#aware only like 3 of u have seen yentl.

[cruelsister-moved]

not to use fictional lore to justify itself etc but I was thinking today on my walk how in yentl when she argues with avigdor about eve being made from adams rib he brushes it off without paying any attention to her argument, then later he comically manipulates religious law to get yentl to marry hadass (so he can exploit both what he sees as a weaker man + the woman he sees as his property). yentl refuses on this basis but later agrees because of her feelings for hadass avigdor's power over her as a man and her desire to please him.

later he agrees it's not wrong in a hypothetical context to study anyway even if there's a law that forbids it (whether this is his true religious opinion, or just that he too would ignore laws to study if need be, is irrevelant to his hypocrisy here) and then changes his mind, irrationally, because she's a woman. like he is basically screaming nonsense at her because of his instinctive reaction to hate women in his space and see them as inferior. he asks if she's a demon because he doesn't believe a woman could possess her intellect... he's angry because he liked her more than he would've liked a woman!!

he's appeased by her confession of love which allows him to completely recompartmentalise their relationship to no longer seeing her as human but a subservient other who he immediately treats completely differently. like of course she acted crazy, she's a foolish woman in love and i am the centre of this situation again so im not emasculated here. he forgives her immediately, yet he doesn't want her to return to studying because that would still force him to confront his incorrect beliefs about women. if his discomfort was truly spiritual, he wouldn't immediately forgive her for this act of desecration just because she loved him.

meanwhile hadass is shown to be controlled by people who use religious law that they don't allow her access to. it's the uneven access that keeps her disenfranchised, and when she gains access she is quickly able to use it to advocate for her own rights. and yentl realises that 1. she had assumed hadass' work at home to be inferior to her study, when in fact it requires skill&patience&care that yentl herself doesn't have and 2. hadass is actually intelligent and insightful, she just obviously wouldn't know anything about something she has never been allowed to learn.

its just such an insightful and nuanced portrayal that doesn't absolve religious men of their misogyny but it also doesnt cheaply point the finger at the hazy concept of religion; but directly at male-dominated structures of power as well as individual men who CHOOSE to be misogynistic to serve their own needs, either passively or violently, when we are shown at the very start of the film that there is another way.

#aware only like 3 of u have seen yentl. #this won't stop me though x #yentl #he's also a gay misogynist for context #like. hes not really mad she studied Talmud hes mad that she COULD study it #bc he believed women weren't capable enough for his High Minded Man Studies #and has just had that factually disproven #like his behaviour would've been exactly the same if it was secular study #long post #sorry. sorry #also i wanted to talk abt how like. the rebbes in the film are all shown treating women v differently than avigdor does #but I didnt wanna make it more than 4 paragraphs n i kinda ran out of steam #but there is like very deliberately not a curve of like more religious = more misogynistic #ppl are misogynistic to yentl in secular contexts all throughout the film #and there's like no difference in how they act vs avigdor #etc etc #also must be an ahead of its time recognition of internalised misogyny