Egalitarianism..

[MehGuy]

How? Are you asking me how I was taught how/why the two genders should be treated differently?

I was mainly taught that women are fragile and weak compared to men. That we men need to be sensitive and self sacrificing towards them.

They were the weaker vessel. A Bible verse I took less as demeaning of women but more to shield them from accountability.

I am sure the dominance/submissive roles between men and women vary from family to family, from culture to culture. Some darker and some more lighthearted than others.

 

[Paidiske]

I just wonder how gender roles were pushed on you. In my upbringing, they never even came up in conversation. It was like, the sky is blue and grass is green, and such obvious things didn't require discussion or persuasion.

I wonder whether any women in your family felt the same, or whether they were more aware of their choices being restricted.

I certainly remember a fair bit of messaging about how my role was to focus on domesticity, raising children, that sort of thing. Even though my parents also pushed education as necessary for keeping one's options open! (There were times when my family benefitted enormously from my mother's education and professional qualifications, like when that was the basis on which we were allowed to come to Australia, because she qualified as a skilled migrant).

 

[Chesterton]

How? Are you asking me how I was taught how/why the two genders should be treated differently?

No, I'm just commenting that I find it interesting that there was anything someone felt needed to be taught. There is a bit of an age difference between you and I, maybe that accounts for it. In some ways, things have gotten more regressive.

I wonder whether any women in your family felt the same, or whether they were more aware of their choices being restricted.

I'm unaware of any women in my family having any choices restricted.

 

[Paidiske]

I'm unaware of any women in my family having any choices restricted.

Then in what sense were there any gender roles?

 

[seeking.IAM]

As I said, I grew up in a conservative religious family with Paulian prescribed gender roles. What I didn't say is when approaching retirement age, my dad had a stroke requiring him to spend the rest of his life in long term care. For the first time in her life, my mom was on her own. She had choice and made decisions. She appeared to quite enjoy it. I always thought it appeared as if a burden of sorts had been lifted from her.

 

[Chesterton]

Then in what sense were there any gender roles?

I don't even recognize the term "gender roles". People just did what they wanted. Mostly, women wanted to be women and men wanted to be men. Women wanted men to be men, men wanted women to be women.

 

[MehGuy]

No, I'm just commenting that I find it interesting that there was anything someone felt needed to be taught. There is a bit of an age difference between you and I, maybe that accounts for it. In some ways, things have gotten more regressive.

I'm unaware of any women in my family having any choices restricted.

Maybe the talks were lesser back then, but I have a hard time believing they didn't still happen occasionally. Even then not everyone had a 100% eye to eye outlook on how the genders should be treated. There were still for example some who were more relaxed than others.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't even recognize the term "gender roles". People just did what they wanted. Mostly, women wanted to be women and men wanted to be men. Women wanted men to be men, men wanted women to be women.

Hmm.

If people just did what they wanted, I would expect to see both boys and girls studying and working in diverse fields, without any judgement that "women shouldn't do x," or "men don't belong in y." I would expect to see paid employment, domestic work and childcare (and other forms of unpaid caring) shared in different ways by different couples, without judgement. I would expect to see the spiritual gifts of both men and women taken seriously and given opportunities to serve, without judgement. And without any sense that someone doing something different from someone else made someone less of a woman (or a man) than anyone else.

Is that really your experience? Because it certainly hasn't been mine.

 

[Chesterton]

Hmm.

If people just did what they wanted, I would expect to see both boys and girls studying and working in diverse fields, without any judgement that "women shouldn't do x," or "men don't belong in y." I would expect to see paid employment, domestic work and childcare (and other forms of unpaid caring) shared in different ways by different couples, without judgement. I would expect to see the spiritual gifts of both men and women taken seriously and given opportunities to serve, without judgement. And without any sense that someone doing something different from someone else made someone less of a woman (or a man) than anyone else.

Is that really your experience? Because it certainly hasn't been mine.

I don't know much about Australia, but over here, boys and girls do study and work in diverse fields.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't know much about Australia, but over here, boys and girls do study and work in diverse fields.

In families or communities that push gender roles, we're often steered towards, or away from, particular fields depending on perceptions of how gendered they are. In both my fields - science originally, and then theology and ministry - I have encountered significant gender-based opposition.

 

[Chesterton]

In families or communities that push gender roles, we're often steered towards, or away from, particular fields depending on perceptions of how gendered they are. In both my fields - science originally, and then theology and ministry - I have encountered significant gender-based opposition.

That's not my experience. As I said earlier, I wasn't exposed to anyone pushing gender roles. But I'm curious, did anyone ever tell you you couldn't study science because you were female?

 

[Paidiske]

That's not my experience. As I said earlier, I wasn't exposed to anyone pushing gender roles. But I'm curious, did anyone ever tell you you couldn't study science because you were female?

Absolutely.

Memorably, one of my lecturers at university when I went to him for help with his topic; "I don't know why you're bothering, you're going to fail, and anyway, women don't belong in science."

(I didn't fail, no thanks to him!)

 

[Chesterton]

Absolutely.

Memorably, one of my lecturers at university when I went to him for help with his topic; "I don't know why you're bothering, you're going to fail, and anyway, women don't belong in science."

(I didn't fail, no thanks to him!)

Okay, someone expressed an opinion you disagree with, but you passed the class. Your choices weren't restricted, you weren't steered away from anything. I wouldn't blame you if you felt insulted by the stupid comment, but I think you're overplaying the victimhood here.

 

[Paidiske]

Okay, someone expressed an opinion you disagree with, but you passed the class. Your choices weren't restricted, you weren't steered away from anything. I wouldn't blame you if you felt insulted by the stupid comment, but I think you're overplaying the victimhood here.

I'm not claiming to be a victim, exactly. I'm just pointing out that ideas about gender roles do shape how people experience the world, especially women. And in the church, it's on a whole other level, of course, where women's options are much more restricted than men's.

But in your case, I am puzzled about how gender roles can never come up in conversation, there can never be any positive or negative comments made about anyone's choices or desires, and yet everyone can still somehow conform to an "obvious" set of ideas. How there can be gender roles without any restriction.

 

[Malleeboy]

I grew up in a deeply conservative rural region in Australia, my family was largely nominal in terms of religious affiliation but the farms chores were largely divided by gender. I think this made sense historically, as the split of tasks was largely done around the manual handling requirements of the tasks. However with modern machinery used in almost all tasks now, anyone could do anything. One gender difference was religion was seen definitely as women's business by the men.
Whilst my mum did have an abusive spouse, she left when I was very young. The only abuse perpetrated on me was by women, firstly by the women who left her spouse when my mum did, who was feeding the other kids and not feeding me (and mistreating me in other ways), and also largely psychological by my mum from the scars she carried and physical assault by my much older sister.
We came to faith in Jesus as a family, at a complementarian church, whose denomination was mostly egalitarian. I deeply admired the elders and their wives at the church.
I have attended an egalitarian for the last 25 years, despite personally maintaining that I think complementarian better fits as best as I could read both scripture and church history. I have deep concerns that there is to me a link between viewing people are interchangeable in the church, then they are interchangeable in the family and following from that into being interchangeable in all situations.

 

[Robban]

Absolutely.

Memorably, one of my lecturers at university when I went to him for help with his topic; "I don't know why you're bothering, you're going to fail, and anyway, women don't belong in science."

(I didn't fail, no thanks to him!)

Sounds like he himself was in the wrong occupation.

 

[Paidiske]

Sounds like he himself was in the wrong occupation.

Apparently the university put up with him because he published a lot. Or at least, that's what I was told.

 

[Robban]

When the late Queen Elizabetth 2 was to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe, she was given a heads up,

"Do not offer your hand to be shaken on meeting with the Rebbe,"

Because that kind of contact with the opposite sex is not allowed.

Thereby avoiding an embarrasing situation,

The Jewish woman is not obligated to study Torah but may do so if she wishes. there are plenty of classes for women.

Lighting Shabbat candles is the female role.

A bit different to what one usually considers "gender role" out in the cold hard world.

 

[Chesterton]

I'm not claiming to be a victim, exactly. I'm just pointing out that ideas about gender roles do shape how people experience the world, especially women. And in the church, it's on a whole other level, of course, where women's options are much more restricted than men's.

But in your case, I am puzzled about how gender roles can never come up in conversation, there can never be any positive or negative comments made about anyone's choices or desires, and yet everyone can still somehow conform to an "obvious" set of ideas. How there can be gender roles without any restriction.

I don't know what to say. You're puzzled about how gender roles can't come up, I'm puzzled by how they could come up. I guess I'm older than I think. I'm reminded of the lyrics in the All In The Family theme song: "And you knew who you were then, girls were girls and men were men".

 

[Paidiske]

I don't know what to say. You're puzzled about how gender roles can't come up, I'm puzzled by how they could come up.

Well, if I've understood you correctly, there was no differentiation in study or employment. But you seem to think there were distinct roles for men and women. So what was the distinction, and how was it maintained?