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nd in sky burial about tibet surprisingly there are few constants in gender roles globally in africa women till the ground and harvest they run businesses and provide for the children the real problem has been that they were often not able to carry out banking or take out loans without the signature of their husband in tibet according to sky burial women carried water cared for animals made butter and cooked but the men acted as midwives and undertook complex embroidery this contrasts with china where the detailed embroidery is done by girls and women in egypt men wove but in israel usually women wove posted by suzanne mccarthy at 11 40 pm no comments women s orientation to work part 4 the spinster originally the term spinster did not mean a single woman but any woman spinning and women spun if you want to refer to the mother s side of the family you could refer to the distaff side this was work that was firmly in the woman s domain however once it came to dyeing and weaving that could belong to either men or women depending on the technology and culture in agricultural societies women spun and wove flax in nomadic societies they spun wool the traditional belief about women and work has always been that just as men had work so did women have work and women also nursed their babies that s just the way it was there was no contrast between the orientation of men and women regarding work both worked with their hands if the family was wealthy neither worked with their hands the notion that it is right and good for me n to go out to work and seek a career that men are generally oriented to work and that women by contrast are generally oriented to relationships of support and companionship is about one generation old the man as provider and the woman as receiver is a paradigm that does not exist anywhere in the bible or even in history until now perhaps at this point in time where women are equal before the civil law some are trying to find a way to withdraw women from the mainstream posted by suzanne mccarthy at 9 37 am 4 comments friday september 02 2011 women s orientation to work part 3 the tent peg in the ancient world women harvested threshed and ground grain as well as preparing and cooking meals women also cared for animals and carried water everyone worked it s the same on a farm today rebecca cared for animals and provided water for eliezer s camels this is the kind of work that all women were responsible for but women also specialized many were midwives and nurses and a few were prophets judges musicians and queens at least one woman built cities 1 chronicles 7 24 his daughter was sheerah who built lower and upper beth horon as well as uzzen sheerah in times of crisis women worked alongside men repairing the walls of jerusalem neh 3 12 and next unto him repaired shallum the son of halohesh the ruler of the half part of jerusalem he and his daughters jael put a tent peg through the enemy s head it was woman s work to set up the tents woman s work was comparable to man s work both were physical and tiring requiring strength and endurance for those living a subsistence lifestyle many tasks those of both men and women were repetitive and mindless the goal was survival for those with wealth there were different patterns in proverbs 31 the husband was a scholar or judge and the wife was a business woman with a household of servants or slaves under her direction both held positions of influence and dignity among slaves men and women both worked hard but even then among the poor there was specialization some women adept at being midwives others at composing songs performing music and dancing women were known for their specialization just as men were the children were not simply cared for they worked alongside their parents young children were often cared for by grandparents as is the case in many cultures today this frees up the mother to work at a wage earning job and contribute financially to the family women in the bible were not simply consumers of goods and carers of children they contributed economically to the family i am hardly advocating that we return to this state of affairs i had a friend who grew her own wheat and ground her own flour but she had the advantage of technology i wouldn t want to work in the fields all day or carry water on my head or grind grain but this is a large part of women in the bible did we can t all of us be judges prophets and musicians one thing is clear however women have an orientation to work at least they should have just as men should women need to work to provide for their family the only catch is that they have to do this while also bearing and nursing children women like men are driven to work it is a part of being human they are like men in this way however they are unlike men in that they also have to figure out how to do this at the same time as reproducing a curriculum which contrasts men and women and teaches that men have an orientation to work and women have an orientation to nurture is not honest it does not prepare women for the reality of both work and children unfortunately not all women resolve the tension between working and bearing children some women never do have children and other women stay home and restrict their work to caring for their husband and children but many women have the opportunity or the need to combine an expanded working life with raising children it is not always possible to control the pattern that your life will take the only thing we can say about a woman s life in the bible and today for a certainty is that it includes both an orientation towards nurturing and an orientation towards work posted by suzanne mccarthy at 11 28 pm 9 comments the blue sweater i am reading the blue sweater by jacqueline novogratz she has worked in africa and asia for over 25 years learning how to administer funds providing grants and loans to small businesses she is the ceo of the acumen fund the blue sweater is a must read for anyone interested in donating funds this book is an account of one woman whose energy for work and innovation has contributed to changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people she speaks solemnly of the waste and detrimental effects of donated funds unless they are properly invested in income producing industry which is shaped by the recipients themselves and creates and sustains profit she openly discusses many failures that she has seen or been a part of as well as the successes this is a book rich in detail and example posted by suzanne mccarthy at 12 42 am no comments monday august 29 2011 women s orientation to work part 2 the hoe culture i had no intention of discussing women tilling the soil when i first thought of women working in the bible this is for the very simple reason that women of the bible did not typically participate in this labour as i mentioned it is not a universal truth that women do not till the soil but it is particular to certain cultures including the cultures of the bible this is the general pattern internationally and historically when tilling the soil is a task accomplished with a hoe then women tend to be the major workers in the field when tilling the soil is done with a plough and oxen or slaves then men are the major workers of the soil plough cultivation is male dominated and hoe cultivation is female dominated although we cannot imagine that adam and eve had oxen and plough the narrative of adam and eve was composed within a culture in which farmers did use oxen and plough tilling the soil was a male dominated activity as a consequence of the technology available in the middle east at that time today hoe cultivation dominates globally and women make up the majority of those who work the soil it is therefore not a universal truth that women are oriented to the family in contrast to men who are oriented to work in the fields the pattern that is most prevalent in the world today is that women are oriented to their family and to the soil at one and the same time these patterns are dependent on culture and technology we might on the other hand think of adam and eve as occupying the transition era between hunter gatherers and farmers in this case it is likely that men were still hunting and women both gathering and experimenting with the cultivation of plants and intiating the first planned crops in this case eve would likely be the first farmer and not adam these are speculative thoughts that present some of the difficulties in imagining that adam and eve exited the garden of eden whereupon eve stayed in the home and cared for her children and adam tilled the soil with a hoe such a scenario presents serious questions and is not consistent with what we know about the development of agriculture but as i said this is speculation i cannot fill in more details since little is known about the very early origins of agriculture however we can say for sure that the participation of women in agriculture is a culturally diverse paradigm while the subordination of women is near to universal the dominance of men in tilling the soil is far from universal in conclusion i will soon discuss the work that women did in an agricultural economy but i will not contest the cultural pattern found in the bible that men tilled the soil however i do contest the notion that there is any sense of universality in this pattern we are unlikely to persuade the world today that women should not be full participants in all areas of agriculture posted by suzanne mccarthy at 10 42 pm 6 comments sunday august 28 2011 women s orientation to work part 1 the council of biblical manhood and womanhood links to a curriculum designed to teach children and teens the essence of being male and female along these lines while god created men to be generally oriented toward work god created women to be generally oriented towards relationships of helpfulness and companionship this is often taught in conjunction with the notion that women stay home and nurture the children and create an environment that is supportive to the husband s career the major tasks of women would be to bear and raise children to cook and clean the house and see that the family is well supplied with clothes and other goods these clothes and goods are bought with money earned by the husband who is the provider the main teaching role of women in this model is to teach younger women to fulfill these tasks the following verses are often used in this connection gen 2 15 18 and gen 3 16 19 2 15 and the lord god took the man and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it 18 and the lord god said it is not good that the man should be alone i will make him an help meet for him 3 16 unto the woman he said i will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee 17 and unto adam he said because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which i commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life 18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field 19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return while it is true that women bear children there has been no civilization in which men s participation in agriculture was dominant over women s participation in agriculture women worked the soil in ancient israel and they continue to be participate in farming and agriculture today in many countries women participate in agricultural work at a far higher rate than men so i want to look at alternate interpretation for gen 3 16 the consequences of the fall for the woman relate to childbearing and her relationship to her husband the consequence of the fall for the man relates to the soil the most obvious interpretation is that just as woman was taken out of man so the fall returns her to man and in the same way as man was taken out of the soil so he is returned to the soil we need to consider that the story of adam and eve has internal plot coherency that is not necessarily related to universal truths about men and women women work the soil and we can t get around that women share the physiological makeup of men and die and decay in the same manner as men eve returns to the soil just as much as adam does but the story is not about that the story contains the plot line that man came from the soil and returned just as woman came from man and is returned to him however the woman also suffers in childbearing children are the main asset of women women wanted to produce children in order to establish their value to the family the chief asset of a man was land just as rachel schemed to bear children and rebekkah manipulated isaac in jacob s interest so men schemed over land this does not mean that men bear an intrinsic relationship to the land that women do not share far from it but it does mean that in the creation narrative of gen 2 and 3 the male bears a relationship to the land that the woman does not this reflects the legal and political situation in ancient societies where women were not typically landowners we are left now with the fact that women exclusively do bear children but men do not exclusively own land or work the soil perhaps i need to qualify this last sentence women have a very specific but time limited exclusive role in raising a child just as women are connected to the land fathers have a close relationships to their children a father as well as a mother suffers when a child dies fathers are equally invested in their children and children are the asset of both parents as is land we can safely say that both men and women are oriented to relationships and both men and women are oriented to work this may look different according to the sexes there is some truth to the varying availablity of women to work but this is slight when we consider that women globally partipate in physical labour full time in addition to bearing children i hope to blog about women s orientation to work and how this plays out in the bible and in undertanding women s leadership in the epistles of paul i feel that it is important to respond to the teaching that men are to provide protect work and initiate and that this is what makes men leaders and women the receivers and affirmers of male leadership my focus will be on certain areas of women s work in the biblical narrative posted by suzanne mccarthy at 1 14 pm 15 comments tuesday august 23 2011 rachel held evans rachel is taking her place as a prominent female christian blogger and i am delighted it is refreshing to see a woman take the lead in so many areas of blogging i just want to express my appreciation for her blog here is today s post she approaches the issue of wom...