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March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
JWisdom.comDo you believe in an angry Almighty? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Sept. 5, 2008 5 Elul 5768

What do women want now?

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Like none before it, this presidential campaign is redefining what it can mean to be a woman. That wizened Austrian doctor who famously asked, "What do women want?" finally concluded that he didn't have a clue. Freud understood, like men before and after him, that women were a mysterious mixture of the good, the bad and the beautiful.


A women was not so long ago measured in categories, determined more by the loves and fears of men than by her own choices. She rarely had a room of her own to probe and measure the nature of her identity. She was more likely to be the model for the male artist than a model she created for herself.


Women in art and politics reflected the longings and definitions of men. A woman was meant to be a nurturer and healer who softened the harshness of the lives of her family. She was a temptress and seducer who lured men away from responsibility. She had to be tamed and guarded against, and protected for the sake of men (and mankind). Above all, she was different.


Sexual politics before modern feminism was about that difference. Gender politics, by contrast, argued that men imposed the "patriarchy" on women, and dismissed the obvious biological differences to examine only sociological and psychological differences imposed by men on women.


Gender politics was about women defining themselves, about making choices for themselves. They could be mothers, professionals, white-, blue- or pink-collar workers, mixing and matching to suit themselves. Liberation meant sexual freedom, and for many it meant freedom to have abortions. Feminists for Life argue that it also means taking responsibility for the when and why of getting pregnant, for caring for the resulting baby or for assuming the responsibility of finding good adoption.


Contemporary feminism changed personal and public attitudes. The result was better for some women, not so good for others. No matter how things changed, however, we soon harked back to the old sexual politics of difference.


When Geraldine Ferarro, a Democrat, became the first woman vice presidential candidate, she had to put up with questions about her recipe for blueberry muffins. Ultimately, it was questions about her husband's business dealings that did her in.


When Bill Clinton first ran for president, he boasted that voters would get Hillary, too: "Buy one, get one free." Hillary was soon "the Lady MacBeth of Little Rock," resented for her reach for unelected power, and she devised a health care plan that only her husband would support.


When he betrayed her with adultery in the Oval Office, she became the victim, and rode "wifely vulnerability" into the U.S. Senate. When she came close but fell short of the Democratic presidential nomination, feminists cried "sexism" was to blame.


But all that was then, and now John McCain has chosen as his running mate an obscure governor from the far north woods. Sarah Palin, the first woman picked for a Republican ticket, hasn't been asked about her recipes, but she joshes that she can make a mean stew of the moose she shot. She was photographed holding a big fish that for a lot of men would have been the one that got away. As a Feminist for Life, she speaks movingly of giving birth to a baby she knew was afflicted with Down syndrome.


Then, like a bolt of lightning from the Alaskan sky, we learn that Bristol, her 17-year-old daughter, is five months pregnant and intends to bring the baby to term and marry the father. Bloggers spread ugly rumors about the governor that were quelled only by the announcement of Bristol's great expectations, and Barack Obama had to remind them that he, too, was born of a teenage mother, and ugly speculation "shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Palin's performance as a governor or potential performance as a vice president."


The Palin family has reignited the Mommy Wars, with a vengeance. Can a mother of five, about to be a grandmother of one, have it all? In the abstract, she's a feminist's dream. In the particulars where most of us live, it's harder to say. McCain doesn't think any of these particulars disqualify her. They surely wouldn't disqualify a man.


So the wheel of sexual politics turns again. Mother Nature will out, as she always will, and if biology is not destiny she sure has a lot to say about how men and women live their lives — even candidates for president and vice president of the United States. But Sarah Palin's parents were right: This is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.

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