‘Jewess’ in a Bind
By Dan Friedman December 3, 2009
I recently blogged the Details article on “the rise of the hot Jewish girl” — an article about which Leah writes here. That article aside, there are a couple of inherent difficulties in the vocabularies we use to discuss vacuous, fetishized celebrity nonsense, often the bread and butter of glossy magazine spreads.
First, we are to some extent caught up in the words that are in circulation in the world we are discussing. We can use JILF as it is funny because of its newness, artificialness and irony. But it still rankles at least a little and it’s hard to argue that the word from which it’s derived, MILF — used however ironically — does not radically objectify women (specifically mothers qua mothers).
Second, if we want to distinguish between Jewish men and Jewish women, our range is limited. You often see “Jewish girls” or “girls” in general used to infantilize women as eye-candy or go straight to the other extreme of balabustas and tedious stereotypes of the Jewish mother. One can easily imagine the image of Rebekah Kohut — seen here on the cover of The American Jewess, a short-lived, late 19th century magazine — being misused in that second way.
So in the end, I think the term “Jewess” is caught in two battles. Should it be a general term that’s accessible for people to misuse? That’s the price of circulation in a sexist world at the moment. But is it a price worth paying, and is it even a choice that Jewish women are still able to make?
And, on the other hand, might “Jewess” be an acceptable alternative for a female Jew that then leaves “Jew” as a marker for maleness?: Jews and Jewesses, lads and lasses, actors and actresses.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
