Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men on plane flights have been refusing to sit next to women who aren’t their wives. Flights have been delayed, women have been insulted, and the problem seems to be growing. A front page article in today’s Times discusses a number of such incidents.
I have a number of thoughts about this:
Here we go again with another stupid religious belief in a long list that seems to get longer every week and extends to just about every religion I can think of.
What is it with ultra-Orthodox men that they can’t even sit next to a woman on a plane without thinking impure thoughts? Take a cold shower before the flight and memorize the instructions on that card they keep in the seat pocket. That should take your mind of the woman next to you.
Men who hold medieval attitudes about women probably ought to stick to donkeys and other medieval forms of transportation.
Right on, right on, right on! At the risk of getting all suffergette city about the whole thing, as I get older, I'm getting more feminist. What is it with these guys? A few days ago, David Brooks wrote an article about how America has a great tradition of religious tolerance, and we shouldn't force business people to conduct commerce with those they disapprove of, i.e., gays. He used the example of an orthodox Jewish woman, saying no man should be offended if she refused to shake his hand. Twisting the example so it was a woman refusing to shake a man's hand was a sly trick. Religious fundamentalists of all stripes enjoy the freedoms of our secular society. Here's the deal: we don't tell them what to believe and in turn we should't be forced to alter our behavior so as not to offend their religious sensitivities.
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