to besmirch him;  I do not blame him for the book's bias, since I"m assuming it's consist with the attitudes and outlook of his community.   I do hold the school responsible for using such a book.  Of course it goes without saying that only boys are pictured on the front cover).

I AM DISGUSTED.

My daughter probably would never have noticed the absence of girls in most of the questions, nor the skewed examples that do mention girls.  But I noticed right away, and it hurts.  Whether the intent of the publishers is to suggest that the information in the book is mostly irrelevant to girls -- except when cooking, cleaning and gossip is concerned -- or to keep lascivious thoughts far away from the minds of nine-year-old boys, is anyone's guess. 

I wonder why my daughter's school has chosen such a textbook.  What kind of educational institution sends such a message to its pupils, male or female?  Meanwhile, I've come up with these horrendous visions of what would be an American public-school equivalent:  Math textbooks written only for boys?  Science textbooks with no mention of natural history? Civics books that only cite white people?  

The problem is not limited to textbooks.  I remember walking into Elder P's classroom during the first asifat horim (aka, Back-to-School Night, in American parlance).  Her fourth grade class consists of 33 girls and one female teacher.  All the pictures on the boards around the walls featured.... yup, that's right.  Only boys.  And men (all with long beards, of course).  I could barely restrain myself from addressing the teacher about this, but I didn't feel it appropriate to start off the year with criticism, especially since the teacher had clearly made an effort to decorate the walls.   But it irked me:   A classroom full of girls whose very essence is blatantly absent from their daily surroundings. 

As the evening went on, I debated trying to improve the situation via other means, like volunteering to help the teacher with future classroom decorations.  But I hesitated yet again, not wanting to offend her by suggesting that her own efforts were inadequate.  By now I feel that enough time has passed, and I can offer my creative services without causing offense.

I do not want to raise my daughters with the burden of a heavy, Seventies-feminism, seek-out-the-unfairness approach.  At the same time, I cannot justify a book like this, which presents a consistent bias in its blatantly unbalanced examples.  It's hard enough to raise children to respect themselves and others.  Why does the religious school system insist on making it that much harder for us?

For now, Elder P and I have found a small solution to the workbook problem.  When writing out her exercise answers, I encouraged her to respond creatively regarding some of the names mentioned.  Thus Meir has become Meira, David is now Davida, and Yossi, Yosefa. By the time we get to the later laundry, cooking and gossip examples, I hope I'll have come up with additional creative methods of dealing with them.

Keep the balance,

ALN

A Woman's Choice(s)

Yes, yet another post on that apparently inexhaustible subject, women's tzniut (modest dress).

A lot of pieces have been circulating the jblogosphere the past few weeks and months regarding religious Jewish women's dress standards, ranging from the Jewish "burqa" sitings in Ramat Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem, to the inappropriate imposition of sackcloths on young dancers at the Jerusalem Bridge dedication ceremony.  

Some of these stories, like those regarding the March 2008 arrest of an abusive Beit Shemesh mother of 12, might suggest some link between overly-zealous dress codes, and a tendency toward child abuse.  (If you choose to follow the link, beware: I started to feel sick to my stomach reading just a few of these postings back-to-back).  In this case, a woman, Rabbanit Keren, is the reported leader of a controlling, sect-like approach toward excessively "modest" dress and abusive child-rearing practices.

Other incidents, like the now-famous bridge ceremony, on June 26 (during which a girls' dance troupe was forced to wear dark knit caps and shapeless brow cover-ups over their costumes, or forfeit their performance), reflect a successful attempt on the part of a political-religious leader - in this case, Deputy Jerusalem Mayor Yehoshua Pollack to impose his personal/community standards of women's dress onto others, in this case, directly onto the dancers themselves, and indirectly onto the entire public of Jerusalem.  

I, among many, many others, was not impressed with Mayor Lupolianski's response to his deputy's bullying.  Many people saw it as yet another version of religious coercion by religious city council members.   I, too, am convinced this was a major factor, and having grown up in a country where the separation of church and state is practically holy - or at least was, prior to the second Bush Administration - this aspect of Israeli society is especially challenging for me, on almost every level.  (More on that later).

I tend to classify the concept of tzniut (modesty in dress, as opposed to anava, humility), as a tradition passed by example from mother to daughter, from within the family framework.  This is not to say the community did not play a significant role -- of course it did.    I've no doubt that, a hundred years ago, a young woman who hiked her skirt up, or ran around in trousers, was duly shunned by her teachers (if she was lucky enough to have them) or peers, and possibly also by some version of a community "modesty patrol."

However, the past generation or two of religious Jewry has seen what I believe is a significant change in approach.   

Dress standards continue to come from within the family, with the mother remaining a central influence.  But there is another voice which has been growing louder and louder, and this is a male voice - the rabbi writing a book with "approved" line drawings of sleeves that cover the elbow.  The (always male) religious community leader encouraging "modest dress only" signs in supermarkets.   The yeshiva bochers illegally hanging modesty signs and spray-painting graffiti on the property of others.  The violent rabble-rousers throwing rocks at women driving cars, with the intent to scare, threaten, and harm.

Did you catch that?  

Yes, that list went from relatively harmless behavior, to fanatic, injurious behavior.  That's exactly how it happens... what might have begun as an attempt to encourage certain standards within one community, can balloon out of control into a violent, out-of-control demonstration for which no one takes the responsibility to publicly announce, This is wrong.

Don't misunderstand me.  What is difficult for me to fathom is not the idea that religious men care about women's modesty.  Through my work in a large medical institution, I have had the privilege of meeting many men (Jewish and Muslim) who uphold high standards of personal modesty and interpersonal relations.  I believe that most religious men feel real respect toward women and make great efforts to uphold personal and religious standards of interpersonal relations, through avoiding exposure to things they don't want to see, or that they feel they shouldn't see. 

What I don't understand is twofold:  Why do so many religious Jewish community leaders (male and female, self-appointed and otherwise) choose the subject of women's modesty as their main public venue for control and compliance within their communities.

And on a more troubling note, what causes so many women to feel obligated to comply to every last standard, and sometimes far beyond that?

OK, we'll pick this one up later...

Keep the balance,

ALN