This has bothered me for a very long time. I still see it a lot, even in my own immediate extended family. The men will have MAs or more, & the women will have nothing. Only a few women (4) in my family are even college graduates. 2 of us (myself & a younger married cousin) are trying to graduate.

I'm a never-Mo with multiple graduate degrees. Can't get DW (BIC but inactive) to get an education to save my life. That bothers me. Could be Mormonism, but I think maybe she just likes it.

I have a friend who has said that she just plain doesn't want to go to college. She took a car seat tech training, but she doesn't want to go to school and take classes and tests and actually learn something in that environment.

I meant any kind of education or training - including tech, professional, secretarial, etc.

Yeah, that's what I meant, too.

This site makes me see more and more how different my TBM family really is/was. My grandmother was a college grad, so was my mom. 2 sisters are, including one who just finished her doctorate. Now, if only I could get them to educate themselves on their own church doctrine ::sigh::

My BIC TBM great grandfsther & great grandmother were high school & nunior college educators. So I understand where you're coming from.

Were your families living in Utah?

It is a little different out here in Maryland. But, then MD, like all of the top 5 states with highest college grad rates, is on the NE Coast... and pretty far from the BOM Belt.

Even so - my parents had no intention of paying for college or trade school for any of their 7 daughters, only the two boys. So, I'd say it is TSSC's attitude toward women that was influencing it.

My great grandparents were born & bread Utahns. G-grandfsther's father was even a polygamist who ended up being convicted of polygamy.

I'm in md, near Columbia ...

I used to live in md, near fort meade

Yup, Ft. Meade is two minutes drive from my house.

to their woman.

I remember many awkward reactions of LDS guys when I was in my dating years, when they found out I was in a Master's program. I got the sense that it wasn't a positive reaction, and sometimes signaled the end of flirtation. I should add that most of these guys were college students or graduates, themselves. So what was their problem?

What kind of a culture produces men that need to look down on their wimmenfolk?

A socio-religious culture that knows that education and exposure to the larger world threatens their narrow world view. How can someone who has learned the scientific method and applies it every day at work go home and refuse to question religious contradictions upon which the welfare of their family depends.

The church protects its income stream by making it hard for women to leave their abusive husbands. How would they support themselves without a college education?

When you ask how women could accept a life of ignorance, the answer is indoctrination. Years of "highest noble calling" bullshit. Prophetic promises of great blessings and "eternal increase" of permanent pregnancy as a reward for decades of pregnancy here on earth.

It isn't hard to see that "using" women AND CHILDREN is part of the Mormon tradition established by Joseph Smith.

The less educated they are, the more vulnerable they are. And that's how MOrmon General Authorities want them. Gullible and ignorant, the perfect combination for staying in the cult and never risking leaving.

This is yet another reason to give people when they say that Mormonism is good "for the kids."


Anagrammy

Well said.

Which is why the new missionary age for women is so insidious. It is so popular now for girls to go on missions and families haven't always saved for missions for their daughters, so girls are going to use that gap year to make money instead of getting even one year of college.

Up until the age change most of the women I knew who went on missions did so after they had earned their Bachelors.

In my opinion, as an outsider looking in, it makes sense that men who are under the control/authority of the LDS church would feel better about life if they felt in control/authority over their wives and homes in order to compensate. One big way of feeling in control and also actually maintaining control over another person is to have more education and earning power. Even if a woman is in a difficult marriage, she will be much less likely to leave if she is not able to provide for herself and any children. So, while I do not condone this imbalance in any way, when I take a step back and analyze it, I understand why it happens and I'm certain that it's done deliberately in many cases.

+1



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2013 08:00PM by healyourpast.

Many smart people have studied this problem in depth and it is getting worse. So a new program was started called The Utah Women and Education Initiative

http://www.utahwomenandeducation.org/about-us/need/

Studies show that women who get an education earn more, have better health, and have better family lives. But it's kinda hard to get the Mormons to get the message

I'm the first one in my entire family(man or woman) to graduate.

I got a BS and three family members showed up, and that's it.

In my day at BYU, it was common for girls to say they are there for their MRS degree. Their role was to be wife and mother (and church drone). They viewed education as something good you could use in raising children and as a back up if the husband became disabled or something.

Often the wife would work to get HIM through school but not herself.

Meanwhile, when these "perfect" families age with the pretty wife/mother, kids, and more educated father, a chasm often forms. The wife simply is not on the intellectual level that an education can bring. All they have to talk about is house, kids, trips, church.

There were many girls (I had scads of roommates at BYU) who were Child Development, Family Relations, secretarial or Elementary Education majors, with the view of using them mainly in their home. Not that there is anything wrong with this and of course some obviously had important successful careers- especially in education. Back then they were the more common majors for females than males.

Back in the 70s in my upper division physics class, there were only two girls out of about 60 students. I hope it is closer to 50/50 now but I don't know if a lot has changed.

College is not the only way to educate oneself and besides, I know a lot of people with college degrees who don't have a job, and plenty without degrees who are very financially successful.

It was interesting that my son's high school showed me a 10 page single space list of jobs/work that do not require more than a HS education.

They were electrician, plumber, back hoe driver, brick layer etc.

You had to get into those trades to be in that line of work.

And you know what? You can't just 'get into' those jobs! You have to have someone who knows you recommend you.

At least with an education you can knock on enough doors and somewhere someway you can get a little temp job that can lead to something better.

On top of that, brawn only lasts for a few years and you need your brains to earn money after that.

One of my instructors had been a logger for years. He could stack those logs on the truck with no accidents or load shift. But when logging went under he went back to school and became an instuctor.

The high school was so 'shocked' that I didn't know how to get my son into those kind of jobs...working mans jobs...well, excuse me, I was raised by a suit in a "suit town".

And it is true, not every job requires an education.

I got my first factory job by claiming I had an associate degree but nothing else. I had learned by experience not to mention it:

The factories in the deep south do NOT want anyone with education...you might stand up to their abuse and help others do so too......so my BS degree stated on the application precluded me from working in the Levi factory years ago...


so when I applied and got my factory job, I kept my head down and my mouth shut....if you mention you have an education around a bunch of red necks, my experience is they will be very snobbish to you. So keep your mouth shut and they'll only find you weird, but not threatening. And the money was decent and got me a toe hold in the community.

I know that. Both of my parents are trades people & artisans. I'm actually in college for a trade, not a liberal arts degree.

Perfect example:

I dated a TBM, RM, EQP when I was still a TBM. I was working on a very rigorous degree to become a Registered Dietitian, (which is my now beloved profession) and my boyfriend wanted me to drop out. He was graduating and wanted to get married and move back home to take over the family business. He finally actually admitted to me that he didn't want me to finish my degree so that I wouldn't have the OPTION to work. He wanted a perfect little housewife who was just like his Mom, (who hadn't gone to college and waited on her husband, hand and foot.) Naturally I dumped him immediately.

My mom has a master's, my stepmom a doctorate, and me and both my sisters have college degrees. We are unique family in that regard within the church.

I dated at least one guy who lost interest in me when I made clear to him my interest in pursuing an education.

I agree that you don't have to have a college degree to be successful, but it usually helps. I'll also add that I have continued to try to learn as much as I can since I graduated from college. I read and study all the time (which is why I am now here!!!), so college isn't the only way to learn. BUT I am also unique amongst my closer group of TBM friends. Most of them are content to read a couple of bestselling paperbacks and watch reality TV. There's nothing wrong with either of those, but they're just not interested in developing their minds. I don't know how they continue to relate to their highly ambitious husbands.

My mother's father, who was baptist, actively sabotaged--to the point of physical restraint--both my grandmother's and mother's attempts to educate themselves. My mother converted to TSCC and married my father. She thought he was a big step up because he didn't actively sabotage her efforts to obtain a college degree. He just did it passive aggressively.

He did the same thing to me. During college he wouldn't ask about my schoolwork, he just wanted to know how my MRS degree was coming. When I told him I wanted to be a doctor like him, he said it was a waste of society's resources to train female doctors when they were just going to stay home and raise babies anyway. He didn't even come to my college graduation because he was "sick." This from a man who hadn't missed a day of work in 25 years. The biggest fight I ever witnessed between my parents was the day of my mother's grad school graduation. My dad left with us kids and the car before the ceremony was over, stranding my mom at her own graduation without a word.

This is not something from ancient history. I'm not even 30 yet. Sexism is alive and well, my friends. Alive and well.

Please tell me that your parents are divorced now. What your dad did to your mom is very abusive.

My inactive dad has really negated my TBM mom's career because honestly, she's more talented than he is. They're both trades people & artisans. He undercut himself, & instilled in her the same practice. She honestly could have opened up a studio in San Francisco, or gone into design. But no.

He had a long career in his trade, & think's that me wanting a career is selfish & conceited. He thinks I should just have a simple job or 2 that pays the bills. Well, I had small jobs, & I still couldn't pay the bills. I even had a job in my trade, & couldn't pay the bills because I didn't have a degree.

For what its worth, I'm 32, and all of my childhood BIC girlfriends have at least a bachelor's, save 1.

A lot depends on the times, and the environment - economically, as some degrees were typically not available to women nor where there jobs available.

In the 50's many of us women had some advanced schooling, some married right out of high school, a few in high school.
At the time, my chosen field, Christian Ministry was not available to women. All I could be hired to do was a Music Minister. (I changed my mind about many things out of high school, and joined the LDS Church with my little family, which changed the course of my life.)

Living in UT in the 60's mostly men went to college in the sciences. Plenty of women attended BYU but generally in the liberal arts. Some of us had some classwork at one time or another but didn't graduate.
The GI Bill was available, which my husband used, and of course, it was predominately men (veterans were mostly men in those days). There were many different kinds of moneys available, for further education and in most cases, men took advantage of those.

This economic climate had nothing to do with religion. It was a symptom of the times when men held most of the positions, and women came home from the work force of the war to raise their families.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Now days, it's very different. Women are still trying to get through The Glass Ceiling and in more and more cases, are succeeding.
It's still, pretty much a man's world at the top.

Human beings have been dividing up the work between women and men all through humanity.

We are getting closer to equality in the work force. Many businesses actually give equal pay for equal work/jobs.
That was true in the 80's which became an opportunity for women to be Bank Managers.

In many religions,it's clear that the men are the wage earners, the women are in charge of the home and children. This is a natural theme throughout the ages as the women gave birth, the men did not.

My my great grandfather was a Christian minister in the early 1900's and had a little analysis he liked to make, and recorded in his papers. It appears that he used it at times in his sermons.
He claimed that if women and men took turns giving birth there would be only three children in each family. The woman would start with her turn, the man would take his turn, the woman would take her turn, and the man would not take another turn!
:-)

Much of the world has not reached the level of equality we have in this country. Some do, of course, but it's still a huge struggle in many countries.

Patriarchal property rights still govern a lot of the world. Women were not allowed to own property in this country, much of our laws were a carry over from Britain. Married Women's Property Rights began in 1839.
We've come a long ways since then. Single women can take out loans for homes, vehicles, etc. which is rather recent in this century.

When dealing with patriarchal religious groups,(there are many in the world), the rights of women have been more difficult to establish.

Mormonism, as we know is a patriarchal religious system. It's natural that they would fall behind the curve when giving women equal rights. In fact, I am sure they do not exist in this system.

For many of us, that is one reason, Mormonism doesn't work for us. (I could write a couple thousand words on that issue!)

And so, we as women take the opportunities available to us from each generation, and I, for one, am very pleased there are a lot more choices available in this country these days!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2013 01:57PM by SusieQ#1.

In my family (non-mormon growing up) Graduate degrees were the norm. Women have been graduating from college since the 1830s. of our 8 daughters almost all have graduated but have been unlike our sons so far as graduate degrees. A young grandaughter shocked me with her 8 year old thinking that she didn't need to go to college because she would get married and that was all she had to do. Eek! My mother even took graduate courses at Harvard in the 1920s.

I have (a) BS from TIT...

(Tijuana Institute of Technology)