Prudie isn't a prude, is she?

1. Sexual Revolution in Libya

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/26/libya_sexual_revolution

2.

I am addicted to the Dear Prudence column at Slate, by Emily Yoffe, and usually read it every Monday,

This excerpt was too funy not to share:

A questioner wrote:

My wife used to yawn during sex, now she's texting. Should I say something to her?

Prudence replied:

Take a look at her messages. Perhaps she is writing, "My husband is making love to me, it won't take a minute." Then you could get your phone and text her about your desire to meet at the office of your divorce lawyer.

Readers responses to the same question:

Reader A: If she shares her snacks, I think that's okay. I would draw the line at her turning on the Kindle.

Reader B: Perhaps the wife is confused about the meaning of sexting!

Prop 26

There is currently legislation being proposed in Missisipi that would give a fetus the legal status of a living human being - thus making abortion murder. This legislation is known as proposition 26, and will be on the ballot November 6. Technically it is illegal, since this state legislation would contradict a Supreme Court ruling in Roe v Wade that abortion is legal (state can not overide federal legislation). This means the legislation will be challenged - the pro-lifers hope that the result will be a new supreme court ruling that overturns Roe v Wade. The Catholic Church has actually come out against this propostion, feeling that in its extremism it hurst the pro-life cause - did I mention there are no exceptions for rape or incest?

But here to explain it better than I could is Rachel Maddow:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A note on the interviewee fundraising: Rachel apologized, explaining that fundraising on the show violates show policies, and she had not expected the interviewee to do that. She promised to post links to both pro and anti-26 fundraising sites on her blog.

And here to raise questions, some funny, some scary, is Slate online magazine: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/mississippi_s_anti_abortion_amendment_could_i_claim_my_frozen_em.html?fb_ref=sm_fb_like_chunky&fb_source=profile_oneline

I am pretty bad at keeping up with this whole blogging thing. I will readily admit that. However, I do have a few things to say:

1. Wore pants in Meah Shearim the other night and everyone was super-friendly to me when I needed directions.
2. Saw two girls pass a guy. Said guy looked back to check out their asses. He looked so silly. I wondered if I look that silly when I check out guys' asses in the street.
3. A few links: Article on marriage in Israel http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/without-the-rabbinate-i-ll-thee-wed-1.392439

Rape Crisis Centers in Israel
http://www.1202.org.il/English/

Love Poetry/Sex Poetry

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/poem182.html

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem158.html

Kinky

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Skydiving-Sex-Stunt-Wasnt-Violation-FAA-132782203.html

On Feminism:

http://nymag.com/news/features/feminist-blogs-2011-11/

Bus Experience 2

First of all, I consider the Jerusalem bus system functional, but slightly inconvenient. For a New Yorker who has heavily criticizes both Boston and DC's transit systems, that is a high compliment.

Second of all, last night, I had the following exchange at a bus stop:

מישהו בתחנת האוטובוס: מה יש פה בארץ? אני: הם דתיים. בשבילם זה מקום קדוש. איש: אבל את לא דתייה, נכון? אני: חצי-חצי. איש: איזה בסה

By the time the bus dropped me off, it was 11:30. I did not have my cellphone. I wound up walking for five minutes along a major road with no houses or stores, and despite the low crime rate, as a woman, I was afraid. I thought about how different it is to walk at 11:30 at night in a dark empty place as a man verse as a woman - because a woman always has that unnamed fear.

Part of that is statistical: Women are at higher risk. But part of that is, as a friend pointed out, because society teaches women to be afraid of rape, it teaches women to be afraid of the power of a phallus to ruin their lives, instead of actually trying to change the rape culture we are all a part of. (I guess my feminism is showing.)

Another friend introduced me to this cool website: http://israel.ihollaback.org/
which has an English equivalent: http://www.ihollaback.org/

Unsure How Much Blog Overlap I want, but I thought this was relevant

Bus Experience 1

Jerusalem is an extremely safe city - it has a very low crime rate.

Last night, I was on the bus. The bus I was in passes through East Jerusalem. We were stuck in a hug traffic jam. I was half-asleep. Three Arab guys - in their late teens-early twenties started making lewd noises at me, but I ignored it/went on half-sleeping. Then they began banging on the window, right by my face. I jumped up, startled, and they laughed, then continued walking, and were gone.

I couldn't figure out if they were doing this because I was a woman, because I was Jewish, or because I was a Jewish woman, but no matter the reason, it was very unpleasant.

I told this to a friend and he goes, "If you thought that was unpleasant, I'm not going to tell you what happened near Ashkelon" - but I knew the answer to that - a rocket fell this morning near Ashkelon, where I have cousins and where I have spent much time.

I don't know why, but this comment from a friend kind of annoyed me. Maybe just because I am in a bad mood this morning.

I did however, receive two good quotes: 1. "If everyone were getting oral sex, we wouldn't need guns." (There's a great solution to the Middle East problem).
2.
קודם כל, תרגעי" , בדיחה קצת גזענית טוענת שכך נפתח כל ספר בישול של מרוקאיות. אני לא יודעת איך זה קשור למרוקאיות דווקא, אבל זאת עצה טובה. תנשמי עמוק, יש אויר טוב בחוץ, יש פרחים, יש עצים, יש פיח מאוטובוסים,
אבל לפחות יש אוטובוסים.

By the way I've noticed that guns are winning in the poll for guys, whereas women are split 50-50 about guns verse oral sex. I know my poll is unscientific, but still find that interesting and somewhat surprising. Is my surprise because I myself have given into gender stereotypes about sexual desire?

What kind of sadistic nutjob invented the underwire bra?

I'm completely serious. I just have this image of a woman lying down, naked, her arms bound together in strips of black leather, as this mad scientist with a German accent holds a peice of white wire in his hands and goes "hmmm", and next thing you know, he is experimenting with the wire and with her breasts, and somehow, out of that night, there comes this product that is now made by Calvin Klein and sold at Bloomingdales.

So basically, every time we women wear one of these torture-devices, we are turning into doms without realizing it.

And that takes the underwire bra and transforms it from painful into kinky.

Epiphanies

A discussion on this article: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/10/25/hpv_shot_cdc_recommends_gardasil_cervarix_for_boys_as_young_as_1.html
led to the following realization: The extreme right (not to be confused with the mainstream right) wants to legislate one's ability to get a blowjob, yet fights for one's right to carry guns, and maintains that legislating about that violates the second ammendment.

So I decided to poll both female and male friends about which right they prefer - the right to carry guns, or the right to receive oral sex. Doing so led to another epiphany, which I will share in a moment, but first:

Given the ridiculous stigmatization of the HPV vaccine by the American right, I would like to proudly say that I, S have been vaccinated. There is a rumor that the vaccine is only for virgins, but its actually recommended for all women below the age of 26. For more info, please go to: http://www.cdc.gov/hpv/vaccine.html

Now, on to the epiphany:

Last night I had an epiphany about the radical right*: They want to give you the right to carry guns but take away your right to get a blowjob. (In this case, one might think that "you" is gay men, but I am pretty sure that Baltimore has some laws that outlaw fellatio, even when its female on male.)

So I decided to do a poll for my male friends: If you had to choose between the right to carry guns and the right to get a blowjob, which would you choose?**

While technically the term "get a blowjob" places the man in the passive role, in order to 'get" this blowjob the implication is that he is "taking" it - ie, there is an exchange in which the man plays a less-active-but-still-not-completely-passive role.

I then tried to think of an equivalent term for female oral sex, but there was none. There is "to be eaten out', a phrase that relegates the women to the status of object, as in she is being eaten, as opposed to giving and taking, which takes place between two subjects.

There is to peform oral sex, but in this case, the other person is having oral sex performed on them - again, relegating them to passive object.

I am sure there are slang phrases for these sexual acts that I am unaware of, but these are the common ones, and I think it is no coincidence that they disempower women while reserving some form of agency for men.

I think that our society equates power with the phallus, so there is no way any type of phrase involving a phallus will completely disempower men. It is men, not women, who are expected to exercise sexual agency.***

Our entire society is built around this false concept of masculinity, in which men who are not powerful are somehow seen as "weak', and I think it is as harmful to men as it is to women, by giving them these impossible standards that they have to adhere to in order to be "masculine".

It is only when we as feminists recognize the harm that sexism and chauvinism do to men, and start adressing that harm, that we will be able to win over men to our movement en masse.

But I am getting far afeild. My point is: Semantics matter. They impact how we think in ways we are unaware of - and often, the semantics of the English language send a subliminal message that men are powerful and women are not; that men are empowered and women are not.

A postscript on languge, though not on semantics: When we use the word "hysterical", the root of that is the Greek word for "womb" and refers to the fact that women's wombs were thought to make them crazy. I actually think I know some men who still beleive this, in a way - how many times has an an angry woman been asked by a guy if she has PMS? I actually heard it argued Hillary couldn't be president, bc what if she met with a diplomat when she had PMS, and yelled at him, therefore ruining America's international relations with that country. No one ever said Obama couldn't be president because he's a straight man and what if a really pretty diplomat with amazing tits walked into the room, and he couldn't stop staring, and just did whatever she wanted, thus causing America to sign some sort of international agreement that harmed its interests - and this after the Clinton era.

* I am not judging the entire right by its radical faction, don't worry.

** I was actually surprised by the amount who answered guns.

*** In the Middle Ages, Western culture saw women as demonic beings who were full of nothing but sexual desire and would tempt men to sin, or as passive, asexual beings who men used to gratify their urges. I think this still impacts our culture in ways we are often unaware of.

Links Again

There was an interesting article recently about religious marriages in Israel that are outside the purview of the Israeli rabbinate: http://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/1.1527326

One of the people in mentioned in the article runs a blog on religion: http://tomerpersico.com/

Another very cool religion-related blog: http://thetalmudblog.wordpress.com/

This is an article about IDF women leaving a simchat Torah event when the rabbinate tried to force them into a special section: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/female-soldiers-leave-idf-event-after-ordered-to-sit-in-separate-section-1.391426

A great gender related quote heard today: Romance movies ruin women, by making them think that these impossible situations happen in real life. Porn does the same for men.

Thoughts? Is that sexist because it assumes women watch romance and men watch porn?

Bli neder "Israeli rabbinate and marriage" rant to appear at some point, but I am truly exhausted for now.

Pics

Hi. Before I go any further, I want to upload two pictures - one related to gender issues (or to be more precise, sexuality issues), one related to religion.

Now that I've uploaded the photos, I will let them stand on their own, and share my thoughts in the next blogpost.

Of Cosmo and Chocolate

Wrote this as a Facebook note; posting bc its apropo:

I went out today and bought a Hebrew novel, and even set aside the time to read that novel. Then, what should have been a minor glitch occured: I wanted chocolate. I am a serious chocoholic: I can go months without it, but the minute I have one taste, I want more, and can finish a box of chocolates like its a cup of coffee. So it was silly of me to give myself that "taste" over shabbat - but I did.

Instead of going out and buying chocolate, I tried to resist, the net result being that I wasted time on my computer because I couldn't focus on the book, or on anything, due to chocolate cravings combined with caffeine cravings (I had only had 1 cup of coffee today). Finally after 2 hours, I bought myself chocolate and caffeine.

I wondered why I felt so guilty about wanting this peice of chocolate, and realized: I was terrified of gaining weight. Now, I am a pretty confident person, who is also pretty aware of the way that the media tries to brainwash me into wanting to be a size two.

I also beleive that, at least in terms of real relationships (as opposed to one-night stands, which I have no interest of pursuing for the moment), the ability to not care about eating the peice of chocolate is much sexier than any extra pounds gained as a result of the chocolate.

I wanted to post this just to show the degree to which the media's image of "stick-skinny = sexy/ if you gain even one pound you'll no longer be attractive" has permeated our culture and affects the lives of women on an individual level. I think I have less body-image issues than most, but even I, a media-savvy feminist, can not help but be affected sometimes.

So next time you see Cosmo at the supermarket, take a look around - it's likely one of the women at the supermarket that you see has been negatively affected by that magazine, or others like it, likely that a woman you know - or maybe even you yourself - has felt fat or ugly or otherwise inadequate because of those "women's magazines".

Gender and Weight

I recently heard someone I know tell her slightly overweight 12-year-old daughter to go for a walk to walk off the shabbos meal we had just finished. Even though her slightly overweight boys were sitting nearby, she made no similiar request of them - it is the girl who can't be "fat".

I think from the mother's perspective, this sexism was logical: The world is cruel to all overweight people, but it is crueller to overweight girls than to overweight guys - hence she must urge her daughter to lose weight, wherease for her sons, its less important that they do so.

However, I have issue with the way the request was made: I think telling twelve-year-olds they need to walk off meals in order to lose weight makes them more likely to develop body-image issues. I would be perfectly fine with the mother saying, "It's a beautiful day out! Why don't we go for a walk?", or something like that. I think it is even ok to explain the importance of exercise for health - how it is good for one's heart, etc., and then to sit down with the daughter and look for physical activities she might enjoy (swimming, dancing, etc.). I simply object to the way the request was framed: Please walk off this meal so you don't grow fat from it.

I also object to the sexism - yes society is crueller to overweight girls than to guys, but if you really think maintaining a healthy weight is important, then it should be important for all of your children - not to mention that I object to society's sexist standards that this woman was capitulating to.

Updates

I don't want to write this post, because I am the type of person who finds verbalizing my anger to be exhausting, but I feel somewhat obligated, since I am supposed to be blogging "regularly", whatever that means.

First of all, some news: The Israeli Supreme Court ruled it illegal for the Toldos Aharon synagogue to gender-segregated parts of the Hassidic "Meah Shearim" neighborhood in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the synagogue proceeded to do so despite the court's ruling, and police refused to actively intervene. As a matter of fact, when a man tried walking through the neighborhood with his female friend and they ignored the barricade meant to separate the genders, they got hit, at which point they called the police, which still refused to take down the barricade.

For more on this issue, please check out the following website: ישראל חופשית

You can click for English. This organization fights for religious freedom and gender equality within Israel.

Next: 3 women were arrested in Zimbabwe for raping men, perhaps to use their sperm in a religious ritual, in which sperm is viewed as the life force. Viewing sperm as the life force is nothing new (see ancient Indian sources, as well as the Rambam) but recognizing female-on-male rape is. On the other hand, I am so skeptical of anything to do with the Zimbabwe justice system (if you're wondering why, just google Robert Mugabe) and this seems so "stereotypical witch-like-women sexually preying on men for weird cultish purposes" that I am slightly skeptical - then again, that stereotype is a Western stereotype, so I shouldn't assume it exists in Zimbabwean (Shona, mostly)* culture.

There is a cool series airing on PBS called "Women, War and Peace", which I highly recommend.

There is also a rather bland article by William Saletan on slate.com about oral sex - it basically confirms that oral sex is considered part of casual hookups by much of today's youth, whereas once it was reserved for more intimate relationships.

I am not into uploading condom pictures (you can google "Obamacondoms" should you so desire) but I did find the picture above to be funny ( a friend posted it on Facebook). Also, porn hackers uploaded X-rated material onto the Sesame Street Website, for those who care.

Now a note on gender: I was recently with a male cousin four years older by myself, yet his parents kept on telling me I needed to get married and have kids - not a word to him! As a matter of fact, they even joked I should take care of their grandchildren (ie 4-years-older cousin's nephews and niece) as practice! I don't care, in the sense that I don't actually feel pressured because of what they said, but at the same time - it is so unfair, and just goes to show how society pressures women into marriage and kids and judges their worth by their ability to attract a mate, in a way that it does not do for men. I was tempted to point out to my relatives that I've worked as a babysitter, but in the end, I decided it wasn't even worth it. I have no immediate plans for kids - I am not even sure where and when marriage fits into my agenda - I believe that whenever you fall in love with the right person, that's the right time - and currently, I am not in love with anyone.

Anyhow, just needed to point out the injustices of the patriarchy. Chag sameach.

*Shona People

Works Cited

Brown, Karen Mcarthy. Mama Lola: A Voodoo Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkely and California: University of California Press, 2001.

Bush, Barbara. "Hard Labor". More Than Chattel. ed. David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996. 193-218.

Bush, Barbara. Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Dayan, Joan. Haiti, History and the Gods. Berkeley and LA: University of California Press, 1998.

Dubois, Laurent. "Avenging America: The Politics of Violence in the Haitian Revolution. " The World of the Haitian Revolution.ed. David Patrick Garrigus and Norman Fiering. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. 111-125.

Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804. ed. Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus. Bedford/St. Martin's: 2006.

Geggus, David Patrick. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Geggus, David Patrick. Saint Domingue on the Eve of the Revolution. The World of the Haitian Revolution. ed. David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. 3-21.

Geggus, David Patrick." Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue." More Than Chattel. ed. David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996. 259-278.

Gros, M. "Historic Recital" Facing Racial Revolution. ed. Jeremy D. Popkin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 105-115.

"The First Days of the Slave Insurrection" Facing Racial Revolution. ed. Jeremy D. Popkin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 49-58.

"Prisoners of the Insurgents in 1792" Facing Racial Revolution. ed. Jeremy D. Popkin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Robertson, Claire. "Africa into the Americas?" More Than Chattel. ed. David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996. 3-42.

Sweet, James H. "Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the Afro-Portuguese World, 1440-1770". Univeristy of North Carolina Press: 2003.

Weaver, Karol K. Medical Revolutionaries. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006.

Fin

The important role of women can be seen in Haiti today, where priests and priestesses preside over a pantheon that includes numerous female iwas. Many of these was are associated with the Haitian Revolution, and are said to be based off of real historical figures. While the veracity of this claim can not be tested, the figure of these was can serve as oral testimony to the various ways in which women participated in the Revolution, for each one represents a type of revolutionary woman.

First, there is the figure of Defilee, a woman who sold goods to insurgent soldiers. In some version she may have provided their sexual needs as well, but in others she was a version. She was madly in love with Dessalines, and cared for his body after his murder. (Dayan 44) It is probable there were many Defilees: most wars have women who travel with the soldiers and sell them goods, sometimes including their bodies. Taking care of corpses was a woman's role in many African cultures, while the care for the dead body combined with virginity connects Defilee to the Virgin Mary and thus, Ezili. Defilee is said to have joined the insurgency as a result of rape by her master, thus showing a collective memory which credits rape by white males as being a major motivation for women who joined the insurgency, and which may further explain the nature of the sexual punishment insurgent women sometimes devised for their white captors. (Dayan 40) Defilee's name comes from the fact that whenever the soldiers would stop, she would tell them to march once more (defilez), and they would march. (Dayan 44) This shows the important role of women in encouraging the soldiers, and also that women were respected enough to be listened to. There is also the iwa who is said to have fed bullets to Ogu-Dessaline's cannon during the revolution is another testament to women's roles providing soldiers with supplies; there are records of insurgent women trading sex with French soldiers in exchange for bullets and ammunition. Thus, the voodoo traditions of today contain traces of the insurgent women of history.

Then there is the more quiet power exercised by women: Dessaline's wife is known to have used her influence on him to save the lives of many whites, and captors of the insurgency reported male slaves' wanting better conditions for their family. (Dayan 30) Defilee is said to have protested the actions of the men who murdered Dessalines, while another captive recorded a woman for upbraiding insurgents for their actions. The ability of women to entice, cajole, and convince the insurgent men in their lives should not be underestimated, or relegated to the margins of history: That Dessaline's wife was heeded, or that Defilee's protests are part of Haitian traditions until today, speaks to the effect of words of women. These words would have been especially powerful when they came from women fulfilling a religious role, for then their voices were the voices of the was themselves.

Perhaps the importance of women, as history's tendency to overlook that importance, is best preserved in a legend that Dessalines-Ogu was possessed by the Virgin Mary at the moment he commanded for the white to be torn out of the tricolor flag: The ability to transcend gender through possession, and the power of women to influence men is recorded in this legend, where it is a woman who causes Dessaline's actions. Yet the ability of a woman to affect history herself, without male mediation, remains silenced. It may be the female spirit that possesses Dessalines, yet power is reserved for the male body. (Dayan 52) This Virgin Mary is said to have spoken French and Congo through Dessalines at that time, connecting her to Ezili, who is African (Congo is a term used for generic African languages used in voodoo, though there also is an actual Congo Ezili) and often speaks in French, as part of her coquettish pretensions. (Dayan 52) Thus, Haiti is left with the blue of of Ezili and the Virgin Mary, and red, the color of blood, the loss of virginity as she matures to become an independent nation.

This independence brought freedom to a multitude of men and women. Those formerly enslaved women had faced a variety of obstacles not faced by their male counterparts, but by empowering themselves through religion, they were able to help participate in the movement that brought them freedom.

The Part about Dancing

Dancing is central to voodoo, which can be described as "a danced religion". (Metraux 188) According to the anthropologist Judith Hannah, "the dancing body connotes health, but also power as life's vital force" (Daniels 261) The opportunity to dance at religious ceremonies was thus a way to assert power through one's body. It was also a way for women to express their sexuality in their own terms, by using their bodies' sensuality to strengthen their connection to their African heritages. This power would have been especially meaningful in view of the concentrated attack on African women's sexuality perpetrated by the white establishment both through rhetoric and through the actions of white men. The Congo dances, which are associated with the Haitian Revolution, are especially notable for their seductiveness and the focus on undulation of the hips. These dances are sometimes danced for Ezili and Damballah, two was who are married to each other, and may well have been invoked in the Bois Camman ceremony, since Damballah is a major Dahomean deity who still plays an important role in voodoo, while Ezili Danto and Ezili-je-wouge are both associated with the Haitian Revolution. (Daniels 113)

Colonel Malefont, part of the French expedition in 1792, recalled seeing two hundred "negresses" dancing in an insurgent camp. When questioned, they explained that they had been dancing because of their confidence in the "obstacles" the voodoo priestess had laid across the path of the French. Whether these "obstacles" were spiritual or physical (or, most likely both, since in voodoo physical objects can have spiritual powers), this story shows that the priestess was using her religion to participate in the insurgency and help fight the French and that the women in the insurgent camp believed in voodoo. Their dancing may have indeed served a religious purpose, or may have served to encourage the warriors, or both. (Metraux44, 45)

The presence of voodoo in the camps was also documented by Gros, who was held prisoner by insurgents. Gros mentioned a “dance or Calinda” that was held for three days (Gros 134). Voodoo had much more room for women to play religious roles than in the white, male-dominated Catholic Church. This because, while the role of women in Africa varied from culture to culture, there were many streams of women's empowerment that coexisted polyphonously with streams of patriarchy, as opposed to Western culture, where patriarchy has long been the dominant voice, with women and sexuality forever tainted by original sin. (Samuel 43) Catholic sisterhoods for those of African descent had started forming around the time of the Revolution, only to be severely censured by the white political establishment. (According to the Code Noir, all slaves had to be baptized and converted to Catholicism, yet these laws were poorly enforced, and even when converted, many slaves continued to practice African-based religion in lieu of or in tandem with Catholicism.)

Part - what number are we at now?

According to legend, the slave revolution in St. Domingue started with a voodoo ceremony at Bois Caiman, headed by Boukman, one of the military leaders of the rebellion. In most of the versions of this event, there is some sort of priestess present. As a matter of fact, one of the more authoritative sources for the event emphasizes the role of the priestess without mentioning the presence of Boukman at all, thus showing an event in which a woman officiates without sharing her power with a man. (Geggus 89) The historicity of the Bois Caiman ceremony is impossible to verify, since most of the sources about it are written by white men (not women) who were themselves not present at the event. Nevertheless, all of those sources claim to base themselves in testimonies and oral histories of those who were themselves participants in the event, and taken together, they can be seen as evidence that some sort of voodoo ceremony did in fact take place. (Geggus 82) The evidence is especially compelling when combined with the fact that Boukman and Jeannot, two major military leaders of the Revolution were probably voodoo preists (Geggus 6), a fact that is in keeping with the presence of Boukman at the Bois Camman ceremony.

According to a family oral tradition recorded by Etienne Charlier, Cecile Fatiman, the mulatresse wife of the mid-eighteenth century president Louis Pierrot, was a voodoo priestess who participated in the Bois Caiman ceremony. If this tradition is correct, it would place a face, a name, and a life story behind the mysterious woman who appears in various versions of the Bois Caiman story. (Geggus 82, 90) Another proposed identity is that of Charlotte, who was crowned queen of the "negroes" along with Jean-Francoise, who was crowned king, in a religious ceremony directly preceding the revolt. ("First Days of the Insurrection" 57) The tradition of crowning a king and queen is well documented in voodoo, as well as Afro-Brazilian traditions. It is very possible that this king and queen are the priest and priestess to which the sources refer.

In various versions of the event, the priestess is tall, a young virgin, or an old crone. These versions tell us more about the projected image of African women and their descendants than they do of the women themselves: For Dante Bellegarde, speaking as a representative of Haiti, it was important to represent the woman as tall, with the associations of strength and authority height embodies. For Dumesle, harkening back to classical culture with its cults of virginity, as well as Catholic culture in which virginity is the sacred embodiment of the pact between female religious authorities and the God who they serve, it was important to state the virginity of the priestess as a way of legitimizing the religious ceremony. For those who present the priestess as an old crone, they are harkening back to a Western tradition of presenting old women gifted with knowledge of healing herbs as witches, compounded by the racist tradition of presenting African women as witches. The body of the African woman is essential to all of these descriptions, as she literally becomes the embodiment of the narrator’s political agenda. This is indicative of Western culture’s habit of using African women as the projection of the Western imagination’s fears and longings. These stereotypes are indicators of the lives of women in the African diaspora, for they tell us of the images of themselves that African-descended women saw projected at them, images that they had to combat in their daily struggle for self-worth, as well as respect from others.

The three projected images also conform to three different aspects of the iwa Ezili, who is often associated with the Haitian Revolution, most notably in her Danto and je-wouge forms. There is Ezili as the virgin Mary, Ezili as a beautiful, seductive mulatresse, and Ezili the old woman, who is very maternal and is often considered the protector of prostitutes. (Metraux 110, 111) These aspects of Ezili encompass different aspects of womanhood slave women were deprived of, aspects they could possess when possessed by Ezili. Virginity, the right to not have sex, was the opposite of the condition of many slave women forced to have sex. The seductive mulatresse denotes wealth and the opportunity to beautify oneself and choose one's lovers, an opportunity denied to the majority of slave women, especially those of darker skin, considered uglier than their lighter-skinned counterparts by the white male establishment. These dark-skinned women could claim the beauty of the mulatresse as their own when possessed by Ezili, which also gave them the opportunity to don her accoutrements, luxurious beauty-aids unavailable to the average field slave. Then there is the maternity of the old Ezili: Maternity was a right many slave-women were deprived of, both through conditions that fostered infertility and high infant mortality, and through the constant threat of one's children being sold away. if there was a Bois Caiman ceremony, it is very possible Ezili was invoked that night, for she is married both to Ogu, the warrior-iwa associated with the Haitian Revolution and General Dessalines, and to Damballah, a major Dahomean deity. Damballah has another wife in addition to Ezili, who also may have been invoked alongside him. (Metraux 110, 111, 112)

Whether or not the Bois Caiman meeting did in fact take place, voodoo ceremonies and meals provided a chance for slaves to gather beyond the prying eyes of whites, opportunities that could be used to plan rebellions. They also provided slaves with a sense of empowerment and divine protection that could inspire people to great feats on the battlefield. Similarly, whether or not a priestess was in fact present at the Bois Caiman ceremony, priestesses certainly were active in voodoo ceremonies in general. Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreau De Saint-Mery, in his “Description …of the French Part of the Island of Saint-Domingue”, describes a king and queen officiating over a voodoo ceremony involving snake-worship, spirit-possession, and dance. While Saint-Mery was biased, and the extent to which he himself witnessed such ceremonies is doubtful, his descriptions are in keeping with those of ceremonies in Brazil which were also presided over by a king and queen. Furthermore, the Ewe, Fon, and Yoruba worshipped snakes as deities, and spirit-possession and dance are two major factors of voodoo until today. (Sweet 130) Additionally, Damballah, a major Dahomean snake-god is still one of the major gods of voodoo. (Metraux 8) All of this lends credence to Saint-Mery’s tale. Reports of priestesses having high positions of authority within Afro-Caribbean religions and performing dances and spirit-possession at religious ceremonies can be seen from both the French and British Caribbean (Bush 74). According to some, voodoo priestesses played used their role to give “superhuman courage” to the warriors of the revolution. (Bush 74). Saint-Mery describes the king and queen of voodoo as also taking the titles of “master and mistress” and “father and mother”. Given the slave system, such titles make perfect sense: King and queen are titles that invest the priest and priestess with authority and can draw on traditions of kingship harkening back to Africa, while at the same time inverting the power dynamics of slave society, in which rich whites were kings and queens of their slave-staffed households and plantations. Master and mistress are a direct inversion of the power dynamics, while father and mother are indicative of the fictive kin networks slaves set up, with the voodoo group functioning as a pseudo-family. (Mcarthy Brown 5) The functioning of voodoo as a pseudo-family continues until today, where voodoo centers headed by “fathers” and “mothers” help urban Haitians deal with their separation from their rural families. (Mcarthy Brown 7) In voodoo, possession of females by male was and vice versa is common. Thus, possession by voodoo was also a way for women to transcend their gender.

Part 4

The blurry border between religious and secular is instrumental to understanding the role of enslaved healers. There were three major types of healers:the hospitaliere, employed by the masters to run the slave hospital, the infirmiere, who was employed by the masters to help the hospitaliere, care for young children, and command the youngest field gang, the midwife, often officially recognized by the master, and the kaperlata, the magic-religious healer whose role was not officially part of the slave hierarchy, and was often feared by masters. (Weaver 41,54, 55) These positions were occupied almost exclusively by women. The officially recognized positions were one of the major ways women could rise within the slave hierarchy: Being a hospitalize came with special privileges, most notable in terms of housing and food. So did the positions of infirmiere and midwife, to a lesser extent. (Weaver 42) Being a healer also gave women the opportunity to earn independent income in the form of money or gifts from those they healed, as well as the ability to ask favors from those who owed them a debt of gratitude. While the first three categories of healers were technically employed in secular positions, they used the herb and medical lore of African cultures in order to heal their patients, often combining it with Western medicine. This African medicinal lore was essentially religious in nature. Being a healer also allowed women to engage in silent acts of rebellion: Labeling a healthy patient as sick, claiming one needed more supplies than one did, and helping women procure birth-control and abortions were among the many ways healer women could use their positions to rebel against their masters. (Weaver 59, 60) Infanticide may have been another way, especially since in many African cultures, babies are not considered real people until they are three days old, and such infanticide could be passive, rather than active, given the array of diseases, most notably tetanus, that plagued newborns. (Bush 213) Birthing, birthcontrol, abortion, infanticide, and nursing, were all areas in which women clung tightly to African traditional practices. In clinging to these practices, slave women were asserting authority over their own bodies. (Bush 215)

The kaperlata, the fourth type of healer, did not fall within the official slave hierarchy, and was much feared by masters. They used both natural and supernatural remedies, including fetishes and divination. (Weaver 113, 114) This is in keeping with modern voodoo practices, where priests and priestesses are expected to be able to heal their customers through herbal remedies, special baths, fetishes, and divination. It also corresponds to the religious traditions of slaves in Brazil, where religious healers used the means mentioned above in order to cure. This is because, in traditional African cosmology, physical ailments are attributed to spiritual causes. In Haitian voodoo today, illness and misfortune are attributed either to witchcraft, or to one's displeasing their ancestors or the iwas. (Metraux 95, 96) Being a kaperlata was a way to gain prestige among the slave community, as well as gifts and favors from those who one treated, and money for the talismans one sold. One of the most famous kaperlatas was Marie Kingue, who divined, was sometimes possessed by spirits, distributed herbal remedies, sold talismans, and acted as a midwife. It is clear that her role was a religious one, as was that of other kaperlatas. As a matter of fact, Moreau de Saint-Mery attributes the presence of kaperlatas to the fact that many of those sold from Africa as slaves had been accused of sorcery in their own country - i.e. that those being enslaved were among the most religious, and among the most well-trained in the religious arts. (Weaver 114) (Sorcery was a common epithet hurled at African religious practices. (Weaver 115)) Kingue was arrested because of the large following she had, as well as her assertion that she was a free woman. Her story however, illustrates the ability of religion to empower women, to the point where they felt confident in asserting their freedom. (Weaver 115) White people also feared poisoning by kaperlatas, as well as African healers in general. No doubt, there were times in which kaperlatas did indeed use poisoning as a form of resistance, though the threat of poisoning was greatly exaggerated due to white paranoia. (Weaver 124) This paranoia in it and of itself however, was a powerful psychological weapon that healers could wield over their white masters. Thus, even before the revolution, women could empower themselves both by partaking of voodoo ceremonies, and by using African religious herbology and healing techniques, whether as official healers within the slave hierarchy, or as unofficial kaperlatas.

Part 3

It is hard to gage women’s role in the military struggle for freedom. There is evidence of a West African tradition of women participating in battle, yet as stated earlier, the uprising was started by Creole slaves, and the majority of recent African arrivals were men. There is evidence of maroon women bearing arms in Surinam in 1728, in Jamaica in 1739, and in West Cayenne and French Guianna in 1748 (Bush 70, 71). All of this points to the possibility of enslaved or formerly enslaved women, especially those who were part of the maroon community, raising arms during the slave rebellion in Haiti. Nevertheless, the rebellion was not a primarily maroon rebellion, and Haiti lacked a strong maroon tradition similar to that of Jamaica, but was marked more by acts of “petit marronage”, where slaves would escape for a while only to return, without forming lasting maroon communities. Furthermore, in the cases of Jamaica and French Guianna, the names of the fighting women – Nanny and Claire, respectively - are on the record. In the case of West Cayenne, there is testimony from a captured maroon, while in Surinam, there were witnesses to the capture and execution of the rebel women. (Bush 70, 71) The Haitian Revolution, however, is classified by its lack of names of fighting women, or records of captured women warriors, but perhaps this speaks to the fact that, unlike in the other cases, the slaves in Haiti won, as much as it may speak to an absence of women warriors. There are cases of captured women, yet usually it is not specified whether those women were punished for taking up arms, or merely for being in the insurgent camp. Due to the French habit of massacring non-combatants left behind by slave troops, many women, children and other traditionally non-combatant groups were forced to join insurgent camps, thus making it harder to distinguish between combatant and non-combatant. (Dubois 115) There are some reports of women shooting at French troops from afar, as well as directing insurgent troops to the French camps, but it is impossible to know how widespread this phenomena was. (Geggus 69) Although there are not many first-hand accounts women warriors as such, testimonies do reveal that the presence of women in insurgent camps was not merely a passive one: M. Gros, who recorded his experiences as the insurgents’ prisoner of war in 1791, regarding being molested by the “Negro” inhabitants of the insurgent camp of Dondon, wrote that “The Negro women were infinitely worse, more hardened, and less inclined to return to work than the men.” (Gros 132) This passage implies that the women took a more active role than the men in making life unpleasant for the white prisoners of war. Given that women arguably faced harder situations than slave-men, their motivations to resist return to slavery were stronger, and may have influenced the tone of the camp culture. Gros’s assertion that black women were more vehement in taunting the prisoners than black men fits in with a report on the treatment of white women prisoners by insurgents in the Limbe province that states, “the negresses more than anyone else manifested an anger towards them to which the fury…of the men could not compare” (Popkin 95). This anger can perhaps be explained by maltreatment of women slaves, especially domestics, by white mistresses - a maltreatment that was heightened by white women's fear of sexual competition from black women. White women were often noted to be "more… racist than their men"in the treatment of house-slaves". (Robertson 22) This maltreatment is perhaps best summed up in a story related by May Hassal, the wife of a St. Domingue merchant: A white mistress noticed her husband looking at a black slave-girl with longing, so she had the girl's head chopped off. Later that evening, when her husband complained he was not hungry, the wife said she had something which "would excite" his appetite, as it had done so before. She then proceeded to show her husband the slave's severed head. (Dayan 182) This unwarranted violence may help explain a recorded incident in which insurgent women forced a dying white man to sniff their private parts. For a woman to bare her genitals was a traditional African way of protesting the actions of men. (Robertson 10) In this case however, baring one's genitals was also a way of specifically protesting the sexual abuse of enslaved women, through the body-part that had been abused.

The power of female genitals in African culture demonstrated by this event speaks to another form of empowerment available to slave women, both before and during the insurrection: That of various African cultures, preserved most saliently through religion, with the help of continual new arrivals from Africa. These African religious traditions are still preserved today in the form of voodoo, though they have been combined with elements of Catholicism. The main difference between the voodoo of today and the religion of slaves in the 1790s, is that the latter was closer to its original ancestral African religions then than it is now. (Metraux 39,40) Voodoo is a religion that both shaped and was shaped by the Haitian Revolution. In order to understand the role of voodoo during the Haitian Revolution however, it is first necessary to understand the role of voodoo before the revolution: The presence of African religious ceremonies marked by dancing and spirit possession in Haiti in the 1790s was documented by white observers, as was the presence of white people at African dances, though those dances seem to have been more secular in nature. Those white chroniclers of voodoo however, admit that most meetings took place away from white eyes, meaning the majority of them remain undocumented. It seems however, that voodoo gatherings were relatively widespread.(Metraux 35, 36) Though some of the dances attended by whites were said to be secular, in reality, the lines between secular and religious in voodoo are not clearly defined: Ceremonies serve social functions, while dances can easily become religious, and possession can happen spontaneously.

I wrote this paper over Pesach

In the years leading up to the Haitian Revolution, there was a massive influx of slaves from Africa. The majority of these slaves were men. This large influx of African men is often considered to be one of the causes of the uprising. (Geggus 7) What is often overlooked however, is the way that these demographic changes affected the daily lives of slaves, and the dynamics of slave communities. Measuring these changes would require looking at plantation records to see the change in female-male ratios on each individual plantation, since not all plantations or regions were affected in the same way. This new African slave population was focused in the South and the mountain coffee-plantations, whereas the rebellion started in the North and was led largely by creoles. (Geggus 8) The overall male-female ratio in Saint Domingue in the 1780s was twelve males for every ten females. This ratio was more equal than the eighteen males to every ten females of the 1730s. The majority of the creole slave population however, were women. (Geggus 10) Nevertheless, women were living in a male-dominated society in a variety of ways: The patriarchal culture of the time ensured that white men were in roles of authority, from a governmental to a domestic level; within the slave hierarchy, those positions of authority not filled by white men were primarily filled by black men. Then, there was the sexual exploitation by white men, and, perhaps, some exploitation by black men as well, though due to the lack of written records, the sexual power hierarchies within the slave communities themselves are impossible to measure. Given the male majorities of slave communities as well as the fact that skilled positions with the authority they entailed were reserved for men, slave societies were male-dominated. The large influx of new African men may have made a male-dominated community seem more so. On the other hand, it could have signified new opportunities for relationships, both romantic and platonic.

Trends in fertility are an important assessment of the health of the female population: lessened fertility is often a sign of malnutrition and/or overwork. (Geggus 11) In the years leading up to the Revolution, fertility was declining for enslaved women in the northern part of Saint-Domingue, while it was rising for women in the west and south. That the Revolution broke out in the North, the area least affected by the influx of African men, where women’s work and health conditions were worsening as their avenues for freedom were being closed off, and that it was carried out by the Creole population were women constituted the majority, speaks both to the exaggerated importance of men to the revolution, and to the under-explored importance of women. Arguably conditions for men were declining in the North at the same time as those of women, but at the very least this data shows that the Revolution was not merely reacting to the frustrations of enslaved men, but was reacting to the frustrations of enslaved women as well.

If the worsening conditions and outlooks for enslaved women were a major factor of the Revolution however, what role did those women play? Were their frustrations merely an added motivation for their male family members to raise arms, did they actively urge their male family members to do so, or did they take a more active role, perhaps taking up arms themselves?

I Can't Resist

I am posting my paper as a blog post, in installments, because I love Afro-Caribbean history. This blog is copyrighted, so any high-school seniors thinking of plagiarizing: Don't do it.

"Dey-dey-dey" This sound, made by the body possessed by Ezili Danto, a voodoo iwa associated with the Virgin Mary, represents the wordlessness of generations of Haitian women. (Mcarthy Brown 229) The presence of these women is most noticeable by its absence from the standard historical narratives. This absence is generally the case when dealing with women from minority groups, especially if those women were illiterate. So perhaps it is unsurprising that when looking at the history of St. Domingue right before and during the Revolution, women do not seem to be part of the story. Searching between the lines however, reveals that enslaved women faced many obstacles not faced by their male counterparts, and avenues of freedom for women were closing in the years leading up to the Revolution. Faced with these challenges, women empowered themselves in a variety of ways. Chief among those was religion, which served as a means of female empowerment both before and during the revolution, and was one of the major ways through which women contributed to the insurgency.

At the time of the revolution, the majority of the field gangs that did some of the hardest manual labor were women. The more skilled jobs were open primarily to men, depriving enslaved women of one of the few ways of gaining a better position within the slave hierarchy. (Geggus 261) Women often used sexual liasons with white men as tools for advancement, and means of gaining manumission for oneself and/or one’s children. Records show that the majority of manumissions were of women and their children, often by the white master who had produced those children with the woman being freed. In the years leading up to the revolution, it became much harder for masters to manumit their slaves, thereby closing off women’s primary avenue for gaining freedom. (Geggus 9) Records reveal that manumissions dropped from 739 to 256 between 1785 and 1789. The percentage of manumissions that were women also dropped, from sixty-five to sixty-three percent. These two figures combined meant a sharp decline in a woman’s chances of being manumitted. (Geggus 10) Furthermore, sexual liasons with white men did not guarantee material advancement or freedom: From a master’s perspective, any child born to a female slave was merely an addition to his property. Given the slave hierarchy, enslaved women were not in a position where they could refuse a white man’s advances, without fear of severe consequences. Most slave-master sexual relationships, if not all, can be classified as rape. It is impossible to measure the ways in which living with constant rape or fear of rape affected enslaved women, but one can safely assume that the effect was traumatizing.

Many women were also employed as domestics, a position that not only saved them from the physical hardships of working in the field, but also put them into close contact with white families. This close contact meant that one was under constant observation, but also could result in the formation of close relationships. Like enslaved women in long-term relationships with white men, domestic servants were traditionally in a position to hope that their emotional closeness with their masters would one day result in manumission for themselves and/or their children, a hope that was effectively squashed leading up to the Revolution, when manumission was made more difficult. (Geggus 9) This is not to say that emotional relationships between master families and domestics were merely the result of calculating on the part of the latter: On the contrary, during the Haitian Revolution many women employed as domestics risked their own lives in order to save the lives of their master families. The women of the Clement family, for example, were saved by a faithful female slave. (“The First Days of the Slave Insurrection”, 52,53) The deposition of Marie Jeanne Jouette, who was a prisoner of the insurgents from 1791 to 1793, records how her female slaves hid her in their huts, and one of her female slaves successfully petitioned Jean-Francois for her release, upon which she was invited to stay with “citizeness Marie Rose, a former slave of citizen Lacombe” (Popkin 158). The deposition of the Abbe De La Haye, cure of Dondon, taken in 1792, records his female slave, Francoise, as reproaching some of the slave insurgents “for the thefts and murders they had committed”, and being transported by Jeannot to the camp at La Tannerie as punishment. (Popkin 160)

Nobel Peace Prize

As some of you may know, three women have recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman - NYTimes.com

This was a conscious decision by the Nobel committee to (finally) recognize the contribution of women toward's world peace. There was a great article about religion and women's roles as peace-makers in the Huffington Post:Katherine Marshall: Hallelujah! The Nobel Prize Committee Blesses Feisty, Spiritual Women

This article reminded me of a paper I wrote about women's empowerment through religion during the Haitian Revolution -I plan on serializing and sharing said paper. (For all you high school seniors out there - sorry the stuff that appears on this blog is copyrighted)

Also, another really cool article: Yom Kippur Helps Muslim Woman Rediscover Her Jewish Roots

Halachik Issues: Nidah, Hypocrisy, and Gneivat Daat

1. The way shomrut negiah works today is like this: Rabbis decide to control women's sexuality by not letting them immerse in a mikvah before marriage, therefore ensuring women will be shomeret. The problem is though, if women are to practice all the stringencies of nidah until marriage, then they shouldn't even be passing a cup of a bottle to a man - even a male relative such as a brother or father! Not even haredi households abide by this standard; so then really, what are the rabbis saying? That pre-marriage a woman should only hold by some nidah restrictions and not others - but then doesn't that mean those restrictions aren't important to begin with - so then why should she keep them? Yet another way hilchot shomrut negiah (by which I mean not having women immerse) impede on hilchot nidah.

2. I am going to deal with both hypocrisy gneivat daat: I realize lately, I think guys get mad at me a lot because I unwittingly lead them on, and then they expect ass and don't get any. I can't blame them for being mad, but I don't do it on purpose - guys assume because I am really open about my sexuality that I also sleep around, etc. But am I a hypocrite - to preach and theorize about openness without acting on it by sleeping around? I don't know - maybe I am. Along those lines, is what I am doing gneivat daat? I am misleading men; this seems unfair and wrong.

Teshuva

So I actually was eating lunch, peacefully, when a rabbi got up to give a dvar Torah. I confess my first reaction was to roll me eyes, but then I decided to listen, out of politeness.

The rabbi said that according tp Rabbi J. Soliveitchik, there are two types of teshuva: In the Talmud it says there is teshuva out of love, and teshuva out of fear. In one, your willful misdeeds are transformed into positives; in the other, they are merely neutralized. So there is teshuva where one basically erases a part of one's past, and teshuva where one learns from the past experiences until they become enriching parts of one's personality.

I was thinking about this in terms of romantic pasts: Is it possible that some of our mistakes we can erase completely, and others we can use to learn from and make us more positive people in future relationships?

I was also thinking about this in terms of sexual numbers: A lot of women are re-virginized, and I think its an unhealthy way of giving into our sexist society's desire to control women's sexuality. I do think however, choosing who is your first metaphorically, can be healthy. I read of one woman who was raped while a virgin; she does not count the rape as her first - she explained that this guy didn't deserve to be the one who took her virginity. She did not have any of these virginizing operations that are unhealthy for women's bodies (seriously ladies, stay away from vaginal plastic surgery - 90% of the time its really bad for you and can interfere with your sexual activity. If you want I can dig up verified research when I have more time) - she just made an empowering mental decision.

I think that this type of erasure is healthy; numbers and past histories shouldn't matter. I advocate complete honesty in all relationships, but while I've never done this, I do actually think its ok to lie about your number - maybe that's the only thing its ok to lie about.

Poll

I was having a discussion with a male friend (I've recently realized most of my friends are male). He told me straight guys divide women into two categories: "friends" or "potentially fuck-able", and that often there was overlap between the two.

First of all I'd be interested in hearing from other straight guys about whether or not they disagree (or gay guys, how they divide guys, or bi guys for how they divide both).

Second of all, I have to say, as a woman I agree a bit - there are guy friends who, while I am not interested in pursuing a relationship with, I am somewhat attracted to, or are in the back of my mind "potentially fuck-able", whereas there are some guy friends who are not. Boyfriends as well as hot guys on the street also slide into the potentially fuck-able category.

I feel like this classification is incredibly objectifying however. I am not usually actively thinking about sex when I talk to guys, unless I am talking to someone I am majorly attracted to. I am just thinking of them as people. I would like to think this is not impossible for guys - after all, the possibility of viewing people as people, regardless of gender, is kind of the basis of platonic friendships.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about this topic a lot, because sometimes it seems to me that guys in my life come in two categories: Guys who want to be friends and guys who want to fuck me - and sometimes there is overlap. I think that in today's society, one does not have to define one's relationship: You can fuck someone and not be their friend, or be their friend and fuck them, or be their friend and not fuck them. So you can get the benefits of their body and soul without having to define yourself as "in a relationship" with them. One the one hand, this is awesome - there is no pressure and no commitment. On the other, at times it can be frustrating - because there is no commitment.

If you say that the difference between friendship and relationship is monogamy, I'd remind you that there are open relationships.

What bugs me most about this standard is that most women I know seem to want commitment, which means that this standard is being geared towards the needs of men and not of women. I think the women want commitment perhaps partially because of biology, but mostly because of a society that teaches women to want committed monogamous relationships, and that if they sleep with two many guys or have one-night stands than they are sluts.

Basically, its sexism at work. Either change the standard, or educate women to have different desires - or a bit of both.

I become personal and open up about my sex life (yes, the double entendre is intended)

I usually refrain from making this blog about my personal life, in part because it's not completely anonymous, in part not to hurt anyone. Today however, I'v decided to break my silence, because I feel like a lot of dilemmas I face are faced by other women as well:

1. Facebook - today, it is customary to be Facebook friends with someone almost as soon as you meet, whether you are interested in begin acquaintances, friends, or more than friends. The thing is, I post a lot of personal things on Facebook - as do many others. This leads to an unnatural situation where you are finding out many (perhaps unflattering) things about someone right at the start of the relationship before it has time to blossom, as opposed to it being revealed naturally as the relationship develops.

It's almost like having a friend tell you a horrible story about "that guy" who you kind of like before he first date.

2. Religiosity - For most of my life I've been shomeret negiah. I decided during college not to be. I am happy with that decision, even though it did lead to some tough emotional consequences, in which I realized all the advice I'd been giving to my non-shomer friends for years was 100% correct, but almost impossible to carry out in practice.

I also was - taken advantage of - (I don't want to use the word harassed) - by a male friend, which hurt emotionally, since its a betrayal of my trust. I decided after: I was never going to kiss a man I didn't care about (or a woman, I suppose, but I don't really care about women in that way.)

So now I am in a strange situation: In the religious world one is shomeret - and I would be willing to be in a shomer relationship. In the non-religious world, one hooks up from the start of things, or thereabouts. And I want neither - I want something that starts out shomer and slowly becomes not.

I know this is not realistic, and sometimes I wonder - once I am not keeping these halachot, are my self-imposed sexual rules just a prudish hangover from a past phase of my life? Sometimes I feel it is not religion that is holding me back, just my own fears that stem from having started my sexual life around 8 years after the rest of the normal world. I am young and inexperienced. Guys my age are not.

I feel like emotionally, it would be so much easier to just hook up with guys I don't care about. I'm not under the illusion that one needs to be in a relationship to have a good sexual experience - one of the best nights I had was spent with a friend. Of course, afterwards it made things awkward for our friendship (mostly from his end - why do guys assume if you hook up with them you must be secretly in love with them?) - but I actually think the hookup was worth it. I can't decide if this says more about the strength of the hookup or the strength of the friendship.

I am not a slut; even in non-shomeret mode, I've never slept around or even had a completely random hookup (i.e. one where you don't know the guy beforehand). But I feel that when it comes to sex, like with so many other things, I've taken the middle ground, and this puts me in awkward situation.

3. Then there is lifestyle - I am deeply religious, but find myself drawn to the secular lifestyle. The thing is, I think the religious lifestyle is good for raising kids - It provides a sense of community and family. I also think shabbat meals and singing are fun. So basically, I want to date a guy who wants the secular life style now but would be willing to adapt a quasi-religious one if we ever were to become serious and have kids.

4. Then there is the fact that i don't equate "being with someone" with "getting married and having kids". I am perfectly happy to be with someone - to spend time with them, to have an emotional connection, "lizrom", as the Israelis say. To me, that is enough at this point in my life. Yes, I am not averse to marriage - if things head that way, cool. If not -every experience of true connection is an enriching experience - here's to hoping it's a fun ride.

5. Then there is that if I were to get married in israel, I would refuse to get married by a rabbanut rabbi. I do not want to be legally married in Israel, unless I get legally married in Cyprus or the US and register it with the Israeli authorities. This is because I do not support the rabbanut and can not allow an organization I so disapprove of (especially with regards to women's issues) to be the legitimizer of my romantic relationship.

6. Of course, there are many issues where I disagree with the Orthodox establishment - but none seems to affect my personal life as much as when it comes to romance. In every relationship I've had, religion has been the deciding factor behind the breakup. That kind of sucks, though I concede it is a) a legitimate reason b) a relatively painless reason (as opposed to cheating partners, etc.)

The thing is, I am not about to change my lifestyle of who I am. I am religious because my lives are informed by Judaism's cannon of ancient texts; that is not about to change. Even if I were to stop being halachikly observant tomorrow, it would still be that cannon of texts that would inform my world-view and my lifestyle.

So I suppose I have dating dilemmas - the thing is, many thinking religious Jewish women (I can't speak for men) face similar dilemmas, which makes it somewhat of a "public" issue - which means it goes on my blog.

Apologies for anything I've done to offend you, a chatima tova, and an easy and meaningful Yom Kippur.

Double Standards

I have been thinking recently about gender equality and double standards:

If it is 2 am and I am at a guy's house I expect him to walk me home or wait with me while I hail a cab, however, I would not expect myself to walk home a male guest (I would wait for him while he hailed a cab). Is this simply an acknowledgment of reality, that a woman on the streets at 2 am is in greater danger than a guy? Is it sexism? Or is it a bit of both?

Similarly, I feel objectified when guys blatantly check me out on the street, but I definitely have checked guys out on the street before - how blatantly, I am unsure. I try to be discreet. Does it matter that the guys' eyes are coming at me within a culture of male objectification of women, while my eyes are coming from a position of women's disempowerment? Does this justify the double standard?

I am unsure, but I think it is something that I as a feminist should be aware of. Equality means equality - not imposing sexism on men. I think one of the failings of the feminist movement is that we have allowed ourselves to be labeled as man-haters, and sometimes have even lived up to that label.