It matters a great deal. A girl or a woman must try by all means to work in the right environment. It's a great pity when girls and women go into offices today where there's immorality, wicked men, and they're subjected to temptation. She should be among chatzufim and reshaim?! Sometimes they do very terrible things to pious women in the offices. They come over to them and do very fresh things.
And don't tell me that a frum woman will never yield. I can tell you stories that will make your hair stand on edge. Nobody is strong enough to risk temptation. And the fact that the pious woman doesn’t succumb is not enough. Because there remains a stain on her soul.
There is wickedness everywhere, especially today. And therefore if it's possible to work in a place where only women are employed, that's also not so wonderful if they're mean women or wicked women who talk dirty language, but it's preferable to working in a place where there are men. And I would say, even in a frum place where there are men you should try to avoid.
I don't believe kollel women should support husbands at the expense of exposing themselves to all kinds of bad environments. It doesn’t pay for a girl to ruin her soul for the sake of her kollel husband. Let them find some other smaller paying job in a frum environment. It makes a great deal of difference where a woman or a girl works.
November 1983
