Southern Baptist Seminary is offerring a major in homemaking and they're not even trying to pretend that its purpose is for anything other than to teach women to be subservient to their husbands, the way God supposedly intended. 

Men are not allowed to enroll in the program and there is no equivalent program for men. And why would there be? The "Professor" of one course gave a three hour lecture on the "glorious [sic] inequalities of life".

So, the women aren't only taught that men and women are not deserving of the same respect or oppurutunities in life, but also that this inequal situation is divine!

 

Some of the students may aruge that that's not a fair interpretation. They may say that men and women are equal in the eyes of the Lord, but they're just different and hence have "different responsibilities". For example, "men make decisions. Women make dinner". Not that complicated.

The women can earn credits by learning to properly set tables, sew buttons, and sustain lively dinner conversation. Students aslo recently gave presentations on things like knitting and how to get coupons for grocery shopping off of the internet. 

Although at one point, Mrs. Smith (who gave the lecture on the glrorious inequalities in life) notes that she sometimes resents her husband for pursuing his career while she's stuck at home cooking and cleaning all day, she like the women taking her class, feel their personal feelings are completely irelevant because this is the path the Lord has laid for them. 

The goal is that the women will be able to create a homelife so perfect that anyone else who sees it will be left to wonder how they do it and may eventually find God as well. 

Another women attributed her marital problems to her not being the good kind of wife and left her successful career to become a full time homemaker. Nothing was mentioned about her husband or what role he may have played, or God forbid, how he may have tried to compromise a little. No, it was all about how much she needed to change (i.e. give up any sense of autonomy). 

One of the male students at the seminary laments the fact that similiar courses aren't offerrred for men, if only so they can help out once in a while when their wives are overburdened but the school isn't hearing any of it. Instead they're working harder to enforce gender roles and have recently fired one of the seminary's professors because the Bible teaches that it is unsuitable for women to teach men.

""What if my wife is sick and my kids need clean clothes? It may not hurt to have some basic tips," Cecrle said. Then he added cautiously: "A lot of people would take great exception to what I'm saying."

Felts is one of them. The whole point of taking college-level homemaking, she said, is to ensure that her husband won't ever feel that he has to darn a sock or do the laundry. Those are her jobs.

If she doesn't marry, that's fine, too; she'll pursue a master's in education -- and use it to teach homemaking.

"I'm not one of those out to rebel, out-to-be-my-own-woman types," she said."

The only good thing about her statement, and I'm using that word veryyyy loosely, is that at least she's not trying to pretend that she's doing this out of respect for herself as a woman. 

People may criticize the humanities for being useless (which I disagree with) but this is an insult to collge level education all together. If people really want to learn to knit and sew, they can take courses somewhere else or learn from one of their elders who presumably spent all their time doing these things as well (if they were good Christian women).

While the women do take other courses in literatrure and various subjects as well, I don't think the seminary places a high premium of reading critically or they might allow students to at the very least, delve into different interpretations of the Bible and its message.
 But then again they're probably being risquee enough by allowing the women to read at all. And who wants them to spend more time reading and thinking when they could be spending that valuable time learning to properly set a dinner table.

What a waste.

I still don't understand women who buy into all of this and I'm not sure if it makes me feel really sorry for them for how much they obviously hate themselves or just enraged that they actually help promote this mindset.

www.latimes.com story