Finally, a Bachelors degree for women only:<\/p>\n
\n[USA Today<\/a>] 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.<\/div>\nSouthwestern 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.<\/p>\n
It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/a>" 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading