Skip to main content
Log in

Jewish Women’s KIPPOT: Meanings and Motives

  • Published:
Contemporary Jewry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Considerable literature has examined the meanings associated with gender-normative religious head covering practices such as Muslim women’s hijabs, Jewish women’s sheitels and headscarves, and Jewish men’s kippot. However, very few studies have explored the meanings of Jewish women’s kippot. This article advances Amy Milligan’s ethnographic research on this matter through open-ended survey data from 576 Jewish women who wear kippot. Unlike Milligan’s lesbian sample, this largely heterosexual sample claims to wear the kippah for many of the same reasons that men do: to “do Jewish,” “feel Jewish,” “look Jewish,” and to display their status relative to other Jews. Respondents acknowledge that their kippah practice also signifies egalitarianism, but they emphasize that this is but one of the garment’s many meanings.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. I use the terminology “gender-transgressive” and “gender-normative” in relation to the historical lived tradition.

  2. There were no significant differences among respondents based on denomination, occupation, sexuality, or frequency of kippah use.

References

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2002. Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American Anthropologist 104(3): 783–790.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Afshar, Haleh. 2008. Can I see your hair? Choice, agency and attitudes: The dilemma of faith and feminism for Muslim women who cover. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(2): 411–427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avishai, Orit. 2008. “Doing religion” in a secular world: Women in conservative religions and the question of agency. Gender & Society 22(4): 409–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartkowski, John P., and Jen’nan Ghazal Read. 2003. Veiled submission: Gender, power, and identity among evangelical and Muslim women in the United States. Qualitative Sociology 26(1): 71–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bronner, Leila Leah. 1993. From veil to wig: Jewish women’s hair covering. Judaism 42(4): 465.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chadderton, Charlotte. 2012. Problematising the role of the white researcher in social justice research. Ethnography and Education 7(3): 363–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Droogsma, Rachel Anderson. 2007. Redefining hijab: American Muslim women’s standpoints on veiling. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35(3): 294–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dwyer, Claire. 1999. Veiled meanings: Young British Muslim women and the negotiation of differences. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 6(1): 5–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elver, Hilal. 2012. The headscarf controversy: Secularism and freedom of religion. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Franks, Myfanwy. 2000. Crossing the borders of whiteness? White Muslim women who wear the hijab in Britain today. Ethnic and Racial Studies 23(5): 917–929.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Ilan. 2012. Hair covering for single women: A new reading of Mizraḥi halakhic rulings. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 23(1): 35–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gans, Herbert J. 1979. Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America. Ethnic and Racial Studies 2(1): 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, Barney G. 1978. Theoretical sensitivity: Advances in the methodology of grounded theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grossman, Aminadav. 2014. The transformation of American Jewry and men’s headgear: The story of the yarmulke from 1945 to 1975 (unpublished doctoral dissertation). Columbia University, New York.

  • Inbari, Motti. 2012. The modesty campaigns of Rabbi AmramBlau and the Neturei Karta movement, 1938–1974. Israel Studies 17(1): 105–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Israel-Cohen, Yael. 2012. Jewish Modern Orthodox women: Active resistance and synagogue ritual. Contemporary Jewry 32: 3–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood, Saba. 2001. Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: Some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival. Cultural Anthropology 16(2): 202–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mernissi, Fatima. 1975. Beyond the veil. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mernissi, Fatima. 1987. Beyond the veil: Male-female dynamics in modern Muslim society, vol. 423. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mernissi, Fatima. 1992. The veil and the male elite: A feminist interpretation of women’s rights in Islam. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milligan, Amy K. 2012. Kallah’s choice: Hair covering practices of Orthodox women in an American small town (unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pennsylvania State University, PA.

  • Milligan, Amy K. 2013. Colours of the Jewish rainbow: A study of homosexual Jewish men and yarmulkes. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 12(1): 71–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milligan, Amy K. 2014. Expanding sisterhood: Jewish lesbians and externalizations of Jewishness. Journal of Lesbian Studies 18(4): 437–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mojab, Shahrzad. 1998. “Muslim” women and “Western” feminists: The debate on particulars and universals. Monthly Review 50(7): 19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Predelli, LineNyhagen. 2004. Interpreting gender in Islam: A case study of immigrant Muslim women in Oslo, Norway. Gender & Society 18(4): 473–493.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Read, Jen’nan Ghazal, and John P. Bartkowski. 2000. To veil or not to veil? A case study of identity negotiation among Muslim women in Austin, Texas. Gender & Society 14(3): 395–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruby, Tabassum F. 2006. Listening to the voices of hijab. Women’s Studies International Forum 29(1): 54–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schreiber, Lynne (ed.). 2003. Hide and seek: Jewish women and hair covering. New York: Urim Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, Joan Wallach. 2009. The politics of the veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seigelshifer, Valeria, and Tova Hartman. 2011. From tichels to hair bands: Modern Orthodox women and the practice of head covering. Women’s Studies International Forum 34(5): 349–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shirazi, Faegheh. 2001. The veil unveiled: The hijab in modern culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, Anselm L., and Juliet M. Corbin. 1994. Grounded theory methodology. In Handbook of qualitative research, ed. Norman K. Denzin, and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 273–285. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taragin-Zeller, Lea. 2014. Modesty for heaven’s sake: Authority and creativity among female Ultra-Orthodox teenagers in Israel. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 16: 75–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tavory, Iddo. 2010. Of yarmulkes and categories: Delegating boundaries and the phenomenology of interactional expectation. Theory Sociology 39: 49–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, Susan. 2009. Under cover: Demystification of women’s head covering in Jewish law. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 17: 89–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. Doing gender. Gender & Society 1(2): 125–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Rhys H., and Gira Vashi. 2007. Hijab and American Muslim women: Creating the space for autonomous selves. Sociology of Religion 68(3): 269–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wing, Adrien Katherine, and Monica Nigh Smith. 2005. Critical race feminism lifts the veil: Muslim women, France, and the headscarf ban. UC Davis Law Review 39: 743.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zalcberg, Sima, and Oz Almog. 2009. Dress and appearance among women in Israel’s national religious community. In Women in Israeli Judaism, ed. Larissa Remennick, 36–50. Ramat Gan: Sociological Institute for Community Studies, Bar-Ilan University.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michael Kimmel, Jason Schwartz, and the anonymous reviewers of Contemporary Jewry for their valuable editing feedback. I am also grateful for the support of my research assistants Jessica Shvarts and Shivanshu Prasad. Finally, thank you to everyone who helped spread notification about this survey and to everyone who took the time to respond.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helana Darwin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Darwin, H. Jewish Women’s KIPPOT: Meanings and Motives. Cont Jewry 37, 81–97 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9183-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9183-4

Keywords

Navigation