Not
very long ago I met a young man at a business function. “Hello, I’m
Amanda,” I said, sticking out my hand in greeting. He kept his arms
glued to his side. “I don’t touch women,” he said.
He
was, I realized belatedly, a deeply Orthodox Jew whose tradition
prohibited even minor physical contact between men and women outside
their families. I nodded politely and moved on. But the encounter deeply
troubled me, then and now. Faced with someone who refused to shake my
hand because of who I was, I defaulted to social courtesy, wishing
neither to make a fuss nor disparage this young man’s religious beliefs.
Yet
later I wondered: Why are biased acts against women — even religiously
motivated ones — considered so much less toxic than biased acts of any
other kind? Why do women often demur and accept humiliation rather than
make a fuss? Why does respect even for admittedly extreme religious
beliefs trump respect for half the human race?
My
encounter came to mind again as I pondered recent stories of
ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refusing to take airline seats next to women.
Several cases were reported in the New York Times this month. Others have appeared in the Israeli press as far back as 2012.
On
some flights women reportedly moved when asked. Some men switched
places with women to eliminate the adjacency problem. Some flight
attendants assisted the Orthodox men in relocating. Yet when others did
not, some flights were delayed as men refused to be seated. The
incidents have spawned lively discussions among Jews and non-Jews alike.
Yet I wonder: Why are we even discussing this?
Would
such blatant behavior be treated merely as a social choice, a courtesy
issue or an awkward airline customer-service problem if the targets were
anyone other than women?
Let’s test it.
What if we recast my encounter, giving me a different race and gender.
How do I react now if someone says, “I don’t touch black men.” Do I
quietly move on? How would this young man have reacted had the tables
been turned? What if I had done something I could never imagine myself
doing? Would he have treated it as a social issue if I had refused his
hand, saying: “I don’t shake hands with Jews?”
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