Feminism in the View of the Torah

I once spoke at a local shul after davening about the topic of this week's Torah portion, namely oaths and vows. I spoke about the annulment of vows and ventured that the Torah saw the woman as being in need of protection, for what she promised to do needed to first be green-lighted by a male with authority over her. I remember so vividly, after I spoke, being excoriated by a friend, a friend who was very dear to me. He accused me of presenting the Torah in a patriarchal light, chauvinist and even sexist. Women, he argued, do not need a protective veil draped over their shoulders by a man.

At the same time, a simple reading of the text creates a clear bifurcation between women whose oaths can be annulled by a man, a father or spouse, and those which can not. A daughter's vow can be annulled by her father, and a wife's by her husband; these clearly bespeak a patriarchal interpretation – a woman can not do something that contravenes the fragile fabric of the home life, and were a woman to take upon herself something that opposes the direction the head of household chooses to steer the family in, ipso facto, the "alpha male" has the ability to stymie the woman's independently charted course.

In a manner of speaking, an oath essentially means that a person chooses to forbid something upon him or herself that wasn't priorly forbidden, and states, "In the same manner that something dedicated to God above is forbidden – a sacrifice or a gift to the Beit Mikdash – likewise, what I've chosen to delineate as forbidden is now forbidden because it now takes on the very same status."

Why then, can't a woman – in the said circumstances – engage in this act? Why can't a woman forbid something upon herself, or state that one of her earthly possessions are forbidden upon others?

A divorcee has a right to make vows, as does a widow. What does that tell us, then, about the reason behind the man's ability to annul a woman's vow? Has the woman become empowered, more enlightened, or more autonomous – in the Torah's lens – after having been betrothed to a man? After a woman's spouse has died, does her conceptualization of life change?

Or, is the default, that a man has a deterministic say over a woman's life, but by extension, were there to no longer be a man present after the husband's passing, or a couple choosing to part ways, the woman is left with no one in her life who logically or rationally should have any dominion over?

Any discussion of this type would seem to bring anachronistic strains of thought to the fore. Life is seen differently today, and women's roles have changed in ways that are unrecognizable. I remember one time my wife and I had seen a young female doctor considered an expert in her field; thereafter, we went to Hadassah, and consulted with three graying male professors. The young female doctor, based on her research, and acumen, disagreed with the elderly triumvirate. We shared with them what their female colleague had said, and they said – peh echad (like you say in Hebrew) – "If Dr. ______ says that, then that's ok with us." At the time, I was amazed, not the least by their humility, but also the dynamics, an up and coming doctor, and three professors, and she got the final word.

I don't know which reading behind vows is correct. Not that we are quick to make promises right and left, but presumably were that to be the case, the male party would still have the said authority, perhaps which is why the Torah states in its summation of the laws of oaths, "Those are the laws that Hashem enjoined upon Moses between a husband and his wife, and as between a father and his daughter while in her father’s household by reason of her youth."

"Laws" – chukim in Hebrew – is a term used by the Torah to connote that a concept is beyond human grasp. The precepts of the red heifer, which Solomon himself did not understand of his own accord, are also referred to as a chukah, or "law." I wonder what the rationale is behind the male's role in annulling a woman's vow; at the same time, whether my friend was right or wrong seems to be a matter of textual analysis, one behind my grasp.