Our ideas about gender have changed dramatically since the so-called documentary The Amish: A People of Preservation aired on PBS in 1975 to great critical acclaim. That response, by the way, helped to ensure that the human and civil rights violations committed against Amish women and children by the religious patriarchy continued to flourish.

(Keep scrolling for the video version of this post.)

The re-released version from 2000 should have more closely resembled our then-current ideas a...