Women's Day

Jewish tradition mandates that when a man and a woman marry, they must sign a contract, known as a Ketubah, dictating the terms, both financial and otherwise, of their marriage. One of the older still-practiced Jewish traditions, archaeological digs have discovered such contracts dating back nearly three thousand years. And so it was with grandparents and their parents before them. So when my father and mother decided to tie the knot, it was, of course, a logical part of the process.

But my mother had some issues. A graduate of Barnard College in 1970, she was the first Barnard woman on the Columbia Alumni Relations board. She was a true 70s feminist, interning for Bella Abzug during college, breaking her own glass ceilings, cementing her place as a woman in a largely male professional world. The traditional Ketubah often contained passages about a woman’s duty to serve her husband. Such talk didn’t fly with Ann Appelbaum (who has kept her name to this day). So she broke out her legal mind and talked to some Rabbis and wrote her own contract, dictating the terms of a marriage where they would serve and love each other, as equals.

Growing up, I was partially sheltered to the struggles of women in the world, largely due to the fact that I grew up with a mother who knew no fear. She claimed women could do it all, and to me, it seemed she did. She was a successful university lawyer, served on the Board of Trustees of my various schools, and managed to cook dinner most nights. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized what she probably gave up, the baseball games she wish she could have attended, the career advancement that probably passed her by. She made her choice, sure, but it was still a choice, and choices have their consequences, good or bad.

In Ukraine, women do not seem to envision these choices. When dealing with some of my more precocious and ambitious female students, I try to regale them with anecdotes about my mother. How she is a lawyer, how she didn’t marry until after 30, how she kept her name and how she is respected for her intellect. And my students listen, and they register their shock, but I have some trouble getting the message through that they, too have choices. That they don’t have to be married by 25 and they don’t have to be subservient to a man. I usually find myself a persuasive man. But its hard to convince someone of something that, for you, is such a self-evident truth.

Am I a feminist? Its a question I’ve asked myself a lot in recent years, especially since college. Because I believe in equality and pay equity and I recognize serious gender issues in the workplace. I am distraught by cases of sexual abuse and I am concerned that much of the advances my mother fought for have stagnated. And yet, whenever in college I found myself in discussions with self-described feminists, I often found myself at ideological odds. We just always seemed to place the emphasis on different issues. And so when I’d argue with these strong willed women, they’d simply tell me I didn’t understand. I could never understand. I am a man, and I will never know what it is like to walk a day in a woman’s shoes

I think about this alot here. I want to teach these girls to stand up for themselves, to have options, to be individuals. So I tell them not to get married too young and I tell them to dream big, but it seems sort of silly, like I am giving pigeonholed advice for a pandemic problem. I simply find myself unable to teach them how to be a feminist. And perhaps, its because I’m not.

I’ve always believed complete empathy is impossible. I’ll never be able to fully comprehend the plight of African Americans or Hispanics or Native Americans. And no one can ever explain what the Holocaust means to me. And I can believe in equality and I can preach about women’s issues, but I am not a woman, and I will sort of always feel like an outsider looking in.

There is this movement that began 160 odd years ago in Seneca Falls, or perhaps, one could argue, long before that. As much as I try to be a part of it, I just struggle to feel like a feminist. And maybe its a linguistic issue and maybe its a movement issue and most likely its largely a personal issue. But I sometimes think that I’m probably not the only guy like me, someone who is told I’ll never understand, rather than have his concerns entered into the equation.

Women’s day is fast approaching in Ukraine, and I have been thinking for some time how I could do my part, how I could try and instill a bit of the gender ideology I have always held into these girls who have grown up a world apart.

I want to teach these girls what being a modern woman means. And I read the steps men can take to promote women’s issues, and some of them resonated, but as much as I tell these boys to respect women, its not the half the lesson that is taught by a women who demands respect. Thats the feminism I learned, and no one seems to be able to tell me how to teach it.

So for women’s day this year, I am going to be baking cookies. My mom’s recipe. And I’m going to hand out the cookies around the school and regale the females around me with stories of my mother and Seneca Falls and Bella Abzug. And I’ll also be sure to tell them how much I enjoy baking these cookies, and how my sister, who probably orders take out multiple times every week, has a monthly salary that makes mine seem like it has the decimal point in the wrong place. I’ll tell them I come from a place where our choices, not our genders, define our roles. And I’ll tell them they can do anything, if they just believe.

I doubt that I’ll drastically alter the landscape, but Rome was not built in a day. One university degree earned, one marriage contract rewritten, one cookie at a time, one more step in a positive direction. I may not be a feminist in the traditional sense of the word. But I’m going to do the best I can, and hopefully that’s something.


(Author's note: This article was originally written before March 8, womens day. The day was a success, and no one died from the cookies, although I did singe my eyebrows. This article may also appear in some form in the GADFLY, Peace Corps Ukraine's Gender and Development Newsletter.)