My guess is that Lookjed is not the forum to discuss the current controversy regarding the Rabbinic ordination of women. At the same time, I do want to raise for discussion the issue of how day schools ensure that women faculty are treated with the same respect as their male colleagues both in and out of the classroom.
In the classroom, I assume that most schools frown on overt familiarity between teacher and student. So students would not be permitted to call their teachers by their first name, rather with a title: Rabbi Gotleib or Dr. Brown or Mrs. Cohen. How do we ensure that the 25 year old woman without a doctorate gets the same respect from her students as her male colleague who has similar educational credentials but has a weightier title?
Outside the classroom, how do we ensure that the pay scales of men and women are equivalent? Many day schools offer higher salaries to faculty members who have academic credentials. But we know that Rabbinic ordination is much easier to get than is a doctorate in Talmud of Jewish Studies. I recently read that one of the women who just received ordination and is working in a non-denominational Jewish institution wrote that she got a pay raise simply for receiving her klaf (diploma of ordination). How do schools make sure that women or cannot be credentialled still get their fair salary?
Behind all of this is another question: What message are we giving our female students who interact with male and female teachers and know that as knowledgeable as Mrs. Cohen might be, she will never be recognized in the Orthodox world the way Rabbi Gotleib is?
Alyssa
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2015 10:47AM by mlb.
