Friday, August 17, 2007

dear jesus, teach me to fry it up in a pan


from Feminary we get this nifty post about Southern Baptist Seminary offering a new set of courses for women (i.e, the wives of seminary students.)

gender studies? sorta.
hermeneutics of gender? a little.
historical context of women's lives in the bible? uh...
how to whip up a casserole, sew a dress, keep that quiver full AND help your husband with his greek?

exactly!

read on (bold and italics are mine because i just can't believe it):

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.

lordy. lordy lordy lordy.
it's christian home ec. i can't take it. i really can't. there is nothing more nightmarish for me than hours of Home Ec specifically designed to bolster frakked up traditional gender roles. maybe if my mom had taken some of these courses she wouldn't have been so angry...she would have sipped the kool-aid and learned to play some hymns on the organ, like a proper pastor's wife.

OMG! you have to look at their brochure: the sanitary napkin font, the soft focus photo, the uplifted (white) face. it's a christian romance novel cover! and it has the ubiquitous lavender rose!!

some of their course offerings:
Embracing Femininity

i think i'll just stop there. my brain just broke.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

eww eww eww....

i am so pissed and i couldn't even bring myself to read the brochure text, the graphics were nauseating enough.

Anonymous said...

Yawn, boring! Not that keeping
a house cleaned and tidy is wrong, but classes on how to be a "good pastors' wife is like saying, you dumb and you need help. It's as if these women have no thoughts of their own. Yikes! I betcha a man help initiated the whole process; some male who needed his ego stroked.

BTW- the greek study is funny, Ding

Delia Christina said...

it makes me wonder what Embracing Femininity has to do with being a pastor's wife...

Shawna Atteberry said...

I saw that on Feminary's blog too. I wonder if I need to put my hubby through a similar program, so he'll be a good little pastor's wife...{cough}...ahem...I mean hubby.

Delia Christina said...

well, he'll be fine once he Embraces his Femininity and learns a hymn or two.

of course, if he doesn't know how to navigate the politics of the Christmas recital or Sunday flower arranging, or refuses to host a proper ladies bible study then i'm afraid your ministry quite possibly might falter.

Shawna Atteberry said...

I thought you'd might like to see what bringing this to my attention sparked on a book proposal I'm working on. Here's the introduction.

My Hubby embracing his Femininity--I'll have to see how he goes for that. He already has one strike against him because he doesn't play piano. :P

Delia Christina said...

i have to admit i didn't read the brochure closely enough for the details about controlling *paper* in one's household. are they kidding?

it really IS a home ec curriculum, isn't it? looking at the reality of being a pastor's wife, i'd think they'd want to have at least one class for pastors on the context of their spouse's experience: balancing family and church responsibilities; protecting the privacy of your family; addressing issues of anger, isolation, and congregational resentment. (let's be honest, you know? being a pastor's wife is damn hard.)

all these issues are much more relevant than how to keep house or bake the perfect church pie. ridiculous.

Wasp Jerky said...

Ding,

You females are so emotional. What you need is a Proverbs 31 doll!

Delia Christina said...

ok, that was totally hilarious. the whole thing - samson as the first suicide bomber and everything!

but they're really proverbs 31 girl dolls, then i wonder if they also come with markets and stuff so they can sell their homemade goods and stuff. that's certainly more fun than a g-string.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Ding, there are much more important issues that could be addressed...and maybe not in a classroom setting. Why couldn't you just get together with a bunch of women that were going through the same hard stuff as you and just talk it out? Who says someone has to be standing in front of you and teaching? I think a mentor would be in order, more so perhaps than an actual class.