Abstract
Since Modern Orthodox Jews are expected to strictly adhere to Jewish law, parts of which give women fewer rights than men, it might seem to be at odds with the feminist notion that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. However, there are many people in the United States who identify as both a Modern Orthodox Jew and a feminist. This thesis works to examine the intricacies of how Modern Orthodox men and women, who also believe in gender equality, navigate their beliefs toward these two seemingly contradictory ideologies. I explore various aspects of Modern Orthodoxy – from prayer to dress to divorce – to see how men and women reconciled or not their potentially conflicting beliefs. What I found is that, while some women do work to gain more rights for women within Modern Orthodoxy, this is not always the case. While all of the men and women in my study supported full gender equality within the secular sphere, in the religious sphere many were more supportive of ideologies that they had come to understand as “normal,” and were therefore comfortable with. These ideologies generally upheld the gender binary, in which women and men are not given the same rights. Some of these women consciously articulate the distinction between an appropriate egalitarian gender system in the secular world and an appropriate non-egalitarian, differentiated gender system in the Modern Orthodox world. Others, however, do not fully articulate or recognize that they are making such a distinction between their religious and secular sphere. There are other women, however, who were uncomfortable with the current gender binary in Modern Orthodoxy, and either advocated for change or reinterpreted various traditions that aligned with their feminist ideology. Importantly, I found that the feminist women in my study are acting with agency as they choose to engage in Modern Orthodoxy, even if it does deprive them of certain rights. Still, there are societal norms, which I will unpack, that make certain societally created gender binaries appear natural, which many of my participants did not question. This thesis aims to uncover and explore such taken-for-granted assumptions, and it works to contribute to larger studies within anthropology through critiquing the notion that feminists are necessarily full advocates for gender equality, and through critiquing the Western notion that people generally hold internally consistent beliefs.