it's all in how you say it

[cellio]

A fellow congregant called and asked me to be on the steering committee (read: board) of the sisterhood.

What I thought: Having a sisterhood (and brotherhood) is anathema to an egalitarian congregation. If we say that men and women don't have assigned roles, why on earth would I want to help perpetrate an organization that tries to go backwards by (re-)assigning those roles? It's not like our sisterhood and brotherhood are trying to move past conventional gender roles -- the women handle babysitting during services and serve cookies and coffee afterwards, and the men hold barbeques and talks by investment bankers. Feh! I want none of it! And not just because babysitting and serving coffee aren't my thing! There's a higher principle here. How can I help you see this?

What I said: I'm flattered, but no.

Comments

[cellio]

Part of the problem is figuring out whom to discuss it with and what I want to accomplish (these are related). I've chatted with a few friends about this to make sure I'm not completely missing the point, but I'm not close enough to the people who run the sisterhood (like the person who called me) to feel comfortable bringing it up with them. And there's certainly an element of "well, it works for them..." to my thinking; is it even proper to challenge it? And it's much, much bigger than my synagogue; almost everyone seems to have these. I'm not about to lead a crusade against this; I just think it's stupid, sexist, inappropriate, and hypocritical, and I won't participate myself. (There are other issues that are more important to me, and equally prickly; I'm not going to expend energy on this particular losing battle.)

Eventually, after the passing of the older folks who came from generations when the term "women's work" was meaningful, maybe the whole institution will sort of collapse in on itself. I can hope, anyway. On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of middle-aged folks involved in both sisterhood and brotherhood, so maybe not. Some of those are undoubtedly just looking for a social group, and are missing the other social groups available both within and outside of the congregation, but inertia might be too powerful here. Dunno.