The Three Blessings: Past and Future

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers I.1.33 (trans. DuBoff)
Ἕρμιππος δ’ ἐν τοῖς Βίοις εἰς τοῦτον ἀναφέρει τὸ λεγόμενον ὑπό τινων περὶ Σωκράτους. ἔφασκε γάρ, φασί, τριῶν τούτων ἕνεκα χάριν ἔχειν τῇ Τύχῃ· πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι ἄνθρωπος ἐγενόμην καὶ οὐ θηρίον, εἶτα ὅτι ἀνὴρ καὶ οὐ γυνή, τρίτον ὅτι Ἕλλην καὶ οὐ βάρβαρος.
And Hermippus in his Lives attributes to this man [Thales] that which is said by some concerning Socrates. For they say that he would say he was grateful to Fortune for these three things: first, that he was a human and not a beast; next, that he was a man and not a woman; third, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.

Cairo Genizah T-S NS 229:2 and Cambridge Add. 3160:1 (Kahn, 12)
Praised are You ETERNAL our God King of the Universe who created me
a person and not a beast
a man and not a woman
an Israelite and not a gentile
circumcised and not uncircumcised
free and not a slave.

Yoel Kahn, The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy
The Jewish religious tradition, like many others, has always sought to legitimate its practices through teachings that validate their authenticity and historical authority. The strongest claim that the Jewish tradition makes is that a teaching or practice was initiated by one of the patriarchs, like the institution of three daily prayer services, or learned "from Moses at Mt. Sinai." It is, therefore, unsurprising that later commentators related the custom [Menahot 43b] to "recite one hundred blessings daily" to an event in the life of King David, and their specific language to the (ahistorical) leaders of the Great Assembly. Traditional sources almost never explicitly acknowledge how Jewish texts or practices have been shaped by--or in competition with--alternative teaching, practice, or text from the surrounding culture. Thus, although we can imagine these blessings emerging independently in Jewish circles during the late Second Temple period, it is likely that they were first said in social contexts when members of other groups were making similar comments about themselves. Before they were known as "blessings" per se, some version of these words may have functioned as an identifying slogan or folk aphorism...

The continuous thread that links the diverse history of this liturgical text is the ongoing desire to establish authenticity. Within their respective cultural-religious systems, the Hellenistic and Jewish formulations sough to affirm the authenticity and primacy of their cultures. Over time, the continual debate turned on the authentic use of the blessings, in terms of both proper context and authenticity of language. The censored manuscripts often preserve signs of effort to mark the absence of what the copyist knew was the once-authentic language. Later, when the language was deliberately changed, claims for authenticity were made based on the historical record created by the very texts that were themselves the product of censorship. The multivocal meaning of the text for almost every generation included the acknowledgement of historical continuity. Even moderns, who are explicit in their rejection of many of the core values of the master narratives that generated these texts, nonetheless seek, whenever possible, to maintain the structural integrity and manifest language of the received tradition. The full acceptance of this yearning for authenticity and desire for continuity may enable us to read the historical record with a greater sensitivity to its nuanced multivocality, while enabling us to embrace our own conflicted relationships with received religious text and praxis.

Erica Brown, "According to His Will: The View from a Pew"Rabbi Zev Farber opens his very scholarly and comprehensive article on the blessing “Who has not made me a woman” with the observation that some women and even some men are offended by the language of this blessing. I could not help but wonder, as I read these words: Who would not be offended by this language? As a woman, unless you cannot translate from Hebrew into English or are filled with self-hatred, it is hard to imagine anyone who would find solace or comfort in these words or find any way to understand the blessing as non-offensive. As a man, the very uttering of these words confirms a posture of negation, a verbal spurning raised to spiritual invalidation. It cannot be other if we take the language of prayer seriously...For most of my adult life, I have approached she-lo asani isha and the other blessings associated with it with willful ignorance. I am not prepared to redeem it, nor am I an advocate of changing prayer. I am not a rabbi, and I do not involve myself in legal matters. Some would say this is cowardly. I have heard that said, but my approach is to get on with the serious business of learning, teaching, and writing and have found that this generally advances the cause in its own way. And I happen to love reciting birkot ha-shahar daily and take particular comfort in the expression “she-asani kirzono.” If there is a more beautiful blessing that embodies God’s love for the individual, then I do not know of it. I find the blessing stunning. And, for this reason, I feel sorry for men who do not recite it. I do not view this blessing as a consolation prize.I view it as a first prize, a gold medal. Rather than an inherently negative statement of what a person is not, it is an affirmation of what every single person is, a unique and special creation and manifestation of God’s will. And I believe that all men and women should say it and put to bed a blessing that does the very opposite of what a blessing should accomplish; it diminishes rather than multiplies...When I have heard the words “Who has not made me a woman” recited by others in the mumble and warble of an early morning, I let it wash over me as a small and irritating feature of a wonderful package that I love. But when I heard my own sons say these blessings aloud in shul, I felt startled and unnerved. Even in the mouth of my husband I had felt a pang of anxiety but it was not as acute as hearing my own children — the next generation — use this language. In my own Jewish life there is nothing more important to me than the concept of mesorah— Jewish continuity. What we do with passion and authenticity will hopefully make it through to the ritual lives of our children. But hearing my own sons say these words made me wonder at what we do not wish to pass down in this religious bundle of love that we offer. And so, in response, I intensified my whisper: “Who has made me according to His will,” and I concentrated hard, willing the words onto them with the hope that one day we will all say this blessing instead and mean it.

Rabbi David Fohrman, "Bereishit: Thank You, God...For Not Making Me A Woman?"
[Rashi] basically seems to say just in some fundamental way and in a very practical way: it is just sort of better to be a man than a woman, which at face value sounds...awful, but I want to explore that line of thought with you. I think it is no coincidence that it has just been in the last 70 years or so that people have begun to become troubled by this question. and I think one of the reasons why people had begun to become troubled by this question is because if you would have lived in any other era, in any place on earth, before 70 years ago, you never would have asked why it is that men thank God every morning you would have known why it was better to be a man and not be a woman.

Rabbi Zev Farber, "The Creation Blessings and the Morning Blessings: A Case Study in the Fluidity of Liturgy and Its Practical Applications"Therefore, I suggest removing this blessing from the series altogether and replacing it with one of the medieval alternatives, specifically with a version of she-lo asani beheimah, “Who has not made me a beast,” the blessing over being human. Doing so has ample precedent, as it was this very blessing that was used as a substitute both for the “Gentile” blessing and the “woman” blessing when this was necessary in the past. Additionally, this blessing was said in a great number of Jewish communities as part of an extended series, even though it is not talmudic. This blessing would be the first of the series instead of the last. Finally, I further advocate changing all three blessings in this series from negative to positive. This would give the entire series a unified feel and would in no way violate the Ta”Z’s principle.Here is my suggested revised series:Who has made me human • שעשאני אדםWho has made me free • שעשאני חפשיWho has made me Israelite • שעשאני ישראל

There is, in fact, no word in this series that was not included in previous iterations of these blessings.

References:
Brown, Erica. "According to His Will: The View from a Pew." Keren 2 (2014): 142-146. http://static.squarespace.com/static/5348363de4b0531dce75bc53/t/53d26414e4b07304e9025a47/1406297108086/Keren+2+Online.pdf
Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&query=Diog.%20Laert.&getid=0
Farber, Zev. "The Creation Blessings and the Morning Blessings: A Case Study in the Fluidity of Liturgy and Its Practical Application." Keren 2 (2014): 12-76. http://static.squarespace.com/static/5348363de4b0531dce75bc53/t/53d26414e4b07304e9025a47/1406297108086/Keren+2+Online.pdf
Fohrman, David. "Bereishit: Thank You, God...For Not Making Me a Woman?" AlephBeta. https://www.alephbeta.org/course/lecture/bereishit-thank-you
Kahn, Yoel. The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Siddur Sim Shalom. New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 1985.