|
The
Jewish community wrings its hands over intermarriage and the
melting away of America's Jewish population into the larger
culture. Many analysts say the root of the problem is the
unwillingness of many Jewish men to marry Jewish women, and ask
"why is this happening?"
Perhaps
I can help provide an answer.
Why didn't I marry a Jewish woman? The reason I lost interest in
many Jewish women was the generally contemptuous, belittling,
and bigoted attitude that so many of them have towards men.
My family and I spend the Jewish holidays and many other
occasions with a large group of Jewish relatives, friends, and
acquaintances.
During
the dinner conversation one can be assured that, whatever couple
just argued, broke up, separated, or divorced, it was all the
man's fault. If we're discussing a woman who has chosen to be a
full-time homemaker, the conversation will be about how poor
(insert female name) suffers having to do the child care. No
attention will be paid to the contributions of the husband,
who's working a 50 hour week (or more) so his wife can have the
time to love and care for the kids she chose to have.
Challenges
women face will be discussed bitterly, and challenges men face
will be ignored. Women in the news will be portrayed positively
and their flaws excused or minimized. Men in the news will be
portrayed negatively and their flaws exaggerated and focused
upon.
While
listening to the women at these gatherings I've often wondered:
do they really believe that women are without faults? When they
shake their heads about "husbands who refuse to
change," doesn't it ever occur to them that sometimes they
are the ones who need to change?
Jewish
women could learn much from the story of Sarah, an attractive,
accomplished, 30-something Jewish acquaintance of mine who
usually attended these gatherings. She was engaged to be married
to an intelligent, successful, good-looking gentleman who had a
great rapport with kids. He spent many evenings with these
relatives and bore the manbashing, including Sarah's, without
complaint.
Eventually
he broke up with her and later married a shiksa, for which (of
course) he is vilified. The breakup could have happened for any
number of reasons. However, I'm sure that at least once, as he
listened to the women endlessly demeaning and belittling men, he
stared into his glass of Manischevitz and said to himself,
"Do I really want to spend the rest of my life listening to
this?"
A
Jewish acquaintance recently explained it best. When I asked him
why he and his Jewish wife were splitting up after 20 years of
marriage, he replied: "I got tired of being wrong all the
time."
Once
there was a discussion among the women about a conflict
involving one of the women present, her secretary, her female
boss, and her boss' secretary. The conversation seemed to go on
and on with the participants unable to reach a conclusion.
Finally my wife leaned over to me and said softly, "They
can't resolve this because the conflict is only between
women."
She's
probably right. If there were a man anywhere in the picture--a
boss, a co-worker, maybe even a delivery boy--the problem would
have been conveniently blamed on him and the conversation could
have moved on.
When
challenged on their anti-male prejudices, Jewish women, rather
than considering that they could be in the wrong, often say
things like "Men are just afraid of assertive women."
Nonsense.
Most of my Jewish friends have married Gentiles and I don't know
of one wife who's a pushover, least of all mine. The issue is
fairness, not assertiveness. While there are certainly many
Gentile women who harbor anti-male prejudices, in general I
found them to be less critical of men than Jewish women.
The
misandry (prejudice against men) of the modern Jewish woman
isn't all her fault. Just as those who are bigoted towards
African-Africans, Latinos, Asians, or Jews aren't born bigoted,
neither are Jewish females. Some of the anti-male hostility no
doubt stems from the days before feminism, when women's
opportunities were unfairly restricted.
Yet
for men, who were sent to the army or to war right after high
school, who did hazardous work in coal mines and steel mills,
who had to support their families by themselves without ever
having the chance to stay at home with their children, the
gender restrictions were anything but one-sided. My father, who
worked six days a week for 30 years to insure that my mother,
sister and I had everything we needed, never had a choice about
his gender role, either.
The
other main cause of Jewish misandry is that Jewish females tend
to be highly educated and thus have had much opportunity to
imbibe the anti-male, politically correct myths and prejudices
so prevalent on American college campuses. Most of these
falsehoods about men have been debunked by serious scholars and
dissident feminists, most prominently in Christina Hoff Sommers'
"Who Stole Feminism?" The fact that many Jewish women
(and many women of other ethnicities) still believe these myths
is certainly not entirely their own fault.
Did
I avoid all Jewish women because of Jewish women's misandrist
tendencies? Of course not. I knew many wonderful Jewish
women and I had a couple of near-misses at having an
all-Jewish family. For example, I dated one very intelligent
woman who was studying to be a rabbi. I was pretty head over
heels for her, but I liked her more than she liked me and she
ended it. There were others who didn't pan out for one reason or
another.
Jewish
relatives have asked me if I miss that heimish feeling, that
sense of Jewish closeness that can come only with an observant
and all-Jewish family. I think of my late Russian grandparents,
of my aunts and uncles, and of the Jewish celebrations of my
boyhood and yes, I do miss it. But for me, the true heimish
feeling is little more than a distant memory, for one simple
reason: how can I achieve closeness by sharing my Jewish
identity when it usually means that I will be degraded and
belittled for my masculine identity?
This column first appeared in the
Intermountain Jewish News
(Denver) (7/20/01).
|