Does the Church want Women to be Stupid?

[dahlia]

Now that I have your attention...

We had another female speaker in church who started off with, 'I'm So-and-So and I came here with my husband who's in (grad school, med school, whatever school).' I sat there fuming for a bit, as not once in all these months have I heard one man say he came here because of his wife's education pursuits.

I know that women go to BYU, I assume some actually graduate, but I have to wonder if these women work in jobs that use their education?

One of my missionaries told me that most women end up with 2 years of college (if they go) and don't work. Puhleeze tell me this isn't so. I'm all for moms staying with young kids, but darn, that isn't all women can do these days.

Understand that I'm not saying that everyone needs to go to college, but I find this failure to prepare oneself surprising in this day of divorce, and the fact that death or disability, or even long term unemployment for the husband, may mean that the wife has to go out and earn money. If that happens, it's certainly better if she has an education and can bring in some real money and not have to support a family $7.5 an hour.

Have I joined a church that wants its women dumbed down? Eventually the baby-making comes to an end, then what? Perhaps I'm not getting the whole picture because we have so many young marrieds in my ward, but even the older women don't seem to work. Must be nice.

[Maureen]

My husband has two sisters, both went to Ricks College (aka BYU Idaho) for a couple semesters (I believe, not really sure how long) and one went to BYU for a degree in Sociology. Both have worked regularly when single and married. The wife of one of my BIL's occasionally would work but not for any length of time and has no post secondary education, she is now an empty-nester and has been working outside the home for a few years now. The wife of the other BIL received a degree in Education but has never worked outside the home, except for teaching piano lessons. My nephew's wife did one year of University and is a SAHM and worked while she was single. My one niece is married, has no post secondary education and works outside the home. The other niece is single (but just recently got engaged), works and goes to University, planning to get her Bachelors early next year. For quite some time her motto was "PHD before MRS" but that is changing. I'm positive she'll stick it out for her Bachelors but it might take some time for her Masters.

I should also add that my MIL went to BYU (grew up in Australia) and worked outside the home while raising her family, up until she left for a couple's mission.

M.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Maureen

[FunkyTown]

My Fiance' has a Doctorate in maths, if that helps. I like that she's educated and challenging.

[pam]

President Hinckley stressed the importance of education on numerous occasions. He was a huge advocate for education. Including women. In fact he counseled women to get an education as they would never know when they may need to become the one supporting their families.

[Dravin]

Also keep in mind that LDS men by and large go on missions, and LDS women by and large don't. That means there is a 2 year gap in in their, the men's, education, the end result being by the time he gets to graduate school, unless she's also pursuing graduate school, she'll be done. By the age of 21 she'll possibly have 3 years of education to his possible 1 (some 18 year old LDS men don't go to college the year before their mission because a 2 year gap can be daunting to return to, though plenty do attend prior to serving).

That said, despite counsel to seek an education*, to be prepared, the idea that why bother as I'll just stay home with the kids and why expend the energy and money to obtain something I probably won't use, is alive. It's a cultural thing though, not a doctrine thing.

* That doesn't necessarily mean a bachelors though, for men or women. Vocational training can provide worthwhile job opportunities.

Edit: This is coming from a US perspective, other countries have higher education structured differently.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Dravin

[Jenamarie]

My mom has two masters degrees and has always worked outside the home, my MIL has one masters and began working outside the home when the youngest of her six children reached school-age. My older sister has a bach. and of my 3 SIL's, two have bach.'s and one just started her first semester of her masters program, the third is working towards her RN. All of them work.

I'm the dunce who went to 3 years of college but never graduated and has hardly any work history.

[Guest]

My mother is a midwife who quit her job when the first baby came along and never had a job until she turned 65 and went on a rebellious stage and donned a K-mart apron and walked the 2 miles to K-mart (she can't drive and my dad refused to drive her to work at K-mart) on her 65th birthday. And she can barely speak English! Anyway, she put in her K-mart job application - previous experience: Manager of Household Services - 41 years. Which is true - she had 2 maids, 1 laundry person, 1 driver, 1 gardener that she managed!

I've been a paid programmer since I was 12 years old.

Got my Bachelors at 20 years old, getting my master's diploma next week. Yeay me.

I don't have to work. My husband makes enough money to support our family. I work because I hate to cook and I hate to clean after 3 boys (you know, the bathroom would be much cleaner if they would just sit down to pee!!!), and I don't have the patience to teach... so I work instead of spending the time cleaning the house - I hire a cleaning person, I pay money for private school, and I buy pre-made dinners with my money. Then I'm not stressed out and my husband can take off work to go to all these scouting things and whatever else the boys need. And he also gets to just take off work to watch Monday Night Football or something. Being a programmer, I work from the home office.

So yeah, the Proclamation to the Family emphasizes women to stay home and take care of the children and household - but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't work.

Edited April 26, 2011 by anatess

[Wingnut]

My Fiance' has a Doctorate in maths, if that helps. I like that she's educated and challenging.

What???? When did that happen? Congratulations!!!

Dahlia:

I went to college off and on for a few years, but nothing ever came of it. It was before I was diagnosed with ADD and knew how to manage it. I am an intelligent woman, but I often feel inferior in many situations, because I lack long-term planning and critical thinking skills that I feel could have been more effectively developed through the pursuit of a degree. I haven't gone back, but intend to someday (I have a relative timeline laid out). I'll pretty much have to start from scratch. In the meantime, I'm currently doing some vocational training in a field that I've finally discovered that I love. I really regret that I don't have more education.

A lot of LDS women (especially those who attend BYU or its many variants) get degrees in Marriage and Family Development, Early Childhood Education, or Education in some other form. In other words, many get a degree for the sake of getting a degree. (Personally I think society does men and women a disservice by making them choose their life paths at 18 years old.) For many LDS women, this is good enough. They never intend to actually use their education in a work field. It's their safety -- they have it, so that if they get divorced or their husband is for any reason incapable of providing for the family, they have a fallback.

I think a lot of what you're seeing is cultural, and it's unfortunate. The LDS tradition (not mandate) is that women stay home and raise children. My parents encouraged me to go to college, but as I think about it, the reasoning was never that I should do it for myself -- they always told me, "what if you don't get married? What if your husband dies, or has an accident? what if you get divorced? you need to have something -- anything -- to fall back on!" I realize now (though perhaps at 16 I didn't) that this is incredibly patronizing. I have a daughter. I have another child on the way. I intend to teach them about the importance of education, and doing it for themselves and no one else, and doing something they love, not just something they can fall back on.

The The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we are told:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.

Note that it's not completely black and white, but there are definite roles laid out. Much of this is tradition, but much of it is, I believe, "by divine design," as it says at the beginning.

In my ward, we have at least six families I can think of off the top of my head who moved to our area for pursue school of work for the wife/mother. Three moved here for medical residencies for the women (of those three, two are young-ish families, and one is a woman who went back to school once her children were grown). Two moved here for the women to teach at a prestigious private all-girls school (of those, one's husband also attended law school while here, so it was a dual purpose, and they are also a young-ish family). The last family (a young one) moved here for the women to work at the university, in a scientific field.

I have a close friend who suffered the opposite however. She moved to Salt Lake City several years ago to be with her husband as he attended medical school there. While living there, she also pursued graduate work. She has a Bachelor's degree in geology (I believe) and entered a Master's program for a degree in hydrology, which she eventually earned. More than once, she was asked, condescendingly, by people in her ward, "Why are you getting a Master's degree? Isn't a Bachelor's enough?"

(Sorry, lots of rambling thoughts without any coherent thesis. Did I mention my ADD? :))

[JudoMinja]

I'll be done with my bachelors this August and start working on my masters. I'm not married, but even if that happens to be coming somewhere in the near future it wouldn't put a dent in my education pursuits. I plan on continuing even past the masters.

My sister is almost finished with her double major in math and education. She is married with one child and another on the way.

My mother went to nursing school and got her license (two years of college) but never actually used it in the workforce. She has not done anything else with her education, but she's almost an empty nester (in about another five years or so) and she's feeling the burn to do something outside the home.

[Blackmarch]

My mom has been going back to school now that most of the kids are more grown up, and she takes about one or two classes each semester.

Of course we live in a college town so traveling or moving to get school is hardly an issue.

[Guest]

Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.

I look at that and I don't see that it means women should not have a job...

[Jennarator]

I work full time, pretty much always have. I supported the whole family for years.

[NeuroTypical]

Chruchwide, our women are better educated and better paid than other women demographics from other churches. We urge women to get as much education as possible, just like we urge the men. Here's a favorite that I've heard over the pulpit more than once since it came out in 1992.

It has been said that before becoming somebody’s wife, before becoming somebody’s mother, become somebody. Let us consider seven variations on that theme.

First, become somebody who can support herself. Young women should prepare for a career, but not because a career is more important than family life. A career isn’t even as important as family life. Although Church leaders have counseled mothers of young children to avoid working outside the home whenever possible, they have also urged young women to seek education and prepare for careers and meaningful involvement in society.

Career-oriented education matters for several reasons. For example, at any given time, from 35 to 40 percent of the adult women in the Church are single, whether widowed, divorced, or not having married. Only 3 percent of Latter-day Saint women never marry. (See Twila Van Leer, “Singleness Becoming More Common,” Church News, 6 November 1983, p. 4.) In addition, more than 90 percent of both married and single women must work sometime during their adult lives. An LDS woman is now likely to work more than twenty-five years, and six out of ten working LDS women are supporting not only themselves but others in their families.

What these statistics boil down to is that young women who believe they will always have a husband who will fully support them, thereby making it unnecessary for them to work outside the home, are living in a dream world.

Personally, I'm working and my wife is going to college right now.

[JudoMinja]

Thanks Loudmouth. :) I really like that quote. Too often I see "feminists" get their feathers ruffled when the church says that a woman's primary role is to care for her family. It results in questions and misunderstandings like the one that started this thread- do we as LDS expect women to be "stupid"? Does making the main focus of our life the care of our family mean we have to be stupid?

I think it is good that we put family first, and I think the world in general has been getting things backwards. We focus so much on our "career" and wanting to "have a life" that we start to forget what is really important. The "me" generation has become especially apparent in U.S. culture.

Not everyone is cut out to pursue a college education, and not every way we contribute to society requires a college education. We don't all have to be geniuses, and our careers should not be the central focus of our lives. I believe in pursuing an education as far as we can manage, whether that education contributes to a "career" or not. For some, that means just getting through high school. For others, that means a PhD or even several degrees. But having "more" education than another does not necessarily make us better.

What makes us truly wonderful people is the contributions we make to better the lives of those around us. The best place to make such contributions is in our families. Can we be expected to teach our children if we are not at least somewhat educated ourselves?

Anyway, I kinda turned this into a little soap box. I hope my rantings didn't steer this too far off topic.

[ryanh]

Dahlia, what you speak of, what you are focused on in this post, is very much of this world. Temporal considerations. Don't forget that there is learning, development, and education from choosing the path of the "traditional" mother that cannot be earned in any other way. That has value too. Value that will last the eternities, and not a vocation that will become obsolete in the hereafter.

[Suzie]

Now that I have your attention...

We had another female speaker in church who started off with, 'I'm So-and-So and I came here with my husband who's in (grad school, med school, whatever school).' I sat there fuming for a bit, as not once in all these months have I heard one man say he came here because of his wife's education pursuits.

I know that women go to BYU, I assume some actually graduate, but I have to wonder if these women work in jobs that use their education?

One of my missionaries told me that most women end up with 2 years of college (if they go) and don't work. Puhleeze tell me this isn't so. I'm all for moms staying with young kids, but darn, that isn't all women can do these days.

Understand that I'm not saying that everyone needs to go to college, but I find this failure to prepare oneself surprising in this day of divorce, and the fact that death or disability, or even long term unemployment for the husband, may mean that the wife has to go out and earn money. If that happens, it's certainly better if she has an education and can bring in some real money and not have to support a family $7.5 an hour.

Have I joined a church that wants its women dumbed down? Eventually the baby-making comes to an end, then what? Perhaps I'm not getting the whole picture because we have so many young marrieds in my ward, but even the older women don't seem to work. Must be nice.

Not sure if I understand your concern. By one side, you talk about the importance of education for women (which of course I agree) and you mentioned death, disability and unemployment as important factors for women to pursue an education. However, in your last paragraph you seem to talk about women who choose to stay home (I assume their husbands are the breadwinners). What is the problem with that? If one of them is choosing to stay home (for whatever reason) and can afford it, then what's the issue?

[Backroads]

Hey, I resent the suggestion that an education degree is a "mom" degree! In my case it was honestly what I wanted to do, though while my master's degree will probably be in education, I would also considerer environmental studies. I also am considering massage therapy and would LOVE to devote a bunch of years to becoming a midwife.

But yes... I remember being at BYU-Idaho and socializing with other girls in the program. Many of them seriously planned on never actually using the degree because they would be married. I do see this in the church, dahlia, it's out there. I know of a couple examples where the wife works and the dad takes care of the kids--not for any educational failure on Dad's part, but because that's how their personalities work.

Now I will admit: I want to be the homemaker/stay-at-home mom who helps with PTA. That's my dream. But I also see myself working at the same time. Maybe not making money, but doing something! I'm extremely intelligent. I read, I write, I had a 7th grade reading level as a first grader. I consider myself "not stupid".

I also recall sitting in high school and having our crazy teacher tell us how women need to be educated (his wife had her masters' in education and taught). One girl kept insisting how some women want to take care of babies and stay home. They spent all of class debating that while the rest of us looked on. Now I'm all about the radical feminism that announces women do have the choice to stay home and working is not the only way a woman can be empowered. But... the idea is that the option should be open and there is no reason a woman should NOT be educated.

[JudoMinja]

One girl kept insisting how some women want to take care of babies and stay home.

And I certainly hope that the women taking care of babies are not "stupid". This will cause some serious problems. Taking care of babies may not require a college degree, but there's a lot more to it than just feeding and changing diapers.

[Backroads]

And I certainly hope that the women taking care of babies are not "stupid". This will cause some serious problems. Taking care of babies may not require a college degree, but there's a lot more to it than just feeding and changing diapers.

indeed. Heck, there's people in high-paying careers that aren't that bright.

[a1000tears]

I know you gave valid reasons of why women should be educated..in case of unemployment..etc. I would hold that the main reason to be educated is so that we can practice provident living. I think it's important for young women to be more educated now than ever before. I think public schools will be more viral in the future. I see traditional schooling slowly being replaced with online schools.

Technology alone keeps us on our toes. I often think that the main reason why I keep pursuing an education is not because society tells me but because my kids were born smarter than me and it's all I can do to keep up. :)

Kidding aside, it's a great topic. However, I am a convert, and I found that the women in the church gave me more of an education than public schools, college and my own family combined. I find that some of the smartest women in the church did not obtain degrees, credentials, etc. So I guess the question really is about what we define an education to be.

[sensibility]

A lot of LDS women (especially those who attend BYU or its many variants) get degrees in Marriage and Family Development, Early Childhood Education, or Education in some other form. In other words, many get a degree for the sake of getting a degree. (Personally I think society does men and women a disservice by making them choose their life paths at 18 years old.) For many LDS women, this is good enough. They never intend to actually use their education in a work field. It's their safety -- they have it, so that if they get divorced or their husband is for any reason incapable of providing for the family, they have a fallback. (emphasis added)

I was definitely one of those women. I wasn't majoring in the typical fallback degrees, but I was majoring in classical studies, which is even more useless than M&FD if you can believe that. Then I dropped out to get married, so . . . well . . . yeah, I'm a living stereotype.

Three years on, though, I have recently discovered that I love science. Love love love with a wild abandon. Big surprise to me, as I definitely thought I hated it through my entire school career . . . but I find myself furtively studying organic chemistry and A&P during my son's naps, just for the sheer joy of it.

I'm lucky that I dropped out when I did, because otherwise I'd have invested a lot of time and money in a degree that isn't what I actually want to do. I now plan to go back to university to study for a degree in some sort of healthcare -- it won't happen for a few years, but that's my apple-pie-in-the-sky plan. I only discovered this dormant passion when I became pregnant and started studying pregnancy and childbirth, so motherhood actually made me more of an academic. Weird.

[dahlia]

President Hinckley stressed the importance of education on numerous occasions. He was a huge advocate for education. Including women. In fact he counseled women to get an education as they would never know when they may need to become the one supporting their families.

I'm aware of this. It's just that I've yet to meet someone who's actually working. Life must be perfect for most LDS women.

/rant I'm in a bit of a snit about this. I don't mean to offend anyone.

[Jennarator]

I'm aware of this. It's just that I've yet to meet someone who's actually working. Life must be perfect for most LDS women.

/rant I'm in a bit of a snit about this. I don't mean to offend anyone.

I work, full time! I suport my family.

I know I said that.

What bothers me is that all women activities are in the day. (ok, most) becasue they assume all Mormon women can go. I never get to know anyone in the ward becasue I can't go to the activities. >.<

[Guest]

Life must be perfect for most LDS women.

Have you been to the Advice forum lately?

And yeah, it may seem that life is perfect for most LDS women... but, if you look at it closely, a lot of them do with a lot less just so the woman can stay home and take care of the house and kids 24/7.

I mean - my mom being a stay-at-home-mom - that's what I would call perfect - because she had maids, governesses, a gardener, a driver, and all that stuff. But, when you're the maid, the governess, the gardener, the driver, the cook, the nurse, the laundry person all rolled into one... it's no picnic! Especially if you have to figure out how to feed 4 kids on $200 a month.

If you'd rather cook and clean and pack lunches and take care of babies rather than work the 8-5 job, then yeah, that's the perfect life for you. But, a lot of women find out very quick, staying at home is a lot harder than just doing the 8-5 job. Especially when the husband comes home and complains about his 40-hour work week and expects the wife to "serve" him when he gets home... because, "she doesn't do anything all day".

So yeah, dahlia... maybe you need a shift in perspective...

Edited April 26, 2011 by anatess

[pam]

I'm aware of this. It's just that I've yet to meet someone who's actually working. Life must be perfect for most LDS women.

/rant I'm in a bit of a snit about this. I don't mean to offend anyone.

I work full time out of the home. But because I've had to. I've been a single mom for the last 12 years.