The other day I was thinking: if traditionally a Kippah is worn to signify an acceptance of God and his power, then why don’t women have to wear them? A relatively religious friend of mine and I recently got into a conversation about this issue, and she told me that she had heard that because women give birth, they are naturally closer to God and so men, because they cannot give birth, wear Kippot to compensate and bring them closer to God, as well. She thought that the reason was beautiful, and I, although not completely won over by it, agree that there is some beauty in the idea of giving birth being a special womanly connection to God.
I did some research on the topic, and while I did not find that exact explanation, I found this:
“Women don’t have to for two reasons:
1) Women have a stricter code of modesty, and so they are already reminded of G-d in their dress.
2) Women are naturally more intuitive into spiritual concepts and G-d and thus don’t need as tangible and physical a reminder as the men need”
While I am not going to address the first reason right now, as I believe it is mainly a denominational belief issue, I will address the second. It makes me uncomfortable. Who can say that a woman is more intuitive about spiritual concepts or closer to God than a man, unless he or she has been both a man and a woman? How can you generalize an entire gender’s spirituality when a connection to God is such an individual thing?
However, studies have shown that women actually tend to be more religious and to have more belief in God than men. In one study, 77% of women said they have an absolutely certain belief in a God, while 65% of men said so. The difference in the numbers is not trivial, and so I want to be more open-minded about the possibility of women as a gender being more religious than men. But a part of me (the part of me that likes to ignore statistics?) still insists that this generalization is too convenient, too simple—I’m torn.
While I have never worn a kippah and do not particularly want to, I have a great respect for women who do. And a part of me wishes that I wanted to wear a kippah, because the part of me that thinks that men are just as spiritual as women knows that wearing one is a necessary step for equality. And the other part of me, the part that is weary of tearing down tradition, thinks that maybe there is something to be said for the fact that for hundreds of years women have not had to wear kippot and have stayed connected to God. I find myself somewhat of a hypocrite because in reality, I have no interest in wearing a kippah, but in theory, a large part of me thinks that women should.
I don’t quite understand why you dismiss the “stricter code of modesty” reason for men wearing kippot as “a denominational belief issue.” How is wearing a kippah not a denominational belief issue? Both are traditional Jewish ways to show respect for God. They are different for men and women because — as the survey you cite acknowledges — men and women are different.
In today’s world, I think these different requirements in dress are even more important. For women, choosing to dress according to Jewish modesty laws is something that sets them apart from others and acknowledges fear of God. For men, since dressing modestly is far less difficult/obvious, wearing a kippah has the same effect.
Of course, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for a girl to wear a kippah. But to say that women should wear kippot but not necessarily dress modestly is to severely miss the point.
The reason I chose not to discuss the idea of women having a stricter code of modesty is because in many denominations, women and men are expected to uphold the same code of modesty, and so modesty is an irrelevant reason for many people for men to wear kippot instead of women.
Personally, I don’t think that women necessarily need to follow a stricter code of modesty than men do, and so I think that wearing a kippah might have the same benefits for men and women. While many women do choose to follow a observe tznius, or a modest lifestyle and dress, other women do not feel that doing so would be an effective way for them to acknowledge a fear of God. And some women do not want to set themselves apart from other women to such an extent that when people look at them the first thing they notice is that they don’t look like everyone else. Modest dress is a somewhat personal issue, and so my opinion on this issue would not be relevant for more many people.
I think that women should be allowed to dress modestly, and that they should also be allowed to wear kippot, but not that they should be required to do either one. It’s about what makes them personally feel the most connected to God.
Interesting post. To put more into the mix: isn’t wearing a kippah an minhag (custom) rather than a mitzvah (commandment)? (And also I always thought the custom was so there was some separation between the person and God above.)
It is a Minhag. Because of this fact, there is speculation about when and why the tradition started, and so there are many reasons given as to why people wear a kippah. I chose to discuss the reasoning given by Rabbi Steinsaltz, that an uncovered head means “unbridled license” and therefore that a covered head means submission, but I’m sure there are many other reasons out there.
Here via Feministe. Only went to synagogue for a few years as a young girl, but I always wore a kippah. I was given to understand that just because women aren’t obliged to wear kippot doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t!
This thing about women being more spiritual is kind of bosh, though. (Atheist, here!)
Why’d you wear it, then?
(Curiousity, not meant to sound judgemental)
[...] am not. But with this realization came another one–that for years, I’ve been justifying my decision to not wear a Kippah, Tallit, or Tefillin with the word “comfort,” but that doing so is actually quite hypocritical of me. To put [...]
Hi! While browsing blogs about kippot, I stumbled upon a blog that says women nowadays also wear kippot. Let me find the blog for you and post it here.
To me the whole women wearing kippot / talit thing is a bust. I could never get used to it; it just gives me the urge to giggle. Not that that should stop anyone who wants to from wearing it, but the interest in it seems to have waned after only one generation. A twenty-something acquaintance, whose mother davens and wears a talit and a head covering, was heard to say recently that when she was in junior high, she recalls a girl showing up to (Jewish) summer camp wearing a kippah, which, she said, “was social suicide”. And this was in a milieu where it was familiar, if not encouraged!
Forgot to mention: The explanation about women naturally / intuitively being more spiritual than men is given for just about every difference in expectations and behavior in Orthodox Judaism, and it bothers me. Besides being simplistic, what does it say about women who haven’t yet or will never give birth?