"Elana Sztokman is one of the most proactive Jewish feminist thinkers on the scene today. An award-winning author of three books on gender equality in the Jewish world, a PhD in sociology and a former executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Association (JOFA), Dr. Sztokman seeks the edge. This past spring, she inaugurated a course, Dynamics of Jewish Feminism, via webinar for a worldwide reach. Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Blu Greenberg and Letty Pogrebin were among the more than 30 distinguished panelists over the course of 8 weeks. Energized by the response,Szotkman has now embarked on a second course, DESIRE: Sex, Judaism and Feminism . Susan Reimer-Torn interviews her for the Sisterhood.
"Susan Reimer-Torn: What made you decide to offer a webinar on Sex and Desire?
Elana Sztokman: I realized that almost all our feminist conversation lead to sex. We manage to dance around the issue. We do talk about slut-shaming, for example, or excessive modesty demands. But what are those really about if not owning women’s sexuality? Girls’ and women’s sexuality are some kind of communal property that needs to be purely maintained. When we talk about inequality in marriage and divorce and the agunah issue, it all comes down to cultural practices that see a woman as the property of a man — with all that entails. Talking about our own desires explodes that basic assumption. It lets women take back ownership of our sexuality, ownership of our bodies."
Read more: http://forward.com/sisterhood/311669/desire-sex-judaism-and-feminism/#ixzz3gK6347Rv
The JewFem blog is written by the award-winning writer Dr. Elana Maryles Sztokman, former Executive Director of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. Elana's books include The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World, which won the 2012 National Jewish Book Council Award for Women's Studies, Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Jewish Day Schools, which won the 2013 National Jewish Book Council Award for Education (co-authored with Chaya Gorsetman), and the forthcoming The War on Women in Israel: How Religious Radicalism is Stifling the Voice of a Nation Elana writes frequently at The Forward, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Lilith, and more.
Copyright © 2015 Elana Sztokman. All Rights Reserved.
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