Do you think the Amish are sexist?

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In terms of their society and roles?

I watched the channel 4 programme that was on last week and it never occurred to me but a post in another thread made me wonder about it.

Not sure if anyone watched it - it is on Youtube now

There are several Amish communities in the area where I originally grew up in America. In common with many conservative faith-based communities, they believe in differing roles and functions for men and women within their society. In that respect, they are sexist, but in my experience, no more or less so than many other faith-based or secular groups or institutions.

Unfortunately though in recent years, Amish people have been targeted with racist abuse primarily because of their different appearance, traditions and choice to live separately. For example, where I grew up, there were no minority ethnic communities, but "outsiders" of any kind or any people with obvious "differences" were marked out for ostracising, deriding or just not enabling them to be "included." When I was growing up, the handful of Roman Catholic families were regarded with suspicion. Now, the fear and loathing seems to have moved on to the Amish.

we have lived near a Hutterite colony, and i find it fascinating to visit.

as kritiq says, very clear role definition by gender. i don't know much about the amish, but in terms of choice, neither gender has any, really. jobs are allocated on the basis of what needs doing and who is of age (once you have got past the 'men's jobs' and 'women's jobs'.) in terms of elders, they are all clearly male. in terms of rules and policy, entirely male led (right down to the fabric/ pattern choices for the clothes) but if you discuss it with the women, they do not see themsleves as powerless - it's all part of making the colony a success and keeping the community fed etc. v interesting. looking just at gender roles doesn't really cut it for me, i find the whole 'education' system intriguing.

i think the amish are 'freer' by western standards though? so maybe easier to critique courtesy of accessibility?

the you-tube clip isn't available here, so i'm pissing in the wind, really.

Yes, of course they are.

As is everybody else in patriarchy.

Yes, of course they are. But then they're making the deliberate choice to live 150 years in the past, and if they became feminists, it would be a strange contrast with everything else they do.

Actually I've heard that Amish farmers will sometimes get electricity installed in their cowbarns even while they refuse to have it in their houses. They'll accept some technology to make work easier, but they don't think they should live too close to it.

Madwoman, I visited a Hutterite Colony in North Dakota in the late 1970's when I was on a young people's exchange trip in North Dakota. From what I can remember, they live more communally/collectively than the Amish - more along the lines of a Kibbutz whereas the Amish have single family dwellings and live in family groups, although pulling together to support functions of the community.

The Amish encourage young people to take a "year out" to leave the colony and "live in the world," doing all the things that non Amish young people do. At the end of that period, they are asked whether they wish to be confirmed in the church and remain within the community or leave and make their way separately. Most return but some don't. I was at college/uni with one girl who didn't return to her community. It was a difficult decision for her as it meant basically cutting ties with most of her family apart from occasional visits to her, but no longer being part of their community activities.

So, they don't force people to remain within their faith and within their community, but if they choose to leave, they do not continue to extend to them the support and sense of belonging within the community.

Sadly, I can think of few societies or even few political movements that universally tolerate, let alone support and encourage those who do not conform to the dominant perspective. So, I'm not sure if that's the only or main measure of a decent society. If it is, we're all in trouble!

Of course they are sexist. Any group that defines roles by gender is sexist by definition.

that's interesting kritiq, the hutterite colonies i have visited live as single family groups in individual homes, but they do have very communal kitchens, dining halls, vegetable gardens etc. essentially it is communal living despite the single family houses. and if you leave, well, you leave. and education finishes at 14, and all takes place within the colony, although it is state provided, with differences in curriculum content (notably evolution )

i find the education side very difficult to rationalise - no members of the colony are allowed to pursue further education (or even graduate high school) but members are allowed to access the results of education, such as medicine etc.

i did lol at the cow barns thing. that is so true. the only computer on the colony i visited most recently was the one in the milk shed. and the only people on the colony that knew how to use it (and were allowed to) were the dairyman and his apprentice.

"Actually I've heard that Amish farmers will sometimes get electricity installed in their cowbarns even while they refuse to have it in their houses. They'll accept some technology to make work easier, but they don't think they should live too close to it."

No, they'll accept technology which makes the work done by men easier, but not that done by women.

That's not the case. For example, the couple shown in the last episode had a generator. One of the things that powered was the washing machine.

I think I would like a traditional community - not sure I could give up my home comforts and internet though!

Oh that's interesting about thje washing machine.

Am I missing something here, what else does it power? The fridge? The vacuum cleaner? The TV?

They have to leave if they don't want to follow the rules

on the tv prog they just powered up the generator to do the washing, it wasn't running all the time.
Generators are v noisy, you wouldn't want one running your fridge if you could help it.

What do they power it with?

(Am developing strange fascination with Amish generators)

It looked like a very old-fashioned kind of twintub with no lid.

Oh how disappointing. I was expecting a state of the art Dyson.

The Amish women seemed very happy with it.

The Amish women and men seem happy with their roles and rules.

Maybe they don't think about it as the wife on the programme was asked if she ever wanted to do anything different with her hair and she said she never had.

Plus she seemed to love all the house chores!

Human beings adapt. You find joy where you can.

But not being bombarded by messages telling you that your value is measured by how you look, would help you be happy.

Having said that, Amish women will be bombarded by different messages in a different way.

the ones we see on tv are going to be the happy ones.
If someone was struggling with fitting in, the community would not have chosen them to host some visiting British teenagers and get filmed.
There was the woman who had left, but she had chosen to come back.

I tried a web search on and found lots of stuff. But I can't help thinking that their attitude towards technology is that it's OK as long as it's at least 60 years out of date.

Now what I want to know is, do Amish women shave their legs? If they don't and nobody makes an issue of it, surely they are living the feminist life.

LOL, yes if you believe that feminism is just about whether you shave your legs or not.