More and more frequently, I see young, male, Jewish tourists coming to the Kotel with as many as three earrings. Some of the older young men also sport huge, ugly tattoos. After putting tefillin on them, I take their pictures and try to include a picture of them answering the following question:

“When you get married, who is going to wear the pants in the family?”

“Well, surely,” each teenage boy strongly asserts himself, “I am!”

“Then who is going to wear the earrings?” I ask. They freeze, smile sheepishly, look away from me, and try to laugh it off. That’s when I snap the picture. I want them to have a picture of what they looked like when they realized just how foolish they look with those earrings. “Nu? Which side of the fence are you going to be on?” I ask, using the mechitza (modesty fence that separates the men and women) as a metaphor for clear-cut gender roles. They usually giggle and try to come up with some kind of compromise answer.

“We both are!” they sometimes suggest.

“Then you both are going to wear the pants, too!” I tell them. “Either she is going to wear the pants and you are going to wear the jewelry, or you are going to wear the pants and she is going to wear the jewelry. Which is it going to be?” They always laugh, but the message gets through.