# How do ultra-orthodox Jews handle the whole "menstruation women" prohibitions?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 22, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640 "2010-09-22T14:05:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/121 "2010-09-28T16:53:20Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#):
>
> Also, apparently Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia raped then-President G.W. Bush when he [held his hand when they were walking around](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/27/eveningnews/main691413.shtml). Since, y’know, heterosexual men don’t \*do \*that in the U.S.
Actually, I think your rapist was in fact the rapee. Bazinga.
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### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/122 "2010-09-28T17:42:56Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> How is it creepy or pushy to _offer_ a handshake? A lot of the women I meet offer their hands first- are they trying to rape me (boy were they in for a surprise after I shook their hands!)?
It’s pushy (and a little creepy) when there is the possibility (especially in cases where possibility is really a good strong probability) the woman may not want to shake your hand for whatever reason (cultural, religious, she thinks you’re gross etc.) because it’s requesting physical contact. If you are a gentlemen you ask. If you are a pushy jerk you barrel forward and shouldn’t complain when your rebuffed.
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### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/123 "2010-09-28T17:50:13Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Why is it that when we don’t respect your cultural beliefs and mores, simply by extending a hand for a handshake, we’re “douchebag” “jerk” “rapists” and “intimidating” “sexual predators” with “boundary issues” exhibiting “brutish behavior”, yet when you don’t respect our cultural beliefs and mores by shaking hands in an American professional business setting, you’re…what, exactly? And now you want all of us to change to some hypersensitive version on what works for you at your library where all handshaking is verboten? Sorry, hon, handshaking IS part of our culture, just as old as our country is. Why does your culture and your new way of doing things win out in our\* country? If I go to Iraq, should I expect the men to start shaking my hand there? Heck, no! They already have their culture there, and if I go there, I’m going to do my best to follow it (so I won’t be going there.)
>
> It’s not your basic point (no one should be forced to shake hands) that anyone’s arguing with. We agree with that, and we have accommodations for that \*within \*our culture of handshaking. It’s your ridiculous hyperbole and use of a very broad brush, with this insistence that \*everyone \*who’s \*ever \*tried to shake hands with you has been pushy about it when you’ve politely and clearly declined. Simply put, I don’t believe you.
> \*Collective “our”, as there are many Americans who are Muslims, of course.
I am a native born U.S. citizen. And as for gentlemen not extending their hands to women. That is not a “new” custom. Your dead wrong there, it is the actual true etiquette for the situation. Business women are not an invention of the 20th century. Women have been running businesses since America began (some of them were my ancestors who were peddlars and horse traders) and only until very recently has the idea that a man wouldn’t wait to have woman extend her hand to him been acceptable.
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### Author:  [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/124 "2010-09-28T18:01:28Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> And as for gentlemen not extending their hands to women. That is not a “new” custom. Your dead wrong there, it is the actual true etiquette for the situation.
You are wrong. Etiquette, like all other aspects of culture, evolves. It has no eternal, authoritative “source.” Ask yourself - when was the last time you curtseyed in polite recognition of a man, or a more senior woman?
It has \*historically \*been the custom that a man does not extend his hand first upon meeting or being introduced to a woman. However, as the American workplace (and American culture in general) has become more egalitarian, it is \*now \*the custom that either party may initiate a handshake.
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### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/125 "2010-09-28T18:06:46Z")
> [@cwthree](#):
>
> > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
> >
> > And as for gentlemen not extending their hands to women. That is not a “new” custom. Your dead wrong there, it is the actual true etiquette for the situation.
>
> You are wrong. Etiquette, like all other aspects of culture, evolves. It has no eternal, authoritative “source.” Ask yourself - when was the last time you curtseyed in polite recognition of a man, or a more senior woman?
>
> It has \*historically \*been the custom that a man does not extend his hand first upon meeting or being introduced to a woman. However, as the American workplace (and American culture in general) has become more egalitarian, it is \*now \*the custom that either party may initiate a handshake.
The last time I curtseyed in polite recognition of a man, or more senior woman, was about 48 hours ago at the end of an extended family meeting. And I don’t consider the custom that either party may initite a handshake egalitarian, I think its one more way men have of stripping rights away from women and a way of harassing them now that more overt sexual harassment is openly condemned.
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### Author:  [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/126 "2010-09-28T18:55:45Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> The last time I curtseyed in polite recognition of a man, or more senior woman, was about 48 hours ago at the end of an extended family meeting.
You’ve pointed out before that you’re Roma. IME, Roma family culture is not really comparable to normative American business culture. And, for what it’s worth, the last time someone in my family did that (among family or among business associates) was about 100 years ago.
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> And I don’t consider the custom that either party may initite a handshake egalitarian, I think its one more way men have of stripping rights away from women and a way of harassing them now that more overt sexual harassment is openly condemned.
I’ll have to agree with other posters and say that extending a hand and gracefully accepting a polite “Pardon me if I don’t shake hands” is not stripping you (or any woman) of anything. You seem to be confusing a common, non-sexual gesture that is generally understood to be polite with actual physical contact, suggestive gestures, and/or cat-calling.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/127 "2010-09-28T19:38:57Z")
> [@cwthree](#):
>
> … You seem to be confusing a common, non-sexual gesture that is generally understood to be polite with actual physical contact, suggestive gestures, and/or cat-calling.
Well, there’s that.
**Zealot** , what do you think of the fact that there are women on this very thread who see what you yourself call “one more way men have of stripping rights away from women” as the very opposite, as a sign that women are closer to having all the same rights as men, that we are treated (more and more) as equals and not second-class citizens. You seem intent on stripping _that_ away from us!
No one here is advocating touching people against their will. What we’re saying is that you’re using overblown bombastic rhetoric to condemn a common, everyday gesture of social courtesy. Comparing someone who offers a handshake to “rapists” is deeply, deeply insulting to anyone who’s been, y’know, _raped_.
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/128 "2010-09-28T20:38:09Z")
**phs** , what if the hand is really, really clammy and the guy has a weird mustache? Is it like rape then?
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### Author:  [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/129 "2010-09-28T20:47:49Z")
I’m in my late 20s and I’ve never heard that it’s rude to offer a handshake to a woman. In my life, I’ve never had a handshake refused nor have I ever refused one, that I recall. In fact, I don’t even ever really remember “offering” a handshake, as it always seemed like a mutual thing to me, and I never really thought about who was initiating and who was accepting.
Honestly, this whole tangent seems really… bizarre to me because, well, I tend to view pretty much everyone I meet as an equal, so the ideas regarding invasion of personal space just seem off to me. Perhaps I’ve simply never been in that situation because of how I’ve seen it as a mutual thing and, thus, never offered a handshake to someone who would have been uncomfortable with it.
I completely understand why someone, based on personal or religious beliefs or even for no real reason at all, may not want to shake hands, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to refuse politely. But it seems counter-productive to me that, if men and women are to be equals, to continue to have separate rules in such situations where the biological differences are meaningless. I will agree that someone who insists on shaking hands is a jerk, through whatever means, but to draw an association between the simple act of offering a handshake and necessarily violating boundaries seems like quite a stretch to me.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/130 "2010-09-28T22:05:00Z")
Yeah, but see, nice, reasonable, rational thoughts like that are not the way to derail a thread about Jews and ladies riding the cotton pony into a three-page diatribe about how the visiting VP who came into my office and shook my hand last week is secretly plotting to rape me. Which sounds like more fun to you? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/131 "2010-09-28T22:24:48Z")
Perhaps off topic… What would an ultra-orthodox Jew think about a a drug that prevents menstruation?
The possibly complicating factor is that the several drugs that do this are birth control pills, which might involve an entirely different set of religious issues.
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### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/132 "2010-09-29T03:35:41Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> > [@AClockworkMelon](#):
> >
> > How is it creepy or pushy to _offer_ a handshake? A lot of the women I meet offer their hands first- are they trying to rape me (boy were they in for a surprise after I shook their hands!)?
>
> It’s pushy (and a little creepy) when there is the possibility (especially in cases where possibility is really a good strong probability) the woman may not want to shake your hand for whatever reason (cultural, religious, she thinks you’re gross etc.) because it’s requesting physical contact. If you are a gentlemen you ask. If you are a pushy jerk you barrel forward and shouldn’t complain when your rebuffed.
Do you even realize what you’re saying?
A handshake is a request for physical contact. But you’re saying that you should _ask_ before you offer a handshake. Essentially you are saying that I should ask to ask for a handshake.
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### Author:  [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/133 "2010-09-29T07:13:42Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> A handshake is a request for physical contact. But you’re saying that you should _ask_ before you offer a handshake. Essentially you are saying that I should ask to ask for a handshake.
Just to throw this out there, because it’s kind of hilarious: in the Japanese schools I teach in, announcements over the intercom are preceeded by 4 chimes, then someone saying “I’m making an announcement,” followed by the announcement. At least they don’t finish with “that’s all.” No, that’s reserved for speeches! :D:D
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/134 "2010-09-29T14:07:15Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> The possibly complicating factor is that the several drugs that do this are birth control pills, which might involve an entirely different set of religious issues.
AFAIK conservative Judaism and conservative Christianity have very different views of sex and abortion. Sex for pleasure vs. procreation is not only accepted but mandated, and early term abortions are not a problem. What the ultimate implications are for birth control that effectively removes the possibility of conception for the entire time it’s being taken, however, I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/135 "2010-09-29T15:09:55Z")
Oh, fine, try to get this derailment back on topic, why doncha?
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/136 "2010-09-29T15:18:43Z")
Sorry.
On the bus this morning, a woman stood up to offer me the seat on the other side of her so I could sit down. When I moved past her, I think she might have slightly brushed against me. Now I think I’m pregnant. If it was rape, can I still force her to pay child support?
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### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/137 "2010-09-29T15:21:16Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#):
>
> Sorry.
>
> On the bus this morning, a woman stood up to offer me the seat on the other side of her so I could sit down. When I moved past her, I think she might have slightly brushed against me. Now I think I’m pregnant. If it was rape, can I still force her to pay child support?
IF it was rape?
I think you tempted her into brushing up against you. What were you doing on a bus in that part of town wearing whatever it was that you were wearing? Huh?
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/138 "2010-09-29T16:07:24Z")
She must have had some way of knowing that, under my coat, the sleeves of my sweater were pushed up… _all the way to my elbows!_
I’m such a harlot.
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### Author:  [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/139 "2010-09-29T18:12:17Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#):
>
> I’m such a harlot.
If the F\*\*k me pump fits… 😛
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-ultra-orthodox-jews-handle-the-whole-menstruation-women-prohibitions/554640/140 "2010-09-29T19:03:25Z")
Ballet flats, more or less. But you can see the tops of my feet. Scandalous!
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