Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Letters

Letter | Focusing on straw-men is disservice to women and distracts us from real concerns about abuse

Editor:

As a sociologist who has worked in the areas of gender inequality and violence against women for nearly four decades, I am deeply concerned by the recently published article describing the failure of the Conservative Movement to respond appropriately to ethical violations including sexual misconduct and the article’s highlighting of one particular rabbi’s censure for his relationship with a woman in the community.

I wish to make it clear that I am well-aware of the dangers of (typically) men in power using their positions to exploit or abuse women, children and other vulnerable people. Many excellent books, interviews, scholarly articles and first-person reports and analyses of sexual assault, exploitation, abuse and misconduct by members of the clergy are easily available. Unfortunately, this article did not draw on that material, opting instead to highlight one rabbi who briefly dated a woman; it does not even say that she ever accused him of inappropriate behavior. No evidence is presented that suggests that the relationship he had with this woman was exploitive, or coercive.

Problems with how the Conservative Movement’s handles ethics complaints, as covered in the article, seem real; the misdeeds of the featured rabbi however, do not. Indeed, I came away from this article with the impression that the rabbi was used as a straw-man to indict the Conservative Movement’s response to ethics complaints.

I am especially concerned that this article feeds into false yet (intransigently) popular notions that men “often” are unfairly accused of sexual misconduct. At the current time, old tropes such as “she said no but she really wanted it” are augmented by declarations that “men can’t even say good morning to women anymore without fear of being accused of rape by the political correctness police.” Studies repeatedly show extremely low rates of false accusations of rape and sexual harassment, yet the fiction that these claims are common serves as a powerful discursive weapon to discourage women from reporting experiences of stalking, rape, intimate partner violence and harassment and thus undermines efforts to create environments of gender equality. Sadly, this article can too easily be used as fuel for that discursive weapon.

I am eager to see the Forward continue to cover gender inequality in Jewish institutions and am (unfortunately) quite certain that clear, real, serious, structural examples will be all-too-easy to come by.

Sincerely,
Susan Sered, Ph.D.
Boston, Mass.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.