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From: levy@pyuxww.UUCP (S Levy)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Women and halacha in a male dominated language
Message-ID: <145@pyuxww.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 09:51:21 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxww.145
Posted: Wed Feb 27 09:51:21 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 07:00:45 EST
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 23


Hebrew is a language where almost all words have a masculine
or feminine gender associated with them.  As  is common
practice with most such languages the feminine plural is used
only for females and the masculine plural is used for a group
of all males OR a mixed group of males and females.

It has always intrigued me as to how one determines whether 
or not the masculine plural used in the Torah was meant for
a group composed of males and females or is just meant for
males.   I realize that there are laws specifically for females
only, which may infer that a given set of related laws given
to the masculine plural would indeed mean only males; however
this isn't always the case.  I would like to know if there is
any concrete evidence that enabled the rabbis to determine that
various laws apply to males only.   I tend to question the
interpretation of this "language ambiguity" by male rabbis from a
historically male world.

I'd be interested in hearing explanations of this.

				---Sharon Levy