notasheep: I’ve always been confused as to why people persistently attribute women’s wanting to do x, y, or z to “wanting to be like men”–I mean, wouldn’t that really negate their entire wanting to do the thing in question, being that the premise of feminism is to assert feminine identity and capability? Now I sort of realize why you people think that–it is an inherent rejection of any sort of conception of woman other than submissive and demurring, making any aberrations unnatural and applying themselves to nothing more than trying to break from a feminine state to a masculine one.
So my question is: do you really find it impossible to conceive that some women are naturally as you describe them, and some are naturally “nasty pieces of work” (I mean, if you are going to call them that, at least give them the credit of their own nastiness), and that BOTH should be able to decide what their capabilities are and how to best use them? It is possible that what you claim is true, but logically, there is no reason why there cannot be an alternative hypothesis. And all I ask is that you entertain my claim as a possible premise, not accept it as fact.
And to clarify–I do not say this in defense of giving women smicha, allowing women’s minyanim, etc. The former may be perfectly admissible, as benignuman claims (and I do not know about the rest), but because all such moves can be so easily interpreted as superficial power-mongering, they are really ineffectual in proving “pure” motives–which I think is the REAL goal. Also, trying to make such a move before establishing that women are *capable* of analytic learning (in religious *or* secular disciplines) really does nothing but force the oppositional view that you espouse.