No, but seriously, if someone didn’t speak to me because of my gender, I’d tell them to go back into the Dark Ages from whence they came. That shit shouldn’t be tolerated. There’s “religious freedom” and then there’s patently bigoted behavior. My SO once interviewed a leader of a Muslim student organization - he stuck his hand out when they met, just like he always does. She refused. That is bullshit.
ETA: I make small-talk just in case the plane goes down. I want them to think of me as nice and saving-worthy.
I don’t think either of these came from hatred; it’s about staying chaste and modest when you’re faced with the overwhelming, tempting hotness of the opposite sex.
In The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A. J. Jacobs buys a folding, three-legged chair that he can easily carry around with him so that he has somewhere to sit on while waiting for the subway and so forth without risking violation of that exact rule. I’m not sure how widespread the practice is even among the ultra-orthodox, though.
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Yesterday, I got up from the library’s comuter, and a man wearing a yarmuke pulled up another chair, pushed the one I as sitting in out of the way, and sat down in the new chair. I try to respect other people’s religions and did not ask him how he knew his chair hadn’t been used by a woman on her period, nor tell him that my last period was September 2005.
But it got me to wondering: How can anyone avoid contact with everything touched by a menstruating women? You could never take a public seat anywhere outside the men’s room! Are rstaurants, sporting events, theatres and subways off-limits?
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I went to a small Presbyterian college. Even into the late 1960’s, there was a rule in the library that a man had to wait 5 minutes before he could sit in a chair that a woman had been sitting in. Supposedly to allow the chair to “cool off” so he would not become aroused by the fact that it was warm from her body heat.
Every etiquette manual I have ever read is fairly clear on the matter. Men should always wait for a woman to initiate a hand shake. Some cultures do not permit physical contact between unmarried people and a gentlemen should not put a woman in a position where she has to compromise her morals or create an awkward situation.
Apparently Matisyahu won’t touch (e.g., shake hands with) female fans (cite). Whether that’s *just *because they’re not related to him or *also *because they’re potentially menstruating, I dunno.
It’s called being shomer negiah. You do not touch someone of the opposite sex that you are not married to. Many Orthodox Jews both male and female follow this. I don’t think it has anything to do with menstruation, but more modesty.
I read A.J. Jacob’s “A Year of Living Biblically.” It was basically what Judaism would be without the Talmud and the rabbis: just read the Torah for yourself and do whatever you think it means. I liked his job of “stoning adulterers” by dropping pebbles on everyone’s feet (and then apologizing and running away).
I’ve never heard this, and if in a business setting, I would be offended if men were offered a handshake, but I wasn’t. I’d rather be treated as an equal, etiquette manual be damned.
My grandmother, who is 83, told me when I was little that a man waits for the woman to extend a hand before shaking because it is the polite thing to do. She never said why. Her explanation for such social behaviours was always because “it was the polite thing to do”. Now that particular situation has never happened to me but I wouldn’t mind it because I don’t like shaking peoples hands because they probably just farted on it right before they offered it to me. Or is it just me who does that?
Sorry to stray off topic, but the *woman offers to shake hands first *is a social rule only. In business, the senior person offers to shake first. Failure to shake hands requires an apology, but not an explanation. Cite: Miss Manners
When my grandmother taught me, it was the polite thing to do because the woman may come from a religion or culture where unmarried people of the opposite gender don’t have physical contact and it would be rude to try to force her do what she considers immoral or more importantly any time physical contact between the opposite genders occurs, a gentleman secures the woman’s free consent before doing anything. Basically, he shouldn’t try to compel her to touch his hand anymore than he should try to compel her to touch his penis.
I don’t think offering a hand to a woman is about treating her as an equal, its about forcing her to submit to being touched. It’s a useful character test actually. I’ve dealt with some less than conventional individuals in my life including smugglers and coyotes and the like. One thing I’ve noticed rumors of rapes and sexual violence always surface about the ones that stick out their hands automatically to women versus the men who wait for a women to offer contact.
