A Man's Place is at the Factory?

I'm still finding myself in conversations about the decision by a local seminary to add a home-ec major that excludes men. I expected to receive mail from women complaining that they'd been sent back to the kitchen ONLY (the question is not about whether people value work done in the domicile). But none came. Instead, the most emphatic complaints came from men perterbed about being disallowed from classes where they could learn to cook. They also came from women--many of them full-time homemakers--who think it's unfair to kick men out just because they're missing an X chromosome.

Jacob's red stew smelled so good his brother sold him his birthright for a meal. The male deacons in Acts 6 fed the widows. And the ultimate trump card: Jesus cooked fish when he had the restoration conversation with Peter. Trust me, the Bible allows for manly men cooking.

I read a quote in a local Baptist publication from a woman at the School That Shall Not Be Named defending the decision, and she said their reasoning had to do with Paul's exhortation that women are to be "workers at home."

Now, I think it's great to heed Paul. And he did, indeed, say that.

But hang on a sec.

The exhortation is found in Titus 2. And when Paul admonished Titus to encourage older women to teach the younger how to be "workers at home," he was speaking in a culture in which about 85 percent of industry happened in the home. There was no such thing as a factory-worker dad and a stay-at-home mom. Both husband and wife were usually stay-at-home parents; both raised kids, taught kids, and worked to contribute to the economics of the household. The idea of home as a haven to return to at the end of a work day is a post-Industrial Revolution concept. And, I might add, a very middle-class concept.

Paul isn't saying "women, be domestic only." Rather, in the context in which they live out their lives, women should learn from those who have more experience about how to work hard. Think of the upper-class woman in Proverbs 31 who labors at home. Her work includes commerce (buying/selling real estate; selling belts), even though she doesn't "have to" work. And a woman like her is supposed to mentor somebody, Paul says.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating...

Back then, people did ironworks or basketweaving or meat curing or whatever at home. Dorothy L. Sayers more than sixty years ago--even before second-wave feminism--wrote a marvelous piece in which she noted that much of the restlessness of women happened after the more interesting, mind-engaging work was taken from the domicile (international trade, equipment purchase, negotiation, people contact) and put in factories. Couples began to see raising kids as women's work rather than as a partnership ("moms parent; dads babysit"). On those few occasions when dads took the kids, and the children drove 'em crazy, it was reasoned that women had some special inner thing that made it easier for them to deal with the whining and bickering and tedium. As a result, many failed to appreciate what their wives had to give up to stay home with kids all day--even if they wanted to do so.

We often hear that the ideal is for moms to be at home, but that's only half of the story. The ideal is for both mom and dad to be home. Kids need interaction with both parents. But for both husband and wife to work from home usually means a relatively high standard of living. Hey, like I said, it's the ideal. And it also doesn't mean they're down on the floor playing with kids all day, either. Rather, they'd take their children with them as they support the weak, help the suffering, engage in meaningful (and not so meaningful) work, and get the job done.

We sometimes hold up the Ricky-and-Lucy model--or the Ward and June Cleaver model--as the ideal. We teach "if only..." our culture would get back to that ideal of Ricky going to the club while Lucy cleans or Ward going to the office while June vacuums. Truth is, the divorce rate skyrocketed when the men took off for the factories and left their wives at home. It was as high, in fact, as it is now--at a time when it was much more difficult to split. The Industrial Revolution with its separate spheres for men and women devastated the nuclear family.

Some point to Paul's admonition that "if a man does not provide for his own, he is worse than an unbeliever" as a prooftext for man-as-breadwinner. Right out of 1 Timothy. It even has six pronouns in many English translations. It's all about a husband providing. Or is it? Actually, in the Greek it is "someone" and "one's own," not "he/his." The context is talking of widows and caring for them, and the passage is actually more focused on women caring for their mothers and mothers-in-law than it is on men (see 1 Tim 5:16). It's certainly not talking about the man vs. the woman bringing home the pork chops. Paul's saying, Don't burden the church if you don't have to. If you have the means to take care of your parents in their old age, do it. And if you can and don't, you're worse than an unbeliever.

At this point a story comes to mind. Right out of the Gospels. One sister is focused only on home-ec; the other is sitting at the Lord's feet learning theology. Kitchen-girl complains, saying Theology-girl should return to a girl's place and help out. And what does Jesus tell Kitchen-girl? "Mary has chosen what is better."

So should the emphasis for women at a seminary be on teaching theology or teaching cooking? WWJD?