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

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.

Comments

[ding]

if folks read carefully, they'd see this is a set of courses offered to the *wives* of male seminary students only. (i wrote about this on my own feminist christian blog.) nevermind that there are women serving as pastors in different denominations across the country.

criticizing a course in christian home ec isn't about sex discrimination or shutting down southern baptist seminary for teaching a 19th century model of femininity. for me it's about the dogged persistence of such ideologies in the 21st century - as some comments here have amply demonstrated.

yeah, keeping a good house is a good idea (that's why i have a housekeeper) but what does Embracing Your Femininity have to do with academics - even at a seminary? it makes biology a vocation for these women and that's offensive to me - and i'm an ex-fundamentalist daughter of a baptist pastor, no less.

[FididdlyDaily.blogspot.com]

Housewifery isn't easy, but it's not academics either. It's job training. This should be a certificate program, like auto mechanics.

If you want to do something, why not question the school's accreditation? Or charge sex discrimination? Then the seminary can claim it's being persecuted, the program can (at worst) be open to both genders, and everyone will be happy.

[Pandu]

Gender roles are very wholesome. Probably the nicest gift I give my wife is favoring a lifestyle where she homeschools the kids while I go out and earn money. The biggest difficulty is that her mother was (and still is) a career woman, so when my wife was young she did not learn the skills to properly take care of a home. Apprently there is some recognition of the need to formally educate to make up for the way women of the previous generation abandoned their duties.

It is difficult to raise a family on one income today. I sometimes wonder how much better our financial situation would be if women had not flooded the labor pool. Instead I have to work alongside women who are not my wife, for less pay. They do their jobs well enough, but they've mostly neglected their real duty to the detriment of society.

[blowoutfan]

I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife.

And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother. Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife a wife to keep track of the children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children's clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturing attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job.

[blowoutfan]

It may mean a small cut in my wife's income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals,serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick and sympathize with my pain and loss of time from school. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue care for me and my when I need a rest and change of scene. I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife's duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.

[blowoutfan]

I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life. When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who take care of the baby-sitting arrangements. When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends. I want a wife who will have arranged that the children are fed and ready for bed before my guests arrive so that the children do not bother us. I want a wife who takes care of the needs of my quests so that they feel comfortable, who makes sure that they have an ashtray, that they are passed the hors d'oeuvres, that they are offered a second helping of the food, that their wine glasses are replenished when necessary, that their coffee is served to them as they like it. And I want a wife who knows that sometimes I need a night out by myself.

[Pandu]

If this is your desire, after this life perhaps you will take birth in a male body.

Personally, I don't ask much of my wife. That she is home is my service to her because I love her, and her appreciation of this relationship is obvious. It sounds like you want a slave rather than a wife.

[klondiker]

Totally share your feelings, Leslie!

What a sneaky, insidious way to dupe women into giving up their power.

Already, women who choose to give up their careers to become homemakers give up an incredible amount of economic and political power.

But, at least, if they have real degrees, they can perhaps go back to the workplace later in life, or in case they are divorced or widowed, or basically in any situation where they need to take care of themselves.

This degree, on the other hand, completely excludes women from EVER being able to get a job. I want to know: what do the graduates of this program hope to do:

a) if they don't get married for a while?
b) if they get divorced or widowed and need to find a job to support themselves?

[Kansas Evans]

JScott, I agree with you. If someone wants to take that class, that's (apparently) her business. But men need to know it, too. The course "the value of a child" is probably intended to disuade abortion decisions, but if children were all that valuable, men should be encouraged to spend more time with their kids, progessive ideas aside.

Rosy, Konnie's right. My (working) mom didn't have time to teach me to cook, and I never really wanted to learn. One of her brothers can't stand it, and that gives me endless joy and laughter! He tells me I need to learn how to cook; I respond, "I know how to read! I don't need to know how to cook." He doesn't realize I mean I can read a recipe if I need to cook, so I irritate him even more which adds to my endless joy and laughter.

What's most troubling is that they're probably referencing Titus 2:4-5 (Then they [older women] can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.) and completely leaving out Proverbs 31, about a woman who runs at least two business and manages her own bank account. She does find time to take care of her family. My guess is that having several maids probably eased the demands of home.

Also, people who promote the "homemaker" as the Biblical and correct way seem not to notice that during those days, men probably worked somewhere close to home where they could take their sons; whereas today, people work either 9-5 salaried jobs or 8-12 hr shift wage jobs out of walking distance from the home, to say the least. That's not to mention the misogyny of (pagan) Roman culture and law of the time.

[Konnie]

get a grip people. Rosy says it should be taught at home - yeah if your mother is 80. i learned how to can, and freeze, store food, sew, the proper way to hand wash silk from my mother. when it was my turn to pass those skills on to my daughters in the 80's I was laughed at, we are talking major eye-rolling here. But now they are college educated working wives and mothers and suddenly my advice, wisdom, and time management skills are somehow relavent once again. One of my daughters briefly attended a religiously affiliated college, that MRS degree was real. Many of the young women did indeed want to marry, and marrying a preacher-to-be was the goal. They needed certain skill sets to handle parish life, and become the roll model for other young women within their churches, and to share the life of a missionary­.......not something you pick up in middle school.......

Just because our student is not getting a degree in rocket science doesn't mean she is
wasting her time or money.

[Rosy]

While learning life skills such as cooking and basic sewing can be valuable for people (NOT just women), there is no need for these things to be taught as serious, degree-worthy academic subjects in college. The place to teach such things to young people is either in the home, from their own parents, or perhaps as home-economics courses in middle school or high school. Since not everyone goes to college, college is not the right place for such skills to be taught. And to teach them only to women is ridiculous.

[Desiderata]

I am a Christian, but I have cautioned my daughter to the truth that all religions subjugate women. And religions are under the interpretations and power of men.

Examine much of the dictates of religion toward women and the not so subtle message is that women are innately unclean, evil and dangerous to men.

My daughter is now a Wiccan.

Where did I go wrong?

[Silverstar]

You didn't go wrong anywhere. Wicca is the one religion I know of that doesn't think women are innately unclean, evil and dangerous, they are the Creatrix. I personally became a Pagan so that I could worship a deity like me.

Or are you being snarky about going wrong?

[homesteader]

Canning, organic gardening, keeping chickens, repairing the roof or the tractor--uh, HOMESTEADING--might be a reasonable degree for most anyone.

[Hattie]

I'm very glad I can cook. Eating out or buying pre-prepared food is very expensive and can use up a lot of one's income. Simple cooking's a snap and does not have to be time consuming.
It is good for men and women both to know how to keep one's self and surroundings clean and pleasant, how to care for clothing, how to fix a meal. As Akhmed says, these are life skills, and handy ones. But not academic subjects, of course.

[akhmed]

Three things:

1) for many women, homemaking is more of an industry, if you have 4 or more children, it becomes an impressive task.

2) thg author seems unaware of the fact that degrees in homemaking, home sciences, etc, were some of the first degrees women could ever have. In fact, one of the few acceptable careers, other than homemaker, mother, or teacher, was "home demonstration agent" big during the 1930s. These women made huge steps forward in easing home life for women, allowing them more leisure time to do things like, oh, getting a job outside the home.

3) lots of people don't know how to cook. I don't necessarily think that I went to college so that I wouldn't learn how to cook. I went to college to prepare me for life, and cooking is a life skill.

[JScott]

Perhaps it's most condescending in that it's only open to women, men need to get this as well if only to understand what mother's in the home have to do, and to give them some life/housekeeping skills because the aren't always gonna be able to have a spouse/mother/maid to do this stuff. (Oh I forgot if it's a PAID occupation it's called [mostly male] a butler) but this is from a conservative Baptist academic institution so I guess you would expect this.

[AngryDan]

Now now, no reason to complain.

If the "students" really wish to enroll for this bogus degree, and are perfectly willing to throw cash at the school with full knowledge of what they're doing, let them. There will be more room in the job market for the rest of us that way.

Remember, somebody has to backfill the left-hand side of the bell curve, while the rest of us create genuine value for society.