March 2, 2010 – Women’s Week

Since Purim and International Women’s Week coincide in Israel this year, a stranger-than-usual thought came into my mind. There are basically three kinds of women’s dress, varieties of religious Jewish, varieties of Hijab, and degrees of kuneifa. (That always makes it difficult for other people to find clothing in Israel. ) For International Women’s Day why don’t we trade off? Or maybe we should wear all of the costumes of women around here. I have a gorgeous black silk gown with Hebron embroidery I haven’t touched for years because of the political implications, and a wonderful long black skirt I can wear with thick stockings or a long jeans skirt with an upside-down chamber pot hat from the past. And I have net tights and a mini. I could switch off – just to show how all women could-should-must unite. I know it’s an old feminist concept but if women took over the world it might well be a better place. We wouldn’t waste our time developing weapons of mass destruction, for example, or slaughtering whole villages of people. What make us give up that idea anyhow? I don’t mean an occasional female prime minister, because women always adapt to men when they are in the minority, but a world of women-leaders.