Why is Gender So Important, Anyway?

I have often been asked by I am so focused on gender issues. My answer is simple: 1. Gender issues are one of the foundations of a society 2. Gender issues tend to be a locus where larger hashkafic/halachic issues within Judaism manifest themselves.

1. Gender is a basic foundation of our society. We live our lives in gendered bodies: From birth, we are told we are a "boy" or a "girl", and based on which category we find ourselves in, we will be given a different set of expectations, and related to in different ways by individuals and by our society.

Imagine a world in which sex and gender were completely dissociated: You were born with a male or a female body, and there was a gender spectrum, fro R to T. These gender-poles were not associated with body-type at all. You could be a female with a T gender: agressive, sport-loving, and emotionally non-demonstrative - and it would be completely acceptable. This world would be completely different from the world that we know - and much easier for transexuals.

Related to gender is the issue of family: Because sex is a basic human need, the social rules governing sexual relationships are an important component of society. Marx understood the family unit to be an essential element of capitalism that would become null and void under the Communist model of free property, but most Communist societies found the family unit too entrenched to be destroyed. The family unit also shapes people's childhoods, since they usually spend it in their family unit. The psychological importance of childhood extends into adulthood and continues throughout one's life. Aldous Huxley understood the importance of sex and family units to our current society, which is why the revolution of sex and family was a basic foundation of the new society portrayed in "Brave New World".

As a feminist, I also believe that patriarchy is one of the foundations of Western society, and any attack on the patriarchy threatens that society as a whole. This is why attacks on sexual morales and gender norms have been met with such vehemence throughout Western history, and why such a concentrated effort has been made to protect the family unit and women's roles within the gender heirarchy.

2. It is precisely because of the importance of gender issues to any society - especially Western society - that gender and sexuality become the loci in which many hashkafic and halachik issues play themselves out: How to confront and relate to modernity, the extent of halachik flexibility, the extent of rabbinic authority and the role of traditional texts, what are "Jewish values" - all of these issues come into play, making gender and sexuality important test cases and thought experiments for Modern Orthodox Judaism.

Writing this post fills me with a desire to re-read Tamar Ross's "Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism". It is a brilliant explanation of the complex challenge that feminism poses for Orthodox Judaism, as well as an exploration of how this challenge might be met. It has been branded as heresy by some, but I believe that even those who disagree with it will benefit from the reading.