[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[T613K at aol.com]

Old TK: 


>if  you gave the women the option of either serving or not
> serving as  witnesses, you would not have an equitable system.  It would
>  introduce a level of arbitrariness to the legal system.... 

>Plus, maybe more important, it would remove
> from the woman  the element of protection of her dignity and tznius, 
since if
> she  /can/ testify at her own discretion, she will be pressured to do so 
in
>  many cases.
 

R' Arie Folger wrote:



>Surely this raises the question whether the theory  previously
expounded upon in this august forum is correct, namely that  tzniut
underpins just about all behavior, and that for whatever reason,  poor
men are sometimes obligated to sacrifice this behavior - a  behavior
that both genders have in common - for the sake of the greater  good. I
simply take note that you have brought tzniut squarely back on  women's
backs, as one could imagine there being equally important public  needs
for men's and women's testimony.<<
 
TK:  I never bought the notion that "tznius is the same for men and  
women."  I don't agree with RMB on this point and I don't think it's  true.  I 
believe that what would be a breach of tznius for a  woman is not necessarily a 
breach of tznius for a man -- e.g., singing in  public, at a concert or 
while leading services in  shul.   I concede that I was a little loose in my  
wording, conflating "dignity" and "tznius"  when they are overlapping  but 
not congruent categories.
 
 
RAF:



>>Furthermore, as I have demonstrated, the plain meaning  of said derash
on Devarim 22:16 is that a woman cannot/should not/may not  defend
herself against a male accuser, who accuses her of a capital  crime.

IOW, we weren't talking about subpoena (well, R'n CL was, but  the
derash isn't) but rather about the right to represent yourself in  beit
din when defending yourself. <<
TK:  I was talking about women being witnesses in court, not women  being 
defendants.  I was under the impression that women defendants /are/  allowed 
to defend themselves, and I would be very surprised if the death penalty  
could ever be carried out against a defendant who had no opportunity to defend 
 herself in court.  A woman who had committed a crime (or was credibly  
accused of a crime) would have acted in such a manner as to take herself out of 
 the category of women whose dignity must be preserved (and who therefore 
cannot  be called to testify in court).
 
 
--Toby  Katz
==========



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