bs"d
I would like to ask the question the other way round:
1) Where can you find magazines in the open depicting women as meat: on the subway newspaper stand in New York City or in Meah Shearim?
2) What will excite a man more: a woman with a tichl down to her nose, or someone who walks around in the street as if she forgot to put on her dress?
3) Which society is dehumanizing women more: a consumer-oriented, hollywood/top-model-influenced society, or a society who struggles to live a spiritual way of life?
4) Concerning covering ourselves: when does one generally feel the need to cover and protect something: when it is precious, or when it's of little value?
5) Concerning meat: when one goes to the butcher: is the meat covered or uncovered?
etc...
I talk a lot to "secular" Jews, as well as to non-Jewish people. They mean well. They want to protect and promote the status of women, and that is what truly religious Jews want too. Here are some of the things i tell them:
Did you know that one of the main sources for everyday life of 17th/18th century life in Europe is the memoir of Glickel von Hameln, a Jewish woman. Now how many women at that time were able to read and write?
Women are praised in our seforim not just for their sense of modesty, but for their learning, their intelligence. For prophecy and leadership! Which other culture produced that throughout history, not just in the last 100 years?!
Which other culture protects women's rights as Judaism does?
This includes sexuality:
a) Mitzvas Onah (not just breeding, and not just for a man's lust). Also: A man can't just jump on his wife, but has to draw her close, speak to her in a loving way etc.
b) during relations a woman has to be mazria first ideally. [GUE - if this is a trigger please remove it. I am new here so i don't know what i can write])
c) a man is forbidden to rape c'v or otherwise force or demand sex. (compare to some societies where rapists are legally protected and the victim is at fault!)
All the above is just from a legal/halachic perspective. From a more poetic/romantic point of view:
a) Knesses Israel is feminine and we get married on Shavuos.
b) Shir HaShirim.
c) the beautiful letter of the Ramban about sexuality, beautiful passages in the Zohar haKadosh (all of Kabbalah speaks in terms of the relationship between male and female).
So on the one side people like the JP poster want to promote and protect women,and we have proof from our history that Judaism does just that.
Then sometimes they will argue: but i like the way men look at me, i have the right to dress sexy etc...
I tell them, ok, but following your logic, you can't have it both ways: on the side you want the right for pornography, sexual "freedom" when you feel like it, on the other side you want to prevent it.
Judaism on the other side does has both: protection/honor of women and a beautiful and exciting sexual life inside marriage.
From all of this we see: it is the secular society who is not able to maintain the balance.
I have yet to meet someone who is able to contradict the above points.
But: no society is perfect, including Judaism: there is abuse, c'v. there is anger towards women. there are tremendous mistakes in chinuch in general, and concerning sexuality in particular. there is a forum like this one. We can't fool ourselves about that either... but we have ideals, and we have tools to work towards these ideals b'h.
May HaShem guide us on the right path, especially now, zman matan torasenu.
