Women in the workplace?

[mike]

Paul appears to say in Titus 2 that younger women should be encouraged to be homemakers or "keepers at home." If at no other time in life, I think that women should be homemakers while they have younger children at home.

Titus 2:3 In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 so they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive to their husbands, so that God’s message will not be slandered.

[mike]

I have a question on this matter that I haven't found an answer too.

If a Mennonite woman has a strong interest in business and would prefer making money than to bearing children, would that be encouraged or discouraged?

Also to note, women don't neccessarily have to enter the workplace to make money. There are plenty of working from home jobs nowdays.

Personally, I enjoy the game of business, marketing fascinates me, and I learn everything I can about it. I have quite a few financial goals that would enable me (if I work hard and stick with it) in about 20 years, to reach my goals of funding numerous charities and travel without limitations. However, many of my Mennonite friends, women, have no such ambitions and are in fact, discouraged from finding jobs.

I would encourage no one to go after making money instead of having children if presented with both options. You would potentially miss out on one of the greatest blessings of life. Most if not all conservative Mennonite churches would probably say the same thing.

However, one of the worst things you can do for children is to have them while not really wanting them. If travel and philanthropy are your goals, and you view children as a hindrance to achieving those goals, you should probably not have children.

Just keep in mind that your choices have long-term consequences, which you may want to think about, and that these goals probably will not be well understood in most conservative Mennonite churches. I can't speak for the progressives on this.

[MaxPC]

Would you extend this to, say, doing cement footers or flat work?

Do you think men and women are identical with no differences at all in ability or aptitude?

Certainly, there are differences in the distribution of abilities and aptitudes. But these averages do not determine each individual. For example, the average man is stronger than the average women. That doesn't mean that there are not some women that may be stronger than most men.

Opportunities in the workplace should depend on the individual's ability and aptitude,
not that person's sex.

I'd still expect heavy construction work to be mostly men and kindergarten teachers mostly women.

i don’t agree with Affirmative Action, either.

Double standards will always exist

[Josh]

If a Mennonite woman has a strong interest in business and would prefer making money than to bearing children, would that be encouraged or discouraged?

Generally speaking, "making money" is not a desirable life goal (at least in my Mennonite community). Money is, rather, something that is needed to survive, but a strong desire for wealth is viewed as a spiritual danger.

Desiring to raise a family is generally viewed as a good life goal, although it can't be the only goal someone has. If someone wishes to be married, having children viewed as an important possibility.

Most Mennonites don't want to be celibate. Pursuing a life of only making money and not getting married would mean celibacy. I do know one woman who feels called to this and feels quite fulfilled not being married. She used be a journalist, but now she enjoys working in an optometrist's office. She likes feeling like she can serve people by helping them see better. She didn't enjoy so much having to in front of a computer screen all day and not interacting with people face to face when she was a journalist.

Also to note, women don't neccessarily have to enter the workplace to make money. There are plenty of working from home jobs nowdays.

I would consider "working from home" still being the workplace - one still interacts with coworkers, customers, and so forth. Of course, every job is a bit different, and every workplace is a bit different.

Personally, I enjoy the game of business, marketing fascinates me, and I learn everything I can about it. I have quite a few financial goals that would enable me (if I work hard and stick with it) in about 20 years, to reach my goals of funding numerous charities and travel without limitations.

Generally speaking, a life spent traveling becomes quite empty when one gets into their 20s and 30s, whereas a life spent helping your community and family and raising a family leads to personal fulfillment. "Travel without limitations" simply sounds like a desire for wealth and to consume a lot, although it's a common goal amongst people in my generation these days.

With that said, my Mennonite friends and I sure do seem to travel a lot, going to Europe, Israel, California, and many other places both for personal trips, for tourism, for missions, and for business.

However, many of my Mennonite friends, women, have no such ambitions and are in fact, discouraged from finding jobs.

Maybe that's because working as a wage slave is not particularly fulfilling. Neither is pursuing business marketing. One of my closer single Mennonite female friends works as a skilled designer for a marketing firm, and eventually, finding ways to sell people more stuff ends up not being very fulfilling. She would rather be married and raising a family, but that opportunity has not presented itself. So she works and travels instead. She enjoyed 2 trips to Europe in the last 2 years and has an upcoming one somewhere else. A number of us are thinking of taking a journey to Israel or Europe or Australia or New Zealand sometime. (We aren't sure which yet.) Most of us would probably rather have a life companion and settle down, though.

One friend in particular leads a rather bleak existence as she has little to no money to attend the few events in her life that she is allowed (Bible Schools) and no means to make the money after the one job she was allowed ended badly.

That's a very unfortunate situation, and one that doesn't happen in my own Mennonite community. I have seen it definitely happen in other church groups, unfortunately.

In my community, girls are expected to find jobs once they are out of school. Popular choices are house-cleaning jobs, teachers' aide, or babysitting. Once someone is 16 or 18 they often get a job as a cashier or some other kind of work outside the home. Some become self employed and find some kind of business for themselves. One unmarried woman I know manages a restaurant. Another owns and operates a florist.

She had been working for a Mennonite farmer, with numerous other girls, and he had been sexually harassing them so she quit. I asked her if she reported this, she hadn't, was scared to, and apparently had no knowledge of sexual harassment laws in the workplace. This was very concerning to me.

"Laws" don't protect people from predators; a strong community and strong values do. In my church, someone doing that would eventually find himself excommunicated and his female employees would be given help to find other jobs. I left my old church because bad behaviour like this was covered up and not addressed. I have refused to back down in speaking out about it and told 2 ministers they needed to make it write, confess their cover ups, or resign. 1 of them resigned and 1 did not. About 1/3 of the membership has left now. It's a very sad situation.

In my experience in a secular workplace, if a man so much as utters a suggestive comment to me, he will be fired when I report it.

I think that's quite an exaggeration - have you actually gotten anyone fired? I have worked in a variety of workplaces (major banks, other very large companies) where this would not happen, and there is often a nonstop stream of suggestive remarks all day. I have had to go to H.R. and advocate on behalf of two of my employees who were being harassed. It was very unpleasant to deal with. The perpetrators involved was not fired, and it had a negative impact on my own career because I took the risk to report it. This was at a liberal university in a large city with very progressive values.

When my ex girlfriend worked for the Ohio Democratic Party, she had to endure a lot of sexual harassment from a particular person. She was silenced and encouraged not to report it or otherwise pursue the matter because "the campaign is more important". At the time, I was a liberal and a progressive, and I found this really troubling. It made me question a lot of things, since our values as Democrats were supposed to be against this very kind of thing.

Obviously, this hasn't always been the case, but due to the rising awareness of such matters, the laws are there. I do hope this is an isolated case and most Mennonite women are aware of the sexual harassment laws that are there to protect them from predators.

Unfortunately, I would say there is a lot of abuse that goes on in both plain and non-plain circles. The key problems are covering up past sins, refusing to excommunicate people who have committed a "death sin" like adultery or fornication, and no context for allowing sincere repentance - but repentance with boundaries - for someone who has spiritually died but is ready to live again. Eventually, there is so much rot that the only people left are men or women with a thirst for power. Desire for wealth, power, and dominance aren't Christian values, but instead lead to something that looks like the devil's kingdom.

[CorneliaH]

One friend in particular leads a rather bleak existence as she has little to no money to attend the few events in her life that she is allowed (Bible Schools) and no means to make the money after the one job she was allowed ended badly. She had been working for a Mennonite farmer, with numerous other girls, and he had been sexually harassing them so she quit. I asked her if she reported this, she hadn't, was scared to, and apparently had no knowledge of sexual harassment laws in the workplace.

Unfortunately, this happens more than it should, and I am no expert on the matter. My workplace has an entire HR department that handles such things, and its not taken lightly.

Can I ask what church she is with? That would determine the support she may or may not get from the leadership. I have known of such issues in some *very* conservative circles where a victim talked to a minister's wife and that got things in motion to contact law enforcement. You can't mess around and keep sexual harassment all hush-hush anymore.... the law can get involved really fast!

I would consider her and her family "floaters." They have mostly attended home churches if I am not mistaken. Every few years they move and find a different church. Currently, I don't know where they are at. And yes, I completely agree. This is something you should never keep hidden.

I would encourage no one to go after making money instead of having children if presented with both options. You would potentially miss out on one of the greatest blessings of life. Most if not all conservative Mennonite churches would probably say the same thing.

True. The Mennonites have always put childbearing in front of most everything else. Growing up Anabaptist, I was never sure why... given St. Paul clearly says the single life with no children in service of God is superior.

Generally speaking, "making money" is not a desirable life goal (at least in my Mennonite community). Money is, rather, something that is needed to survive, but a strong desire for wealth is viewed as a spiritual danger.

Money is a tool that gets you for Point A to Point B. It's a tool that gets food for those who do not have it. If you have a talent of providing this tool, much can be done for the betterment of the world, specifically the poor and suffering, and the furtherment of God's Kingdom.

Generally speaking, a life spent traveling becomes quite empty when one gets into their 20s and 30s, whereas a life spent helping your community and family and raising a family leads to personal fulfillment. "Travel without limitations" simply sounds like a desire for wealth and to consume a lot, although it's a common goal amongst people in my generation these days.

My deep interest in sociology is what is primarily behind the urge to travel. The world is too large to be confined to one place forever. I need to understand the impact the many different cultures and societies have on souls. Souls are the only thing that last forever. Staying in one spot, cranking out children while millions die in my lifetime seems like time not well spent. That's the primary reason I left the Anabaptists, because I felt their focus was not on par with Christ's urgency for impacting souls.

I think that's quite an exaggeration - have you actually gotten anyone fired?

I have. I had several harassing messages on my phone. I took screenshots, sent it to my supervisor and the next day the said person was gone.

When my ex girlfriend worked for the Ohio Democratic Party, she had to endure a lot of sexual harassment from a particular person. She was silenced and encouraged not to report it or otherwise pursue the matter because "the campaign is more important". At the time, I was a liberal and a progressive, and I found this really troubling. It made me question a lot of things, since our values as Democrats were supposed to be against this very kind of thing.

Oh yes, this is quite common amongst either party. Ultimately the powerful and the rich, and in a lot of cases, the white will have sway in this country over the little people. It will take years and years to break this down.

[QuietObserver]

I would encourage no one to go after making money instead of having children if presented with both options. You would potentially miss out on one of the greatest blessings of life. Most if not all conservative Mennonite churches would probably say the same thing.

True. The Mennonites have always put childbearing in front of most everything else. Growing up Anabaptist, I was never sure why... given St. Paul clearly says the single life with no children in service of God is superior.

This is a fair point. Something I wonder about is, what if a married couple decided to forego having children. Instead, they could move to the inner-city and mentor and nurture children and teens in need. I realize God's design is to have children, but is it his will in every situation. No exceptions?

[temporal1]

I would encourage no one to go after making money instead of having children if presented with both options. You would potentially miss out on one of the greatest blessings of life. Most if not all conservative Mennonite churches would probably say the same thing.

True. The Mennonites have always put childbearing in front of most everything else. Growing up Anabaptist, I was never sure why... given St. Paul clearly says the single life with no children in service of God is superior.

This is a fair point. Something I wonder about is, what if a married couple decided to forego having children. Instead, they could move to the inner-city and mentor and nurture children and teens in need. I realize God's design is to have children, but is it his will in every situation. No exceptions?

There have been some good discussions on this in the past. i can’t recall just which threads at the moment, maybe someone will? .. There are different forum members who have chosen or are dedicated to the single life for the purpose of serving Jesus, and are at peace in so doing.

When people are busy living and serving, they don’t necessarily talk about themselves so much.
(It’s not like being a vegan.)

Maybe these are the quietest of the “quiet among us?”

There’s another cultural phenomena at play, tho. Not based on scriptures.
Today’s world ignores+minimizes marriage and family, not preparing males or females.
Females do well in academia and business, they are given messages that being wife+mother is “less-than,” the pressure is on. Females are pressed to compete with and to be “their best imitation of males.”

None of this has anything to do with Jesus Christ.

It’s easy to be fooled, until the BIO-clock starts ticking. Then, panic is not unusual.
As well, young women receive messages they can start families in their 40’s+, somewhat true, but, often, with complications. Then, IVF and other measures are involved. Expensive, and, institutional.

For most, God’s plan is best. God’s will always included exceptions.

[Valerie]

Personally I worry about some of the "men" in the workplace too

One can be as much of a threat (predator?) as the other. I've worked with women who tried to "score" with about any man with two legs and a pulse. After that incident, my workplace adopted a very aggressive policy on workplace romances.

Yes, I believe either way- the opportunity for temptation is abundant in the mix. I'd have to say the divorce rate went way up during the women's liberation movement and women in the workplace-
I remember a commercial that sang about women "I can bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan- and never let you forget your a man" in other words, this influential commercial was conveying the woman can 'do it all'
Wrong-
As Josh pointed out, it has hurt society in the long run, from what I can see as the 'before and after' scenario where the woman's role was to be a homemaker, she was able to do much more for the benefit of the family without being dog tired after a day at work. We notice how inconsiderate many young people are today- where I work- there is no way 2 working parents can do invest all that needs to be 'invested' in the children they bring into the world- there's too much that doesn't get taught- not enough time. And then what- they are going to daycare, or a sitter-
When women were at home (like when I was young) mom's could do so much more AND have time to help others- and families were stronger-
I realize there's exceptions to this and sometimes women have no choice, but it seems the priorities of 2 incomes really hurt in the long run. If one doesn't think this has led to the increase of divorce, then what do you think did cause the increase of divorce?

[Josh]

I would encourage no one to go after making money instead of having children if presented with both options. You would potentially miss out on one of the greatest blessings of life. Most if not all conservative Mennonite churches would probably say the same thing.

True. The Mennonites have always put childbearing in front of most everything else. Growing up Anabaptist, I was never sure why... given St. Paul clearly says the single life with no children in service of God is superior.

This is a fair point. Something I wonder about is, what if a married couple decided to forego having children. Instead, they could move to the inner-city and mentor and nurture children and teens in need. I realize God's design is to have children, but is it his will in every situation. No exceptions?

#1. Many couples can’t have kids. It’s obviously not God’s design for them to have children. They could definitely find lives of service doing this.

#2. It sounds appealing to mentor and nurture youth in need. In reality it’s very difficult. (I’ve done it a number of times since I became a Christian). And the reason so many of these youth need mentoring?

Because their parents decided that fornication, addictions, and immorality were OK and decided not to create a stable, 2 parent home.

In other words. They bought into the lies that everyone should just pursue wealth and personal happiness.

St Paul doesn’t say being single is superior. He says CELIBACY is superior. That’s a rare gift. It means someone who has no sexual desires, or else someone who does not want to indulge them within marriage. Most people are not celibate.

[Josh]

True. The Mennonites have always put childbearing in front of most everything else. Growing up Anabaptist, I was never sure why... given St. Paul clearly says the single life with no children in service of God is superior.

He actually refers to celibacy, and makes it clear that someone with carnal passions ought to marry.

The present day world has lots of fornication and fatherless children and mothers busy working outside the home, with resultant poor parenting and children without 2 parents to love them. This is not a desirable state of affairs.