Binah says there's "been a" fat discrimination in the Frum workplace

Over Shabbos, I had the chance to look at an old Binah magazine from January 24th of this year. It seems they were looking into the perks and pitfalls of the frum workplace.

What I found most disturbing was the serious discrimination. For starters, they give the example of Chana who supported a kollel husband for many years on a measly teachers salary. Eventually, her husband went to work as a rebbi in the boys division of her very same school. Well, her jaw dropped when she found out that a first year rebbi dwarfed her salary as a twelveth year morah.

Esther, who was also supporting a kollelnik, was told by an administrater to have her parents support her when they weren't paying salaries. Rina was a single girl "out of towner" living with roommates not parents. She was friends with some of the married teachers and found that they were making more than she was, even though at least one was still "being supported very comfortably by her father."

I'm really not suprised by any of this. The secular world has done it to me, too. I've been on job interviews where I was told that I could live with my parents so I didn't need a full time job to support myself. I couldn't live with my parents. My mother was dead and my father felt I was refusing to grow up. I was desperately trying. The money I would bring into a company would be just as green as what a white man with grey hair would bring in, but somehow, they don't see it like that. I was fired from one job for not sleeping with the boss' 50 year old friend who worked there, though it serves me right since I was sleeping with a number of the other guys in the company. (note that this was in 2002.)

Gender issues come young in the Orthodox world

Ok, so I had an interesting encounter yesterday. I was at someone's house and she wasn't necessarily in the room most of the time. They were mamisha frummies. For starters, I was explaining the invisible monsters  called germs that get on your hands to her four year old. He told me, "it's not in the Toy-rah, no such thing." Great... Later on when the two older boys came in from school (note to gentiles who may not be aware, the all-boys Jewish schools meet on Sundays), the four-year had a friend over, who was a girl. She asked the older boys, what they did today. They said, "learning." She said, "what did you learn?" They snickered at her and said they learned TOY-RAH. Poor girl, didn't have a clue. She probably came from a Modern Orthodox home.

These boys learn quick and young to have disdain for the fairer gender. I saw it first hand.