Finally, a Bachelors degree for women only:
[USA Today] NASHVILLE — The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers coursework in Greek and Hebrew, in archaeology, in the philosophy of religion and — starting this fall — in how to cook and sew.Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.
It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.
I’m not making light of knowing how to cook and sew — nor how to home-can green beans without the risk of botulism, how to bake a perfect cherry cobbler from fresh fruit and basic ingredients, to make a quilt strictly by hand from scrap fabrics, nor how to keep a family together for a couple of decades… those are some of the most important things I know.
I didn’t have to pay tuition to get it, though. My tuition went for the study of computer science, which is much more difficult (though not impossible) to teach one’s self.
Certainly, I grew up watching my mother and grandmothers do most of those things (although I have begun teaching Mom to quilt). Unfortunately, since my mother was so skilled at the home arts, I didn’t have much opportunity to practice those skills until I was on my own and had to learn out of necessity.
That the Baptists feel a need for a Bachelor’s degree in homemaking seems to me transparently laughable: it’s not a BA program, but the path to an "Mrs." Or, perhaps to create a pool of appropriately knowledge-limited women who might make suitable wives for those who aren’t up for a little intellectual challenge now and then.
I love my husband, I respect my husband, but to defer to him intellectually at all times would be doing him such a disservice. He would be thoroughly bored. As would most outside the world of the Taliban.
“I love my husband, I respect my husband, but to defer to him intellectually at all times would be doing him such a disservice. He would be thoroughly bored. As would most outside the world of the Taliban.”
D’accord. My wife finished college in three years and finished her Ph.D. at 26. She doesn’t defer to me intellectually at any time, as far as I can tell. We’ll be married 30 years tomorrow.
However, I didn’t follow the leap from a BA in humanities with a concentration in homemaking (or a women-only class in cooking and sewing) to consistent intellectual deference to one’s husband. Either you invented a connection that wasn’t there, or you know more about this curriculum than you divulged in your post.
What strikes me about this BA is not that it’s in home econ., but that it’s limited to women.
I am sorry but I find this condesending and demeaning to women. WE’VE COME A LONG WAY BABY. This sounds like a step backwards. I do all those wifey things and I didn’t need a degree to do them. There are also many other things I can do. Why not offer a degree only for women in say electrical engineering or accounting? I went to an all girls school and we didn’t just learn home ec. If you want to be a home ec major, more power to you but why not men. Joel, go at me.
Uh, girlfriend, my wife has a Ph.D. and is currently on the faculty at a large research medical school. My mom has a Ph.D., did a postdoc at the Rockefeller University, and taught for years at UT-K and Roane State before retiring. I trained under a female professor for my postdoc. I’ve trained two female postdocs and a female Ph.D student in my lab. One of my sisters is a chemical engineer, trained at UT-K. My daughter is headed off to college tomorrow (a “co-ed” school) as a National Merit Scholar and ambitions to become a physician.
I don’t understand why you think I should “go at you” for advocating engineering or accounting for women or home ec for men. I don’t take a back seat to anyone here in my respect of and advocacy for higher education for women. Did your little bit of snark directed against me have a, you know, point?
Doc, I don’t think you offended Girlfriend… I think it was mainly the concept that got her riled. Unfortunately, she and I both know some folks who still think that women should only be educated in how to serve her husband. It’s sad, really, but largely self-imposed.
We all know that you’re among the enlightened.
I’m curious as to why this is seen as some kind of backwards step for women. It’s not like the only classes these women will be taking are home ec ones – they’ll have to take all the core curriculum classes everyone else does, from philosophy to math – a humanities degree is very challenging. There’s also nothing saying they won’t be going on to Masters and Doctorate degrees – a Bachelor Degree in humanities opens the door for many different options for further degrees.
Why are people so upset that these women would choose to concentrate their skills in the home? It’s not like their family is somehow less important than an office or other place of work… If they know they want to work in the home, why wouldn’t they want to be as skilled as possible?
I know that I would love to have the opportunity to learn real “homemaking skills” and I’ve been married 11 years! I am not the only young woman who has had no one to teach her – in fact most of those my age and younger have never had the opportunity to learn some of the most “basic” home ec skills since they were removed from most high schools. If I would be willing to pay tuition to have someone teach me – then there must be others out there. I can’t imagine that I’m the only woman in the nation who would like to add to their knowledge this way!
As for it being a MRS. Degree 🙂 – from what I’ve read most of the women taking the courses are already married. Honestly, if I lived close to Southwestern I would probably sign up…