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Jan 12, 2012
Machon PUAH's Upcoming Female Only Conference
The PUAH Institute has announced a response to the attack against them, and to the demand that they cancel their conference.
They released an announcement to the press saying that they will be holding a separate conference for women only in 6 months from now, corresponding with the yahrtzeit of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, who taught them the ways of unity and respect for each person.
They are not canceling their current conference, with male-only presenters. That will continue as scheduled. The next conference, for women only, will be in addition to that. And, the newly scheduled female-only conference, will not just e a one-off response, but will become an annual conference of its own.
It is not clear to me if "for women only" means only female presenters or if the conference will be only open to women in the audience as well.
My initial thought is that this is not really much of a response. And, if I thought Machon PUAH was wrong for hosting a male-presenter-only conference, which I do not, I would not see this as an adequate solution. No matter what other conference they are willing to hold, in this conference females are being excluded. And, if it is not ok to have a male-only conference, why is it ok to have a female-only conference. While it is a nice gesture, I do not see it as a solution to the complaints. I am curious as to how this announcement is being received by those who protested Machon PUAH in the first place. I have not seen any announcement about it, but I would be surprised if they found this acceptable.
They released an announcement to the press saying that they will be holding a separate conference for women only in 6 months from now, corresponding with the yahrtzeit of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, who taught them the ways of unity and respect for each person.
They are not canceling their current conference, with male-only presenters. That will continue as scheduled. The next conference, for women only, will be in addition to that. And, the newly scheduled female-only conference, will not just e a one-off response, but will become an annual conference of its own.
It is not clear to me if "for women only" means only female presenters or if the conference will be only open to women in the audience as well.
My initial thought is that this is not really much of a response. And, if I thought Machon PUAH was wrong for hosting a male-presenter-only conference, which I do not, I would not see this as an adequate solution. No matter what other conference they are willing to hold, in this conference females are being excluded. And, if it is not ok to have a male-only conference, why is it ok to have a female-only conference. While it is a nice gesture, I do not see it as a solution to the complaints. I am curious as to how this announcement is being received by those who protested Machon PUAH in the first place. I have not seen any announcement about it, but I would be surprised if they found this acceptable.
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I dont think that they deliberately excluded women presenters, as in their last conferences they have had women presenters. It just so happened that when they drew up the list of presenters, none happened to be female. Not that they have anything against females. And then the whole thing got blown out of proportion when the media quoted that they werent having any females. Its not that they had female presenters, and then caved in to Chareidi pressure and removed them. There were never any females to begin with!
ReplyDeletePlus dont forget that Machon Puah was established specifically to help women!!!
Dani that's odd because in their press release they said that this particular conference - after much deliberation years ago - was always with only men as presenters, and did not have women step up to the stage to ask their questions.
ReplyDeleteI was looking at this as for women involved in these matters having more of an open forum, which they don't at the conference for poskim and other Rabbis.
ReplyDeleteBut Rafi of course you know in the eyes of the leftist-feminists women-only programs are never an issue, they only seek to break up anything for men.
And they would show their true colors if they object to this conference and say something like "but the men's conference is where it's really at so it's no consolation for the women-doctors to present at this one."
I haven't followed this issue closely but in general when complaints like this arise I wish that the organizations involved would simply not be מתייחס to the leftists/femininists at all. (If they fear legal action they could consult a lawyer to reassure them. If he* says it may be a problem or if there are other concerns then I don't know.)
ReplyDelete* I on purpose did not write "he/she." Take that leftists!
the idea of "ok girls, we'll also give you the ball for a few minutes" is something only a guy would come up with.
ReplyDeleteand dani s. yes they deliberately exclude women. the jp interviewed a female doctor who was asked to give a presentation via a man (in a previous conference).
I'm not following this either Ben Waxman. I spoke to a friend who has been to a few of the previous ones, and told me that there were women presenters. I havent seen the aritcle that you quoted, but if true then thats very sad indeed.
ReplyDeletequote:
ReplyDeleteProf. Ephrat Levy-Lahad, a leading medical geneticist at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center who is regularly invited to speak to conferences around the world, told the Post that some years ago, she had been invited to speak at the annual Puah conference, but a few days before the conference, she received a call from the voluntary organization that it “suddenly realized I was a woman and asked for a replacement. I agreed then, because it had not yet become a public issue, and there would have been no use in objecting.
http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=252900
was your friend at the annual conference on Innovations in Medicine? puah has other conferences where they "allow" (what a horrible word) women to speak
As someone who was against the male-presenter conference I am sort of ok with this, without knowing all the details.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the all-male presenters conference was not that only men would be talking to men. My problem is that women were allowed to attend but if they had any questions they had to send notes up to the front to be asked out loud by a man.
My problem was that women would sit there in the most stereotypical version of second class citizens.
So separate conferences, one for only men and one for only women is a reasonable solution.
Most people do not dispute the need for events just for men or just for women. But when you have mixed events you can't treat people unequally (with public funds).