I wasn’t planning to post today but I couldn’t let South Jerusalem’s readers head into the holiday season without alerting them to Anastasia Michaeli, the superwoman who is headed for the Knesset on the Yisrael Beiteinu list led by Avidgor (“the only thing to my right is the wall”) Lieberman.
When it comes to role models for Israel’s young women, you can’t beat Michaeli. A Russian immigrant who has pulled herself up by the straps of her high heels, she’s a tv star, former beauty queen, and a mother of seven. She’ll be the first Knesset member to bring a baby to full term in term and (so the papers say) the first convert to Judaism to serve in that august body.
Michaeli will be the Knesset flagbearer of third-wave feminism. First-wave feminists demanded equal rights and opportunities; second wave feminists stressed female distinctness and pride. Third-wave feminists have taken the bold step of proclaiming that men can do whatever they like; they can trust their women to remain pure. Here’s Michaeli on how every woman should treat her husband:
A man remains a man, at least in terms of his sexual needs, even in Judaism. A man can go to another city and can sleep with another woman and go back to his wife. A woman has no such privileges. A woman must be a mother and clean.
We’ve come a long way from Manya Shochat, the pioneer fighter, socialist, and Zionist activist, and from Rachel the Poetess, who sang about her sorrow at men’s inconstancy. Only now, in 21st-century Israel, can a woman stand up proudly for family values and for her husband’s God-given right to promiscuity.
What a great time to be a Jew, and an Israeli.
Kind of makes me miss Sarah Palin! (I wonder how many other people will say that.)
Oww. Oww. Oww. Michaeli’s existence is giving me such a headache!
Nu? She isn’t saying anything that hasn’t been cast in the concrete double-standard that has always existed. Women can loudly proclaim that they have the same right to sexual freedom that men do, and in theory we do, but the sad fact is that the double standard exists and always will. “He’s a real stud” and “He can get any woman he wants,” is said with admiration; a woman who behaves the same way is labeled a slut. Yes, yes, I know that Men of the Left are far more sensitive and liberated….to the extent that all through the 70s they were offering to sleep with me and all my women friends just to prove to us that they didn’t share those old-fashioned, out-dated scruples……
This is a grotesque misunderstanding of Third Wave Feminism. Seriously, it’s utter rubbish. Check out the Wikipedia page on the subject for a broad introduction. You’ll find nothing about subscribing to hypocritical double standards of sexual conduct.
togolosh, I was being sarcastic!