RECOLLECTIONS Male Chauvinism, circa 1861
JICK, LEON
RECOLLECTIONS Male Chauvinism, circa 1861 Leon Jick Between 1859 and 1861, an itinerant European Jewish journalist visited America. He was something of a ne'er-do-well who had traveled in North...
...In California, however, these customs may be observed in all their crudeness...
...He found much to criticize...
...He had no choice, and had to ignore her weaknesses and deficiencies...
...The second road to fortune lies in the dispensing of birth control potions: Many do not even wish to have children because they are afraid of losing their beauty, and ways of preventing this are often resorted to...
...Although now there is no longer any lack of women, this attitude has continued from generation to generation...
...He fancied himself a successor to the famous medieval Spanish Jewish chronicler Benjamin of Tudelah, called himself Benjamin the Second, and published a second volume called Three Years in America...
...SHEVAT 5736 MOMENT 67...
...A physician in New York asked mc if the evil custom of the Orient, that women use a drug to prevent having children, is still in existence...
...Accordingly, I thought of the whole story as fiction, until I found it verified in America...
...before whom the multitude of that land bow humbly and kneel down, forgetting all honor, thinking only, day and night, how to heap up riches and to build themselves palaces...
...Ever the analyst as well as the observer, Benjamin attempts to explain the origin of the doleful situation: I tried to find a cause for all this and believe that the reason for this situation lies in the fact that, when America was first settled, there were so few women that a man thought it a stroke of luck to find a wife...
...Benjamin has little hope for a land so dominated by women: A land which suffers from so great an evil, where every noble impulse is nipped in the bud, must become incapable of all that is lofty, elevated and noble, and, if no remedy is provided, great harm must come of it...
...Alexander the Great went out with his host to conquer various lands and is said at last to have reached a land where women ruled...
...Here, indeed," he wrote, "government by women has been established...
...To Benjamin's European eye, it appeared that American women were not only "liberated" but that they had broken loose from all Chorles E Silbernnan is the author of CRISIS IN BLACK AND WHITE and CRISIS...
...Women here "delight in sweets and tidbits...
...what one heaps up the other scatters again...
...Their conversation is very cheerful...
...At the same time, I must remark that in some places this evil is not so great and that there the relation between man and wife is normal...
...Benjamin was not insensitive to the charm of American women...
...on the contrary, he idolized her...
...The second idol that is prayed to sees, hears, walks, speaks, and — above all — is full of life: This is the female sex...
...IN THE CLASSROOM He is currently at work on a study of the American system • of justice standards of propriety and that in fact they had "enslaved" the men...
...I journeyed through several parts of the Old World through which Alexander's army went and nowhere did I find a land to which this tale might apply...
...One is dentistry...
...Benjamin observes that two paths to affluence in America derive from the wantonness of women...
...they summoned the men or dismissed them as they pleased, and generally regarded them as slaves...
...But the price paid for these qualities is painfully high: "The women in America have a characteristic, inherited and ineradicable aversion to any work or household management...
...In Benjamin the Second's account there is only one note of consolation: "It is only in Jewish circles that the old ways, except for the rivalry in luxury, are kept up: In these circles, the privileges of women in America and the power they exercise have limits...
...He was something of a ne'er-do-well who had traveled in North Africa, and the Near East and had written a book entitled Five Years of Travel in the Orient...
...There is also a passage in the Midrash (Bereshit, chapter 23) which says that women took a drug, called kos shel akarin, to remain childless...
...I told him that I had given this subject no attention, but I would not fail to look into the matter on my next visit...
...At least that is how it appeared to one male chauvinist in 1861...
...A physician in America, he said, would surely make a million dollars, in one year with this substance...
...His assessment of America and of American Jewry was considerably less than enthusiastic...
...Both idols are in a constant feud with each other...
...they are always lively and are passionately fond of music, singing and dancing...
...What one builds the other tears down...
...He proceeded to "examine more closely the women who are capable of causing such evil" and reported that they "have dignity and refined features, are very delicate in physique and, above all, are those who of all women in the world know best how to dress...
...As a result, nowhere in the world are there so many dentists as in America and yet they are all doing well...
...By way of illustration he added: Let me draw a parallel here...
...But no subject evoked greater contempt than the role of women in American life: America worships two idols: One is Mammon — who is deaf, dumb and blind...
...what one improves the other spoils...
Vol. 1 • January 1976 • No. 6
