The old style of thinking, that men are the bread winners dates back to war times, when the men had to fight, and a lot of the roles back home running the cities and the towns were taken by women, not only to help out the men, but because they had the opportunity to do something else.
Then the men returned home weary after fighting the war, and they went back to work, and the womens role was now to look after her husband and raise the kids so the husband just had to go to work and back, but this took away a lot of opportunity for women in the work force, but thank goodness that thems not the times nowadays!

Nowadays women have stacks of opportunity to be who they want and do what they want, and i think that relationships are supposed to support each other, and be there for each other when what they venture in doesnt work out.

Western Australian arts degrees actually cost a way hell of a lot more than most degrees (unless its taxation or accounting or medicine or rocket science)

not only are we paying for the course, but then there are the numerous festivals, workshops, and other events in which we must network to climb the ladder of integral recognition, but then there is the supplies that come with the degree and all the extra work that has to go into it to create an end product, and if all that extra time was not spent on creating that product, and was instead spent working, im sure most art students would be able to afford to live on their own or buy a new car.

As far as well-roundedness goes… Those kinds of people who are looking to be well rounded and wholesome dont do arts degrees, they take up teaching degrees.

And finally in my experiences at pursuing arts degrees myself, in my entire course at tafe (meaning in all the classes from cert 2 through to advanced diploma) there were about 10 females and about 45 males, an average ratio at what i would put as 4:1.

So as for mostly women in art degrees? certainly no way as far as wa goes!

Both parents should have their children as their primary responsibility and this concept that it’s somehow unchristian to have the mother as the primary income earner is a crock. When (and if) Bec and I decide to have children; I really hope that it’s possible for both of us to have working arrangements that allow us to share the two roles of working and caring for a child, but if they don’t – we’ll be making the decision on who will take up which role on the basis of what is the most practical, rather than some concept that the only Christian thing to do is to have the man providing for the family while the woman stays at home.

That might be a big part of the hurdle, but when having children, your primary (not PRIMARY) responsibility is now to raising them.

If you think that God gave you a calling to be a nurse and that is a higher priority than ensuring your children are raised in the best way possible, then you are sadly mistaken. Given that children are only given by God and he explicitly states that we should raise them up in his word, I would think that once children are in the picture, they should be the PRIMARY responsibility. If you are in a job that doesn’t allow that to be the primary responsibility, than you owe it to God and your offspring to re evaluate what your priorities are.

I don’t have heaps of energy for thrashing this issue around on the following basis:

1. If someone wants to extend themselves, then let them.

2. A woman going to University and having “a career” doesn’t preclude her from having a family.

3. In Proverbs 31, “she considers a field and buys it”. No one said biblical wives were brainless or stuck in the kitchen.

It really doesn’t have to be so complicated. Why can’t we just let people be who they are?

A big part of the hurdle in this discussion is our definition of success and achievement, rather than it mattering whether or not someone has certain chromosomes and a tertiary education.

As Jen already pointed out.

But education doesn’t make one intelligent.

I went to school for math, but looking at the things I enjoy and am GOOD at, you’d think I went to school for religion, philosophy, or history.

This is because truly intelligent women don’t need professors and an education path to actually get an education.

However, if they want to work in a full time position that pays a lot of money, then yeah…more often then not, for women, a degree is necessary…because you need that piece of paper that says you studied philosophy, history, math, or whatever.

Education is not confined to a university.

I’ve got to get stuck in here. It’s a sad day when Christians are advocates for less education – regardless of who that’s for. Education is a powerful thing, and it’s hard to read this post without believing that the author is concerned that unless the education is being biased towards men, then the men will lose the power.

The thing that bugs me is the way in which we bundle in so many additional cultural practices, and because they have happened historically in our “Christian” cultures, we’ve decided that these are Christian practices. So rather than needing people to follow Jesus, and actually put into practice his teachings (which we tend to put off to one side when they don’t fit with our conservative culture), we instead ask that people fit into our tiny little cultural box, and put forward that as Christianity. And it’s not.

Jesus was truly radical in his approach to women.

The Titus verse is Paul’s letter to a church at the time and thus the culture MUST be taken into consideration. Yes we have things we can learn from it, but you cannot take the slap bang black and white and apply it to today without looking at it properly.

If I am not mistaken, the Timothy verse is talking about caring for widows. And is talking about injustice and has nothing too much to do with women being homemakers.

It is the fact that Ted was trying to bring men-women roles into the context of explaining why there are more women in higher education – that I find somewhat ridiculous.

Thanks for stopping by

I should have added an ‘in this way’ to the end of the ‘I have something to offer…’. It was simply an oversight, because I do think that everyone has something to offer the world regardless of education, role etc.

*I’ve even edited the post to include it