[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Joseph C. Kaplan]

I don't think RRW's analogy to tefillin does the trick.  He writes: "Now plug in Men violating Tz'nius as little as possible (but not absolute zero for practical reasons.)"

But that's just the point - men do NOT violate tzni'ut as LITTLE as possible; they violate it as MUCH as possible if you accept RHS and RMB's definition of tzni'ut for men.  As I thought of this some more, I thought about the usual wedding.  There are 11 roles that men play out under the chupah (aside from the groom): mesader kiddushin, two eidim, reader of the ketuba and those reciting the seven brachot.  At most weddings I attend, there are, indeed, 11 different men who walk up to, and stand under, the chupah to perform these roles (sometimes one or two fewer).  Now, if we took RHS's analysis and RMB's understanding of tzni'ut for men seriously, or if RRW's claim that men violate tzni'ut as little as possible, we would have just two men doing all these public tasks (the two eidim who could one of whom could be mesader kiddushin, the other read the ketuba, and they could split up the sheva brachot between themselves), thus protecting the other men in the audience from violating their tzni'ut.  THAT would be men violating tzni'ut as little as possible; THAT would demonstrate that we really mean that men and women have the same type of tzni'ut obligations.  But we all know that's not how we do it. To the contrary, we consider these roles kibudim - honors - not unfortunate, but necessary, violations of tzni'ut.  We say "We *honor* Rabbi Ploni with the fourth bracha," not "We request Rabbi Ploni to violate his tzni'ut by reciting the fourth bracha because we need someone to so it." 

Equal tzni'ut obligations for men and women might sound good on paper but it's not related in any way to the Judaism I see practiced by both the people AND their leaders.

And, while on this topic, I can't say how happy I am that RTK agrees with me, even if not completely.  It's made my day!

Joseph Kaplan
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