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Old 07-24-2018, 12:34 PM
 
Location: At the corner of happy and free
6,457 posts, read 6,640,714 times
Reputation: 16232

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Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie View Post
My daughter asked me about this blog. My response? Do what you want.

She is starting to get serious with her boyfriend. They will need to have a discussion about their future. She's a good kid, smart, gets good grades. She wants to go to law school. That's a conversation she needs to have with her boyfriend. If he's the guy for her, their plans will line up. Or they'll make them line up. If not? Then it's good to find out now. But no girl needs to simply do what their man tells them to do.

I have some friends that have gone to Bible School. The joke was that the guys would go to get a Bachelor's degree, the girls would go to get their "Mrs" degrees. Many women had no other plan than to find a nice young man, maybe a future pastor, and get married. This article is written from that perspective. If a woman WANTS that....great. If not, great. She can do what she wants.

But if a girl WANTS to have the 2.5 kids, a house in the burbs, a nice young man, and be married to a pastor? Then prepare for it. If she wants a career (and yes--she can still have her dream house and family, too)? Prepare for it.
I absolutely agree with your "Do what you want" advice.

It is the "herd mentality" and peer pressure that I worry about. I know how it feels to be a young woman, wanting to "please the Lord" and be in a church that pretty much brainwashes all the young women to believe they must all do exactly x, y, and z. It is especially concerning when those teachings include popping out as many babies as "the Lord blesses you with," (like the Quiverful Movement), because these women can become overwhelmed and resentful down the road. Then it's not just her life that is affected, but the lives of those 6 or 8 or more children she is now raising.

In reading other articles by this blogger, I came across one explaining "why Christian women should never expect any help with housework from their husbands." Yeah, there's a winner for Worst Marriage Advice Ever. I spent 25 years with a man who was proud of the fact that he refused to do housework or take care of the children. That was 25 years of me feeling exhausted, disrespected, and resentful. I must add, that man is now my EX-husband, and I am now in a wonderfully happy, cooperative, respectful marriage.

I'm not normally a fan of the term misogynist (it seems to be over-used, imo), but there is so much misogynistic teaching in some churches. I'll never forget being in a Bible study many years back, and the teacher was talking about how far wifely submission should go. She said that if your husband left you for another woman, but while you were still legally married he came to your house and wanted to have sex with you, you should submit to his desires. Yes I am absolutely serious. If I remember correctly, we were studying a book written by Martha Peace at that time. I'm not sure if that example of submissiveness was just our teacher's opinion, or if that was in the book. I'm happy to say that even in my worst "brainwashed" period of time, I knew that was absolutely insane. Of course, I didn't dare say so in that Bible study (because we were also taught to "submit to our church leaders." Questions or criticisms were NOT welcome.)

Any time a religion tries to prevent its members from truly thinking for themselves, it is dangerous stuff. The woman blogger of my OP may not be at the level of teaching young men to strap explosives onto their body and die for Allah, but it is a dangerous attempt at mind control just the same.
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Old 07-24-2018, 12:41 PM
Status: "81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies" (set 2 days ago)
 
Location: Dallas, TX
5,789 posts, read 3,583,738 times
Reputation: 5687
At the end of the day, the kooks of any segment aren't the issue. Some atheist activists go so far as to even call for shaming people who silently say grace before a meal. Then you have the Westboro gang.
On the non-religious side of things, you have on the right these guys, on the left, you have shrieking feminist "Big Red". So the kooks, fanatics, and haters of one side cancels out those on the other.

Which leaves two things: the core substance of their claims, beliefs, and so forth; and the tactics that group uses to advance their agenda or even merely make a socio-politico-cultural statement. Which idea most closely conforms to the totality of the facts, data, logic, and reason? Plus, which tactics are the least inhumane way (or "most humane", if you prefer) of opening other people's minds to the truth of the matter (inhumane ways have a poor track record of motivating people to open others minds to what you have to say).


In this case, I'd say the most effective tactic is to meet your opponent on their grounds, not force them to come over to yours. In this case, that even means giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt. From here, explain that God wants all of us to use our talents and to create a social environment that encourages and especially does not discourage or suppress the talents of any of "His children". Plus, the Bible's immediate recipients were people at a pre-Industrial level of technology, which meant there possibly was [i]some/I] degree of justification for gender-division of labor.

That changed with the start of the Industrial Revolution. As technology and standard of living increased, the made old gender division of labor increasingly irrelevant. In fact, beyond a certain point, this division hampered more than helped - especially in the Late Industrial Era (WW1 forward). When brain power takes over brawn power as an essential for making a living, then it doesn't matter which gender the person is. All that matters is if they have the ability or raw talent to do the job. The higher our level of technology gets the truer this becomes.

All this suggests that, absolute essentials of theology aside, even "Holy commands" have sell-by dates. Don't you think God knows all that too if I do?
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Old 07-24-2018, 12:58 PM
 
18,926 posts, read 6,931,543 times
Reputation: 3557
Quote:
Originally Posted by kayanne View Post
I absolutely agree with your "Do what you want" advice.

It is the "herd mentality" and peer pressure that I worry about. I know how it feels to be a young woman, wanting to "please the Lord" and be in a church that pretty much brainwashes all the young women to believe they must all do exactly x, y, and z. It is especially concerning when those teachings include popping out as many babies as "the Lord blesses you with," (like the Quiverful Movement), because these women can become overwhelmed and resentful down the road. Then it's not just her life that is affected, but the lives of those 6 or 8 or more children she is now raising.

In reading other articles by this blogger, I came across one explaining "why Christian women should never expect any help with housework from their husbands." Yeah, there's a winner for Worst Marriage Advice Ever. I spent 25 years with a man who was proud of the fact that he refused to do housework or take care of the children. That was 25 years of me feeling exhausted, disrespected, and resentful. I must add, that man is now my EX-husband, and I am now in a wonderfully happy, cooperative, respectful marriage.

I'm not normally a fan of the term misogynist (it seems to be over-used, imo), but there is so much misogynistic teaching in some churches. I'll never forget being in a Bible study many years back, and the teacher was talking about how far wifely submission should go. She said that if your husband left you for another woman, but while you were still legally married he came to your house and wanted to have sex with you, you should submit to his desires. Yes I am absolutely serious. If I remember correctly, we were studying a book written by Martha Peace at that time. I'm not sure if that example of submissiveness was just our teacher's opinion, or if that was in the book. I'm happy to say that even in my worst "brainwashed" period of time, I knew that was absolutely insane. Of course, I didn't dare say so in that Bible study (because we were also taught to "submit to our church leaders." Questions or criticisms were NOT welcome.)

Any time a religion tries to prevent its members from truly thinking for themselves, it is dangerous stuff. The woman blogger of my OP may not be at the level of teaching young men to strap explosives onto their body and die for Allah, but it is a dangerous attempt at mind control just the same.
My daughter summed it up when she told me she "got a Duggar vibe" from the article. That's all it is. There are some that really love that lifestyle and that's their dream. If so, then this article would apply. But I'm not of that type of person, and I didn't raise my daughter to be that type of woman. She can do whatever she wants in life.
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Old 07-24-2018, 01:15 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,825 posts, read 13,364,699 times
Reputation: 9822
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie View Post
My daughter asked me about this blog. My response? Do what you want.

She is starting to get serious with her boyfriend. They will need to have a discussion about their future. She's a good kid, smart, gets good grades. She wants to go to law school. That's a conversation she needs to have with her boyfriend. If he's the guy for her, their plans will line up. Or they'll make them line up. If not? Then it's good to find out now. But no girl needs to simply do what their man tells them to do.

I have some friends that have gone to Bible School. The joke was that the guys would go to get a Bachelor's degree, the girls would go to get their "Mrs" degrees. Many women had no other plan than to find a nice young man, maybe a future pastor, and get married. This article is written from that perspective. If a woman WANTS that....great. If not, great. She can do what she wants.

But if a girl WANTS to have the 2.5 kids, a house in the burbs, a nice young man, and be married to a pastor? Then prepare for it. If she wants a career (and yes--she can still have her dream house and family, too)? Prepare for it.
That's a very nuanced and reasonable view on the matter, but I don't think the cited article was written with that nuanced edge case in mind. I didn't see anything there that said in effect, "this of course only applies to girls with no ambition beyond being a homemaker; if you have other plans that's fine you do you". I would imagine that the very reason your daughter asked you about the post, is because it made her feel "less than" for having mere "worldly" ambitions. I'm glad that she could look to you for sound counsel on the matter, and in my (admittedly dated) experience, in fairness probably most fundamentalist fathers would say something more in line with what you did, than with the rather extremist blog post (which, in turn, may have been going for edgy and provoking content in order to get read).

And FWIW as a former Bible School attendee, I can say that evidently not much has changed there since the mid 1970s.
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Old 07-24-2018, 01:17 PM
 
6,961 posts, read 4,599,321 times
Reputation: 2485
Nothing wrong with being a feminist. I do not run from my feminist sisters, nor would I deny they are feminists. Men seem to have a problem with women expressing themselves in a loud voice. Feminists are really unconcerned with the delicate ears of men.

Christianity likes to deny those hawking the extreme ideology by trying to convince others those people are not real Christian. Not like me. I am the real Christian, not those others.

These Christians have a difficult time embracing their brothers and sisters who believe women do not need to be educated, women must not cut their hair, women must be submissive.
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Old 07-24-2018, 01:22 PM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,524,475 times
Reputation: 2070
Quote:
Originally Posted by RonkonkomaNative View Post
Nothing wrong with being a feminist. I do not run from my feminist sisters, nor would I deny they are feminists. Men seem to have a problem with women expressing themselves in a loud voice. Feminists are really unconcerned with the delicate ears of men.

Christianity likes to deny those hawking the extreme ideology by trying to convince others those people are not real Christian. Not like me. I am the real Christian, not those others.

These Christians have a difficult time embracing their brothers and sisters who believe women do not need to be educated, women must not cut their hair, women must be submissive.
yup, the one thing I say as often as i can. Christians need to police their own first. and of course, dump the literal magic stuff.
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Old 07-24-2018, 02:07 PM
 
6,961 posts, read 4,599,321 times
Reputation: 2485
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle View Post
yup, the one thing I say as often as i can. Christians need to police their own first. and of course, dump the literal magic stuff.

I agree, but.....



These men do not like to be corrected. I say men, because they do not believe women can correct their ideology.
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Old 07-24-2018, 02:09 PM
 
18,926 posts, read 6,931,543 times
Reputation: 3557
Quote:
Originally Posted by RonkonkomaNative View Post
Nothing wrong with being a feminist. I do not run from my feminist sisters, nor would I deny they are feminists. Men seem to have a problem with women expressing themselves in a loud voice. Feminists are really unconcerned with the delicate ears of men.

Christianity likes to deny those hawking the extreme ideology by trying to convince others those people are not real Christian. Not like me. I am the real Christian, not those others.

These Christians have a difficult time embracing their brothers and sisters who believe women do not need to be educated, women must not cut their hair, women must be submissive.
Why do you hate men so much? You're making all sorts of broad, sweeping stereotypical statements about men.
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Old 07-24-2018, 02:38 PM
 
6,961 posts, read 4,599,321 times
Reputation: 2485
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie View Post
Why do you hate men so much? You're making all sorts of broad, sweeping stereotypical statements about men.

I certainly do not hate men. Good god, I have been with the same awesome man for longer than you have been alive. I am surrounded by men. I love each and every one of them. You are not up to snuff in the man department. You should stop speaking as if you measure up.



Take a seat.



You do not like the ugly part of your Christian religion being corrected, or exposed.
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Old 07-24-2018, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Red River Texas
22,992 posts, read 10,340,773 times
Reputation: 2318
Quote:
Originally Posted by RonkonkomaNative View Post
I certainly do not hate men. Good god, I have been with the same awesome man for longer than you have been alive. I am surrounded by men. I love each and every one of them. You are not up to snuff in the man department. You should stop speaking as if you measure up.



Take a seat.



You do not like the ugly part of your Christian religion being corrected, or exposed.
O DANG, you are taken? There goes my everything.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DL3R3LiKs
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