http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-goldman/jane-smith-mrs-you-mean_b_61559.html



Jane Smith, MRS: You mean I Can Finally Earn My Degree in Homemaking?

by Leslie Goldman

In between botched attempts at starching my husband's shirts and spilling excess peach juice as I prepare my winter canning, I recently learned a Southern university is offering a Bachelor of Arts in humanities degree... with a concentration in homemaking!

This is so exciting.

I already have a Bachelors of Science and a Masters Degree in Public Health, but I never had the chance to take courses in "clothing construction" or "the value of a child." (Silly organic chemistry!) Finally, an institution -- The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, to be exact -- will be able to school me in the proper makings of a housewife. Even better...the program is solely open to women, so I'll be among fellow stay-at-home moms only. Which is best, really, because men should be out at work, where they belong.

Honestly, I can't even keep up the sarcasm. The idea of this program turns my stomach. I understand the college is also a seminary, and there are certain religious aspects I must respect. For instance, I respect the fact that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary exists "to provide theological education for individuals engaging in Christian ministry." This is the first sentence of the "About Us" statement on their web site. Fabulous. But what's the point of advertising a B.A. program that "uniquely prepare[s you] to address the culture from a sound Biblical worldview" if your coursework centers around diapering and baking casseroles? (more on this later...)

I remember one point in my own undergraduate experience where I had to fulfill a requirement -- a food sciences course. We signed in and the professor proceeded to assign each of us our own apron, salt & pepper shakers, pots, pans and meat thermometer. As our class on applesauce preparation began, I marched out of the kitchen, plastic apron flying in the wind, and called my academic advisor.

"This is exactly why I came to college..." I remember practically screaming in the office phone, clutching a strainer, "so I would NOT have to learn how to make applesauce!" (As it turns out, the stuff was pretty tasty and I remember the recipe to this day.)

Looking back, what upset me more was that I was being forced into a position I was not interested in fulfilling at that point: The role of homemaker, of Martha Stewart. I was 20 years old and more focused on finding a job, finding a fun party that night, finding my place in life (though I certainly didn't know that at the time.) That apron felt like a pair of hands strangling me.

Now that I am a wife, I still don't cook. I do laundry, yes. I can sew buttons on shirts and iron and even Swiffer. But I didn't need to fork over thousands of dollars and enroll in a program to acquire such information. Being a wife and mother can undoubtedly be a selfless, physically and emotionally draining task. I by no means would ever take away the blood, sweat and tears my mother or grandmother put into raising my brother and I, while juggling careers and well as the household. But to insinuate that a woman (only women, remember...men cannot enroll in Homemaking 101) needs a four-year education, filled with courses entitled "Clothing Construction with Lab," "Meal Preparation with Lab" (ah! Applesauce!) and "Homemaking Practicum" seems more than a bit condescending.

This program just butters my bread the wrong way (I looked it up on the seminary's web site so I know which way is right.) It smacks of "women in the home" and being pigeonholed into traditional gender roles (I mean, really...a nationally accredited school offering a homemaking degree only for women?) It's like a little aside to female students -- "Psst! If you don't really want to pursue your Masters in Divinity, come on over and learn how to host a Tupperware party."

Now, regarding my previous allusion to the program's goal of addressing our culture "from a sound Biblical worldview" via homemaking...on this I must plead a bit of ignorance. I was not brought up in this religion and I cannot pretend to understand the link between, as the website preaches, "preparing women to model the characteristics of a Godly woman as outlined in Scripture...through instruction in homemaking skills, developing insights into home and family while continuing to equip women to understand and engage the culture of today." To me, insight and the ability to engage the current culture develop from things like travel, social action, conversations with individuals from diverse backgrounds...not Advanced PB&J Construction.

A B.A. in homemaking? What total and utter B.S.

No bachelors eligible for Mrs. degree
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=130635&ran=49154
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 20, 2007

It's hard to know where or whether to begin commenting on the decision by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to offer a four-year degree with a homemaking concentration, but to allow only women to take it.

First, are they serious? That one is easy: Apparently.

It's not surprising that a prominent Southern Baptist seminary would tune academic offerings to make a serious point in the culture wars, even if this specific battle was settled decades ago.

Seminary President Paige Patterson put it this way, back in June: "We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family. If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed."

Unfortunately for Patterson's hopes and desires, the tide of which he speaks long ago came in, flooded the land, and swept away most lingering gender roles in America. Despite that inundation, it doesn't seemed to have damaged either the Southern Baptists or the United States.

Women today hold jobs that only men could hold 50 years ago, bringing fresh perspective and vibrancy to every industry. Still, according to Patterson, the future depends on American women taking advanced classes in cooking, sewing, and homemaking, as well as course work in "the value of a child," and the "biblical model for the home and family."

Don't get us wrong. Domestic skills are all that stand between Americans and a diet of Ding-Dongs and diet soda. And it would certainly be nice to be able to darn a sock, if only to be able to say it and reduce the knot in the rag bag. Still, offering such opportunities only to women seems curious in a place like modern America, as if officials have faith that today's men either know such things intrinsically, which they certainly don't, or won't need to.

Some Southern Baptists object to the entire course of study, saying it's a waste of seminary resources. Outside the denomination, lots of folks see this as further evidence that the SBC is more comfortable with the values of the 1950s than the 2000s.

If it was hard to know where to begin commenting on the elevation of homemaking to an academic art, it's equally hard to know where to be silent on the subject. Maybe what we need is to go back to school.

The June Cleavers of this country should have backed Al Gore in 2000
by Mary MacElveen 

I just love it when zany articles are sent to me that often have me banging my head on my desk.  Well, not really but you get the picture.  In yesterday’s batch of emails, someone sent me an article where The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary , is offering a “new and exciting academic program on homemaking” Stated within this article it says that it is only offered to women.  I must add how prejudicial of them to leave out men.  If you are a man and feel that this is wrong, then my advice is to take it up with this seminary.  I would say burn your bra as women had to do in order go gain equality, but oops, you do not wear any.  Oh well.

 

In reading this fascinating article, I am reminded of a dialogue that took place in The West Wing episode, ‘Gone Quiet’ in which Bruno Gianelli conversed with Sam Seaborne in an excitable manner, “Cause I am tired of working for candidates who make me think I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam. I'm tired of getting them elected. We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said "liberal" means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we're gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn't have to go to work if they don't want to. And instead of saying "Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave it to Beaver trip back to the fifties", we cowered in the corner and said "Please, don't hurt me." No more. I really don't care who's right, who's wrong. We're both right. We're both wrong. Let's have two parties, huh? What do you say?”

While that excitable dialogue says so much in expanding upon this new and fascinating course of study offered by The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, it is the “Leave it to Beaver” part that stuck out in my mind.  All that remember that show, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ remember the submissive nature of June Cleaver.  If you do not remember that show, most likely you are not a Boomer.

 

Is that what the state of mind this college has in mind for this country’s women?  Do they wish to turn the women of this country into Stepford Wives?  One would think so as one reads where “Seminary President Paige Patterson says "We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family...If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed."

She then goes onto add, “I always thought nations were destroyed by war, famine or disease. Little did I know it was actually women taking classes in anything other than ironing that determines the demise of a country.” I do not know if she is being serious or ironic by making these statements, but considering it was the Evangelical Christians namely Baptists who helped President Bush into office, their plan and vision backfired.  I will elaborate in a bit.

Getting back to Bruno Gianelli’s outburst in which he said that others would define liberalism as people who would “tax you back into the Stone Age” and where “people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to” I would suspect that the failed Bush economy has forced many American women back into the job market.  We of the Middle Class have seen our taxes rise, wages depressed in which the American family does not stand a chance.  So, the June Cleavers of this country are not afforded any luxury of staying home to raise our children.

If these women are to become mothers where their husbands cannot afford health insurance, Reuters reported, “The Bush administration has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for states to extend health coverage to children in middle-income families, The New York Times reported on Monday.” So if Beaver were to get sick, June should thank President Bush if her family cannot afford to pay the doctor.

In reading this most fascinating article, I zeroed in on this, “Terri Stovall, dean of women's programs at Southwestern, said "Whether a woman works outside or strictly in the home, her first priority is her family and home...We just really want to step up and provide some of these skills." These days if a woman who truly does believe this ideology, the skills they offer, she may have little time to cook a full roast dinner after working one or two jobs in order to feed her children.  Who knows she may be a single mother trying the best that she can.  She may only have time to cook hot dogs and beans.  At least she is providing a protein and a vegetable.

Now if June wishes to quit a job in order to stay home with the children even if she is married, according to the NY Times, “Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.” My guess is that June will have to keep on working.  Any degree in homemaking from this seminary college will have gone to waste should the economy stay on this track.

If hindsight is truly twenty-twenty it is my opinion that these Evangelicals namely Baptists bet on the wrong horse if they wanted women home bare feet and pregnant by supporting George W. Bush.  They should have backed a man who would have given many women the self-permission and breathing room to stay at home if she believed that running the home was her top priority.  That man is former Vice President Al Gore.  Al Gore foretold in the 2000 presidential campaign how unfit Bush was should he become our president.  Bush’s record as governor of Texas proved so as he left that state in a fiscal mess.

I would have to opine that this seminary college teach women accounting and economics instead of homemaking.  It is their only fighting chance in this uncertain world.  To all the aspiring June Cleavers out there, my message is study the economic record of any future presidential candidate so that you can stay home should you wish to.

Also, June, should you wish to see your son’s and daughters live well into the future if you believe that your children are your priority in life, make sure that you back a candidate that is not a warmonger.  Do you really wish to supply any war hawk candidate with bodies to fight on and on?  Do not let this government leave your child behind in some grave in the future.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mary_mac_070821_the_june_cleavers_of.htm