paper-cuts, rabbinic misogyny & porn
The Ladies Guild Collection is a series of paper-cuts that combine rabbinic misogyny with sexualised images of women, all on a nice paper doily. The doily is an old-fashioned, fussy way of presenting food - heaven forbid a cake or biscuit should come into contact with a naked plate. The Ladies Guild is the name given to the women's committee in the orthodox synagogue in Anglo-jewry that I grew up in. The Ladies Guild's main job was to prepare the refreshments, women not having a liturgical leadership role.
The texts in this series are selected specifically because they voice the misogynist attitudes that influence how women were, and continue to be, seen and treated in the community. Whenever I came across these texts in my learning I used to ignore them, close the book, unwilling to engage with the apologetics that tried to twist them around. I felt increasingly uncomfortable doing that, aware of my intellectual dishonesty. And so I decided to open those books, not look away, get those statements out in the open and play with them.
The texts in this series are selected specifically because they voice the misogynist attitudes that influence how women were, and continue to be, seen and treated in the community. Whenever I came across these texts in my learning I used to ignore them, close the book, unwilling to engage with the apologetics that tried to twist them around. I felt increasingly uncomfortable doing that, aware of my intellectual dishonesty. And so I decided to open those books, not look away, get those statements out in the open and play with them.
