If The Culture Doesn't Work

“You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it”
― Morrie from Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie

Gender inequality was always something I knew was a thing.

However, it wasn’t something that affected my life until I went to college and started to enter into the professional world. As a woman, who had big ambitions professionally, I became aware of the lack of female CEOs. I realized that a women’s traditional role as the primary caregiver, for example, made people hesitant to promote them. I even met one guy on OKCupid, a trading assistant at Bank of America Merril Lynch, who straight up said that he thinks women on average are not as smart as men.

But it’s not that we’re powerless victims either. Much, if not most, of the fight for equality is on us as females. Sheryl Sandberg’s renowned novel, Lean In, illustrates this point.

But after spending a year away from the Western World, I’ve found a new source of objectivity in how our culture functions.

Within a few weeks of being back in the States, for the first time in 2 years, I went to temple with my parents for Rosh Hashanah and was a little horrified frankly.

Why had I never questioned this before?

I am Jewish culturally, the temple community is great, and even my Rabbi is one of the most open-minded and thoughtful people I know.

But it’s not enough.

During temple, we recounted the story of Isaac and Abraham - the story of when God tells Isaac to slay his only son. It’s a powerful story but the message screams “Oppressive man wrote this to try to make people behave the way he wants.” Abraham must follow God (the ultimate leader’s) orders no matter what, even if it means slaying his child.
God is a man.
The main characters are men. Women, although showing enourmous strength at times in Biblical history, are mainly on the sideline.

Who says God is a man!!?

Another example:

My family and I, including my older brother of 2 years, were all hanging out the other day. He mentioned how he’s responsible for carrying out the “Stroh” name because “I can’t”.

My gut reaction was “Why not?! - that is bullshit.”

He didn’t mean anything by it and it was a completely reasonable thing to say by many liberal minded New Yorkers’ standards. But it shouldn’t be. It’s just been drilled into our heads (and I think this is changing slowly) that women can’t do certain things- for no real reason.

The past year or two has made me aware that despite how far we have come we are still very easy to accept traditions that reinforce a mindset that bring us down.

Those are my thoughts - but in sum, what I’ll leave you with is this:
Don’t take anything for granted when it comes to what you can and can’t do. Question everything… even this post.