First off, you made it sound as though the reason these womyn were able to come to positions of power within these movements had nothing to do with their individual skills, and everything to do with the men involved simply choosing to allow them to do so. I doubt this is strictly the case. I think that in times of war or any time where the struggle to survive is paramount, it takes a brave man to step aside and abandon ways of thinking which would automatically give him a sensation of more fake control over his and others' existence. However, I also think the fact women were ready and willing to take these roles is because jewish culture makes sure that women, in some form, even today, have a sense of our own power. I think your analysis misses the reality that Jews tend to dwell in much more equitable situations when married even today. For a Jewish man to truly be the "dominating tyrannical force of his house" would appear to many in his community to be a problem, to show a lack of respect for the women involved--aside from those Jews forced into a position of needing, or wishing to assimilate extremely quickly in order to hide within an unfriendly circumstance where their "Jewishness" or "otherness" stands out. I think these women took power because they were ready to, because they were prepared to do whatever it took To say a revolutionary's struggle was egalitarian, and that this is what offered women the opportunity to take on roles as valued and as valuable as men involved, is a truism. It does not say or prove anything, certainly nothing new. My guess is too that the ideologies involved, based as they were off of a Jewish framework for understanding reality, gave rise to an innate valuing of women as much as men. Perhaps they still held women to roles the women might not have chosen had they been asked, and perhaps it was still a struggle within the movement for these women to take on more traditionally "masculine" roles involving direct combat. At the same time, however, a woman who has been trained But please--give my [our?] people more credit than this! I think it has long been true that aside from the need to assimilate it has in fact been Jewish people's separation from the dominant cultures of whatever countries we happened to find ourselves exiled to at any given time that enabled women to keep our positions of relative power within the home, our freedom to move about somewhat, our positions of power within our communities. That's why so many Jewish womyn were involved in the feminist movement, why so many Jews and particularly Jewish womyn continue to be involved in a variety of freedom struggles for independence around the world. That's why I was always taught it is my right and my duty to be an independent human being in this world. Because that's what Jewish women are like--we are bossy, we are domineering, we know what we want and we are not afraid of ourselves or of our bodies or of whatever sacrifices we need to make in order to get it.
Also, I doubt there is clear evidence that most of these womyn served mainly "emotional" roles in relationship to the men with whom they chose to couple. It strikes me that this is probably a matter largely up to your own interpretation, and as a woman who has seen many women take on strictly logical, rational positions and do so while keeping their own integrity intact, I very much resent these implications. I do think a lot of women fought. Thank you for saying that. I see no reason to imagine that they would not in fact fight. Our lives were at risk too back then. They still are today. Hence, still, we fight. I think the Israeli army would learn something of equality from these stories of heroic resistance fighters. Because you do not provide numbers, I am hesistant in trusting words like "most" or "in the majority of cases." I also think that many of these womyn grew up in incredibly gendered societies. As a result, they probably were already dealing with bodies and minds accustomed to playing out specific roles according to whatever highly gendered construct of a society that they had grown up with in post-WW1 Europe. Simply inviting people to do whatever they were already most accustomed to doing is not the same thing as actually using folks' natural skills to the best of their advantageous ability for a cause. In fact, missing this fact was likely what prevented the movements from achieving both greater success and greater international attention and why they still do not receive greater notoriety. Perhaps. A revolutionary movement that does take time to retrain those accustomed to specific understandings of the limitations of a body according to one's gender roles might even have succeeded better. I suppose we'll never know, though, will we?
Okay, so here's the thing
First off, you made it sound as though the reason these womyn were able to come to positions of power within these movements had nothing to do with their individual skills, and everything to do with the men involved simply choosing to allow them to do so. I doubt this is strictly the case. I think that in times of war or any time where the struggle to survive is paramount, it takes a brave man to step aside and abandon ways of thinking which would automatically give him a sensation of more fake control over his and others' existence. However, I also think the fact women were ready and willing to take these roles is because jewish culture makes sure that women, in some form, even today, have a sense of our own power. I think your analysis misses the reality that Jews tend to dwell in much more equitable situations when married even today. For a Jewish man to truly be the "dominating tyrannical force of his house" would appear to many in his community to be a problem, to show a lack of respect for the women involved--aside from those Jews forced into a position of needing, or wishing to assimilate extremely quickly in order to hide within an unfriendly circumstance where their "Jewishness" or "otherness" stands out. I think these women took power because they were ready to, because they were prepared to do whatever it took To say a revolutionary's struggle was egalitarian, and that this is what offered women the opportunity to take on roles as valued and as valuable as men involved, is a truism. It does not say or prove anything, certainly nothing new. My guess is too that the ideologies involved, based as they were off of a Jewish framework for understanding reality, gave rise to an innate valuing of women as much as men. Perhaps they still held women to roles the women might not have chosen had they been asked, and perhaps it was still a struggle within the movement for these women to take on more traditionally "masculine" roles involving direct combat. At the same time, however, a woman who has been trained But please--give my [our?] people more credit than this! I think it has long been true that aside from the need to assimilate it has in fact been Jewish people's separation from the dominant cultures of whatever countries we happened to find ourselves exiled to at any given time that enabled women to keep our positions of relative power within the home, our freedom to move about somewhat, our positions of power within our communities. That's why so many Jewish womyn were involved in the feminist movement, why so many Jews and particularly Jewish womyn continue to be involved in a variety of freedom struggles for independence around the world. That's why I was always taught it is my right and my duty to be an independent human being in this world. Because that's what Jewish women are like--we are bossy, we are domineering, we know what we want and we are not afraid of ourselves or of our bodies or of whatever sacrifices we need to make in order to get it.
Also, I doubt there is clear evidence that most of these womyn served mainly "emotional" roles in relationship to the men with whom they chose to couple. It strikes me that this is probably a matter largely up to your own interpretation, and as a woman who has seen many women take on strictly logical, rational positions and do so while keeping their own integrity intact, I very much resent these implications. I do think a lot of women fought. Thank you for saying that. I see no reason to imagine that they would not in fact fight. Our lives were at risk too back then. They still are today. Hence, still, we fight. I think the Israeli army would learn something of equality from these stories of heroic resistance fighters. Because you do not provide numbers, I am hesistant in trusting words like "most" or "in the majority of cases." I also think that many of these womyn grew up in incredibly gendered societies. As a result, they probably were already dealing with bodies and minds accustomed to playing out specific roles according to whatever highly gendered construct of a society that they had grown up with in post-WW1 Europe. Simply inviting people to do whatever they were already most accustomed to doing is not the same thing as actually using folks' natural skills to the best of their advantageous ability for a cause. In fact, missing this fact was likely what prevented the movements from achieving both greater success and greater international attention and why they still do not receive greater notoriety. Perhaps. A revolutionary movement that does take time to retrain those accustomed to specific understandings of the limitations of a body according to one's gender roles might even have succeeded better. I suppose we'll never know, though, will we?