{"id":65792,"date":"2019-11-18T23:46:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T21:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=65792"},"modified":"2023-06-13T10:09:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T07:09:35","slug":"to-cower-like-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/to-cower-like-a-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"To Cower Like A Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[483,600],"acf":{"old_id":"65792","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":41525,"related_cahpter":"353","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Biblical roots of patriarchal misogyny and toxic masculinity","content":"

In that day, the Egyptians shall be like women, trembling and terrified because the LORD of Hosts will raise His hand against them.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

What better way to depict how low the Egyptians will fall than comparing them to women? What better way to showcase the lowest point a man might reach than to compare him to a woman trembling, bracing herself for a blow?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What could be worse than being like a woman?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The roots of misogyny run deep. The Bible is rife with woman-hatred, and, as<\/span> I\u2019ve written about before in this series<\/span><\/a>, the Rabbis picked up biblical misogyny like a torch with which they lit the fires of normative Judaism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rabbis believed that Pharaoh (of \u201clet my people go\u201d fame) had sex \u2018like a woman,\u2019 and they used Isaiah 19:16 to prove it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Midrash Tanchuma the Rabbis ask, \u201c[How] do we know that Pharaoh had intercourse like a woman?\u201d Although he was male, they answer, \u201che \u2018disrobed himself like a female\u2019 \u2026 Similarly, the prophet [Isaiah] said: <\/span>In that day, the Egyptians shall be like women.<\/span><\/em>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did Isaiah threaten that the Egyptians would \u201cbe like women, trembling and terrified\u201d? Why did the Rabbis use a metaphor of femininity to degrade Pharaoh? What\u2019s so bad about anyone — male, female, or otherwise — having sex or undressing like a woman?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is wrong with being like a woman?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about the ways in which patriarchal misogyny hurts all of us. The women who are raised to believe that all that they are is everything a man would never want to be. The men who are raised to eschew their vulnerability, to suppress their emotions, to never show weakness, all in the name of \u201cnot acting like a girl.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Such thinking has gotten us generation upon generation of women who lack self-esteem and who internalize misogyny until they are filled with self-doubt or self-loathing. Billion-dollar industries have been founded on capitalizing on this reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Men, meanwhile, are suffering from interminable toxic masculinity. Unable or unwilling to access their emotions. Terrified someone might think they might have sex like a woman, undress like a woman, \u201cbe like women, trembling and terrified.\u201d They are taught to both believe women inferior, which causes and reinforces a deeply destructive gender hierarchy, and to hate a group of humans that comprises roughly one-half of the population of this earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Patriarchal misogyny harms everyone. It\u2019s time to shut the book on Isaiah\u2019s view of women and write new depictions of positive femininity AND masculinity into the history books of our future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":65793,"id":65793,"title":"is19-woman","filename":"is19-woman.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/is19-woman.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/to-cower-like-a-woman\/is19-woman\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is19-woman","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":65792,"date":"2019-11-18 21:46:01","modified":"2019-11-18 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