Does God Want Women to Stay Home?

From USA Today:

When it comes to women and higher education, the old joke used to be that the only reason a woman would go to college would be to earn her "MRS" degree. That was the 1950s take on things. It was before the women's movement of the 1960s and '70s, and before females accounted for roughly half the students in most graduate professional fields and more than half of all undergraduate students.

But now, at least one institution — Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Fort Worth — appears to be trying to set back the clock. Southwestern is one of the largest fully accredited Southern Baptist seminaries, offering bachelors in addition to divinity degrees. Last spring, the school announced the establishment of a B.A. in humanities, with a concentration in homemaking.

On its face, much of the new curriculum looks like a standard, if rather retro, version of Home Economics — courses include general homemaking, clothing construction, nutrition and meal preparation, and managing a budget, as well as various areas of child care. And on this account, critics at both ends of the political spectrum have found much to like, as well as to criticize, in the seminary's approach.

As a women's studies student of mine, Krista Martin, remarked in an e-mail over the summer, the homemaking program "appears to be a gain for equal worth in that an institution is recognizing that homemaking is just as (if not more) challenging than the medical or legal professions." She has a good point here, and it's the one feminism has needed to make, ever since the women's movement acknowledged the disservice it had done to housewives by tacitly dismissing the importance of housework. Even so, as Krista went on to observe, herein also lies one major shortcoming of Southwestern's program: It is open only to women.

There was a time - long before I was there - when the seminary I attended taught classes for women on how to be good pastor's wives. Now most of the MDiv students there are women.