“For We ascend in holiness and do not descend.” Jewish ultra-Orthodox women’s agency through their discourse about media

ABSTRACT

“Permission” and “prohibition” are key terms in Jewish religious discourse. For generations they have dominated as part of the primarily male, rabbinic discourse in talmudic literature. This paper will show that men no longer hold the monopoly on these terms because contemporary Israeli ultra-Orthodox women include them in their daily conversation in multiple and varied ways. The study examines exposure patterns and perceptions of 42 ultra-Orthodox women toward sectarian and general mass media. In responses to detailed questionnaires, the words “prohibited,” “forbidden” and “a boundary” constantly recur along with a variety of negatives, such as “not permitted,” “not allowed” and “not kosher”.

This paper argues that in describing their uses of and perceptions toward mass media, ultra-Orthodox women have adopted terminology borrowed from what was previously a primarily male-dominated conversation. Some might argue that these women are simply working within the bounds of ultra-Orthodox law which they accept as universally applicable; or perhaps that these women are simply reflecting words used by their husbands or rabbis. However, this study argues that their adoption of these terms indicates they are exercising their own agency. With a combined religious and secular education, and work that is primarily outside the house, many of them are the principal breadwinners in their homes. I suggest that this discourse is a part of their highly intelligent navigation of their simultaneous roles as both gatekeepers and change agents.     

Gender Differences in the Construction of Spirituality, Work, Learning, and Community by Baalei Teshuvah

This paper explores the question, “How do Jewish men and women who have become Orthodox (baalei teshuvah) compare in their constructions of spirituality, work, learning, religious practices, and community?” It is based on a qualitative research study that included interviews with 48 baalei teshuvah (24 men, 24 women), two focus groups, and ten key informant interviews. Participants were from the East Coast of the USA. We found the women more affirmative about their spirituality and feelings about community; men identified with these experiences but not the terminology. The men gave more attention to work and to their struggles integrating work and religion. The women expressed excitement about learning whereas the men conveyed self-consciousness over their language and learning deficiencies.     

Killing begets killing: evidence from a bug-killing paradigm that initial killing fuels subsequent killing

Killing appears to perpetuate itself even in the absence of retaliation. This phenomenon may occur in part as a means to justify prior killing and so ease the threat of prior killing. In addition, this effect should arise particularly when a killer perceives similarity to the victims because similarity should exacerbate threat from killing. To examine these ideas, the authors developed a bug-killing paradigm in which they manipulated the degree of initial bug killing in a "practice task" to observe the effects on subsequent self-paced killing during a timed "extermination task." In Studies 1 and 2, for participants reporting some similarity to bugs, inducing greater initial killing led to more subsequent self-paced killing. In Study 3, after greater initial killing, more subsequent self-paced killing led to more favorable affective change. Implications for understanding lethal human violence are discussed.     

Windows into nothingness: terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art

Why do people dislike art that they find meaningless? According to terror management theory, maintaining a basic meaningful view of reality is a key prerequisite for managing concerns about mortality. Therefore, mortality salience should decrease liking for apparently meaningless art, particularly among those predisposed to unambiguous knowledge. Accordingly, mortality salience diminished affection for modern art in Study 1, and this effect was shown in Study 2 to be specific to individuals with a high personal need for structure (PNS). In Studies 3 and 4, mortality salient high-PNS participants disliked modern art unless it was imbued with meaning, either by means of a title or a personal frame of reference induction. Discussion focused on the roles of meaninglessness, PNS, and art in terror management.     

Do explicit memory manipulations affect the memory blocking effect?

The memory blocking effect (MBE) occurs when people are prevented from completing word fragments because they studied orthographically similar words. Across 3 experiments, we investigated how manipulations that influence explicit memory tasks would influence the MBE. Although a significant MBE was observed in all 3 experiments, manipulating depth of processing (Experiment 1), time to complete the fragments (Experiment 2), and awareness of the MBE (Experiment 3) did not change the magnitude of the MBE. We discuss these results in the context of a suppression mechanism involved in retrieval-induced forgetting.     

Exploring metaphor's epistemic function: Uncertainty moderates metaphor-consistent priming effects on social perceptions

Consistent with conceptual metaphor theory's claim that metaphors operate at a conceptual, and not just linguistic, level, prior research shows that priming perceptions related to concrete concepts influences perceptions related to dissimilar, more abstract concepts in metaphor-consistent ways. However, the theory's claim that metaphors function to reduce uncertainty about abstract concepts has yet to be experimentally assessed. Two studies tested whether situational variation in uncertainty moderates metaphor-consistent priming effects. Study 1 focused on the metaphor life is a path and showed that priming path perceptions (vs. literal representations) increased perceived autobiographical continuity only if uncertainty about personal identity was salient. Study 2 focused on verticality metaphors and showed that vertical orientation primes influenced satisfaction with the decision to attend one's current university in both directions (up is good, bad is down) only if uncertainty about the value of the college experience was salient.