| Looking for a Plan B |
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| Written by Arielle Reich | |||||
| Monday, 30 April 2007 | |||||
Yeshiva University's Stern College Comes Up Short in Women’s Health and Education“You’re kidding, right?” This was the phrase most often uttered by my stunned classmates in response to my boasting about my new internship. Partly inspired by an enthusiastic new professor, partly as a way to devote hours to a cause I felt strongly about, and partly as a new opportunity to stir up trouble, I started working at the National Abortion Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL Pro-Choice New York). I wasted no time sharing my new job with the most politically conservative people I knew. The more shocked and horrified the reaction, the amused I was. My peers’ reaction was not unfamiliar to me. As a product of Yeshiva University high school and Stern College, I was familiar with the disdain - or even worse - the apathy, I encountered for my liberal politics. Women’s Health at Risk Stern College operates under the assumption that all students are the virginal (unless married), religious young women portrayed in its glossy brochures, and that vision clearly translates to the type of health services offered. Stern offers a nurse practitioner in an office on the second floor of the freshman dorm, who is available during regular business hours, but leaves early on Fridays. I called in to learn about contraception options, and the nurse confirmed that she could prescriptions in case of illness. I asked if she could then write me a prescription for birth control. “Oh no, we don’t do that,” she responded. “I would send you to a gynecologist.” “And condoms? Or Plan B” I asked, inquiring about the emergency-contraception pill. “Could I pick some up at your office?” “Oh no,” she repeated. “We don’t have any of that here.” After a moment, she asked, “Who is this?” If one would compare the Stern health services to those at Barnard College, a women’s school in the same city, one would find that Stern’s is seriously lacking. Other universities boast pregnancy testing, HPV vaccines, abortion referral and counseling, substance abuse counseling, rape crisis services, and a 24 hour on-call clinician. At my internship, I conducted research and worked on campaigns to support legislative initiatives toward maintaining access to legal abortions and emergency contraception. This stood in sharp contrast to the curriculum and casual discussions at school, where controversial health topics were completely avoided, except for one particular course: Medical Ethics, which I took in Spring 2005, with Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg. Rabbi Waldenberg, a rabbinic authority well known for his treatises on medical halakha resolved that a fetus is considered an appendage of the body and is protected under the laws forbidding causing harm to one’s body. Within this position, he determined that significant maternal anguish, even psychological trauma, could be proper grounds for terminating a pregnancy. Contraception, a topic that one can realistically assume is a more prevalent matter of concern than abortion at a school like Stern, where a large percentage of students are married, was also discussed at length. Birth control, strictly within the context of marriage, was known to be a highly disputed, albeit private matter among the married or engaged women at Stern because of two halakhic citations: (a) the prohibition on wasting sperm and, (b) the positive commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Yet even here, a similar liberal conclusion was drawn, allowing couples to receive special permission from their rabbis, known as a heter. This course allowed me to explore the Jewish law behind the hotly contested health issues on a strictly intellectual basis, without being clouded by the professor’s own point of view or instruction on which opinion to adopt. It gave me confidence in my ideals and opinions, and officially reassured me that the legislation I was working on was not completely forbidden in the eyes of Orthodoxy. But it left me wondering why it was impossible to find like-minded students at Stern. Rallies and Resumes With all the eye-rolling and disapproval expressed by students in the classrooms and crowded elevators at Stern, I began to wonder: if students are so conservative regarding women’s health issues and political controversies, why am I not hearing more about it? Of course, there was the gratuitous “nyah nyah nyah” from a member of the Stern Republicans the morning after Bush’s reelection, but as far as I could see, that was about it. There was never any trouble gathering the ranks in support of Gaza settlements, and the buses were overflowing to take Stern students to Washington, DC for the massive rally for Israel in 2002. The bulletin boards were always filled with notices for upcoming events and ways to get involved in certain international affairs. My personal favorite was the poster advertising a new Zionist magazine. “Do you love Israel?” It asked, “Want to share your opinions? News stories and editorials from a right-wing perspective.” In other words, please share your point-of-view, but only if it is the same as ours. Outside of fliers for endless pro-Israel rallies and advertisements for wig-cleaning services and bridesmaid gowns, it seemed to me that as far as domestic or women’s issues were concerned, the common Stern sentiment was that of indifference. I never really learned which was more offensive: my working toward a controversial and possibly halakhically incorrect cause, or my devoting so much time and energy to something other than acquiring an engagement ring and joint checking account. When I decided to take part in the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, DC in April 2004, I assumed that I would be able to find a contingent to travel with. After all, this was a women’s university, and a national rally for women’s health issues that attracted hundreds of thousands of men and women from across the country. A couple weeks before the rally when I asked my friend if she would attend the rally with me, a third student immediately chimed in, “Don’t you dare go to that rally. It will kill your resume.” This student was not referring to our friend’s ability to gain employment in the future. Rather, she was concerned about her chances of finding a suitable husband. In the end I traveled to Washington on a Greyhound bus with two friends and as far as we know, we were the only three Stern students to attend the rally. The overwhelming social pressure at Stern for students to marry before or very soon after graduation appeared to be one of the main reasons why embracing the “feminist” label “feminist” has become antithetical to what it means to be a Stern girl. I had hoped that at a school whose mission statement declares that it “subscribes to the ideal that the aims of liberal learning are to teach students to think critically,” students would be encouraged to speak their minds and express strong opinions. Conformity in Women’s Education When Stern College opened in 1954, the creation of an academic institution that encouraged women to pursue higher Jewish education was considered revolutionary. Over the decades, however, the overall attitude seems to have shifted from a sense of rebelliousness to one of conformity. The school’s paltry dedication to its students’ health is mirrored in its lack of academic commitment to raising questions about gender. The only option for students interested in the subject is to pursue a minor that is more about the representation of women in text than about developing an interdisciplinary critical lens, one that is particularly pertinent to Jewish studies. Courses that count toward the minor include: “Women in Humor,” “Mothers and Daughters in Literature,” and “Women in Literature,” as well as a Judaic Studies course called “Women in Jewish Law.” The school’s standards of what counted as women’s studies included one class that involved lengthy disputes on the relative virtues of hats and wigs. An informal survey of an introductory women’s studies seminar reveals the unfortunate education these women have received to this point: only three out of the 25 women identified as feminists, and many associated the movement with the breakdown of the nuclear family structure. Simultaneously being a wife and mother - the ruling aspirations of most Stern students - and a feminist was perceived as impossible. Much of these women’s desire to fade into the background comes from the ways they were educated as Orthodox girls. In many day schools attended by Stern students, boys and girls who started out with the same curriculum are separated at age eight or nine and while the girls are stuck with the Bible and Prophets, the boys learn argumentation and logical reasoning by studying the Talmud and rabbinic law. Even in my comparatively liberal “conservadox” day school, boys had a more challenging and prestigious Judaic program in order to prepare them for the Talmud section of the Jewish Board of Education exams required for entry to most Jewish high schools in the New York area. I recall sitting in the admissions office of an Orthodox Jewish high school in Manhattan and hearing the principal tell my mother, “In this school, we believe that Talmud for girls is worthless.” A friend who chose to attend that school reported taking a “life class” that covered blind dating, where girls were instructed to order either an appetizer or desert, but not both, since that could get expensive and unseemly. We can only assume that feminist theory was not on the curriculum. This kind of outrageous statement follows women who pursue an Orthodox education beyond high school. An unmarried student who graduated in 2004 and wishes to remain anonymous recounted her experience in academic advisement. She was discussing law school choices with a professor who suggested that her eventual decision would of course depend on where her future husband would be willing to live. And in a Stern class on the laws of Sabbath, the young rabbi professor digressed from the lesson plan and remarked that “some of you feminists won’t like this, but I believe that a woman is not truly fulfilled until she is married and has children.” What infuriated me was not just that the rabbi assumed that every one of the 40 women was heterosexual, wanting, and able to have children, but that there was an overwhelming number of nodding heads. Without delving into the ancient text, and by avoiding the personal study and exploration of the reasons behind our religious tradition, these girls have no choice other than to do only what they are told, rarely reaching beyond the surface of religious observance. The willingness on behalf of these young girls to march lockstep, as instructed, makes it easier to understand why so many of them are happy to accept their predetermined places in life. According to Devora Whitman, a 2005 Stern graduate, the topic of abortion came up in her Women Studies seminar and “half the class had no idea which opinion they supported. Most of my classmates had never been asked to take a stand either way,” she recalls, “and simply assumed that they were anti-choice.” As the debate raged on, the professor and some vocal students shared their knowledge. The other women in the class began to learn more about the issues and history behind abortion legislation, and the discussion covered everything from birth control to privacy to religion. After learning the facts, the students were more likely to form concrete opinions and understand that there was room for a religious Jew to be pro-choice. It seemed that the only impediment to political interest was the lack of expectations. The Alternative Though most women who study at Stern do not benefit from such institutions, centers for higher learning for women are thriving. Drisha, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is a center for women's in-depth study of Jewish texts. Devorah Zlochower, the head of Drisha’s Beit Midrash and a JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) board member indicated that while Drisha does not call itself a feminist organization, it has been “instrumental in normalizing advanced Jewish learning for women, and bringing the examination of ancient text in a serious and respectful manner into the mainstream.” Zlochower notes that women who want to pursue advanced Jewish education have opportunities at places like Drisha, which have diverse student populations and expansive intellectual scopes. Such places were not available 15 years ago she says, and she has “hope that the landscape is changing.” Drisha is an answer to the kinds of New York-area institutions supposedly for women’s higher learning that offer classes on jewelry-making and how to fill out forms and apply for government benefits. These are classes that teach women nothing else but how to maintain the home. They do not teach them how to prepare for the unexpected or meet challenges, simply because community leaders do not expect the girls to encounter the unexpected, but rather, to maintain the lifestyle of their mothers and grandmothers. Even in the more modern institutions such as the high school I attended, the fear of exposing students to the enticements of a secular culture was stifling. Not being allowed to participate in advanced art class, for example, for fear of seeing naked bodies does not allow oneself to appreciate the beauty of the unexpected and more importantly, does not foster the skills to seek it out. In the two years since my graduation, I have been updated from friends and the professors with whom I have kept in touch. I hear of incredible efforts on behalf of the political science department and certain students to be involved in the fight to end the genocide in Darfur. I hear that while it is still only a minor, the small but feisty Women Studies section is alive and kicking. I am optimistic that those politically active and vocal students, in combination with those who are not afraid to call themselves feminists will continue to raise awareness, invoke debate, and stir up plenty of trouble. It is my ardent wish that the efforts of these Stern women and the rest of the Orthodox world will inspire both individuals and religious institutions alike to stop underestimating and stifling the young women of the next generation. I am optimistic that the future of Orthodoxy will produce women who are no longer hesitant to stand up and declare an opinion, no matter what the opinion may be.
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