Rav Avigdor Miller on Men vs. Women

A:

How do we know that our sense of values as far as the mission of women in this world is not prejudiced by, we’ll call it, male chauvinism?

So the question is this. How do we know that the mission of man in this world is to make a living and support a family? Maybe it’s a plot by all the women so that they should be able to remain at home while the men have to go out of the house. Up until now, at least that’s how it was; only lately, they’re becoming more generous and they’re helping carry the load. But up until now, it was a woman’s plot to send out the men to work hard in the fields.

You know, men didn’t work in offices up until recently. They toiled in the fields. It was very heavy work. So the women’s plot was that men should be the laborers; they should do all kinds of dirty work and grueling work, working outside in the freezing cold sometimes. Women, meanwhile, were home and they were protected. All they had to do was to take care of what was inside the house and they led a life of ease. And so, maybe it was just a plot, a plot of female chauvinism against the men.

And the answer is, nobody plotted anything; only Hashem plotted. Call it nature if you want, but it’s Nature with a capital N. Hashem plotted it that way.

Because up until recently, women used to give birth to children. That’s what their function was in life. Men up until now didn’t have any breasts to nurse children and therefore they had to leave the job to the women.

Now, if a woman has children in the house, somebody has to take care of the children. And so, the one who can nurse the baby has to be there. Therefore she had to stay home to nurse the children.

She is also the one who has the most patience with children. Because a man, you should know, is like a bull. A man gets irritated too much. And therefore, she is the one fitted by nature to the task of raising little children. And since little children were in the house all the time until she was well past middle age, therefore, that’s how it turned out by the plan of Hakadosh Baruch Hu that women were there.

But they had to eat. So the man had to go out on the fields and plow. And he was plowing all day under the hot sun. And when he was reaping, he was reaping under the hot sun. He brought back the flour after grinding it, and she baked it at home.

So therefore, it was a cooperation. She was home anyway and there was a stove there, so she baked the bread. She cooked the food that he brought back from hunting, let’s say, or from raising livestock. And therefore, the cooperation was by forces of nature which Hakadosh Baruch Hu created.

The truth is, nobody had it easy in the olden days. Everybody worked hard. The women worked all day long with big families. It was hard, but they achieved their purpose in life. And the more children they had, the more proud they were. It was accomplishing something for Hashem. And the men didn’t have it easy, either. They slaved on the fields. They didn’t have an eight-hour day. They worked from sunrise to sunset, even on the longest days. They toiled all the time. And therefore, nobody was privileged because of chauvinism.

It’s only lately, when women decided that they don’t want to have babies, they have nothing to do, so they say, “We want to compete with you in the offices.”

So now they’re going out to the offices and they’re enjoying a childless life; a life where they’re sitting in offices without fulfilling their purpose as mothers, without fulfilling their purpose of making a home. Their homes are nothing but an apartment on the West Side. They come home at night to a lonely apartment. Let’s hope it’s lonely.

So what do they have? A barren existence. A woman is not satisfied by being, let’s say, an executive in a business. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s all fake. Even a woman who is elected, let’s say, as a city councilwoman, so she comes home from the city hall to her apartment and she’s thinking, “This is what I was created for?” She puts up a bluff, but she is dissatisfied.

A woman has a nature. A man has a nature. And each nature has to be fulfilled according to its own criteria. A woman’s nature is most fully fulfilled when she has a family. By means of her children, that’s where all the characteristics that are stored up within the depths of a woman’s human nature come to the surface. She is kindly. She is full of chesed.

A woman becomes a creature of doing kindliness. Her whole life is devoted to kindliness. That’s what she is for. Her voice is gentle and she is not rough. She is easily persuaded. It’s easy to get along with her, more or less. And therefore, she fulfills her perfection by family.

And when the children grow up, she is busy helping raise her daughters’ children. She helps them grow up. She is busy all the time with family. And it brings out the best in her nature: compassion. The desire to help. Charity. Unselfishness. All these qualities develop to the very best.

And when the time comes for her to return to the One who sent her, she goes back with the most shleimus that she could achieve. Instead of sitting in an office and not achieving the perfection of her character, she remains in a house full of children where there is family, there are human beings, and there, she develops all the qualities that were implanted potentially in her nature. And when she finally comes back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, she is perfect.

Even though she is not so wise. Even if she doesn’t know Gemara. But she has achieved things that even the person who learned Gemara cannot achieve because the world was created for chesed! For the doing of kindliness! For the achievement of unselfish deeds of virtue. And a mother lives a life of unselfishness.

She sacrifices for her children. She doesn’t sleep because of her children. She doesn’t eat on time because of her children. She gives away from herself because of her children. She remains poor for the sake of her children; she wants to send them to cheder, to yeshiva.

And she gives up good times and luxuries for the sake of her children. A life of self-sacrifice for an ideal makes her ennobled. She’s glorious! And a Jewish mother, when the time comes to come back to the Next World, she comes with a crown on her head that many tzaddikim won’t have.

And the Gemara says, גְּדוֹלָה הַבְטָחָה שֶׁהִבְטִיחוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְנָשִׁים יוֹתֵר מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים – How much greater is the promise that Hashem gave to women, even more than to men (Brachos 17a). Because a man, let’s say, who is a rosh yeshiva, he’s a big lamdan, but who says that it’s all for the service of Hashem? Who says it’s unselfish?

After all, he gets glory and sometimes he gets money for it too. There’s a certain exhilaration in being able to teach Torah to other people. Here’s a wise man who writes seforim. How much is there of unselfish service to Hashem there? But a woman, it’s all unselfishness.

Of course, you have to think about Hashem. If she forgets that He sent her, then it’s like an Italian woman. But if she always remembers Hashem and she lives a life of dedicated unselfish chesed, then she has achieved the greatest she can achieve. There is nothing better you can do for her!

How cruel it is to take her out of that home and put her into an office where she becomes not a woman! She’s a man there, and none of her qualities are able to develop anymore. And she remains barren. It’s like a field that could have produced the most beautiful trees and fruits, and nothing grows there.

Because we don’t need her in the office! Nothing is accomplished by her that couldn’t be accomplished by just a plain automaton, a robot without feelings.

A man, however, goes out into the hard, bitter world of competition. He has to make a living. He has to fight his way with people. He also has certain tests. His tests are tests. Will he steal other people’s money? Will he encroach on other people’s rights? On people’s properties? He has various tests of other kinds. And if he lives properly, he will also pass the test and develop the potential in his character.

But remember! Each one has different natures.נָשִׁים עַם בִּפְנֵי עַצְמָן –Women are a separate nation (Shabbos 62a). They’re actually a separate people and Hashem made them different. And they need a different kind of existence to create the perfection for which they were made.

December 1985