Speaking of gender segregation…have an incident in New York from last fall.
Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota did not object Wednesday when three women in his group — a Daily News reporter, a campaign aide and a member of his NYPD security detail — were asked to leave a Brooklyn synagogue during a campaign stop.
The Republican mayoral hopeful entered the ultra Orthodox Shomer Shabbos synagogue, in Borough Park, trailed by a gaggle of aides, reporters and security officers, as part of a walking tour of the neighborhood.
A synagogue official hurried over to the three women in the group — a Daily News reporter, a Lhota campaign aide, and a member of his security team — and asked them to leave while the men were allowed to stay.
Lhota emerged from the synagogue less than a minute later.
Asked about the incident afterward, he defended the synagogue.
“Throughout the Orthodox world, the Orthodox Jewish world as well as the Orthodox Muslim world, there are certain places that women are not involved in,” he said. “I will not as mayor violate their First Amendment constitutional rights for their religious practices.”
Imagine if it had been three black people or three Asians instead of three women. Would Lhota have been so compliant and so glib? I doubt it.
Why are there “certain places that women are not involved in”? Because women are viewed as secondary at best, that’s why. It’s because women are viewed as NotMen and thus Not As Good, i.e., inferior. By accepting the demand, Lhota is accepting that view. It’s not just some random arbitrary inexplicable religious quirk, it’s official god-ordained literal male supremacy.
H/t AnotherAnonymouse for prompting me to find this story.