showed what I felt?the pity of war. Without a word
from me the Israeli gunner cried out: ?Don?t forget
what we have gone through!?

Alas, I don?t seem to forget or even overlook any-
thing ?we? go through?~or what in my own country

PAPER

some of them have always made me go through. These
are bonds that never break, that I have no wish ever to
break. But it is precisely this refusal to forget that
enables me to speak as I do even if?God forbid?I
speak only for myself. 

Women and Tikkun/tikkun

 

Judy Chicago

an Fink, publisher of Ttiiahzm magazine, recently

wrote a column discussing the problems the

magazine was having ?nding women writers
(Ti/elem, Sept/Oct. 1988). At the time, I was working
on an image from the Holocaust Project dealing with
genocide in the twentieth century, linking it to the
destruction of Eastern European Jews. I was doing a
lot of reading on the subject of genocide and had
noticed, rather sadly, that almost all the writing I was
encountering was by men. It upset me that women
weren?t dealing with these issues because I believe we
have a signi?cant contribution to make about what it
will take to repair and heal the world. Like Nan, I
wondered where our voices were.

When Nan asked me to participate in the 
conference, I suggested, and she agreed, that we do a
panel entitled ?Women and Tillehzm,? because I believed
that the problem she had outlined reflected a much
larger issue?that is, women?s relationship to the overall
problem of transforming the world into a more humane
place. In preparation for the conference, I thought a lot
about this issue and concluded that there are two basic
problems, an internal one and an external one.

The ?rst problem, the internal one, is what I would
call female narcissism; by that I mean an overbearing
obsession among women with the nature of our identities
as? women. I myself shared this obsession for many
years and, in fact, made quite came to a point in 1982 when I could no longer make
images of women. I realized that women are everybody?s
love (or hate) object. Women paint women, men paint
women?and when women's bodies are used, even by

 

Indy Chicago is an artist and writer who is committed to the
idea that art can contribute to changing consciousness whiie
retaining its integrity and meaning as art. She is presently
working on a majbr project about the Holocaust with her
hushend, photographer Dorzaid Woodman.

80 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3

women, as the exclusive form through which certain
human attributes are represented (such as'vulnerability
and sensuality), we implicitly reinforce the identi?cation
of femininity with a range of human feelings that sup-
posedly remain outside the sphere of men. Hence, we
perpetuate sexist attitudes, albeit unconsciously.

Why was I obsessed for more than a decade with the
nature of female identity? Because the images that exist
as part of the mainstream culture promote a concept of
womanhood that is still unacceptable to any conscious,
evolved womanwand I?m referring to cultural icons all
the way from the most degrading pornography to the
most exalted images of women found in all the museums
of the world, images that do not re?ect our own experi-
ence of ourselves as full human beings. It?s not that
other images of women don?t exist, but that the alterna-
tive views forged by women artists and writers for the
last two centuries are still outside the mainstream. There-
fore, as part of one?s self-development, and for one?s
own sanity, one is forced to provide?for oneself and
one?s peers?a healthier image of the female self than
that which is prevalent.

This process occupies a lot of time and energy, which
is one reason why there seem to be so few women
dealing with ?larger issues.? The problem is that until
our own images of ourselves as women vie equally with
those of men?s in the marketplace and the museums, a
certain amount of female energy will continue to be
lost in the endless reinventing of the self that is essential
in a world that continues to deny female self-de?nition.

But what happens if and when one breaks out of this
narcissism? I am a case in point. As threatening as it is
for a woman to de?ne herself outside of male de?nition,
it is even more threatening for her to transcend self-
de?nition as her focus and insist on her place in the
larger world as a woman with a woman?s point of view.

When I stopped painting women, I lost a lot of my

 

 

female audience?most of whom still hunger, and under-
standably so, for images that af?rm them. But the nature
and de?nition of oppression lie in the fact that it pre-
vents full individuation. The process of individuation is
what leads one, as one moves forward in self-de?nition,
to address the larger and broader social issues. It is not
that I do not both understand and support women?s
need for collective action and group bonding as part of
the process of self-development. It is, rather, that I
want to be able to move beyond it and not suffer a loss
of support from the female audience.

My own experience in this area leads me to argue
that one reason it is hard to ?nd women writing on
global issues is that it is still dif?cult for us to individuate
beyond our identities as women and be rewarded for
it. This describes what I would call the internal answer
to the question about why it is hard to ?nd women who
are addressing major intellectual issues.

ow for another, more external reason, one

that I would refer to as pollution taboos?some

of which are speci?cally connected to issues
of being Jewish. Some time ago, I gave a print from the
Birth Project (which deals with the subjects of birth
and creation) to a young, modern Orthodox couple
who?d just had a child. They called me up to say that they
Conldn?t accept such an image because it violated the
proscription about modesty (that is to say, some subjects
are too ?private? for public viewing, even in as trans-
formed a form as one of my works of art). I, of course,
took the print back because I didn?t want my friends to
be uncomfortable. But I tried to point out that all these
so-called private subjects have to do with women?s reality.

To show that these pollution taboos are not con?ned
to the Jewish world, I want to tell a story about my
effort to give an artwork from the Birth Project to a
hospital?speci?cally, to the pavilion of a
major Los Angeles hospital (which they were planning
to rename the Woman?s Pavilion because, they said, they
wanted to ?af?rm? women). The head of the department
was very encouraging and seemingly excited about the
possibility of receiving a piece from the Birth Project.
?We discussed the details of the gift, its placement, and
the opening ceremonies. But, later, it turned out that he
was uncomfortable about the images. it seems that it is
all right to look at the ?crowning? of a baby every day,
as long as one doesn?t put an image of it on the wall.

What does this say about the continued social and
political resistance to truly af?rming women's experi-
ence? What isn?t imaged doesn?t exist as part of our
social reality. The absence of images that validate and
con?rm women?s experience re?ects the reality of a
world that does not incorporate our experience into its
norion of what it means to be human.

Recently I was in Israel where, in the Old City of
Jerusalem, I met a group of young, born-again American
Jews. The ?rst night, one young Hasid, an American,
refused to shake my hand and averted his eyes while
talking to me. Now I, who was brought up in a secular
Jewish family which advocated equal rights for women,
have had very little exposure to traditional Jewish pol-
lution taboos regarding women. What does it mean to
come from a culture which explicitly and implicitly
reviles women and women?s experience? And to what
degree do long-standing pollution taboos continue to
operate in both Jewish and non-Jewish cultures to make

 

THE BIRTH PROJECT Judy Chicago, Earth Birth 1983, az'r?rmb and quilting, 63 135 Elm/98$, quilted by Jacquelyn 
photo by Michele Mater:

WOMEN AND TIKKUN 81

women feel uncomfortable about addressing the issues
that are really fundamental to our lives?

?The personal is political? was one of the most signi?-
cant axioms of the women?s movement. But the personal
can become political, and be seen in its universal dimen-
sion, only if one?s personal experience is not considered
polluted. Additionally, the degree to which women still
operate in a world that considers certain issues ?women?s
issues? is, I believe, a reflection of the fact that women?s
issues have been left out of the ?human? or ?global?
dialogue, and are, in fact, still considered inappropriate
for social and political discourse.

 

Tbe problenz is tbat we truly bring
our perspectweas women to
bear on tbe world, we will probably
end up cballenging men?particularly
around tb eir intellectual
blindness to tbe way inale values
and patriarebal assumptions
sbape tbe framework and tbe
inetbods of tbeir problem solving.

 

\Vhich leads me to ask, What are the ?global? issues?
What should we, as socially concerned women, be ad-
dressing, and are these the issues men include in their
de?nition of important subject matter? Starvation, il-
literacy, overpopulation, exploitation and destruction
of the ecosysrem, abuse of anirnals?all these spring to
mind. And what is more global than the universal abuse
of children? How can we really have a humane society
with the level of male violence against women and
children that exists?

This last point is important because men rarely recog-
nize how gender conditioning affects behavior. Therefore,
men are unable to see the connections among violence
against women and children, the larger problems of the
planet, and their own culpability as men. Moreover, the
nature of the intellectual challenge, as it is posed by
male thinking, is terribly narrow?it generally does not
look at the overall conditions of the world but, rather,
focuses on small, abstract issues. or does this dialogue
generally connect our individual experiences with those
of everyone else?s on the planet. Perhaps if intellectual
discourse were more connected to human experience,
more women would participate.

How can we integrate what have been considered
the concerns of women into the intellectual discourse,
so that those concerns can be seen as central rather

82 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3

than peripheral to the process of transforming our planet
from a place of suffering to a world of hope?

Of course, when we women manage to transcend
female narcissism, overCOme pollution taboos, and then
bring our perspective as women to bear on issues, our
ideas are often ignored by male thinkers. A case in
point: I have been thinking a lot lately about the issue
of uniqueness versus universality vis-a-vis the Holocaust.
One of the people whom I admire On this subject is a
man named Yehuda Bauer. In one of his articles, ?The
Place of the Holocaust in History,? I came across the
following line about the Nazi mentality: ?It is interesting
that the SS . .. opposed, in theory at least, sadism and
what they called ?heedless brutality'  [and instead
they promoted] ?Ezslealt??cold-blooded murder with
no investment of emotive factors.? He continues by
saying, We still lack a proper analysis of ibis pbenomenon,
its use in real life, its meaning [emphasis mine] Earlier
in the article, he referred to how the Hungarian Jews
were unable to convert the information they had about
the extermination of the Jews into knowledge, implying
that it is knowledge that impels action.

I would argue in contrast to Bauer that we do have
an analysis that allows us to comprehend the Nazi
mentality. For a number of years, women have been
examining male behavior. I myself did it in my recent
series Powerplay (which, by the way, was the only work
I?ve ever exhibited that was met by near total silence,
both from men and from women).

For over a decade, I and other women have been
analyzing the ?cold-blooded, emotionless? value system
of masculinity and its political program, patriarchy. We
have provided an enormous amount of information
that makes Nazi ideology completely understandable in
terms of past and present patriarchal values. But this
information has not been converted into knowledge by
scholars (or in my case, viewers) because it con?icts
with men?s own images of themselves, and because men
still require women to support rather than cballenge
their view of the world.

I am often asked if ?we?ve come a long way, baby,?
a question I detest. We have come to a point where
women can more easily participate in the world, but
only  we support men in tbeir often distorted view of
tbe world.

The problem is that if we truly bring our perspective
as women to bear on the world (which, I might posit,
is one of our great gifts because our perspective has
been shaped by our experiences as victims rather than
victors, which makes it a mirror for many peoples who
have been victimized by patriarchal values), we will
probably end up challenging men? particularly around
their intellectual blindness to the way male values and
patriarchal assumptions shape the framework and the

 

 

methods of their problem solving.

This leads men to trivialize or disregard female think-
ing when it is at its most profound. This process can be
seen as another version of pollution taboos?meaning
the fear of being polluted (read castrated or weakened)
by female perception. This is a rather infantile response
to what could be interpreted as intellectual challenge at
its ?nest.

Pollution taboos have invaded all our thinkingaboth
the ways we see the problems confronting us and the
ways we?ve chosen to express ourselves. For decades,
women were able to acquire training as artists, yet, even
now, most women do not express their own experience
as women in their art. Why? Because we consider our-
selves ?polluted,? meaning not worthy of public ex-
posure. We?ve internalized a view of ourselves that

continues today. And the fact that many men are still
uncomfortable around powerful women can be seen as
another example of pollution taboos. Women?s power
is to be restricted to the domestic sphere; her realities
are not to be imaged; her power is not to be demon-
strated in the public arena. To violate this rule is to
become ?unfeminine,? even today.

The tradition of pollution tabOOS in Jewish culture
is, of course, particularly relevant to the issue of women
and til-:kun. For there must be a complete rede?nition
of gender roles in Judaism if women are to seriously
participate in transformation. How the magazine Tz'kkzm
can facilitate this transformation and also offer a more
humanized dialogue seems to be implicitly connected
to the answers to the questions raised in Nan Pink?s
column. Cl

PAPER: LESBIAN, GAY, AND PROGRESSIVE JEws

Jewish Progressives and the Jewish Community

 

Irena Kiep?sz

do not accept the assumption that there exist two

distinct Jewish worlds?progressive and main-

stream (or traditional) ?whose values and norms
are always in con?ict. My experience as a feminist and
a lesbian is that the Jewish world we call progressive
has often been as slow and reluctant to deal with feminist
and gay issues as has the mainstream Jewish world.
Some advances have been made, and many, though not
all, Jewish progressives have reached the stage of paying
obligatory lip service to and ensuring token represen-
tation at progressive events. But ?ghting sexism and
homophobia and gaining full rights for gays have not
evoked the same passion that the causes of other
minorities evoke. Most Jewish feminists and gays that I
know remain angry at and frustrated with Jewish
progressives. Deeply committed to progressive causes,
frequently in the vanguard of political action, Jewish
feminists and gays ?nd ourselves ?ghting for the rights
of others without the secure knowledge that others will
?ght for us. Most of the time we ?ght sexist and
heterosexist battles alone in both the mainstream and
progressive Jewish worlds.

 

Irena Klep?sz is a Yz'ddz'rbz'st and coedz?tor of The Tribe of
Dina: A Jewish Women?s Anthology (Beacon, 1989). 5/26 is a
meIder of {be Jewish Women?s Committee to End the
Occupation.

And because my expectations of these two worlds
are different, my reactions to advances in them vary as
well. For me, the advances for feminists and gays in the
mainstream Jewish community are more meaningful
because they are the result of greater effort than the
advances in the Jewish progressive community, where I
always expect validation and support. Thus, I ?nd greater
satisfaction in the fact that a lesbian support group
exists at the New York Section of the National Council
of Jewish Women than in the fact that a lesbian and gay
panel is scheduled afa progressive event?usually only
after protests and at the last minute. In this instance,
the National Council seems to have a higher conscious-
ness and is acting more progressively than progressives
themselves. 

So the two Jewish worlds?progressive and main-
stream?do not differ that greatly and require the same
energy in ?ghting these speci?c battles. Perhaps that is
the reason I attempt to avoid the ?us? and ?them?
division and try to ?nd common ground from which to
launch various battles in both worlds.

The ?us? and ?them? division??us? meaning pro-
gressives and ?them? meaning the mainstream?is too
simple and veils a more complex reality. It also smacks
of smugness and self-righteousness, which I ?nd alien-
ating. It assumes that the progressive world has every-

83