Reading the NY Times the other week I clipped this article, "Arrest of 10 Women Praying at Western Wall Add to Tensions Over a Holy Site"
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/middleeast/Women-Praying-at-Western-Wall-Detained.html?_r=0
What captured my attention about this article was the mix of feminism and religion. For 24 years! women have protested the ultra-Orthodox insistence that only men may be allowed to wear the traditional grab at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites. These women were banned from the site for 15 days for wearing these garbs that women specifically are banned to wear at the site, a ban that is backed by the supreme court. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which controls the site, has said in an interview in November that the site is nonnegotiable and not a place where "everyone can do what they want." In response to this type of stubborn behavior of the Foundation, Woman of the Wall have filed law suites and started protests.
I believe this is an interesting issue. These women are not taking on this fight only because their are fighting for the rights, as feminists. These women fully respect their faith, that is why their attend their Wall for prayer for their faith. However, while they visit the Western Wall, these women want to be given the same respect and rights as men do. I believe this is a very modern day idea and is inspiring. It also gives the feminist fight a new spin, women of all different types believe we deserve the same rights as men.
Any thoughts?
As someone who has been trying to pay attention since the rise of second-wave feminism in the late 1960s, I'm afraid I don't see any "new spin" in the idea that all different types of women deserve the same rights as men.
ReplyDeleteOne must be careful, when thinking about a movement that has garnered almost unprecedented vilification and misrepresentation by its enemies, not to fall into such stereotyping.