Male Sexism: Jerusalem Style
The bus itself is not news to anyone who’s lived in Jerusalem for more than a week. This is not news, but it ALWAYS gets my blood boiling.
You see, I used to work nights at a call center in Jerusalem. I would come in at 11pm every night, and leave around 7am every morning. On the way back to Nachlaot from Har Hotzvim, I would take an Egged bus that would drive through the Hassidic neighborhoods of Jerusalem. These buses were always split down the middle. Men sat in the front, and women in the back.
The concept of a split bus is strange enough as it is. And as a Jerusalemite – you sort of get used to the fact that the buses are going to be segregated. However, the ride home from work every day at 7:30 am really amplified the absurdity of it. And this is why:
In the afternoon, Hassidic men are in synagogue or at work. They are not on buses, on the streets, or in cars. The women have already sent their kinderlach to school, and so they go shopping for fruit, vegetable, groggers, and other things that can be found in a Hassidic household.
The resulting phenomenon is a bus that looks exactly like the one the above picture.
However, in the morning, which is when I got on the bus – the opposite happened! The women are dressing Yoily and Shmoily for school, and feeding them cholent for breakfast, and the men are out getting to synagogue.
The resulting effect was ridiculous! I had to step onto the bus into a whiff of the putrid sweaty armpit of a man who was holding on to the railing. Squeezing past him – I managed to get to the bus driver and pay my fare. But when I looked up, the impossible occurred to me! The entire front of the bus was packed with Hassidic men. They were squeezing and battling for a place to put their two feet.
In the back sat one woman. One. This is not any better, or less insulting than the first scenario.
If Hassidim are to pretend that they are keeping themselves pure and holy by not mixing with women on buses, wouldn’t you think that they would take the women’s feelings into consideration? Wouldn’t they want to perhaps give them the respect the women deserve? Because it’s not Yoily and Shmoily they’re dressing in the morning. It’s Yoily, Shmoily, Shmeltza, Malka Dina, Brucha Gittel, Meir Mendel, Shmuel Shneur, and of course, little Chava Beila.
And that’s a small family.
The poor woman in the back is dressing, feeding, teaching, playing with, and changing the diapers of eight to twelve children. And yet the men wouldn’t dare go near her in order to sit 4 seats in front of her. There’s nothing sexual about sitting five feet away from person – not facing them. There isn’t even a sexual tension that can arise from that. And if there is – see a therapist. Oh, wait – they like to keep things “inside the community”.
In the meantime, all that’s left is to riot, I guess. Ain’t that right, Bochurim?
