Where Have All the Women Gone?

The modern trend in Jewish publications of erasing women is an outright distortion of halacha. It is the result of a desperate attempt to retain cultural identity at a time when it seems that the pull of secular life is too strong. As more Jews seem to leave Observant Jewish life, those in positions of authority hold on tighter to rules, as if that very grip on the rules was a literal grip on those leaving. 

Distorting and replacing public images of women and girls devalues women. It sends a strong message that women are–or should be–invisible because there is something inherently sexual, immodest or immoral about their faces. 

A woman is lauded in a magazine profiling her career accomplishments in the classroom. Included is an image of her empty desk chair (or more often her male boss). She may feel the brunt of this erasure, but consider her students and the message they receive. This is the reward for a job well done. This is how we celebrate those who persist and succeed. This phenomenon has generational effects. It affects how we view ourselves and how we model our role in society for our daughters–and for our sons too. It affects how our sons will grow up to relate to all the women in their lives – their wives and daughters. It sets the stage for dysfunction at a national level.

Sociologist Gaye Tuchman says this is a symbolic annihilation of women. The term “symbolic annihilation” refers to the erasure of a group of people, usually the same people who are often the target of injustice. George Gurbner coined the term in 1972 to mean “absence…condemnation… trivialization.” Tuchman observes, “By largely ignoring women or portraying them in stereotypical roles of victim and/or consumer, the mass media symbolically annihilate women.” 

In publications where a woman’s face is removed or distorted, the ultimate effect is the removal of potential female role models replaced by strongly gendered but faceless domestic stereotypes. These shells are not capable of forming relationships with friends or family. They are simply there for the pink-collar work. These images are not even offset by the presence of strong women in the text of the articles–not strong in the office, and not strong in the home either.

Penina Taylor, Editor in Chief of UNORTHOBOXED, says that furthermore, “the removal of potential role models (highly accomplished women who are modest) creates a dynamic where the only purpose women serve – the only “box” they fit in is sexual. That for many men, the only thought they can think about a woman upon seeing her face is sexual because that’s the only context they are ever exposed to it in. I personally feel like women being represented as weak and dependent is secondary to the hyper-sexualization and demonization of the female form.”

Tuchman says, “Instead, women generally are shown to be defined in terms of their relationships with men—suggesting that women are, in the end, dependent, incapable of living their own lives without male ‘guidance.’” 

Incapable without male guidance.

Rishe Deitsch, editor in chief of the N’shei Chabad Newsletter, publishes pictures of women and has done since she began editing 40 years ago. She disputes the above claim about the reasons magazines might make a different choice than hers. She explained in a private interview that men are undeniably attracted by

their eyes. Other magazines don’t publish pictures of women because they might not be appropriate for the men in the house–it’s as simple as that. But N’shei Chabad? “N’shei Chabad uses pictures [of women]. That’s our way. That’s the Chabad way.”

In her thesis, Modesty or Travesty? Understanding the Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Orthodox Media (abridged version), Rina Schiff (Goloskov) discusses the history of this phenomenon, beginning with two Orthodox newspapers from the 1940s, Dos Yiddishe Licht and Kol Yisrael. Both of these publications published pictures of women regularly. Kol Yisrael was under the auspices of Agudath Israel, a Haredi organization, and carried the chief rabbi’s seal. The editor in charge was known to be outspoken and religiously fervent. One would think if there had been a problem with printing women’s pictures, it would have been noticed at that time and by this personality.

Necklines began to creep upward most significantly after Rabbi Pesach Eliyahu Falk’s book, Oz veHadar Levusha/Modesty: An Adornment for Life was published in 1998. His impetus for writing this tome was a perceived moral decay that had been spurred by the media. This book was the first of its kind, an attempt to codify tzniut. It advises on everything from appropriate necklines and hems to fabrics and colors. Emmanuel Bloch says in his 2018 paper, Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes, that Falk’s book presents tzniut “as the quintessential commandment incumbent upon women” – the female equivalent of the study of Torah for men.

It is this concept that has taken tzniut from being guidelines for modesty and turned it into a distinct religious ideology, taken as law.

Rabbi Shmuel Chayim Papenheim, former editor of the Israeli Haredi newspaper HaEda published engagement announcements listing both bride and groom. When he received pushback for printing women’s names, he stated his belief that the recent policy to not even print women’s names on engagement announcements and wedding invitations “is a distortion of Judaism and the laws of tznius,” claiming that it is “derived from Orthodox Christianity’s idea of modesty.” It certainly had no history in Jewish traditions.

What about the future? What impact might this have on our communities?

Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll is the co-founder of an organization called Chochmat Nashim. She was the feature interview in UNORTHOBOXED’s November 2021 edition. In this interview, she explains that the mission of Chochmat Nashim “is to create a healthy Jewish community where women are seen and heard.” She goes on to relate the story of a 34-year-old woman who died from breast cancer she wasn’t aware she had. There had been no discussion of–or advice regarding–the incidence of breast cancer in her community nor the images portraying how to perform a self-exam, because such discussion or images are considered immodest.

It’s essential to note that these policies, or rather shifts in policy, are not found among all sects of Orthodoxy. It is common and accepted to find breast self-exam advice in the preparation room at the Mikvah. 

The erasure of women has significant emotional consequences as well. Temima Zucker, LCSW, says, “We live in a world that values women’s invisibility, causing women to, at times, have an