The Hasidic community presented in Unorthodox is one which on the surface seems like a typical strict religious group with a traditionalist mindset, but there are more nuances and complexities than initially meets the eye. While on the surface, it seems that they live an extremely patriarchal society: one where the men are expected to be the breadwinner, with the power in the family, whereas the sole purpose of women is to reproduce and manage the family. In fact, if a woman is infertile, this is grounds for divorce – it is seen as the greatest misfortune. The women are expected to follow a rigid set of rules including when they can sleep with their husband, when they can touch their husband and are expected to not work, depending solely on a man.

Women are expected to maintain their innocence and naivety until they are married, only after which are educated on their own biology, however, the very next day they are expected to be experts. There is clearly a double standard of what is expected from men and what is expected from women. While this is typically patriarchal culture, what is interesting about this society is that the women are the ones who are reinforcing such a culture. In Unorthodox, it is Esty’s mother in law who is very much involved in her private life with Yankee, her mother in law is the one who is most insistant on them having children despite Esty clearly not being comfortable. Instead of men enforcing this disparity between men and women, it is the women themselves who perpetuate this degrading culture. To an outsider, this may seem absurd. We have been brought up with a very contradictory mindset, so it is perplexing to think that a woman would do this to another woman. We are very quick to assume that it has to be a man who is repressing other women from their freedom – simply because those are the large majority of the stories we often hear. We forget that this is all these women have known, they have been told for generations that this is how it is supposed to work. It is human tendency to believe what we have grown up being told because we don’t know anything else. I think the global issue that comes to light is the assumptions and prejudices that we have that men perpetuate patriarchal culture when in fact we often overlook human tendency.