What are things you’ve been told you should or shouldn’t do because of your gender? This week at Makom Community we used the story of Leah and Rachel marrying Yaakov to help us unpack some gender role expectations, both in Torah text and in our own lives. During shulchanot avodah (learning centers), we looked at plot points from the story and recorded the expectations for men and women we could noticed in each one. Here’s the chart we filled out with those messages:
Text example | Messages about men | Messages about women |
Yaakov went traveling to look for a wife | Men are responsible for finding wives for themselves | Women wait to be found by a man who wants to marry them |
Rachel tends to her father’s flock of sheep | Men own flocks of sheep | Women help take care of sheep (that their fathers/other men own) |
Yaakov moves the big rock on the well by himself | Men are strong; men provide help | It’s not a woman’s job to open the well. |
Lavan greets Yaakov with hugs and kisses | Men love each other; men hug and kiss to show love; men can express their emotions | Women’s emotions don’t matter to the author (the text doesn’t tell us about them) |
Yaakov asks for Rachel as payment for his work for Lavan | Men can pay for women like property | Women can get sold like property or money |
Rachel is described as beautiful; Leah is described as having weak eyes | Men care about how women look; men judge women only by their appearance | Women are valued by their appearance rather than their inner-beauty |
Lavan and Yaakov arrange for Yaakov to marry Rachel without talking to her | Men are in charge | Women don’t get a say in their marriages |
Lavan brings Leah to marry Yaakov without talking to anyone involved about it | Sometimes men aren’t even honest with each other about what they’re doing | Women have to listen to the decisions men make for and about them |
Lavan “gives” Rachel to Yaakov to marry | Men give women away like they are things | Women are treated like things |
Yaakov marries both Leah and Rachel | Men can marry as many people as they want | Women just have to go along with their marriages whether or not they wanted them |
Taking a step back from the text, we also brainstormed lists of the stereotypical expectations for boys and girls that we notice in our own lives. I am pleased to report that there was a healthy level of indignation and frustration from all of our students while we did this exercise. It’s heartening to see that these kiddos both notice lots of gender stereotypes and also think that they’re unfair and wrong. Here are the lists we made:
Boys | Girls |
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We concluded our conversation by noticing what we do at Makom Community to challenge those gender norms:
- We get to be ourselves! [It’s on our brit, two-way promise, from the beginning of the year.]
- You divide us by age instead of by boys and girls.
- When you put us into groups, you don’t always pair boys with boys and girls with girls.
- We’re all able to play with whomever we want.
- We let boys and girls be equal. No one gets better stuff or special treatment because of their gender.
I’m happy about this list, and I also think it could be even longer. We’ll continue to look for ways to help everyone be themselves, help us all get what we need, and smash the patriarchy along the way.