tikkunolamorgtfo:

westsemiteblues:

animatedamerican:

he-harim:

kuttithevangu:

Honestly I am still a lil ??? at the viscerally negative reaction to Vashti because like, there is nothing, in the Megillah, at all,

Vashti is…. the white dudes in the background that everyone ships with each other even though they were only briefly on screen in one scene and never showed up again

Except she’s a woman so people either hate her or have to be all ~PROGRESSIVE!~ about their headcanon and it’s like whoa there what is happening here. She ain’t that deep

That’s my Vashti opinion

ok logically i can kinda see this opinion

but then emotionally/ideologically i feel like we can/should analyse everything, that the texts are like this for a reason

but then on the THIRD hand, i do really hate how it’s either “I’m a feminist and Vashti is the best!!!” or “I’m Orthodox and Vashti was awful” and there’s never an in between or any other option! (and, as a sorta-Orthodox feminist, I’ve never come across a satisfying Orthodox feminist response to this)

I’m Orthodox and feminist, and Vashti gets a super raw deal from her life and is demonized by the Talmud in ways that look unjust to me, but that doesn’t make her a feminist hero.

I just don’t see how Vashti is not a feminist story. This is a woman who is faced with a no-win situation—she can disgrace herself (and also Achashvarosh, although he’s too drunk to notice) by acquiescing to his request, in a culture in which women’s public presence and sexuality is tightly controlled.Or she can say ‘eff off’, and stand the consequences. And she is replaced with Esther, another woman with intensely limited control over her body and her options, and even higher stakes.

I don’t know if Vashti is a feminist hero, but this is a situation with feminist resonance. And I certainly can’t see her as a villain.

The midrash I like is that Haman was out to get her, because she humiliated him, and would slap him in the face with her shoes. First, it creates a series of beautiful symmetries in the story, but I also just love imagining a tiny, gorgeous Indian princess (in my imagination, Vashti is always Indian) whapping her husband’s schmuck vizier across the face with a jeweled flip-flop.

I am here for Indian Vashti.