It’s about time we face the truth. Orthodox Jewry is not immune from sexual abuse. This should be obvious by now. There are so many cases reported in the media that one would have to be completely lobotomized not to know that. But what is not so well known is the extent of it. How does Orthodox Jewry fit in to the overall societal picture? How do we compare with society in general?
Not very well I’m afraid. At least as it pertains to married women. From an article in the Jewish Week:
A report in the November issue of the journal of the American Psychiatric Association says that Orthodox Jewish women suffer as much of it as other American women do. Twenty-six percent of respondents in a study about the sexual lives and attitudes of married Orthodox Jewish women — 55 percent identifying as Modern Orthodox and about 45 percent as fervently Orthodox — indicated that they had at some point suffered sexual abuse.
What is even more incredible is the comparison between ultra Orthodox and modern Orthodox. Here are some of the numbers:
The new article also says that fervently Orthodox women are more likely than Modern Orthodox women to have experienced sexual abuse, to have experienced it multiple times and to have experienced it the first time before age 13.
Fifty-eight percent of fervently Orthodox women who participated in the study reported experiencing sexual abuse multiple times, according to the article, compared to 39 percent of Modern Orthodox women.
Overall, 16 percent of respondents said they experienced their first sexual abuse at or before they were 13 years old, which is less than the approximately 22 percent of American women who have reported in other studies that they were sexually abused at that age.
Among the ultra-Orthodox respondents, 20 percent said they had experienced abuse by the age of 13, while among the modern Orthodox respondents it was 12 percent. “It’s very important to note that this is just a slice,” said Rachel Yehuda, a professor of psychiatry at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, and one of the paper’s lead authors.
This is quite a revealing study. Of course I can see all the naysayers already... coming out and condemning the report as flawed or biased. And there will be the predictable put-downs of the Jewish Week as anti Charedi. But all of that will simply not fly in the face if a serious study published in one of the most respectd psychiatric journals.
How, one can ask, is it possible that the Torah world which is supposed to reflect the highest standards of sexual conduct are no better than the average non Jew? And How could it be that more women are sexually abused in segment of a community that is the strictest about sexual matters?
I have no ready answers. I would have not predicted these statistical numbers. At worst I would have said that abuse exists perhaps more than we think but not to the same extent as the general population. And I would certainly not have expected the community with the largest percentages of abused women to be the Charedi one. But that is in fact the case according to the study.
One would think that exposure to the popular culture would invite more abuse… and sheltering from it would help prevent abuse. Western culture after all idealizes sexual prowess. The vast majority entertainment in our day has tremendous sexual content. Sex is glorified. You see it everywhere… on TV, in the movies, in books ,on billboards in magazines... you cannot escape it.
If you are secular you are immersed in it. And most people emulate their heroes… heroes like the fictional James Bond, whose biggest claim to fame is how many women he’s had. Additionally one can barely avoid seeing images of female pop stars in various states of undress these days. So the sexual stimuli are there… and people emulate their heroes. So why is it that those of us who are the most sheltered from the sexual stimuli are the ones who are the guiltiest of sexual abuse?
One can only speculate at this point. Perhaps it is the over-sheltering that is at fault. Maybe a little exposure to the culture is a good thing. Maybe sheltering causes too much pent up frustration. Who knows?!
But one thing is certain. It does exist and in far greater numbers than most people think. That we aren’t as aware of it is probably a function of the shame victims have in reporting it. I’m sure sexual abuse is underreported by married women, especially in the Torah world. And those that do report it, do not advertise. Women are abused in silence. Thank God there are Torah oriented women’s shelters like Shalva. But that Shalva has to exist at all is not a compliment to us.
