#Dafyomi (17a-b) Thought for the day:

גְּדוֹלָה הַבְטָחָה שֶׁהִבְטִיחָן הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְנָשִׁים יוֹתֵר מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״נָשִׁים שַׁאֲנַנּוֹת קֹמְנָה שְׁמַעְנָה קוֹלִי בָּנוֹת בֹּטְחוֹת הַאְזֵנָּה אִמְרָתִי״.

אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב לְרַבִּי חִיָּיא: נָשִׁים בְּמַאי זָכְיָין? בְּאַקְרוֹיֵי בְּנַיְיהוּ לְבֵי כְנִישְׁתָּא, וּבְאַתְנוֹיֵי גַּבְרַיְיהוּ בֵּי רַבָּנַן, וְנָטְרִין לְגַבְרַיְיהוּ עַד דְּאָתוּ מִבֵּי רַבָּנַן.

Translation (taken from Sefaria - thanks!):
The Gemara states: Greater is the promise for the future made by the Holy One, Blessed be He, to women than to men, as it is stated: “Rise up, women at ease; hear My voice, confident daughters, listen to what I say” (Isaiah 32:9). This promise of ease and confidence is not given to men.
Rav said to Rabbi Ḥiyya: By what virtue do women merit to receive this reward? Rabbi Ḥiyya answered: They merit this reward for bringing their children to read the Torah in the synagogue, and for sending their husbands to study mishna in the study hall, and for waiting for their husbands until they return from the study hall.

I am a heterodox Jew. That means that I recognise multiple paths to Jewish fulfillment. But it also means, I am not Orthodox - i.e. I do not follow normative halacha. The reason for this is because often I find it morally problematic - I believe that the inherent conservativeness of the halachic process, based, as it is, in a desire to "preserve" Jewish culture is ethically problematic when it creates a form of heteronomous denial of the authority of humannkind (i.e. we allow G?d and her self proclaimed representatives to tell us what to do).

Why is this relevant to this section? I always assumed that Orthodox apologetics around the place of women were a very modern phenomenon - that only today, when every educated person realises that women should have equal rights, does one need a system which explains why women don't have the same rights and obligations as men within traditional Jewish observance.
It turns out I was wrong - the apologetics are there from the beginning. While explaining women's subservient place to men (how they gain credit through acting as enablers of men's torah study and piety) in that very moment the Rabbis are already propounding the idea that somehow women have been given some extra gift while the patriarchy forces them into servitude.

Does this change anything - for sure. I still think this is apologetics. I still do not accept that women should be subservient to men or that the promise given to them is greater than that of men, or that they are on a higher spiritual plane, or any of those things - but I do recognise two important points:
1) The tradition has always raised the questions that Jews of the last 200 years have asked around our tradition and gender. Progressive critiques of halacha are embedded within the very texts that establish these traditions.
2) While I see these arguments as insincere apologetics, those making them clearly do not. For them, the authority of the explanation of women's secondary status in traditional Judaism is exactly the same authority as that which creates the inequality. One does not come after the other - in fact, the tradition seems to have taken care to get the reasoning in before delivering the blow of the actual law. While I can be cynical about the nature of the Patriarchy, I must remind myself to judge each person in a favourable light (דן לכף זכות) as their principled position is no less a belief in Justice than mine.