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As a Christian woman who dates in a primary SBC context, you are doing the Lord’s work. The amount of shame I create by just existing as a female is insane.

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What's frustrating about Murrow's idea of the division of gender roles via Industrialization/Victorian Values is: a. The separation was often a way to excuse men for being less spiritual/more "carnal" than women. The excuse for men was that they had to deal with the "dirty" world and couldn't necessarily maintain a "pure" life in the "world". b. There was PLENTY of hand wringing at the time as to why men were "abandoning" the church. Prohibition in America was fueled in large part as an endeavor to get men back into the church (especially the Anti Saloon League).

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Excellent point

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Even Catholics do this. Ten years ago my pastor suggested that if I stopped wearing a headscarf at Mass, my husband would be more interested in going, *especially if I didn't ask him to go*.

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Yes!! Thank you for saying this! “It’s noticeable that the thing that makes the church “impotent” and repellant to men is just women being there.”

It’s something I have noticed in conversations about men not going to church and also in conversations about school being hard for boys -- it’s all women’s fault, the story goes. And with school it has become even more ridiculous as women are blamed for the sit-and-listen model actually inherited from the days when school was for-men-only! *shaking my head*

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