A 16 year old teenage girl from a Mamlachti-Dati school registered to partake in a beauty contest for the region in which she lives. When she won the beauty contest, she found out she lost everything else. She was thrown out of school, harming her potential for the future (if school helps you for the future, which is not clear), as she will have problems with the bagrut and her draft in the army.
the school found out about her participation, and decided it was inappropriate. The family is appealing. She says she first checked to make sure there would be no swimsuit contest and that she could wear tzanua clothing, and only when she found out everything would be ok did she register to participate. The school's response is that when the issue first came up they told her it is inappropriate and they could not allow it, and she went ahead with it anyway. A final decision has yet to be made. (source: Ynet)
What do you think? Are they right to throw her out or should they let her back in?
It does seem inappropriate, even if she was careful about tzniyus, and all school's have rules and boundaries. If they told her in advance, and she ignored the defined boundaries, maybe they have the right to lay down the law. On the other hand, they could use this as an educational experience and teach the kids why it is inappropriate, what is wrong with beauty contests, what's wrong with religious girls being in them, why teens should not be doing that, or whatever angle they want to explore. Then again, they can still make it into an educational experience, even if they do expel her from the school..
What do you think?
participating in such a contest is not tsanua
ReplyDeleteI think that it's a failure on the school's part that this girl thought that participating in a beauty contest would be tzanua as long as all of the clothing measured up (no pun intended). Instead of throwing her out, the school should use this opportunity to re-examine how they are teaching tznius.
ReplyDeleteI think your last paragraph and yoni r.'s comment say it. Although, the problem is bigger than just the school. It also crosses sectarian, Dati or Haredi boundaries. We've got Dati-Leumi girls in beauty pageants, and Hot Chanis and other more haredi types looking like high priced hookers. We've got guys wearing wildly expensive outfits, weddings that break the bank, homes that show off one's disposable income. Even some of the shuls are over the top.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have lost the idea that tzniut is a social and personal concept as much, or more, than it is one about what clothing we wear. When Shmuel Katz wrote Kdoshim Tehiyu, there was a good reason that his first chapter was about concept and attitude. We are totally missing the point nowadays.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/health/12orthodox.html
ReplyDeleteread this before we place blame on what we're encouraging the youngin's to think about beauty.
KT
Joel Rich
Kicking her out is the worst thing the school could do, if she did something wrong (clearly it was an issue for her) so teach her.
ReplyDeletePost her picture!
ReplyDeleteIf the school told her in advance thats one thing. But lets for a minute say it didn't/// My guess is that had she been the star of a women's only basketball team that played in front of men and she scored the winning basket for the championship the school would be celebrating her success. I may be wrong. But is thee a difference?
ReplyDeleteNext we'll have a wet T shirt contest for the women of Nofei Aviv.
ReplyDeleteuh, what do nofei aviv women have to do with anything?
ReplyDeleteSo there are dati families whose kids want to participate in such things. Very likely there are other similar things that kids in dati families want to participate in.
ReplyDeleteSo where should such dati kids to attend school?
Take it a step further. Let's say there's a Chiloni family that leans toward Masorati. And let's further say that this family would like their children to get more education about dat than is provided at a regular mamlachti school (where they've pretty much done away with dat).
Where should their kids attend school?