Reply To: Modern Orthodox OTD by Gender

smerel: Ari Mandel, a footsteps activist, told me that over two thirds of their clients were men. The fact that it’s mostly women who publish OTD memoirs is because in ultra-orthodox circles boys aren’t exposed to enough English to later be able to publish a book once they go OTD.

The reason why boys go OTD more than girls is because it is relatively easy to be a frum girl. No need to learn. No need to davin with a minyan. No shmiras einayim. So being frum is relatively easy for a girl. And girls realize that once they go OTD there is no paradise out there for them, as the secular world no longer believes in marriage, so by abandoning yiddishkeit they are also abandoning the possibility of having a family life, for the most part.