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Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of musings on the revelation that R' Ovadia Yosef agrees with a lot of his predecessors that in a pinch, women can read Megillah for men.
The articles about this happily predict that Ashkenazim will be outraged. Certainly if you look at the comments on reports about this, you don't see a lot of people going "Hey, sweet! Let's bear that in mind just in case." You do see a good deal of "Well, he's Sephardic. Ashkenazim don't do it like that."
(You also see a lot of misogynist nastiness, a lot of which is probably trolls, so be warned and don't get sucked in.)
So, those Ashkenazim. What's the opposing position?
There's a substantial body of opinion that says women may not read Megillah for men. The reasoning mostly revolves around a) women have a different sort of obligation b) men shouldn't hear women sing because it is dangerously sexy c) it's tantamount to admitting that all the men in the community are ignoramuses and no community should have to make that kind of humiliating admission. Right- and far-right-wing Ashkenazim mostly fall into this camp.
The pro camp, the one liberals and (it seems) Sephardim tend towards, answer more or less thus: a) No they don't b) No it isn't, at any rate not in shul, sicko c) No it isn't.
a) is technical, and I will summarise as "appropriately qualified proxies."
b) is the concept known as "kol isha." Layman's wisdom is that in general, hearing women's voices causes Inappropriate Thoughts In Men, and therefore women should not sing, or possibly even speak too much, around men. The idea is reflected in secular culture, in the expectation that if a woman dresses up, or possibly even just behaves friendly, around men and gets raped, she was asking for it. Again, the idea goes an awful lot deeper than we like to think.
The feminist knee-jerk aspect is to say that making women responsible for men's loss of self-control is appalling and we should stop doing it right away. That making space for this idea just legitimises a rape culture, essentially. Then you get to stop jerking your knees and think about shades of grey, and fold it back into the "she was asking for it" debate, which even in the secular world is nowhere near stability.
The halakhic discourse goes back and forth over whether there are contexts (such as sacred texts, or not knowing the woman in question) in which "kol isha" is not a problem. The question, basically, has to do with where societal standards of decency lie - just how flirty do you have to be before one might reasonably say you were asking for it? just how sexy does someone have to be singing before we can reasonably say they are a distraction? I think instinctively we think there is some level of restraint that can reasonably be expected of people, and some of the discussion of "kol isha" has to do with trying to work out what that is.
"Kol isha" is also sometimes used as a convenient tool by people who want an easy excuse for why women shouldn't do things. Not wanting to change the status quo, not wanting to surrender privilege, not wanting to share power - these are all reasons for using such excuses. "Their brains aren't suited for it" has been used in the secular world for similar reasons.
I don't think these are good reasons, but they are nonetheless extremely powerful, and underestimating them isn't useful. Sweeping aside "Their brains aren't suited" as nonsense made way for more women to do brain stuff, but there is still the cultural expectation that men are smarter, and women's participation in brain arenas is still limited. Similarly, just sweeping aside kol isha and saying that of course women are allowed to use their voices in public will give women a voice, but it won't necessarily solve the underlying problem.
c) is, of course, related, and the more I think about all this, the more I see the parallels in secular life, and the more I become convinced that: I'm bloody lucky to live with as much freedom as I have, but nonetheless there's an awful lot more that could be better.
The articles about this happily predict that Ashkenazim will be outraged. Certainly if you look at the comments on reports about this, you don't see a lot of people going "Hey, sweet! Let's bear that in mind just in case." You do see a good deal of "Well, he's Sephardic. Ashkenazim don't do it like that."
(You also see a lot of misogynist nastiness, a lot of which is probably trolls, so be warned and don't get sucked in.)
So, those Ashkenazim. What's the opposing position?
There's a substantial body of opinion that says women may not read Megillah for men. The reasoning mostly revolves around a) women have a different sort of obligation b) men shouldn't hear women sing because it is dangerously sexy c) it's tantamount to admitting that all the men in the community are ignoramuses and no community should have to make that kind of humiliating admission. Right- and far-right-wing Ashkenazim mostly fall into this camp.
The pro camp, the one liberals and (it seems) Sephardim tend towards, answer more or less thus: a) No they don't b) No it isn't, at any rate not in shul, sicko c) No it isn't.
a) is technical, and I will summarise as "appropriately qualified proxies."
b) is the concept known as "kol isha." Layman's wisdom is that in general, hearing women's voices causes Inappropriate Thoughts In Men, and therefore women should not sing, or possibly even speak too much, around men. The idea is reflected in secular culture, in the expectation that if a woman dresses up, or possibly even just behaves friendly, around men and gets raped, she was asking for it. Again, the idea goes an awful lot deeper than we like to think.
The feminist knee-jerk aspect is to say that making women responsible for men's loss of self-control is appalling and we should stop doing it right away. That making space for this idea just legitimises a rape culture, essentially. Then you get to stop jerking your knees and think about shades of grey, and fold it back into the "she was asking for it" debate, which even in the secular world is nowhere near stability.
The halakhic discourse goes back and forth over whether there are contexts (such as sacred texts, or not knowing the woman in question) in which "kol isha" is not a problem. The question, basically, has to do with where societal standards of decency lie - just how flirty do you have to be before one might reasonably say you were asking for it? just how sexy does someone have to be singing before we can reasonably say they are a distraction? I think instinctively we think there is some level of restraint that can reasonably be expected of people, and some of the discussion of "kol isha" has to do with trying to work out what that is.
"Kol isha" is also sometimes used as a convenient tool by people who want an easy excuse for why women shouldn't do things. Not wanting to change the status quo, not wanting to surrender privilege, not wanting to share power - these are all reasons for using such excuses. "Their brains aren't suited for it" has been used in the secular world for similar reasons.
I don't think these are good reasons, but they are nonetheless extremely powerful, and underestimating them isn't useful. Sweeping aside "Their brains aren't suited" as nonsense made way for more women to do brain stuff, but there is still the cultural expectation that men are smarter, and women's participation in brain arenas is still limited. Similarly, just sweeping aside kol isha and saying that of course women are allowed to use their voices in public will give women a voice, but it won't necessarily solve the underlying problem.
c) is, of course, related, and the more I think about all this, the more I see the parallels in secular life, and the more I become convinced that: I'm bloody lucky to live with as much freedom as I have, but nonetheless there's an awful lot more that could be better.