Something historic is happening right now. Will we pay attention?
When the bloomer was invented in the 1800s, it sparked widespread condemnation. Nevermind that women’s clothing of the time was restrictive, heavy, and at times could even be dangerous — the swathes of fabric, panniers, and hoops were viewed as virtuous.
And in contrast, the woman who wore bloomers was indecent and unfeminine. “The model bloomer leaves her poor young husband pouting and weeping at home,” asserted one author in the 19th-century publication Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion.
The bloomer struggle became inextricably linked with suffragism. But the feedback was so dramatic, so negative, that many early suffragists worried that bloomers were detracting from their activism for women’s rights. As a result, the loudest voices in the movement (including Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who popularized the garment) put their dresses back on and their bloomers away.
Women eventually got the right to vote. And eventually, many women also began to wear pants.
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We’re seeing something historic right now with Flatbush Girl’s campaign to free Adeena Kohn, an agunah (chained woman) of around five years. It’s historic in the way that bloomers were in the 19th century. It’s historic because women from my community, from Jewish communities around the world, are taking photos in various states of undress to protest the agunah crisis.
It’s historic because modesty matters so much. It’s historic because it’s women making a choice for a woman who doesn’t have choices. It’s historic because the reveal — of elbows, knees, cleavage, and more — becomes a symbol of something larger.
And, in the way bloomers received a vociferously negative reception, this campaign has triggered substantial backlash. It’s historic in this way, as well.
We don’t have to feel comfortable with it. The discomfort is the point.
The idea is a larger one: we know the way our communities respond to the threat of an immodest woman. We know how they guard against any exposure. We know how tights and wigs have been weaponized. We know what a campaign against these various immodesties has looked like.
And we also know that the Free Adeena campaign doesn’t look like that campaign. Where are the rabbis who announced that lace-top wigs were the reason for the Meron calamity in 2021? Where are the women who patrolled the local pizza shop on Saturday nights to ensure none of us young impressionable girls spoke to boys? Where are the community e-blasts and WhatsApp broadcasts?
They’re silent. And that’s the problem.
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The Bais Yaakov play was the highlight of the year for so many of us. We enjoyed the free periods, nighttime practices, dramatic costuming, and general air of excitement that surrounded our production.
The night before — dress rehearsal — was especially important. Because at this rehearsal, something notable happened. Two of our principals, highly alert and eagle-eyed, sat in the front row of the performance and scrutinized every single girl onstage to ensure that their costumes were not too revealing.
We were performing for an entirely female audience, of course, but that didn’t mean our costumes were allowed to be immodest. Any girl playing a man’s role — or any girl who danced — wore loose, poorly-sewn bloomers made of polyester. And so we needed to be inspected carefully lest the bloomers cling to our thighs. If they did, the costume designers had to recall the offender’s bloomers and loosen the elastic throughout.
Something historic is happening right now. Flatbush Girl is highlighting a hypocrisy: we know what it looks like when our community pays attention to an issue. It looks like bloomer inspections. It looks like widespread disavowals. It looks like negative press.
The question is what, and whom, we believe is worth protecting.
So: what issue will we pay attention to?
