A Woman's Place…Is in the Workplace
A Woman’s Place…Is in the Workplace
An article in last week’s Contra Costa Times discusses what some consider to be the “stained-glass ceiling” for female clergy in many religious denominations: “More women are graduating from seminaries, but in most faiths few are senior or solo clergy.”
This phenomenon is particularly true in Reform Judaism, which, though it has been ordaining women as rabbis since 1972, still has the vast majority of its top pulpit positions in the hands of male rabbis. The Union of Hebrew Congregations has even organized a task force to “look into why more women rabbis aren’t taking their place on Reform bimahs.”
But this gendered inequity in Jewish leadership is not only a clerical one – it’s a lay issue as well. Though about 70% of the Jewish organizational workforce is comprised of women, NONE of the twenty largest Jewish federations has a woman at its helm, and, of the major national Jewish organizations that are not specifically women’s organizations, only two — the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the American Jewish World Service — have women in their top leadership positions.
Because of this disparity, Shifra Bronznick, a change management consultant (who happened to take part in a panel at the Hadassah convention) started Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community in 2001. The non-profit organization’s mission is “to advance women into leadership positions in Jewish life; stimulate Jewish organizations to become more equitable, productive and vibrant environments; and promote policies that support work-life integration and flexibility for professionals and volunteers.”
This latter part of the goal is key: The idea is that women are losing out on — or opting out of — leadership positions because of the perception that they cannot handle a demanding career and the demands of family life. But, the argument goes, as articulated on AWP’s site, “When women are judged on their performance, results and potential – and not on their capacity to work ‘24/7’ – they will be perceived and promoted as valuable assets for our Jewish organizations.” So it is important not just to advance women’s leadership but to effect systemic change that would benefit everyone in the workplace. Men, too, might want to spend time with family and friends, and still be able to move up in their profession.
AWP started with three successful pilot programs — with United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Hillel, and the Jewish Board of Family Services in New York — and they’re getting ready to expand. Just this past Wednesday, July 25th, the AWP convened its first “town meeting” phone conference, including 54 women (and one man!) from every type of Jewish agency from across the country, from heads of organizations to mid level managers, with the stated goal of taking “the first steps to creating a campaign in the Jewish community to improve workplace policies around flexibility and parental leave,” both policies which many Jewish organizations have resisted implementing.
Though a full transcript of the meeting was not yet available at posting time, Bronznick said via email that it went “great” and that “people contributed very intelligent ideas.”
But this meeting was just the beginning. AWP plans to hold another conference in the fall to continue discussing ways to change the pervasive gender bias in Jewish communal life. To learn more, visit AWP’s website, and to find out how you can get involved, email Shifra Bronznick, shifra-at-advancingwomen.org.
–Rebecca Honig Friedman
6 comments on “A Woman's Place…Is in the Workplace”
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Let me add that a woman’s Place … is in the union.
The history of the labor movement is filled with women — including a sngnificant number of Jewish women [and men].
For instance:
Baum, Charlotte, Paula Hyman and Sonya Michel, “Weaving the Fabric of Unionism: Jewish Women Move the Movement,” in THE JEWISH WOMAN IN AMERICA (New York: Dial Press 1976)
Glenn, Susan A., DAUGHTERS OF THE SHTETL – LIFE AND LABOR IN THE IMMIGRANT GENERATION (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990)
McCreesh, Carolyn Daniel, WOMEN IN THE CAMPAIGN TO ORGANIZE GARMENT WORKERS, 1880 – 1917 (New York & London: Garland Publishing 1985)
Sidorick, Daniel, “The ‘Girl Army’: The Philadelphia Shirtwaist Strike of 1909-1910,” Pennsylvania History, No. 71 (Summer 2004)
—–, THE TRIANGLE FIRE (Philadelphia: (Ithaca, NY: J. P. Lippincott, 1962 – [Reprints: New York: Carroll & Graf 1985; Ithaca, NY:: Cornell University Press, 2001])
Tax, Meredith, “The Uprising of the Thirty Thousand,” in THE RISING OF THE WOMEN: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880-1917, by Meredith Tax (New York and London: Monthly Review Press 1980 [reprinted – Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press 2001)
Von Drehle, Dave, TRIANGLE : THE FIRE THAT CHANGED AMERICA (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003)
Foner, Philip S., “Revolt of the Garment Workers I and II,” in HISTORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, Vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers 1980)
Green, Nancy L., READY-TO-WEAR AND READY-TO-WORK: A CENTURY OF INDUSTRY AND IMMIGRANTS IN PARIS AND NEW YORK (Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1997)
Laslett, John H. M., “Jewish Socialism and the Ladies Garment Workers of New York,” in LABOR AND THE LEFT (New York 1970)
Markowitz, Ruth Jacknow, MY DAUGHTER, THE TEACHER: JEWISH TEACHERS IN THE NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 1993)
Seller, Maxine S., “The Rising of the 20,000: Sex, Class and Ethnicity in the Shirtwaist Makers Strike of 1909,” in Dirk Hoerder, (ed.), STRUGGLE A HARD BATTLE: ESSAYS ON WORKING CLASS IMMIGRANTS (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press 1986)
Shavelson, Clara L., “Remembering the Waistmakers General Strike, 1909,” Jewish Currents (Nov. 1982)
Taft, Philip, UNITED THEY TEACH: THE STORY OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHER [of New York City] (Los Angeles: 1974)
Weiler, N. Sue, “The Uprising in Chicago: The Men’s Garment Workers Strike, 1910-1911,” in A NEEDLE, A BOBBIN, A STRIKE: WOMEN NEEDLEWORKERS IN AMERICA, ed. by Joan M. Jensen and Sue Davidson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1981)
Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer, “The Rise of the Woman Garment Worker: New York, 1909-1910 [Chapter 16],” and “Women in the Men’s Clothing Trades: A New Union, 1910-1914 [Chapter 17],” in WE WERE THERE: THE STORY OF WORKING WOMEN IN AMERICA (New York: Pantheon Books 1977)
Zitron, Celia, THE NEW YORK CITY TEACHERS UNION, 1916 – 1964 (New York 1968)
Antler, Joyce, “Radical Politics and Labor Organizing,” [on Emma Goldman, Rose Pastor Stokes, Rose Pesotta and Rose Schneiderman] in THE JOURNEY HOME: JEWISH WOMEN AND THE AMERICAN CENTURY (NY: Free Press 1997)
Chaberg, John, EMMA GOLDMAN: AMERICAN INDIVIDUALIST (New York: HarperCollins 1991)
Drinan, Richard, REBEL IN PARADISE: A BIOGRAPHY OF EMMA GOLDMAN (Chicago: University of Chicago Press – orig. 1961)
Endelman, Gary, SOLIDARITY FOREVER: ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN AND THE WOMEN’S TRADE UNION LEAGUE (NYC: Arno Books 1982)
Julianelli, Jane, “Bessie Hillman: Up from the Sweatshop,” Ms. Magazine, (May 1973)
Kessler-Harris, Alice, “Organizing the Unorganizable: Three Jewish Women and Their Union,” in Labor History 17, no. 1 (Winter 1976); reprinted in CLASS, SEX AND THE WOMAN WORKER, ed. Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977); in EAST EUROPEAN JEWS IN AMERICA, 1880-1920: IMMIGRATION AND ADAPTATION, ed. Jeffrey S. Gurock, vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 1998); and in AMERICAN JEWISH WOMEN’S HISTORY: A READER, ed. Pamela S. Nadell (New York: New York University Press, 2003).
————————, “Rose Schneiderman and the Limits of Women’s Trade Unionism,” in LABOR LEADERS IN AMERICA, ed. by Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren van Tine (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press 1987)
Leeder, Elaine, THE GENTLE GENERAL: ROSE PESOTTA, ANARCHIST AND LABOR ORGANIZER (Albany: SUNY Press 1993)
Malkiel, Theresa Serber, THE DIARY OF A SHIRTWAIST STRIKER (New York: Cooperative Press 1910 [reprinted – Ithaca: ILR Press/Cornell 1990])
Miller, Sally, “From Sweatshop Worker to Labor Leader; Theresa Malkiel: a case study,” in American Jewish History, vol. 68, n. 2, December 1978.
Mitelman, Bennie, “Rose Schneiderman and the Triangle Fire,” in American History Illustrated, July 1981.
Morton, Marion J., EMMA GOLDMAN AND THE AMERICAN LEFT: NOWHERE AT HOME (New York: Twayne Publishers 1992)
Newman, Pauline, “Pauline Newman,” in AMERICAN MOSAIC: THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO LIVED IT, ed. by Joan Morrison and Charlotte Fox Zabusky (New York: E.P. Dutton 1980).
Orleck, Annelise, COMMON SENSE AND ALITTLE FIRE: WOMEN AND WORKING-CLASS POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900-1965 [Fannia Cohn, Pauline Newman, Rose Schneiderman and Clara Lemlich Shavelson] (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1995)
Pesotta, Rose, BREAD UPON THE WATERS (Ithaca: ILR Press/ Cornell 1987)
————, DAYS OF OUR LIVES (Boston: Excelsior Press 1958)
Scheier, Paula, “Clara Lemlich Shavelson,” Jewish Life, vol. 8, no. 95 (November 1954)
—————, “Clara Lemlich Shavelson: 50 Years in Labor’s Front Line,” in THE AMERICAN JEWISH WOMAN: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY (New York: KTAV 1981)
Schneiderman, Rose, with Lucy Goldthwaite, ALL FOR ONE (New York: Paul S. Ericksson, Inc. 1967)
Schofield, Ann, TO DO AND TO BE: Portraits of Four Women Activists, 1893-1986 [Gertrude Barnum, Mary Dreier, Pauline Newman and Rose Pesotta], (Boston: Northeastern University Press 1998)
Shepherd, Naomi, “ `I Need a Violent Strike’: Rose Pesotta and American Jewish Immigrant Unionists,” in A PRICE BELOW RUBIES: JEWISH WOMEN AS REBELS AND RADICALS (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1993)
Shulman, Alix Kates, RED EMMA SPEAKS: AN EMMA GOLDMAN READER (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press 1996)
————————, TO THE BARRICADES: THE ANARCHIST LIFE OF EMMA GOLDMAN (New York: 1971)
Suhl, Yuri, ERNESTINE ROSE AND THE BATTLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (New York 1959)
Wexler, Alice, EMMA GOLDMAN: AN INTIMATE LIFE (New York: Pantheon 1984)
—————, EMMA GOLDMAN IN EXILE: FROM THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION TO THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (Boston: Beacon Press 1989)
UNPUBLISHED WORKS
Asher, Nina Lynn, DOROTHY JACOBS BELLANCA: FEMINIST TRADE UNIONIST, 1884-1946, Ph. D. dissertation (Binghamton: SUNY 1982)
Cohen, Ricki Carole Myers, FANNIA COHN AND THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS UNION, Ph.D. thesis (University of Southern Caifornia 1976)
Katz, Daniel Lawrence, A UNION OF MANY CULTURES: YIDDISH SOCIALISM AND INTERRACIAL ORGANIZING IN THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS’ UNION, 1913-1941 Ph. D. dissertation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 2003)
Kram, Harriet Davis, NO MORE A STRANGER AND ALONE: TRADE UNION, SOCIALIST AND FEMINIST ACTIVISM — A ROUTE TO BECOMING AMERICAN [on Pauline Newman and Rose Schneiderman] Ph. D. dissertation (New York: City University of New York Graduate Center, 1997)
Massing, Dana Christine, “SHOULDER TO SHOULDER FOR A COMMON CAUSE?” : JEWISH, ITALIAN, AND BLACK WOMEN GARMENT WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY, 1900-1930 M.A. dissertation (University of Alberta, 1995)
Pastorello, Karen, A POWER AMONG THEM: BESSIE ABRAMOWITZ HILLMAN AND THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, Ph. D. dissertation (SUNY Binghamton 2001)
Vural, Leyla F., UNIONISM AS A WAY OF LIFE: THE COMMUNITY ORIENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS’ UNION AND THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, Ph.D. dissertation (New Brunswick: Rutgers: State University of New Jersey, 1994)
This listing is part of a larger bibliography on on the website of the jewish Labor Committee — a `work-in-progress’ — additional suggested entries welcome.
Cool.
Interesting…
Great Blog. Well done.
Of course, all very cleverly written, but not everything is so natural as it seems, at first glance and it is quite possible that the opinion of the author does not coincide with public opinion, is too often the case. But clearly we can say one thing: thanks to the author of articles for such a fresh and objective look at this aspect of the issue.
Loving the information on this site, you have done outstanding job on the posts.