women’s empowerment

Purim – Celebrating Women!

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Purim in Israel looks like Halloween on the outside – costumes, parties, drinking – but it’s actually the celebration of a woman who saves the Jewish people. Coincidentally, I saw Captain Marvel and On the Basis of Sex this month, which happens to be Women’s History Month. If you know anything about the story of Purim, you’ll know that that is also a story full of coincidences.

Unapologetically Feminine

What I found interesting in these three stories is that Esther, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Carol Danvers succeeded in a man’s world without forcing themselves to become masculine. Moreover, their inner spark and strength was hidden in plain sight. Esther was a beauty pageant winner and queen. She followed the rules and requirements of her position, and found a way to avert the genocide of her people. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a wife and mother, valued her family above all, followed societal rules, and still excelled in everything she did (except cooking; she’s terrible at it). Carol Danvers joined the Air Force, became a fighter pilot, and, in typical superhero style, was infused with the most powerful energy in the universe. At first glance, she seems “masculine,” but she leads with her heart and one “friend” calls her emotions a weakness. Rather than a weakness, she finds on her journey that they are her strength. The best feminist line is when she is set to fight a guy she thought was a mentor and a friend. He knows he can’t beat her powers, so he challenges her fist to fist, no weapons, to prove herself to him (he knows he can win). She shoots him with photon blasts from her hands. As he wakes, he sees her surrounded by sunlight and she says, “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

Encouraging Allies

In Hero(ine) Journey style, Esther, Ruth, and Carol have an ally. The ally is not just a partner, but is a person who reminds our heroine who she is and helps her fulfill her destiny by lifting her up and acknowledging and celebrating her strengths and easing her weaknesses. Esther had Uncle Mordechai. He raised her, helped her win the pageant, coincidentally stopped an assassination attempt, and kept her in touch with her roots and her people. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her husband Marty. He was her partner in life: an involved father and husband, a supporter of every choice, a peacemaker, and he was also quite a good cook. Carol Danvers had her best friend Maria Rambeau to remind her who she is and what her true strengths are and Nick Fury to help her navigate Earth of the 1990s and fight bad guys.

Stories for Women and Men in the Real World

Women can be inspired and fulfill their destinies. Men can see what true allies look like so that they can move forward by lifting women up instead of pushing them down to soothe their own egos. Armie Hammer who plays Martin Ginsburg said that he could never live up to the standards set by his character, but it was something to aspire to. He says (on The Graham Norton Show): “I think the model of their marriage and their relationship was the basis of the gender equality that Ruth later sought during her entire legal career.”

At the same time, I’m sickened by the news coming out of South Korea right now of Korean pop singers sharing hidden camera videos of their sexcapades, procuring prostitutes for investment schemes, and other crimes. This week a live streaming hidden camera site spying on 1,600 people having sex in their motel rooms was exposed. Under the banner of “My Life Is Not Your Porn” Korean women started taking to the streets last summer to highlight the phenomenon of cameras hidden in changing rooms and public bathrooms. This led to an effort to sweep public restrooms on a regular basis to check for spycams. I hope Korean women can find inspiration from a real person like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a possibly real person in their history like Jews have in Queen Esther, and if all else fails, they can take inspiration from the most powerful superhero in the Marvel universe, Captain Marvel. And from these stories, Korean men can learn to be allies instead of misogynists.

In every reading of the Purim story, we can learn a new lesson. Let’s let this year’s lessons be:

  • Women are strong
  • Sometimes only a woman can save everyone
  • Step by step, with patience and determination, women can change the world

The movies are very good, not the best I’ve ever seen, but they are definitely stories worth telling and sharing.

*This post is inspired in part by this article.

Happy International Women’s Day!

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As I was looking for images for this post, I was taken aback by what the search brought up.

Roses – tons of roses – and other flowers. Now I’m a big fan of flowers, but does that say “International Women’s Day”?

The alternative was the female symbol, some with a fist, some without. Or protesting in the Women’s March.

So I chose this one, which is a combination of both. (There were also some cat options, but let’s not go there.)

emblem-2122145_1280

International Women’s Day is marked in Israel in a variety of ways. My office job usually gives women a half day off, but since International Women’s Day was on Friday (already a half day for those who work, but not a working day for most), they decided to do a makeup workshop.

A few thought it would be fun. Others were offended. How does dolling yourself up to meet societal beauty standards empower women? I was more on the “it would be fun” side because I think self-care and making yourself beautiful for yourself is empowering. But I can also see that it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you aren’t beautiful without a full face of makeup.

A guy friend of mine told me that he was really angry about what his office was doing for International Women’s Day. They were sending all the women to the movies to see On the Basis of Sex. He really wanted to see it too! He felt discriminated against. (In his defense, he believes in equal rights and would never look down on a woman for any reason.) Personally, I hope all the men in his office felt discriminated against too. Nothing wrong with a gentle reminder of what discrimination feels like.

Another celebration of women that I’m loving right now is female (super)heroes (should I write heroines here instead?). It seems like almost every movie or show coming out right now has a strong female lead. The problem, of course, is when people “get tired of it” and it “no longer sells.” And then the pendulum will swing back to male-dominated movies. Someday, we’ll just have gender-balance. Wouldn’t that be nice?

So for this International Women’s Day, I hope you all appreciate the women in your lives!

**And special to the Women, Womyn, Womxn, Ladies, and Grrrls: Our strength comes from lifting all of us up, not from pushing others down. We are sparks of light who can lead the way through the darkness.

Something to make me smile – Ethiopian Women Bus Drivers

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

In some ways, Israel is quite progressive in gender equality. And in many other ways, Israel is still in the Dark Ages.

Bus driver was one of those jobs in Israel that was always done by a man. Ethnicity didn’t seem to matter, but it was always a man. I don’t know if it’s related, but bus drivers are notoriously aggressive drivers. I was once on a bus – a double-length bus with an accordion middle junction – on a two-lane street. The car ahead of this bus was annoying the driver and in spite of the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the bus somehow passed the car. There may have been some popping up on the curb and shouting back and forth, but I cannot really explain how it was physically possible for a double-length bus filled with people to maneuver in traffic like a two-seat roadster.

Egged

A few years ago, I noticed that things were starting to change. I saw more Arab drivers, still men though. And then I saw a woman driver.  And then I noticed more women drivers, even Arab women drivers. Women drivers are still pretty rare to see, but I get very happy when I see them. Is our sexist country finally starting to change a little bit?

I have to say that I’m happiest when I see an Ethiopian woman driver.

When you examine the social strata of Israel, I think the group with the most obstacles facing them is Ethiopian women.

They face blatant racism. There are plenty of rabbis in the rabbanut (the religious authority in Israel) who do not accept Ethiopians as properly Jewish and require that they go through a formal, Orthodox conversion.

The Ethiopian struggle to come to Israel is awe-inspiring. Some were brought in emergency airlifts having never seen a plane before. Some walked the whole way facing hunger, thirst, natural dangers, and human dangers. They faced unimaginable odds and obstacles at every turn. And many thousands died along the way.

Some Ethiopians face a cultural gap – in some cases a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon. Can you imagine living in an African village, more or less self-sufficient in your community, and then you arrive in a place that is technologically a hundred years more advanced? Once you didn’t need to read and write, and then suddenly everyone is asking you to fill out a form in a foreign language?

It’s a sad fact that some older Ethiopian men haven’t adjusted to life in Israel very well. They come to Israel and because they don’t succeed in society, they feel emasculated. And their frustration gets taken out on their families, especially wives.

But then you see her, a petite Ethiopian woman – the steering wheel of the bus is nearly the entire length of her arm – and she’s maneuvering this monster vehicle in the crazy traffic of rush hour Jerusalem and dealing with impatient, hot, frustrated passengers.

Imagine a two-lane road with cars parked with two wheels on the sidewalk (yep, that’s legal parking) along both sides and both lanes are bumper-to-bumper. Now you have some idiot who parked their car badly and it’s sticking out in the street blocking part of the lane. You’re the bus driver who has to get this huge vehicle through an even smaller space than usual.

It just so happened that in the opposite lane was a bus from a bus-driving school with an instructor and a student driver. As our Ethiopian woman driver perfectly executed the right moves to get the bus through the narrow gap left to her without touching any other cars, she got cheers and fist pumps from the instructor and student in the other bus and a murmur of approval from the passengers who could see what was going on.

And in that moment, she was on top based on her own skill, her own merits, and her own grit in getting things done. It was a beautiful thing to see!

(And I was much more forgiving when she nearly missed my stop, which was right after this little drama.)

 

Book review: The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion

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Actually, I listened to it. I’m a huge fan of audiobooks and am a proud member of Audible.com. Audiobooks allow you to get stuff done while enjoying a story, a lecture, or listening to advice. My first book was Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, performed by the incomparable Edoardo Ballerini. I use the word performed because readers don’t just drone along in a monotone (like I probably do when I read aloud), they do the voices and they bring the story to life. When it’s really good, in all honesty, you can’t do anything else but listen.

After that, I was hooked.

I recently finished The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg. You might remember the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, which is based on another one of Fannie Flagg’s books. The main characters have a few things in common, I think.

The best scene from Fried Green Tomatoes: “Face it, girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.” Nobody does it better than Kathy Bates.

Fanny Flagg performed her own book and it was nice to hear her lightly southern-accented voice tell the story while bringing out other characters – like the ones from Wisconsin with their own completely different accent.

Short review: It’s excellent. Give it a listen!

Long review: Below the picture. Watch out for spoilers.

Cover

We meet Mrs. Earle Poole Jr. Her first name is Sookie, but it seems that she has no identity except in relation to other people – wife, mother, daughter, sister. She feels like she’s never been good enough or smart enough. Well, in comparison to her narcissistic, drama-inspiring, southern belle mother, she’s pretty tame.

Until the letter arrives. At the age of 60, she finds out she’s adopted!

The story splits and we stay with Sookie trying to figure out her place in the world and also hear the story of her biological mother – a Polish Catholic girl from Wisconsin who flew airplanes in World War II!

I loved the movie Fried Green Tomatoes and its message of empowerment. Here again Fannie Flagg reminds us that women are amazing just by doing whatever it is that makes them happy and fulfilled.

It was a bit sad to listen to the history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). They were just as good as the men and when they were needed, they were tolerated, but when they started to threaten the jobs of men who didn’t want to be foot soldiers, they were shoved out and forgotten. Only recently were these brave, inspiring women recognized and remembered.

By the end of the book, Sookie learns that she’s wonderful just the way she is. She has her own talents and she has grown into who she is all on her own. She has her southern roots in the family that raised her, but she also has her roots in the DNA that was passed down to her. Now, she’s learned to be proud of the life she’s lived – she was not “just a housewife”– and to use her talents to the fullest. It’s a good message for women and frankly anyone.