Speaking of gender segregation…have an incident in New York from last fall.
Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota did not object Wednesday when three women in his group — a Daily News reporter, a campaign aide and a member of his NYPD security detail — were asked to leave a Brooklyn synagogue during a campaign stop.
The Republican mayoral hopeful entered the ultra Orthodox Shomer Shabbos synagogue, in Borough Park, trailed by a gaggle of aides, reporters and security officers, as part of a walking tour of the neighborhood.
A synagogue official hurried over to the three women in the group — a Daily News reporter, a Lhota campaign aide, and a member of his security team — and asked them to leave while the men were allowed to stay.
Lhota emerged from the synagogue less than a minute later.
Asked about the incident afterward, he defended the synagogue.
“Throughout the Orthodox world, the Orthodox Jewish world as well as the Orthodox Muslim world, there are certain places that women are not involved in,” he said. “I will not as mayor violate their First Amendment constitutional rights for their religious practices.”
Imagine if it had been three black people or three Asians instead of three women. Would Lhota have been so compliant and so glib? I doubt it.
Why are there “certain places that women are not involved in”? Because women are viewed as secondary at best, that’s why. It’s because women are viewed as NotMen and thus Not As Good, i.e., inferior. By accepting the demand, Lhota is accepting that view. It’s not just some random arbitrary inexplicable religious quirk, it’s official god-ordained literal male supremacy.
H/t AnotherAnonymouse for prompting me to find this story.
Presumably they didn’t even have the weak excuse that it was some sort of religious service.
There is a way to comply with that sort of situation without endorsing it. Upon receiving the request, you give a line similar to the one the candidate did (“Of course, I have no desire to infringe on your cultural/religious practice”). And then you turn around and walk out, ahead of the person who has been asked to leave. This makes it clear that you’re standing with the people in your entourage, and will not abandon them for being inconvenient.
freemage is right 🙂
Here, the perfect illustration of #NotAllMen: http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/yearwithoutgod/files/2014/06/10366019_10152455859385569_3699003432083328886_n.jpg
But one of those womenses might have been menstruating or something – and then they would have to decon all the furniture and stuff, a process which takes days!!!
“Throughout the Orthodox world, the Orthodox Jewish world as well as the Orthodox Muslim world, there are certain places that women are not involved in,” he said. “I will not as mayor violate their First Amendment constitutional rights for their religious practices.”
The First Amendment isn’t ‘violated’ when someone who doesn’t follow a religion doesn’t follow it.
Nor is it ‘violated’ when someone who does follow that religion doesn’t follow it to the letter.
freemage’s response is perfect.
Way back when, as a high school student in Israel, my class was studying Jewish Art and as an assignment we were supposed to visit a local synagogue of our choice and report on the architecture, interior design etc. I went with a classmate, and an Orthodox synagogue let us, 2 females, into the main space. It was early in the afternoon, so it wasn’t a time of worship. The world did not come to an end (though who knows how many drought years were caused in response?). I wonder which experience is more typical or if this is just another example of Orthodox Judaism move towards greater extremism.
@#2: “And then you turn around and walk out, ahead of the person who has been asked to leave. This makes it clear that you’re standing with the people in your entourage, and will not abandon them for being inconvenient.”
..
Except that the ‘you’ in this situation is a politician on a campaign for votes, which presumably includes those of the synagogue officials and others in their sway.
.
The successful politician in this Darwinian process is the one who does whatever it takes to win
So if members of a certain race had been asked to leave that would have been just as OK?
In which case, Omar, angering Orthodox Jews would be preferable to angering women. If we’re talking purely on numbers, that is.
Well, he’s a Republan, so the more people he antagonise, the better.