Living Waters

95 thoughts on Living Waters

1. As a note, I’d really like this to focus on specific practices, rather than religion in general. And the practices don’t have to be religious in nature. But I’m really kind of done with the question of whether it’s possible to be feminist and religious. If you have a problem with that, I encourage you to avoid my posts about religion, or just not comment, because it will be deleted. My existence is not up for debate.

2. Also, seriously, blanket statement: if you (general you) like the rituals, keep the rituals, but don’t pretend they’re not based explicitly in the degradation, humiliation and subjugation of women. I think, as someone from a similarly ancient religious tradition, that we (feminists, women, humans, doesn’t matter) need to stop using “well this USED to be egalitarian 3000 years ago” as a segue to “so it doesn’t matter that it’s currently misogynistic as fuck, I’m still going to do it and feel like I’m reclaiming it”. The caste system used to be flexible and similar to a guild system, 3000 years ago. That doesn’t make it not fucked up in its current form. Sati used to be a consensual practice performed by a tiny minority, a form of ritualised suicide. Doesn’t mean it’s somehow okay to force someone to kill themselves with their husbands today.

   Hinduism has very similar practices for men and women in ancient times, surrounding periods; it’s funny how, in both religions, the men no longer have to do much and the women are restricted from all kinds of thing. If the men in your community were performing equivalent rituals, I’d agree unconditionally with your statement that you’re reclaiming the ritual. However, since the rituals appear to be unilaterally applied, I think that your feeling that the ritual as it stands is just perpetuating patriarchal norms is right on the button (particularly because of the intersectional issues you mentioned).

   It’s funny that you posted this right now, because I’m currently in the process of typing up a series of blog posts on reclaiming various Hindu rituals in my own life, around the constraints of my homoflexible sexuality, my interracial/interfaith blended family and my new country. It’s definitely something to think about.

   Also, apologies if my posts, either of them, came off as angry. I’m not criticising your religion or your choice to be religious (obviously, as I too identify as part of an incredibly problematic religious tradition), but this is a topic that strikes very close and very hard at my self, and I think speaking from a place of at least mild trauma may make me speak much more forcefully than I usually like to about religion.

   1. Actually, I had put off reading this post by Shoshie although I love her writing (and certainly didn’t intend to comment since I am mostly a lurker) because it is a pretty trigger-y subject for me for all the reasons you laid out. (also, TW below)

      I was raised in a very conservative and strict Hindu household and for over half my life was deeply ashamed of my body for being this horrible filthy thing and this was only made worse because of the attitudes/religious prohibitions around menstruation. I was denied birth control to regulate my period because a) sluttish b) it’s natural and what makes you a woman! and even aspirin because of the whole mother nature thing. And yet at the same time, it was vile and unclean and I wasn’t supposed to go in temples or touch anything religious etc etc when I was menstruating. This really messed me up. I just wanted my body to disappear when I was on my period. I was one step away from suicidal ideation.

      So basically, when I read the OP, my feelings were I am really happy that you can personally reclaim this in a positive and constructive way, but that doesn’t diminish that this often comes from a place of harm. As a teenager I couldn’t escape this belief/practice because it was coming from my family/community. A personal reclamation isn’t going to change the nature of the practice communally or on a larger scale. But I also understand that a personal rejection of a practice isn’t going to change things either.

      I can understand intellectually that my own views on this come from a visceral emotional place but in my heart all I can think is this is fucked up misogynist shit and nothing can change that.

3. Oh god. I’m really sorry for what I posted up there, it was inexcusably policing and angry. This is not about me and I shouldn’t have made it about me or my past. Please delete or ignore my posts above. Again, Shoshie, I’m so sorry. It was a courageous post and I shouldn’t have reacted as I did.

   Thanks.

4. I’ve never been a part of a religion, and as I got into my late teens I really felt the absence of ritual and ceremony.

   I did a lot of research in those years, looking into different religions trying to find a place for myself. I eventually found out that even though I like the ritual and the poetry that come along with religion, and I feel the need for ritual in my life, I can’t do that through religion. I don’t want to and can’t have the values and inferior roles that always seem to come with these things forced on me, but I don’t feel like I could profess to being a part of a religion then not take on those values (there’s also the issue of non-belief).

   What I find for myself is that I can create ritual to suit my own ends and imbued with my own values. Although it’s not quite the same thing as what you described in the post, I make my weekends quite ritualised. I take time to reflect upon myself, my actions and thoughts and values. I refrain from certain things in order to remind myself to appreciate them. And every Sunday night I take a long bath with very specific routines that help me think and washing away the old week ready for the new one.

   I don’t feel that any of my personal rituals suffer from being unconnected or divorced from religious contexts.

5. With all do respect, I don’t see how you can reclaim it. From your description the entire ritual is centered on the idea that menstruation sullies and dirties a woman and that she must be ritually cleansed before a man is allowed to even touch her again.

   Sorry but that just can’t be reclaimed

6. My existence is not up for debate.

   Surely you don’t actually want to claim that criticizing beliefs is remotely comparable to… what, wishing non-existence upon someone?

   Is it because your religious beliefs feel important to you? If some position is important to you, are you allowed to dismiss criticism of it by equating your belief with your literal personal identity, and then claiming that your opponents are literally attacking you? How does that work, and when else is it a legal rhetorical move?

7. Thank you, mccavitykitsune.
   “if you (general you) like the rituals, keep the rituals, but don’t pretend they’re not based explicitly in the degradation, humiliation and subjugation of women.”

   This. The mikvah is all about how women are dirty and contagious for one week out of four. When are men similarly nasty? There are lots of lovely human traditions: rape, pillage, etc. Just because something has been done for a long time doesn’t clean it up.

8. Let me try to put that a bit more constructively.

   Many folks round these parts are united by an interest in trying to change people’s minds about various issues. Some of the people whose minds ought to be changed feel very strongly the other way, and sense that their (bad) opinions are integral to their identities and communities, which is technically true. (It is difficult to imagine, for example, being a Grand Wizard without racism being pretty important to you.) If we want to change people’s deeply held and cherished views, which is only possible if they permit them to be examined at all, doesn’t intellectual honesty require that we do the same?

9. Also, seriously, blanket statement: if you (general you) like the rituals, keep the rituals, but don’t pretend they’re not based explicitly in the degradation, humiliation and subjugation of women.

   This is exactly how I feel too, and I was brought up in the same conservative egalitarian kind of Judaism that Shoshie describes. The synagogue we went to was particularly progressive, but I always felt like no amount of gender-neutral pronouns or women-only minyan groups or whatever could change the fact that the rituals were rooted in exclusive patriarchy, and that there still exist large branches of the faith that would continue to afford women no agency. YMMV, of course, but for me personally I see a lot of cognitive dissonance in the need to include something like this, centered around the trope of women as less than or dirty (despite efforts at reclaiming it), in an otherwise feminist-identified life. (I have my own thoughts on why religiously observant but politically progressive people do this, but I’ll keep it to myself at the risk of derail.)

10. Perhaps the cleansing part could be reclaimed by not tying it to menstruation.

11. This article is a bit behind the times. Different sorts of Jewish groups have been expanding/adapting the mikveh for at least three years, probably longer. Spiritual renewal after divorce, illness etc…

    http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/109120/the-new-american-mikveh

    http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/22095/us-immersed-mikveh-revolution

    So I guess that is one way people can keep the community and ritual and dispose with the unacceptable parts.

12. Thank you for writing about your personal thoughts and feeling about a private part of public religion. I feel that ritual is important to humans and much of the dominant culture (in North America) has a lack of rituals. I was raised Catholic and though I have rejected the Church due to too many issues to name, I still have that cultural part deep in my memory and I miss the rituals.

    I also can see the value of the anticipation that builds during the time when sex is disallowed and the joyful reunion that follows. When my partner and I lived in two different cities and would be together only on weekends, I adored that excitement as the end of the week arrived and the fact that we really took time on those weekends to enjoy the time together. Yeah, we *could* do that now that we live together, but yet it’s not the same.

    I always have learned from your posts about your religion (over the many guest stints), Shoshie…thanks 🙂

13. I don’t know. I’m with Shoshie on this one–love, love the mikveh. I haven’t gone regularly in awhile, and I never kept the Orthodox practice of 7-10 days post-bleeding and no touching to begin with, though.

    The interesting thing around the history of the mikveh and gender is that it used to be gender egalitarian. Sex-negative, but egalitarian. In the Middle Ages, I believe there were some fancy-ass justifications that excused men from the practice, but not women. Men do immerse (there are mikvot for men, and mikvot for dishes), but usually at ritual times of year, and it’s usually seen as optional.

    There has been a lot of good work around reclaiming the tradition and opening it to a wider variety of Jews and their varied needs. This place has really led the way for this: http://www.mayyimhayyim.org

    I’m all for acknowledging that the orthodox practice has a lot of junk and nastiness associated with it. But mikvot themselves have the potential to be transformative and awesome.

14. With all do respect, I don’t see how you can reclaim it. From your description the entire ritual is centered on the idea that menstruation sullies and dirties a woman and that she must be ritually cleansed before a man is allowed to even touch her again.

    I like to think that we have the power over our traditions and culture, not the other way around, and that this culture is flexible enough, and powerful enough, to accomodate change in the way it always has.

    Incidentally, I’ve read some feminist analyses of mikveh that think through the ways women have used it to their advantage, generally to avoid unwanted sexual contact and control procreation. Best of a bad situation, for sure, but it puts a different spin on it.

15. I’m a Conservative Quaker. The term conservative, for us, doesn’t mean politically conservative (though we have them). It means a commitment to conserve the old traditions of the Quakers of the 18th and 19th centuries. One of those traditions is the idea of plain dress. My meeting house has no dress code, but as conservatives, we do believe that plain dress is something good that should be strived for. It’s left up to each individual to decide what plain dress actually means. I have friends for whom it means not wearing any makeup or jewelry. I know people who will not wear clothing that has zippers, embellishments or any kind of hardware on it. My personal choice is to wear only clothing in solid colors – no prints or patterns.

    I have seen some feminist-centered criticisms of the plain dress doctine, usually on the grounds that because it tries to limit fashion choices, it falls unduly to women. I can see that point, but for me, I like to believe that the plain dress rule speaks to egalitariasm. The rule was instituted to apply equally to men and women. Because the world has changed to apply so much more of the fashion industry to women’s choices, I think it does appear that women are far more limited by the plain dress rule. I also like why that rule was initially started – partly because congregations recognized that clothing could be used as a way to establish status and create hierarchies, which wasn’t a desireable thing. So for me, I like the tradition and the ideas that created it. A lot of Friends have taken the practice as a chance to draw attention to the most negative aspects of the garment industry (like sweatshops, environmental degredation) and sort of turned plain dress into a chance to think ethically about clothes.

    So I totally get that some have an issue with a rule that facially tries to limit clothes about clothing or appearance, but it’s something in my faith that I like. So I’m sticking with it. To me, I guess the point is to look at myself and why I’M doing it, as opposed to others. I have no doubt that some women who take part in the Mikvah believe that the female body is unclean. I’m sure there are Friends that believe that fashion is inherently bad and frivilous and hierarchal and that’s why they dress plainly. But I’m hard pressed to think of many traditions that have not had some negative connotation or root to them. If feminists of faith want to move forward in advancing both feminism and the faith to a more progressive place, I think we don’t really have a choice but to reclaim rituals as best we can. There may be some that simply can’t – I don’t know if the Mikvah counts as one – but I think a decent effort is needed to at least figure that out.

16. lambda-

    My Jewishness is an essentially piece of me. And, just a couple generations after my people was nearly wiped out, I really don’t appreciate a bunch of white decedents of Christians trying to convince me to stop being Jewish (not that all people who are anti-religion are white decedents of Christians, but they do tend to be the loudest and most obnoxious). Because fuck that noise.

17. The first thing that came to my mind, reading your description of what you liked about the ritual wasn’t religion, actually – it was kink. You said:

    I love everything about it. I love the anticipation of mikvah night. I love that it’s special time for me and Mr. Shoshie. I love that it’s supposed to be a bit of a secret. I love the preparation involved: cutting my nails, scrubbing my skin, washing my hair, flossing, brushing. I love that my focus is supposed to be solely on my body and preparing it for immersion. If something needs to be done around the house, it takes its place behind my preparations. I love chatting with the mikvah ladies, who are friendly and, I think, somewhat bemused by the young woman who shows up with blue hair and wearing pants. But always with a hat or a headscarf. I love the final checks and stepping, naked, into the warm water. I love the totally unrushed, private prayer. Much of Jewish prayer is communal, and I find that when it’s not, it tends to be said in haste. There’s always somewhere to be and the prayer is taking up precious time. But not at the mikvah. I love stepping out and into a towel, carefully walking back to the changing room, and then the pace speeds up, then I’m rushing, throwing my clothes back on, because as soon as I get home, Mr. Shoshie and I can kiss and embrace for the first time in a week.

    The sex is pretty much always fantastic.

    And none of that sounds to me like you buy into the religious reasons for why you can’t have sex (i.e., because menstruation makes you unclean and therefore you must purify yourself), but that it does have the effect of heightening your sexual pleasure through deliberate withholding for both of you and then a ritual preparation which forces you to take time and focus on yourself. A little bit of light self-torture to heighten gratification. You wouldn’t be the only couple out there using such techniques to enhance the sexual side of your relationships, it’s just that not everyone does it within the parameters of a religion. Then again, for some couple the only way they might be able to justify it to themselves is in exactly that kind of imposed, externally-justified context.

    Basically, it sounds like you’ve found a bug and turned it into a feature. 😀 Maybe long ago that is what this ritual was always about before it got warped by misogyny.

    As to your original question about reclamation… It doesn’t sound like you can. I mean, you, Shoshie, although a menstruating woman, are not terribly negatively affected by it, it seems, so it works for you. But why on earth would someone who doesn’t want to follow this religious prescription and who derives no benefit from it, may even be incredibly harmed by it ever want to bother reclaiming it? Unless you are suggesting somehow orchestrating a liberal, queer-friendly, trans-friendly, non-sexist, totally voluntary mikva’ot of your own (which wouldn’t necessarily be a horrible idea, though challenging I would assume and geographically limited in impact), there’s not much you can do to make this practice more welcoming and safe to people it’s not meant to be welcoming and safe for. I think you’ve just made some delicious lemonade out of very rotten lemons, which I applaud you for, but it seems like it was personally fortuitous and less than generalizable.

18. 🙁 Somehow the mod bot hates me especially on your threads, Shoshie.

19. And none of that sounds to me like you buy into the religious reasons for why you can’t have sex (i.e., because menstruation makes you unclean and therefore you must purify yourself), but that it does have the effect of heightening your sexual pleasure through deliberate withholding for both of you and then a ritual preparation which forces you to take time and focus on yourself.

    I see what you’re saying, except that the reasons you gave (“menstruation makes you unclean and therefore you must purify yourself”) isn’t explicit in the Torah, nor is it currently taught as the reason, at least in the circles I run in, which are not all particularly pro-feminist. There are definitely texts where that logic is played out, especially once the equivalent men’s ritual fell out of practice. But these days it’s presented largely as a “because God says so” kind of deal. That there is value in abstinence from sex for some regular interval, but the actual timing is because that’s what it says in the Torah and nothing more than that.

    Also, I think that a liberal, queer-friendly, trans-friendly, non-sexist mikvah would be awesome, though they kind of are, by their private nature, kind of voluntary, at least in communities that are open to varied practice. No one checks up on you to make sure that you’re using the mikvah.

20. macavitykitsune-

    No worries.

21. I see what you’re saying, except that the reasons you gave (“menstruation makes you unclean and therefore you must purify yourself”) isn’t explicit in the Torah, nor is it currently taught as the reason, at least in the circles I run in, which are not all particularly pro-feminist. There are definitely texts where that logic is played out, especially once the equivalent men’s ritual fell out of practice. But these days it’s presented largely as a “because God says so” kind of deal. That there is value in abstinence from sex for some regular interval, but the actual timing is because that’s what it says in the Torah and nothing more than that.

    Okay, I got the impression from your post and from the comments that it was pretty much understood to be a menstruation = unclean type deal. It certainly wouldn’t be the first! And it does still sound like it has a lot to do with menstruation even implicitly if not explicitly.

    But either way as a culturally Christian and otherwise non-theist person, I don’t have much to offer beyond my original comment! So I will continue to read and enjoy.

22. I’m ignoring basically all of the comments because I found this post very personal, touching, and brave, so if I repeat anything someone else says, I’m truly sorry.

    I’m in the process of converting. Part of it is because my boyfriend is Jewish (reform, for what it’s worth), and he wants his children to be able to be raised in a community and culture that, while he doesn’t always practice, he strongly relates to. The other part of why I’m doing it is inextricably linked to the first part: as a child, I was pretty much raised without religion. Sure, I was baptized (Methodist), and I’ve been to a few services (Episcopalian, Catholic, and Christian), but I never felt close to g-d there. The thing that solidified my decision to change was my sponsoring Rabbi asking me “what does g-d mean to you? Not the Episcopalian, Catholic, Methodist, or whatever version. Just you.” Nobody had ever asked me that. I suddenly recognized the room to have my own feel of g-d and community and culture within the guise of the larger, richly historied culture of Judaism. Part of what I felt I had been missing as a child was sanctuary in the form of a sense of belonging to a community. I would never hold that away from my children. I want them to be able to go anywhere in the world, see a synagogue, and feel at home, at least a little.

    That said, I think to say that we should ignore thousands of years of tradition because they are sometimes patriarchal is extraordinarily limiting. While my synagogue and affiliation do not generally do the ritual post-menstruation mikveh, I understand that it can be a very personal experience beyond patriarchy or bigotry. I myself am very much looking forward to the post-conversion mikveh. I know I won’t be able to do it during menstruation, and I take it as a relatively acceptable tradition. In our most natural state (used in this instance to mean how we are most of each year), cis women do not menstruate. While I disagree with the sentiment of impurity, I understand the idea of returning to a natural state following a non-normative state with a ritual, and I think the biggest part of the non-normative state is the lack of contact with Mr. Shoshie. Coming back to that with self-preparation (and therefore self awareness) and a cleansing of the self after what must be a really annoying, potentially painful week of no touches seems really (for lack of a better word) nice.

    I think traditions that you personally find humbling or awe-filling or inspiring that had origins in patriarchy and overall badness really can be reclaimed with a different meaning attached. Part of Judaism is the beautiful culture and history surrounding it, which sometimes, sadly, included a lot of lady-hating. It’s almost impossible to extricate the “good” traditions from the “bad” origins, but it is possible to recognize the origins and reclaim them, as you have.

    I think I rambled a lot and maybe made no sense (hellooooo Friday!), but the tl;dr here is I loved this post and it only solidified why I’m going to Shabbat service tonight and classes in Judaism soon enough. So, though you have no idea who I am, thank you for that. And also Shoshannah is one of my favorite Hebrew names. In trying to decide which to pick for my renaming, that’s been pretty close to the top. 🙂

23. Shoshie,
    I think that as feminists we’ve all had to deal with how our habits and attitudes are shaped by a patriarchy. Certainly I acknowledge that my affinity for being a sub in bed has to do with a desire to feel validated by this culture. But the fact is, I enjoy being submissive in bed, and I don’t want my critique of my sexuality to turn into a denial of my desires. I think you should allow yourself to be critical of these practices, while not shaming yourself for participating. I think the best you or I or a housewife or a porn star can do is do what makes us happy, but not be afraid to critique it for the sake of women who come after us. Which is to say, I don’t want my daughters to live in the same patriarchal culture which, in many ways, has shaped my desires.
    I don’t know if that was helpful to anyone in the least, but I think we all have our ways of coping with patriarchal symptoms. Good luck.

24. I remember reading something once that talked about the different times that Jews are supposed to go to the mikvah — after menstruation, after handling a dead body or very sick person, after ejaculating, and after giving birth — and noticed that all of those are the things that bring humans closest to the work of creation — either creating life, or ending it, or being close to the edge between life and death. And another time that you’re supposed to go to the mikvah is if you touch a Torah, which is considered the word of G-d. So this essay put all that together and theorized that, since Judaism is really big on divisions between things (milk and meat, night and day, linen and wool, Shabbat and regular days), the mikveh could be seen as a division between holy and ordinary — that experiencing any of those things brings you closer to G-d, maybe too close, and the mikvah brings you back to everyday human existence.

25. Ruchama- I’d heard that interpretation too. I think it’s a much more complex understanding of the states of tameh and tahor*. Someone once pointed out to me that it’s often a mitzvah (commandment) to put oneself in a state of tameh, and that’s not seen as a negative at all. Care of the dead is one of those mitzvot, and is considered one of the most holy of the mitzvot. So I don’t think it’s necessary to see tameh as inherently negative, though I can see that it would be a pain in the butt if you lived in Jerusalem back in temple ritual times.

    *Words commonly translated as “impure” and “pure”, but it’s not quite right. There’s not really an English equivalent.

26. Unless you are suggesting somehow orchestrating a liberal, queer-friendly, trans-friendly, non-sexist, totally voluntary mikva’ot of your own (which wouldn’t necessarily be a horrible idea, though challenging I would assume and geographically limited in impact), there’s not much you can do to make this practice more welcoming and safe to people it’s not meant to be welcoming and safe for.

    That mikveh in Boston I linked to above is one of these. There are a few over the country, although not many. I go to a Conservative mikveh which is more open, although not explicity liberal in its agenda.

    As far as what you personally can do to reclaim such things–I don’t think you have to start your own mikveh to make a difference! You can talk and write about it, loudly. You can donate to the mikvot who support your vision. You can buy from artists and writers who are helping create a modern mikveh ritual. All of these seem like better options to me than chucking the practice alltogether. It’s just…it feels like a loss. I know that’s hard to explain, but it feels like losing a piece of yourself, even if it isn’t a very attractive piece.

    I’ve seen mikvot that are literally thousands of years old; the idea of losing the practice alltogether–or, almost equally disturbing, abandoning it to ultra-Orthodoxy, just feels viserally *wrong* to me. But YMMV.

27. Shoshie, I talked the emotions I have surrounding this out, went to bed and had some very thinky thoughts about the whole thing, and… mostly I needed the time to separate my response to menstrual rituals from my response to rituals as a whole.

    I think, on much further thought, that reclamation of loaded rituals has both a personal and a public aspect. On a personal level, I would say from your description of your feelings that you’ve definitely reclaimed the ritual. You’re focusing on anticipation, harmony, sensuous reconnection both with yourself and with your husband, and those are objectively good things.

    On a public level, the intersectional issues you pointed out arise, though. At which point the question arises, since many of these people (the ones who don’t menstruate, the ones who aren’t cis, the men who do menstruate) are sort of intrinsically displaced by the nature of the ritual… is there, in fact, an effective way to publically reclaim the ritual? It doesn’t seem like there is, without changing the point of the ritual. THis is a problem I’m facing particularly in trying to queer aspects of my own religion and being fenced in on everything, it seems like.

28. In my opinion, part of how to reclaim such practices rests in examining how they affect people not traditionally addressed (or not addressed favorably) by patriarchial institutions. What do the practices mean for queer people, trans people, genderqueer people, poly relationships, unmarried relationships, etc? Also, why do the practices distinguish between the classes of people they do, whether that’s men&women, another sex-related characteristic, or any other class? And then of course, what are the implications of this distinction, is it a meaningful one, etc. Of course, the meaning and purpose of the ritual (both historically & presently) are important as well.

    I obviously have thoughts on how this applies to niddah and mikvahs, but I don’t feel that it’s my place as a non-Jew to suggest how it could be reformed or reclaimed.

29. Also, seriously, blanket statement: if you (general you) like the rituals, keep the rituals, but don’t pretend they’re not based explicitly in the degradation, humiliation and subjugation of women.

    Pretty much this.

30. Thanks for a very thought-provoking post. Since you asked for specific examples, I’m going to offer one out of my religious tradition, which happens to be Christianity. If you decide that discussion of the dominant religion isn’t appropriate to this post, I completely understand.

    After doing some research in college, I was surprised to learn that infant baptism, a tradition very near and dear to most mainline denominations, including mine, was once grounded in a mysogynistic understanding of birth. The baptismal font was meant to symbolize a second womb–one that was pure in contrast to the “dirty” natural womb with its connection to original sin. I don’t get that vibe at all from the ritual as my denomination currently practices it. Does that mean we’ve reclaimed it? Can you reclaim something without becoming mindful of its previous meanings? I’m not sure. To some extent, the baptism ritual was easier to modify because it has always had two meanings–the traditional understanding of it as ritual cleansing to wash away sin and the New Testament connection with the revelation of a Christian identity. So, adult baptism (available in any mainline church and required by most so-called “Evangelical” congregations) continues to reflect both meanings while infant baptism is tailored to emphasize the identity-based meaning.

    Anyway, whether we can call it “reclaimed” or not, I will probably have my theoretical children baptized because it serves some important purposes for the parents, the child, and the congregation. Specifically:

    -it gives parents a chance to make promises to each other and to their child about how the child will be raised
    -it lets them present their child to the congregation and have the child ritually accepted by the community
    -it invokes blessing on the child
    -(most importantly) it calls for the congregation to pledge their support for the family and fosters a sense of collective responsibility for the child.

    It’s not a perfect ritual–most glaringly, same-sex couples are often denied the chance to stand together as parents–but it’s better than it used to be and it serves an important purpose.

31. Also, seriously, blanket statement: if you (general you) like the rituals, keep the rituals, but don’t pretend they’re not based explicitly in the degradation, humiliation and subjugation of women.

    Lots of things collect nasty misogynist detrius through history. (Marriage being one of them, fwiw). Doesn’t mean that the original meaning always and already defines the present one.

    1. Lots of things collect nasty misogynist detrius through history. (Marriage being one of them, fwiw). Doesn’t mean that the original meaning always and already defines the present one.

       Eh… I’m not sure how “You can’t even touch a woman when she’s menstruating” can be redefined to be not sexist.

       Don’t get me wrong: People should have the right to practice whatever rituals they want. And some things that are really sexist can be really fun or feel good for whatever reason. But it doesn’t make them un-sexist or even really “reclaimable.”

32. FWIW, I don’t think this is the same as when religious people try to argue that it’s okay for women not to leaders in religious institutions. What happens in your ritual, is not inherently sexist. It sounds like the cause of it or at least the initial cause could be sexist. However, it sounds like it’s possible to do the ritual without thinking women are dirty.

33. I’m still not clear how to allow the ritual to in any way correspond with menstruation without implying that most (cis) women are dirty. I think that if it could be divorced from the normal functioning of a certain group of bodies then sure, ritual bathing can be as fun as sexy and spiritual as you like, but if it just happens to always involve the timing of menstruation then no, I don’t think that aspect is reclaimable. It would be like if I just always happened to put on latex gloves before touching certain races or something; wearing gloves can be fine and good and even kinky, but if glove-wearing correlates strongly with “unclean” groups then that’s fucking terrible and irredeemable.

34. Eh… I’m not sure how “You can’t even touch a woman when she’s menstruating” can be redefined to be not sexist.

    Don’t get me wrong: People should have the right to practice whatever rituals they want. And some things that are really sexist can be really fun or feel good for whatever reason. But it doesn’t make them un-sexist or even really “reclaimable.”

    Yeah, so part of the whole reclaiming thing? Finding alternative uses for mikvot, getting rid of the no-touch thing, allowing unmarried women, men, and LGBT folks to use the mikveh for things like life cycle events, healing from cancer, etc.

    The mikveh is not ONLY used for menstruation. And liberal Judaism has been moving away from that use for awhile…

35. Shoshie, I am pretty sure that you’ve mentioned that you’re familiar with the book Balancing on the Mechitza. There’s a chapter in that book called Hearing beneath the Surface: Crossing Gender Boundaries at the Ari Mikveh, by Tucker Lieberman (a trans man). It’s about his experience bathing in a men’s mikveh in Tzfat (Safed) in Israel, dedicated to Isaac Luria (the famous 16th-century rabbi and Kabbalist who was born in Jerusalem and lived in Tzfat), and very much involves reclaiming the ceremony in a way that isn’t related to menstruation, or to the idea of washing away something that’s “unclean.” He emphasizes the requirement that the waters in a mikveh must be “living” (see the title of Shoshie’s post), and ties that requirement to the fact that according to the Torah, the “‘face of the waters'” existed before G-d said ‘Let there be light,’ . . . and before G-d proclaimed creation to be good. . . . Water . . . has a face, as it did even before the creation of the world, but its features continue to be imprinted over time. Is it reflecting our faces? Is it reflecting G-d’s?”

    This is part of his description of the meaning the ritual has for him:

    [B]efore Shabbat, a day sacred for marital lovemaking, men in Tzfat line up to dip in these purifying waters. The concept of immersion is not inherently gendered. Anyone can do it. There is something profoundly humanizing about being welcomed into a font of renewal as if your nude body and your bare life were something very precious. Water, too, has unique properties that blur edges literally and figuratively. Water in the mikveh is used as a tool to separate . . . workweek from Shabbat, men from women. Yet water itself is amorphous, concealing our bodies in refracted light and shadow and a rush of sound, making it difficult to distinguish male from female. Where we seek clarity and definition, we find boundaries beginning to soften and join us together.

    For me, the answer is connected with hearing and with what often goes unheard. What we often think of as our humanity peels off . . ., revealed as nothing more mysterious than clothes, makeup, body parts. Underneath all that noise, we are old and wise, at one with the history of the earth and the source of our own creation. . . . [W]ater [is] the stuff of life, the skin of the earth, a shared resource that binds us together. Somewhere in that . . . is the name of G-d.

36. Doesn’t mean that the original meaning always and already defines the present one.

    It’s actually interesting that you brought that up, because I’ve seen a trend in many Hindu rituals of a sort of pendulum effect, where the original meaning wasn’t necessarily misogynistic, but the ritual was then reinterpreted to have incredibly misogynistic effects. Now, I can in fact argue that the original, egalitarian meaning is the one that counts, but the fact remains that the current interpretation is still unacceptable, and I can only work with current realities. I’ve seen far too much of “origin idealisation” (don’t know what else to call it) in Hinduism, and it’s never led anywhere except to apathy towards current problems. Of course, that still leaves the opportunity for reclamation, but…

37. I do think that, in our present culture, using mikveh for TH (menstruation) is really problematic. It’s hard to ‘reclaim’ when the surface action appears so entrenched in misogyny.

    OTOH, I can see ways of developing the ritual around menstruation to be explicitly and loudly feminist. The question is, can this be an effective path to claiming the ritual for a feminist Jewish praxis?

38. Goddamn it I cut myself off.

    …but the process needs to be extremely conscious and consciously, collectively about creating a more inclusive current reality rather than going back to original meanings. Hinduism (and I understand Judaism’s extremely similar) is still evolving as a religion today, and I think there’s definitely room for changing the meanigns of things; gods know that was the intent behind the religious structures being as flexible as they are. Redefinition sounds much more attractive, and is much more workable, than reclaiming, personally.

39. Eh… I’m not sure how “You can’t even touch a woman when she’s menstruating” can be redefined to be not sexist.

    I think that taking this one out of being cis-centric is actually a lot more complicated than making it not-misogynistic. There are lots of things in Judaism that you can’t touch. Most of them, you can’t touch them because they’re sacred. The term used for a menstruating woman is NOT the same term used for something that’s physically unclean, and the usual translation of that term as “ritually impure” is fairly problematic — it doesn’t really literally translate as anything, so people trying to write dictionaries would see that it’s used to mean someone who is in a state where they’re not allowed to participate in certain rituals, and so “ritually impure” seemed like a decent way to translate the meaning, if not the actual word. I mentioned before that, using Jewish sources and arguments, you can pretty easily get to “You can’t touch a menstruating woman, because she’s holy.” Which has all sorts of other issues with gender essentialism and being entirely cis-centric, but there’s nothing about “You can’t touch a menstruating woman” that implicitly implies “because she’s dirty.”

    (I’ve noticed this several times before, when talking about a few different issues on marriage and sex and ordination and various other things — creating a woman-friendly and gay-friendly Judaism is a whole lot easier than creating a trans-friendly Judaism. Judaism has a lot of stuff about separating things and places and people into different categories, and changing the way that the categories relate to each other is much simpler than finding ways for the texts to accept people who don’t neatly fit into the categories. I have a good friend who grew up Jewish but left Judaism for this very reason — zie doesn’t identify with the gender binary, and there were just way too many places where Judaism said “Men over here, women over there,” and zie was left standing there with no place to go.)

40. The concept of the mikvah is already being reclaimed and/or redefined by trans people, to separate it from its misogynist implications (and to separate it from menstruation). I know it’s being done by others, and not simply as a one-time thing on the occasion of conversion or other life transitions.

    It makes me very uncomfortable when I see people (especially people who aren’t Jewish) assert that it can’t be done. You’re telling me that a ritual that’s flexible and “salvageable” enough to accommodate trans people is somehow impossible to reclaim in a non-misogynist way for women in general?

    In addition to the book I mentioned, this is a link to the text of an article discussing both Tucker Lieberman and a trans woman named Rebecca, and their experiences with ritual immersion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transgendernews/message/14730

    This isn’t about the mikvah specifically, but is about the similar concept of adapting old Jewish ceremonies for new purposes: http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/011206/njmontclair.html

    And this has a lot of links: http://mikveh.livejournal.com/2846.html

    It’s something I would consider doing myself if I ever were to join an LGBT-friendly congregation, and if I were ever able to figure out a way to overcome the feeling that even after my (relatively unsuccessful) genital surgery, my body falls so far short of the way women are “supposed” to look that I could never manage to be naked even in that kind of setting, which I realize is at least semi-private.

41. My Jewishness is an essential[] piece of me. And, just a couple generations after my people was nearly wiped out…

    My apologies. Critical examination of one’s own religious beliefs is just like the Holocaust. I’ll see myself out.

    1. lambda- I’ve really tried to be patient and explain, but seriously, you need to take a step back. It is not silencing or Godwining to mention the effects of the Holocaust or, really, the whole long, sad, history of attempted Jewish genocide in a thread about maintenance of Jewish practice and the emotional component of that. Also, I can’t believe that I actually have to say this, but Judaism is *not* racism. Religious Jews are not the equivalent of a Grand Wizard. And it is incredibly offensive for you to make the comparison.

       Lastly, I am all in favor of critically examining my religious beliefs. After all, that’s the whole damn point of this post.

42. I want to come in again and apologize for my first comment. I had a very narrow impression based on the OP of a tradition I had never heard of before in a religion which I do not practice and have very little familiarity with. I would never consider myself an appropriate arbiter of what Jewish people should and should not practice in their own faith, so I apologize for commenting to that effect on whether the practice can be reclaimed or not (though I standby the kink similarity!).

    I’ve thought on this more and realized I do have a few more points on menstruation and traditions more generally. One, as a person who experiences menstruation as debilitating, anxiety-producing and even mildly traumatic in some incidents, I can appreciate the idea that of being given some additional leeway and support around this time. Not in a patronizing and infantilizing kind of way, or with any sort of suggestion that I am “unclean”, but a recognition that what my body is doing is stressful and beyond my control. (Obviously there needs to be a recognition as well that not every be-uterused person will experience menstruation the same way or even the same way throughout each of our lives.) In particular, during the first few days of my period, touch is literally painful as my skin and joints flare with pain, and sex would be out of the question. I can completely understand a protective ritual developing based around reasons like this, though, again, it has to be stated that menstruation experiences vary a lot.

    The other thing I remembered was a few years ago a friend invited me to a full moon ceremony, part of which involved making tobacco offerings in the sacred fire. Before the ceremony, my friend took me aside and quietly explained that if I were menstruating, I should make a sage offering instead of one of tobacco. The explanation he gave was that during menstruation a woman is more powerful and it’s too much for her to also handle sacred herbs (sage is always the exception, I guess). I was glad that I would not have been excluded had I been menstruating (I’ve since seen descriptions of similar ceremonies which prohibit menstruating people from participating at all), but I could also respect that it was not my cultural practice, I had been invited and was treated and behaved as a guest, and that there was no suggestion that a menstruating person was dirty or unclean in any way. (It also ended up being a really important experience for me – a friend of mine had committed suicide the month before and at this ceremony there ended up being people who knew his family and were making offerings for them while I made an offering for him, which I thought he would have appreciated. I made three offerings in all, all for people I knew would appreciate, find meaning, and believe in the gesture, even from a visiting non-theist!)

    It’s very hard to understand or be critical in an informed way about a cultural practice which is not one’s own. So-called “objectivity” in this case usually just means talking from an unacknowledged cultural position of one’s own, obscuring biases and inclining one to a rejection of anything unfamiliar. Personally, reading the initial post, misunderstanding the significance of the mitvah, I’m not surprised I assumed that it was fairly trivial to cast aside. I should have known better.

43. Reclamation is just about that–taking something and making it yours. I think there’s something to be said for taking time to yourself, for abstaining from sex in order to enjoy your body on your terms and the anticipation of enjoying it with your partner.

    Assholes will always steal beautiful things and kick dirt over them. It doesn’t matter what it is. The very vocabulary of feminism has been co-opted by hate groups seeking to twist it. The fact that some people use this ritual, or any ritual, as a way to make women inferior only proves that they are jerks, not that there’s anything inherently poisonous about the ritual.

44. My apologies. Critical examination of one’s own religious beliefs is just like the Holocaust. I’ll see myself out.

    This is such a load of bullshit that I don’t even know what to do with it. What the fuck makes you think that Shoshie doesn’t critically examine her own religious beliefs when this entire post is about critically examining her religious practices? Further, the fact that you can’t understand why Jews might want to preserve Jewish practices and culture after thousands of years of other people trying to wipe them out speaks to your own lack of insight and power dynamics, but nothing else.

    The fact that Shoshie does not want to address yet again the issue of whether it is possible to be both religious and a feminist (it is) in this particular post tells you literally nothing about whether or not she critically examines her own beliefs. Oh, wait, my mistake. It tells you that she has done so often enough to be sick of dealing with bullshit like yours.

45. Ahem. On the subject of reclaiming ritual, particularly misogynist ritual, the only thoughts I have to offer come from some stuff I remember from studying Renaissance lit.

    So back then in England, a woman who had given birth could not attend church again for 30 days, at which point she was ritually purified, a process called “churching” and took her usual place among the congregation. And there’s what at least was my, and I think not only my, default assumption that this was so disgustingly misogynist (oh, bringing new life into the world makes me dirty? Can we say “jealous, much?”) that I could barely stand to think about it.

    But it seems that women of the time made a big ol’ deal of it. New mothers would dress up, be accompanied by a retinue of their best friends, and be generally loud and celebratory (we know because this pissed off the churchmen who inveighed against women losing sight of their proper badness). So this was a situation in which women took an explicitly misogynist ritual and turned it into a women-only celebration.

46. For me, the answer is connected with hearing and with what often goes unheard. What we often think of as our humanity peels off . . ., revealed as nothing more mysterious than clothes, makeup, body parts. Underneath all that noise, we are old and wise, at one with the history of the earth and the source of our own creation. . . . [W]ater [is] the stuff of life, the skin of the earth, a shared resource that binds us together. Somewhere in that . . . is the name of G-d.

    Pretty much this.

47. Also, I can’t believe that I actually have to say this, but Judaism is *not* racism. Religious Jews are not the equivalent of a Grand Wizard. And it is incredibly offensive for you to make the comparison.

    This is nowhere near anything I have actually written, and for the record: Religious Jews are not morally equivalent to the Grand Wizard. My argument was that feeling deeply identified with, or emotionally attached to, any belief doesn’t get you off the argumentative hook. It simply doesn’t make sense to say “my existence isn’t up for debate” in response to someone who might argue (as you fear people will do in this thread) that your beliefs are wrong. If it were reasonable to do so, then we would have no grounds from which to criticize (e.g.) the Grand Wizard, because the Grand Wizard could truthfully reply that the Klan is an essential component of their identity. The Grand Wizard argument does not establish that Judaism is organized racism–it establishes that appeals to identity cannot substitute for actually doing ethics, i.e. arguing for one’s claims. Some people incorporate bad practices into their identities, and rejecting those bad practices might imply, in part, rejecting that identity. So much the worse for identities, then.

    As for the rest of what you’ve written, I really can’t make out your position. Either you’re in favor of examining your religious beliefs or you’re not. Compare:

    I’m really kind of done with the question of whether it’s possible to be feminist and religious. If you have a problem with that, I encourage you to avoid my posts about religion, or just not comment, because it will be deleted. My existence is not up for debate.

    to:

    Lastly, I am all in favor of critically examining my religious beliefs.

    I don’t think any reasonable person can be expected to understand what those two sentences mean in conjunction. Similarly, compare:

    My Jewishness is an essentially piece of me. And, just a couple generations after my people was nearly wiped out, I really don’t appreciate a bunch of white decedents of Christians trying to convince me to stop being Jewish

    with:

    It is not …Godwining…

    Come now, of course it’s Godwining! Either Judaism is true or it is not, and whether it is true or not just depends on whether God really does exist, really did give the Law to Moses, &c. &c. &c. If all of that is true, presumably one should be Jewish. If not, one is just wasting one’s time. What could the effects of the Holocaust possibly have to do with whether Judaism is in fact true? I can’t see how comparing the decision to voluntarily cease religious practice to genocide can serve any other function than rhetorical abuse, I’m sorry to say. I would like to think that maybe I’ve just misread you three times in a row now, but I don’t see an alternate interpretation.

    The only point I intended to offer was that it’s a bad idea to insist that certain beliefs are so important that they must be preserved from critical debate. Even if you think your sacred beliefs are correct, not everyone’s sacred beliefs can be correct (if only because they conflict) and these sacred beliefs often implicate social consequences. If you insist on exemption from skeptical inquiry for your own beliefs, you have no grounds to insist on it for others. And trust me, plenty of people have sacred beliefs that deserve generous helpings of skeptical inquiry. Hence, we should encourage norms of skepticism and discourage the respectableness of the view that my religion is my religion, and that’s that. Is that really such a controversial point?

48. Either Judaism is true or it is not, and whether it is true or not just depends on whether God really does exist, really did give the Law to Moses, &c. &c. &c. If all of that is true, presumably one should be Jewish. If not, one is just wasting one’s time. What could the effects of the Holocaust possibly have to do with whether Judaism is in fact true?

    That’s bullshit, and you know nothing about the practice of Judaism. There have been plenty of atheists in my family who continue practicing, and the preservation of a persecuted culture has everything to do with why many Jewish people feel practices are worth preserving.

49. Come now, of course it’s Godwining! Either Judaism is true or it is not, and whether it is true or not just depends on whether God really does exist, really did give the Law to Moses, &c. &c. &c. If all of that is true, presumably one should be Jewish. If not, one is just wasting one’s time.

    This is a complete misunderstanding of what Judaism is and how it works.

50. Uh, lambda? Being willing to debate the validity, feminism, history etc of a religious practice is one thing (and the thing Shoshie is doing here). Being willing to be tsk-tsked at for being religious-while-feminist at all is another thing (and what you’re expecting of her). Just saying.

    And yeah, I can imagine why Jews are a little tetchy about Christians telling them how valid their cultural practice are, can’t you? I mean, seriously. Even if absolutely nothing had happened to any Jew ever between 1933-45, they’d still have been persecuted for millennia before that. So, yeah, that’s what she’s getting at.

51. If all of that is true, presumably one should be Jewish. If not, one is just wasting one’s time.

    What in the world are you talking about? Practicing Judaism isn’t like putting quarters in a vending machine until you’ve inserted the cost of a ticket to Paradise, and if you find out the machine has no tickets you wasted all your money. It doesn’t work that way. It’s supposed to be its own reward, regardless of whether there’s a big payoff at the end.

52. On the issue of reclamation generally, my personal guideline is that when a practice is currently being used to oppress people, then I can only work to reclaim it if my practice can be visibly subversive.

    So, as an example, marriage (a heterocentric, misogynistic institution) isn’t reclaimable by me because my participation, in my view, is not visibly subversive enough. I’m a het, monogamous woman, partnered with a het, monogamous dude. In the face of all that, keeping my name andsharing chores doesn’t feel very subversive. But that judgment like all if these judgments is highly personal and subjective. Another person could reasonably decide otherwise.

53. I think the absolute validity of religion is a little… besides the point here. At the risk of being perceived as a jerk, I’m calling derail on that. Sorry. (Sincerely, of course!!) This is not a “Help me! Is religion right or wrong?” post, although I can see how that could be extrapolated. I see more of a “this particular practice is very important to me, but yet, is (at least historically) problematic, can it be salvaged and reclaimed?”

    For me the answer to the OP’s question is YES! Shosie, you can absolutely make this yours. I think it is easy for us to forget that so many things in our lives– clothing, cars, our very words– derive from terrible histories. Did you know that the Tour de France was started by an Anti-Semitic cycling magazine to gain popularity? I’m serious! Google the [Alfred] Dreyfus Affair (or since I’m degreed in Art History, I like to think of it as “How Edward Degas Came Out As a D-bag and Lost His Friends”).

    Rituals neither have to be ancient nor complicated to hold sway in your life. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that they feel ritual is missing in North America. Perhaps certain rituals are difficult to find here, but no, ritual itself is not missing. I grew up Baptist in the Bible Belt. Church three times a week (twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday) with Bible study on Tuesday, and church social events on Friday. Prayers were said before meals, the Bible was read daily. Some people find this regimen oppressive. I found it wonderfully enriching and important to my identity. I was so proud when dressed in bright white for my Baptism in front of the congregation. I ultimately left because their views on pretty much all social issues (I am not only a vessel for babies or a servant to by husband, that’s my call…) disturbed me. I mean really disturbed me. But please, don’t say because we didn’t celebrate mass (earlier poster cited Catholicism), we didn’t have ritual. Its all in the heart of the practitioner and honestly, unless you’ve experienced this investment, its hard to understand (not impossible though!). My non-theist partner is a huge sceptic of my desire for organized religion.

    I am currently hunting for a new church to join. I want to take the patriarchal religion I knew as a child and reclaim it, to save all the love, ritual, clarity, and intimacy from loss to chauvinist practices. I worry about the weight of history and the practices of others, but I do think it can be done. We are strong enough to take religion back, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!

    !Special notes! The Tour =/= religion, I’m not trivializing here. ALSO I’m not trying to make this about me, because its not and I recognize that although I was raised immersed in a particular religious culture, the connection is not ethnic like Judaism. You’ll never hear of a secular Baptist. Also dominant religion problems. I’m trying to reclaim religious place for myself at this time and sometimes I wonder why or if I can. This was an amazing post to read. So super thanks to Shoshie. Yay!!

54. lambda- Other people have made the points that I was going to make in response, so I’m not going to reiterate them. But if you want to have a conversation about this, this thread is not the place for it. Furthermore, if you want to have a reasonable discussion about anything concerning Judaism and Jewish identify, you need to shut up and listen for a while, because you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Furthermore, it takes really chutzpah to march into a thread that is explicitly about examining religious practice and then claim that I’m refusing to examine religious practices. No one is arguing that religious beliefs and practices shouldn’t be interrogated– certainly not me. All I am saying is that I’m really tired of every post on religion turning into a debate about the compatibility of religion and feminism. I am a feminist and I am religious. I am religious for several reasons, only some of which relate to an actual belief in a deity. I exist. I really don’t want any more time spent on this derail, so please stop, or you will be banned from this thread.

    Kristen J- That makes a lot of sense to me, and I definitely get that my comfort with this ritual (tenuous as it sometimes is), is not the same as someone who is transgender or in a lesbian relationship dealing with how mikvah rituals are preserved, if at all.

    Donna- Thanks for the links! I always love your insight, and I’m looking forward to reading your suggestions.

    And, in general everyone, thanks for the respectful discussion. I’m going to be offline for the next 30 hours or so because Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath). If things aren’t let out of mod or I don’t respond, it’s not because I hate you or I’ve abandoned the thread.

55. My instinctual response to this on first read– ugh. I can’t comprehend how someone who understands the anti-female roots of the practice can take true enjoyment out of the continued practice of it. I remember sitting in church, back when my mother made me go to church, and instead of listening to the sermon I spent the service actually reading the bible, and I spent a lot of that time reading Leviticus (fascinating read, really) and coming across the passages that refer to all of this and feeling disgusted. I’d thought of myself as feminist since I learned what the word meant, and I couldn’t see how this fit into a feminist worldview. That’s a huge part of what lead me away from Christianity.

    But really– it’s not like Judaism has all the claim on misogynistic roots (the bible uses all five books of the torah too, don’t forget). How many of us have been to weddings where the bride wears white, and has her father walk her down the aisle? I’ll admit, that’s something I’m a little wary of too, and which I probably won’t do at my own wedding, but I’ve heard of women participating in this tradition in beautiful ways that serve to use the tradition as more than just a throwback to the days of women as something to be given away, as a way to connect family to this very important moment in her life. And this doesn’t automatically lead to conclusions about the feminism of the bride in question, particularly when the tradition is being used in a way that is very clearly personally fulfilling. So what makes Shoshie’s use of this ritual any different? Does a person have to give up all of the (problematic or not) rituals that tie them to their culture and history in order to be a pure feminist? Is it really hurting anybody (specifically Shoshie, considering she and her husband are the only ones affected by this), and is the fact that it isn’t hurting anybody a good enough reason not to be critical?

    Long story short: this post gives me complicated feelings.

56. Atheist Jew here; more or less behind lambda.

    There really isn’t any way to reconcile the Mikvah with feminism, because there really isn’t any way to reconcile ANY Abrahamic religion with feminism. They are patriarchal all the way down and there’s no amount of “reclaiming” that will make that not so.

    I kind of understand the preserving traditions argument, but I don’t really think some or even most of these traditions should be preserved. It’s not like it’s a neutral “tradition” that doesn’t hurt anyone; it’s a tradition that you yourself admit makes it more difficult for you as a woman. Shame thousands of years of defending them against persecution will be wasted, sure, but having put a lot of work into defending them doesn’t mean they are or ever were worth defending.

57. there really isn’t any way to reconcile ANY Abrahamic religion with feminism. They are patriarchal all the way down and there’s no amount of “reclaiming” that will make that not so.

    My feelings exactly.

58. there really isn’t any way to reconcile ANY Abrahamic religion with feminism. They are patriarchal all the way down and there’s no amount of “reclaiming” that will make that not so.

    My feelings exactly.

    So, this is from Shoshie’s first comment. Perhaps one might peruse it.

    As a note, I’d really like this to focus on specific practices, rather than religion in general. And the practices don’t have to be religious in nature. But I’m really kind of done with the question of whether it’s possible to be feminist and religious. If you have a problem with that, I encourage you to avoid my posts about religion, or just not comment, because it will be deleted. My existence is not up for debate.

59. Whether a practice if done perpetuates a negative view of a class of people is based on Why it is being done. So if you change the Why from “women have cooties” to this is a spiritual reinvigoration in the same way the monthly cycle is a reinvigoration of the human body’s natural procreational biology, then you can have the ritual not be about cooties and have it mean something positive. I just don’t see washing as per se the person being washed has something wrong with them that must be removed. I think that’s a very Christain concept having to do with washing purported sins away via baptism, therefore what you are washing in the mikveh is seen by Western society as being something evil or dirty. The ritual still won’t apply and will exclude people who do not have cycles, but all rituals don’t need to be for everyone as long as participating in said ritual is not an indication of greater status w/in the religion vs those who participate in other rituals or fewer rituals (and the right to use a mikveh has never been a huge status symbol historically). If you want a ritual to celebrate the period that should be cool with those who don’t have periods.

60. Chava, I realize that she posted that, but also:

    1. It’s not possible for me to answer the question without also debating religion in general. The reason I believe that the Mikvah can’t be reclaimed is that the whole religion is toxic for women. If it was just the one practice it would be different; you could just discard the one thing, but since it’s just a single branch of a deep anti-woman attitude that all three Abrahamic religions share leaving out this single practice would do nothing. If you try to reclaim this practice in a way consistent with the religion you run into inconsistencies elsewhere, and then if you try fix those the fixes spawn even more, and so on until you have “fixed” it so much there is nothing left of the original you were trying to “protect”.

    2. What lambda said about that is right; If you really want to think critically about something sometimes you have to be okay with people criticizing your deeply-held beliefs. Just by asking the question in the first place Shoshie made her identity as a religious feminist “up for debate”, because whether or not religion is reconcilable with feminism at all is pretty crucial to answering whether or not this particular part of this particular religion is.

61. Don’t know what to tell ya, other then that it’s all fake.

62. OK, seriously, is there a reason why some of the other atheists on this thread are finding it so difficult to respect Shoshie’s express wishes about the topic of this discussion? I can slam the Abrahamic religions as much as anybody else–or, indeed, religion in general–and I have, but I am also perfectly capable of recognizing when such discourse is inappropriate because that is not the conversation we are having right now. We are having the conversation about how to reclaim and work with traditions that have been misogynist but may also be personally meaningful, and it’s not as though religion has a monopoly on those.

63. Ms Kristen – Perhaps you’d feel more subversive if you lived in Virginia or were old enough to have read about the Loving decision when it was issued, but your feeling as you do seems a sign of progress. At least one oppressive brick has been knocked out of the wall.

    Without any basis for a specific comment about Ms Shoshie’s ritual, I’ll just say generally that I try to approach situations raising conflict between core principles with a very similar frame of mind. And, as Ms Kristen states, reasonable people will draw different conclusions. It can be tough, perhaps, when luck will have much to do with one’s experience. It’s easier reaching a firm position when coping with a uniform policy, and perhaps easier devising a solution.

64. Whenever someone brings up the “Abrahamic religions,” I know that they’re about to start denigrating Judaism. (If people are interested in criticizing Christianity or Islam, they’re usually not shy about saying so, whereas they’re afraid that if they openly single out Judaism without bringing in the others, they’ll be accused of anti-Semitism.) Of course, it’s usually Orthodox Judaism that people want to denigrate, because it’s an easy rhetorical trick to support the argument that Judaism is unsalvageable by treating Orthodoxy as the only “authentic” form of Judaism (ignoring all other forms, because they don’t necessarily fit the overall argument).

    In any event, speaking as a Jewish atheist myself, I think that the argument that the “Abrahamic religions” are “patriarchal all the way down and there’s no amount of ‘reclaiming’ that will make that not so” simply proves yet again (as if any further proof were necessary after all the noxious, unthinking misogyny that emanated from the organized communities of atheists and skeptics after the “elevator incident”!) that atheists don’t necessarily see things with superior logic, objectivity, and ability to perceive reality. Not to mention an apparent failure in reading comprehension with respect to Shoshie’s initial comment following her post.

    First, the argument is nothing more than a generalized ipse dixit and an entirely unsupported proclamation. It sounds good, perhaps, but there’s not even an attempt to explain why it’s true. Which isn’t surprising, given that its acceptance requires dismissing the lived experiences of all the people who *do* manage quite successfully to reclaim and reconcile religious traditions and rituals with feminism (and/or being LGBT), and clearly *don’t* see all those traditions and rituals as being irrevocably tainted. As one example, of course it’s true that saying Kaddish was originally reserved for men. But I have continued since my transition to light a candle and say Kaddish for my mother every year on her yahrzeit. It is a supremely meaningful experience for me. Which by no means requires a belief in God. And which causes me no cognitive dissonance whatsoever, not even a little bit.

    What gives anyone the right to insist that I, and all the people who’ve reclaimed the mikveh, and all the other people who reclaim their own religious traditions in one way or another, are deluded, and that their experiences are meaningless? Nothing, other than intellectual arrogance and an absence of imagination. (It reminds me of the way that so many skeptics/atheists dismissed so blithely the lived experiences of Rebecca Watson and other women after the elevator incident.) Not to mention the fact that the argument is, in many cases, based on historical ignorance of the fact that at least some religious practices and rituals are *not* inherently patriarchal in origin or practice. Not that it matters, really.

    Even more fundamentally, the argument that the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal all the way down and can’t be reclaimed proves entirely too much, and, therefore, is essentially meaningless. Because I defy anyone to find any other major religion — or any other political or social institution, for that matter — for which the same argument couldn’t be made with equal validity. Anyone who thinks that most non-Abrahamic religions are paragons of gender equality that aren’t “patriarchal all the way down” is considerably more delusional than any religious feminist attempting to reclaim ritual and tradition. Because there isn’t any religious institution, or any other kind of institution, that isn’t “infected” with patriarchy in some way, and there probably hasn’t been for the last 10,000 years, if not longer. (Not counting the mythical matriarchies & Goddess religions of Old Europe, of course, no matter what Marija Gimbutas may have thought.) And if every single institution is patriarchal at bottom, and reclamation is impossible, then where does that leave us?

65. The paper “From a Pot of Filth to a Hedge of Roses (and back?)” is very interesting.

    It looks at the view of the niddah and how that has changed. How the view of the women as filthy, contaminating objects who made things tamei, was morphed by various kiruv (outreach) groups into a positive thing. In order to convince women to aspire to higher levels of observance by painting niddah as a time of peaceful solitude, of mikveh immersion as a renewal and rebirth.

    The “and back again?” focuses on the form niddah is taking in some Haredi sects (like Gur, Skver and Satmar) where the period of impurity is so long, from four days before bleeding and up to 14 days after, that women are “halakhically infertile”. They have to wait so long to immerse that ovulation has come and gone.

    Curiously enough, another group who were almost wiped out in the holocaust, have purity laws that literally consider woman to be the source of all impurity, especially her lower half, even the feet. Interestingly enough this view is held regardless of religion, as the culture spans across several major religions.

66. I just want to add for a moment:

    Menstruation is dirty. Dirty doesn’t mean you’re a bad human being when you do it (or it happens to you) but pooping and menstruating are activities that encourage bacteria growth and can be a serious health hazard, not to mention smells. It also doesn’t feel very pleasant–I’ve never really enjoyed ridding my body of any kind of waste, although I appreciate the function it serves.

    Heck, I’ve seen conversation here and on other feminist spaces about how women without access to proper sanitary devices are in danger of vaginal infections and contaminating things like the water supply with old blood.

    So, there’s something to be said about people creating rituals around defectation/ejaculation/menstruation, about wanting to bathe after spending a week smelling and bleeding and taking a long, luxurious bath. Yeah, sure, there’s been a lot of baggage attached to it, but from a purely practical view, it’s a good idea. Especially in a culture that doesn’t have a lot of access to water or bathe daily, like, say, a culture that exists in a hot or desert environment.

67. Especially in a culture that doesn’t have a lot of access to water or bathe daily, like, say, a culture that exists in a hot or desert environment.

    Karak, while I agree with some of your points (particularly why the ritual might have started in the first place) I want to point out that in other tropical religions (Hinduism, Buddhism etc) bathing daily is often a mandatory requirement. Except for menstruating women who have to wait to complete their cycle (or in some cultures, like mine, wait three days from the beginning of the period) to bathe. It’s an effective way of keeping menstrual blood from the public water supply.

    However, and I cannot stress this enough, the emotional effect of such a requirement is horrible, particularly in a culture like mine (high-caste Hindu) where even showering once a day is considered to be on the verge of unacceptably poor hygiene. Until I came to Canada and its much colder climate, I usually showered twice a day, sometimes thrice in midsummer, and felt incredibly filthy and disgusting if I didn’t manage to shower for a whole day (because of travel or wev), particularly with my PCOS-related sweat levels. Abstaining from showering because of my period was actively painful for me, and there’s a reason that was the first requirement of “traditional” period behaviour I broke with, even when I was staying with orthodox family.

68. Two notes about my last post: I mentioned my caste specifically because I didn’t want to appear to speak to other Hindu experiences.

    And for a parallel on how horrible the not-bathing rule is, for the non-Hindus on the thread, imagine, I don’t know, going a week without showering, routinely. Between the heat, the humidity and the grime for anyone commuting, working outdoors etc, it’s entirely possible to smell as bad at the end of a day in South India as at the end of three or four days of not showering in a temperate climate, even if you kicked that day off with a shower.

69. macavitykitsune:

    I was thinking that early Jews lived in a more arid or desert climate than most of India, which is more humid.

    It really is the humidity that makes a person smell so terrible and feel so disgusting. I lived in Illinois, with intensely humid summers, and 95 degrees in Illinois with 70% humidity was SO much hotter than 115 degrees in Arizona with 10% humidity. In Illinois I smell like BO, in Arizona, I really didn’t smell like anything, just a little less fresh.

    But I wasn’t thinking of the other side–if you have a cultural imperative to bathe, to be asked to refrain would be incredibly distressing and ostracizing.

70. OK, seriously, is there a reason why some of the other atheists on this thread are finding it so difficult to respect Shoshie’s express wishes about the topic of this discussion? I can slam the Abrahamic religions as much as anybody else–or, indeed, religion in general–and I have, but I am also perfectly capable of recognizing when such discourse is inappropriate because that is not the conversation we are having right now. We are having the conversation about how to reclaim and work with traditions that have been misogynist but may also be personally meaningful, and it’s not as though religion has a monopoly on those.

    Another atheist in agreement. I mean, I can argue with people about religion, but it’s mostly when they’re trying to force me to conform with their religious beliefs. And those people aren’t the sorts who take the time to think about how to reclaim their rituals to make them inclusive. I don’t see how it’s our place to come into a discussion that’s about how people can try to change their religion for the better and judge them for trying. Not that anyone needs my validation, but I think it’s great that these sorts of discussions are happening. There might be a time and a place for critiques of religion – but this isn’t it.

71. Ms Kristen – Perhaps you’d feel more subversive if you lived in Virginia or were old enough to have read about the Loving decision when it was issued, but your feeling as you do seems a sign of progress. At least one oppressive brick has been knocked out of the wall.

    Yup. I think that’s definitely true. And I should point out that Mr. Kristen takes the opposite view. For him our marriage is subversive. I think that reflects our different perspectives and experiences. As you say…its highly subjective.

72. I was thinking that early Jews lived in a more arid or desert climate than most of India, which is more humid.

    It really is the humidity that makes a person smell so terrible and feel so disgusting.

    Oh, good point. I definitely think humidity plays into that (and water availability, which I often forget to consider, having grown up in a major delta).

    But I wasn’t thinking of the other side–if you have a cultural imperative to bathe, to be asked to refrain would be incredibly distressing and ostracizing.

    Yes, this, exactly. AFAIK, though, there isn’t as much of an emphasis on regular, non-religiously-significant (can’t think how else to put it) immersion/bathing in Judaism? I’m not sure, I’ve never heard anything about it, but that says very little, ahaha.

73. There is a tradition of washing with water at various times–before meals, for instance, or using the bathroom, or offering a sacrifice. I’ve always been told that this tradition led to Jews dying of illness less often than their gentile neighbors during the Middle Ages (washing your hands really is good for you!), which of course led to their gentile neighbors thinking that the Jews were practicing sorcery or poisoning or suchlike. Obviously. But I can’t find any actual sources for that right now.

74. this tradition led to Jews dying of illness less often than their gentile neighbors during the Middle Ages (washing your hands really is good for you!), which of course led to their gentile neighbors thinking that the Jews were practicing sorcery or poisoning or suchlike

    *infinite facepalm*

    You know, the history of anti-Semitism is perhaps the least nuanced oppression I’ve come across, so far. It really doesn’t seem to get more complex than “Zog scared, Zog blame Jews”.

75. Okay — completely an agnostic here, with few comparative religions studies readings ever.

    From a basic biology perspective, doesn’t the observance of this ensure that women only start to have sex again (7 days for a cycle then approximately 7 + days more) during the time that they would be ovulating = greater procreation ?

    Also — I am unsure about your physician’s OB/GYN advice regarding progesterone and breakthrough bleeding. The Center for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulatory Research (CEMCOR) at the University of British Columbia has a really great site with articles for women and health care providers about many aspects of the menstrual cycle, etc.:

    http://www.cemcor.ubc.ca/

    If you were menstruating without ovulating(ie unopposed estrogen), and were having crazy heavy overly long periods, this is a condition called endometrial hyperplasia. Certain types of endometrial hyperplasia and high levels of estrogen are linked to endometrial cancers — but if you are not actually having a menstrual period I am unclear about the potential risk. I know too much about this as I recently had a very scary scare with regards to endometrial cancer. I have to say — some GP’s are way back in the 1980’s with regards to some common gynecological issues (mine was). Not to derail here.

76. First, the argument is nothing more than a generalized ipse dixit and an entirely unsupported proclamation. It sounds good, perhaps, but there’s not even an attempt to explain why it’s true.

    Because you never asked. Would you like me to? Because that really WOULD be a derail, and a LONG one to boot.

    But short answer: the Torah (written Torah) is a combination of a law book and a story book. The laws were all written by men for men, and this is clearly obvious when they do things like condoning certain kinds of rape or literally valuing women less than men. The stories were also all written by men for men, because there is no really major female character in the entire Torah. A few female characters do a single important thing (Rebecca convincing Jacob to trick Issac, for instance) but none of them has the kind of power in story or long characterization that Abraham, Issac, Jacob or Moses do.

    So if the root of the religion, of all these religions, is written by men who didn’t give a fuck about women’s rights, how can we hope to reclaim any other part? The book these religions are all based on valued men above women, period. You cannot make a religion that doesn’t unless you entirely discard that book.

    Which isn’t surprising, given that its acceptance requires dismissing the lived experiences of all the people who *do* manage quite successfully to reclaim and reconcile religious traditions and rituals with feminism (and/or being LGBT),

    No they don’t. Going along with a misogynistic tradition as a feminist is not a “success”.

    Even more fundamentally, the argument that the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal all the way down and can’t be reclaimed proves entirely too much, and, therefore, is essentially meaningless. Because I defy anyone to find any other major religion — or any other political or social institution, for that matter — for which the same argument couldn’t be made with equal validity.

    Exactly true, and quite irrelevant. Western society is ALSO very much patriarchal, largely due to the influence of those religions but obviously not entirely. But, first of all that doesn’t exempt those religions from criticism at all, and second of all Western society is not based on any single book, which means that you CAN rip it all out and replace it while it still meaningfully be called “Western society”. You can’t do that for religions; if you took out all the patriarchal stuff out of Judaism it wouldn’t be Judaism anymore. Same with Christianity, same with Islam.

    Also, I singled out those three particular religions because they’re so deeply patriarchal. I could see some kinds of Buddhist or Pagan (not sure about Hindus, I kind of doubt it but I don’t feel qualified to say definitively) legitimately reclaim the bad practices in their religion, but Christians, Muslims and Jews are just shit out of luck.
    —-

    Another atheist in agreement. I mean, I can argue with people about religion, but it’s mostly when they’re trying to force me to conform with their religious beliefs. And those people aren’t the sorts who take the time to think about how to reclaim their rituals to make them inclusive. I don’t see how it’s our place to come into a discussion that’s about how people can try to change their religion for the better and judge them for trying. Not that anyone needs my validation, but I think it’s great that these sorts of discussions are happening. There might be a time and a place for critiques of religion – but this isn’t it.

    But the first half of your comment contradicts your second half. You say you want to have a discussion about this, but when someone comes in with a really strongly negative point of view you say “let’s not criticize religion here”. You can’t have a discussion if you’re not going to allow all points of view.

77. @BlackHumor–

    If you try to reclaim this practice in a way consistent with the religion you run into inconsistencies elsewhere, and then if you try fix those the fixes spawn even more, and so on until you have “fixed” it so much there is nothing left of the original you were trying to “protect”.

    So, Ship of Theseus, right? I don’t actually subscribe to some sacred cow of origin wrt religion & practice. Judaism currently has “almost nothing left of the original.” It’s still Judaism. We create our own group identity and our own futures.

78. I have a related question – is reclamation a private act? i.e. on a separate Shoshie thread, I had mentioned I am perfectly comfortable calling my crazy my crazy, but that others didn’t have that right. Totally similar to how Shoshie felt, if I recall, when a commenter showed up to be all, “Yo girl, that’s blanket offensive.”

    So do we need consent from the greater marginalized community for an act to be sufficiently reclaimed?

    I realize I focused on another example, but I’m primarily thinking about this. Do women need to agree to some extent that this act is being reclaimed by Shoshie and other feminist Jewish women who practice it for it to be truly “reclaimed”? My gut is to say no (says this made-up, high heel-wearing, leg shaving feminist), but I feel like a substantial population would disagree. The idea being that we’re just giving into the patriarchy if there isn’t greater consent around the reclamation, or whatever.

79. I think definitely you can reclaim that ritual, if a ritual has survived for 1000s of years it must be flexible because people 1000sof years ago certainly saw the world differently from people 100s of years ago and people today, the same ritual has meaning for all of them and binds them together even though the meaning has changed. Western culture is negative about menstruation so people raised in western cultures project their own negativity on to other cultures.

    Feminists in Aotearoa (“New Zealand”) did exactly this to Indigenous Maori women a couple of years ago. In Maori religion women’s vagina and uterus is the path between our world and the spiritual world (that is a translation into European terms) menstruation is literally a god, when you are menstruating the path is open (this is another translation, it is not exactly right but I can’t think how to explain it..) for this reason menstruating women are powerful or if they don’t understand the traditions around it are vulnerable to other spiritual influences, therefore at this time we have to avoid certain things like objects that might have a life force of their own or a spirit of a previous owner attached to them. Feminists got hold of this information and decided it must mean Maori culture defined women as dirty, because in their culture women are dirty and they are not capable of understanding anything outside their own culture. They stirred up a hysterical media attack on primitive savages it dragged on for weeks: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10679873 this quote “It is fair enough for people to engage in their own cultural practices … but the state shouldn’t be imposing those practices on other people” this is the state that attempted to wipe out Indigenous culture! Maybe feminism isn’t compatible with some cultural traditions but the problem isn’t always with the traditions sometimes the problem is feminism and cultural imperialism.

    This essay gives more information about Maori rituals
    http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/10289/5532/3/thesis.pdf but it is very long, it is probably not interesting if you are not interested in Polynesian religion. The comments on this thread about the boundry between sacred and non-sacred sound really similar to Maori traditions (tapu and noa). 1 example of this is when you enter a meeting house you pass under a carving of a naked women because her vagina has the power to make things noa (safe?) white people interpreted this to mean a woman’s vagina was so dirty it scared away demons and evil spirits! It is obvious that interpretation has nothing at all to do with Maori or reality, it is totally from the minds of white men because that is how they see women. But it does go to show the meaning of rituals can be changed to suit your own needs, even if the need is to demonize Indigenous culture and destroy the power of women. It isn’t a matter of reclaiming, just resisting the colonizers attempts to redefine them.

    I don’t know if any of this applies to Judaism I don’t know if Judaism was colonized in that way but probably Jews’ understanding of their culture was/is influenced by the societies they lived in. It would be interesting to compare the way Jews from non-European societies understand those rituals.

80. Btw 1 thing I do know about Judaism is that the laws are extremely elaborate and complex, Jewish people have to study their religion their whole life. it is just typical of over-privileged white people that they think they can dismiss another person’s culture with 1 comment on a blog!

81. The idea being that we’re just giving into the patriarchy if there isn’t greater consent around the reclamation, or whatever.

    I would say it really isn’t the place of anyone who isn’t Jewish, or really of anyone other than the person doing the reclaiming, to give or to withhold consent.

82. I agree. The idea smacks of having to run our decisions by some Secret Feminist HQ or something. If other feminists disagree with my decisions, they’re free to explain why.

83. Do women need to agree to some extent that this act is being reclaimed by Shoshie and other feminist Jewish women who practice it for it to be truly “reclaimed”?

    I think the individual and group are two different facets of reclaiming an act/word/whatever. An individual can certainly reclaim something without the larger group having done so. And reclaiming something is also a process, especially for a group; some of the group can have reclaimed something, while the rest of the group still rejects it, even in the reclaimed form.

    Reclaimed acts where the form is different than the original, as opposed to keeping the form the same, but using different supporting reasons, also seem to be treated differently, and often more accepted, by the affected group. (For example, the discussions surrounding wives who take their husband’s last name, even if they have different personal reasons.)

84. “Reclaim” is such a loaded term. It suggests consensus. Today I feel like whatever is in the old that’s worth “reclaiming” was ours in the first place.

    There are a dozen examples I can think of where women found positive ways to regard their status in sexist cultures. The first thing I thought of when reading this post was the novel, “The Red Tent,” based on the Biblical story of Dinah, Leah, and Rachel, about the tent that women were deposed to when menstruating or giving birth. Yes, it was a refuge for the women who suffered under an extremely patriarchal culture. This was a punishment — or a “ritual” — prescribed by patriarchy, and what positives the women found in this ritual were in spite of patriarchy.

85. I would say it really isn’t the place of anyone who isn’t Jewish, or really of anyone other than the person doing the reclaiming, to give or to withhold consent.

    What of the greater group of Jewish feminists? Does there need to be consent for the group for it to be reclamation?

86. What of the greater group of Jewish feminists? Does there need to be consent for the group for it to be reclamation?

    No. There’s no Pope of the Jews, and no Jewish Feminist Board of Reclamation with authority to decide whether there’s a consensus about anything. As the old saying goes (attributed to David Ben Gurion), wherever you have two Jews, you have three opinions. I think it’s really nobody’s business what a particular ritual or practice means to a given person or group of people other than the people performing that practice or ritual. To give just one example, it would be the height of arrogance and presumptuousness to expect any trans Jew to wait for, or care about, the existence of a feminist “consensus” before reclaiming the mikveh or any other Jewish practice for themselves. If I had depended on a “consensus” among feminists in managing any aspect of my own life, related to my Jewishness or anything else, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am now.

87. I don’t think I’m explaining my question very well. First, I don’t think the act of reclamation is a question of identity at all. You get to decide who you are, and you alone. And feminists shouldn’t be the arbiter of all things that affect all people – in your example of Jewish trans folks, the idea/question is would the Jewish trans community need to reach some kind of consensus about whether a given Jewish thought or practice that is theoretically cis-sexist could be reclaimed for trans Jews or whether this is something done entirely on an individual level.

    So for an example, I shave. Can I say I’m reclaiming shaving because I like the way my legs feel and eff the kyriarchy? Or do women need to generally agree that there’s a way to reclaim this?

88. I think I do get your point pretty amiable. If it is that these rituals are community rituals meant to bind communities together across generations not just individual lifestyle choices. I don’t know much about Judaism but for my culture that is true,

89. sigh.

    on the one hand, Shoshie, I think it’s rad that you’re trying to reclaim mikveh for your own purposes, and kol hakavod for approaching it in such a thoughtful manner.

    on the other hand, I am disappointed but not at all surprised at the reception you’re getting here, and I wonder if this isn’t a better post for a Jewish blog.

90. I think there have been only a handful of truly hostile reactions, although they certainly stand out for their obnoxiousness. It would really be quite depressing if what you suggest were necessary, and it were impossible for a religious Jewish feminist to post here about something like this.

91. Just wanting to say himawan much I liked this point. I’m still thinking about it

    1. Sorry
       How * much

Comments are currently closed.