Pundit recently posted at:
http://weblog.xanga.com/RPGpundit/684300754/item.html

Quotethe idea that "Christian girls should not go to college".

Apparently the idea is that spending 4 years away from the family, even in a christian college like Liberty University or something along those lines, weakens the "family structure" because the girls would not be under the protection and control of their father. Having even a brief 4-year period in a womans' life when she is not under the direct control and supervision of her father, and not yet given to the direct control and supervision of a husband, is just too dangerous because it creates a risk that exposure to "ungodly" elements of outside society would lead her to reject Christian values.  That, and its not part of God's plan for women: they are supposed to be homemakers and child-rearers, and THAT'S their job. Higher education is not called for in these people's eyes.

You think this has to be bullshit? That I'm making all this up? Well, here you go.  Click that only if you really want to go into serious batshit Christian territory.

The link led to:
http://visionarydaughters.com/return-of-the-daughters

This is interesting to me, because I have known a lot of women who went to college and accomplished nothing beyond losing their respective virginities.

In theory, college is supposed to be about education, but in practice, college graduates are all too often incompetent in their chosen fields.  However, employers usually demand college credentials, regardless of whether the holder has a functioning brain.

I suspect the fundies who don't want their daughters going to college believe the following:
1) My daughter will lose her virginity at college if she goes to college.
2) My daughter has very little, aside from virginity, to offer any husband.
3) My daughter is not interested in learning.
4) My daughter has few realistic career prospects beyond "homemaker."

I suspect that, given beliefs (1)-(4), keeping the daughter back from college is a logically supported course of action.  I will leave the proof as an exercise for the reader.

I have never raised a child of any kind, much less a Christian one, and so I have little notion about how fathers feel on these subjects.  I do know that the fathers around me are of entirely non-Christian beliefs, and yet appear to be adamantly opposed to allowing their daughters to have premarital sex.  (I live in Taiwan, where a very informal blend of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism dominates.)  

I suppose the orthodox humanist pablum runs as follows: "All persons deserve the opportunity to expand their minds, and college is a mind-expanding experience for anyone who goes to classes and puts forth the slightest effort."

To which I respond, "College is a joke and most college kids learn nothing, not even how to use a condom reliably.  College is a socially acceptable way for young adults to lose their virginities within their peer group.  College is a genital-expanding experience if one puts forth the slightest effort, but college kids usually must expend great effort and have good luck to expand their minds in the slightest."

I take Pundit's claim to be, "If women go to college, they will learn something and become more capable."   (If I'm misreading him, I apologize.)  I see little apparent evidence for that claim by casual observation of college students.

Edit:
A further quote from Pundit:

Quotein the last month or two I've noticed that a new majority is emerging that is beginning to see Palin as "The Miracle". That is to say, she (and presumably certain other women) can be a very special case because they are DIRECTLY CHOSEN BY GOD to take actions that go beyond the traditional roles of women in their Christian ideas.  Palin is like a modern-day Joan of Arc, chosen by God to lead the christian forces against the powers of the Antichrist in the End Times. The important thing is that Sarah Palin can run for president in 2012, but that in NO WAY means that Little Susie should ever be allowed to go to college, because Sarah Palin is a special Miraculous exception and proof of the power of God.

I don't think Christians believe Palin is a miracle.  I think they see her as more intelligent than the average woman -- probably due to her Jewish ancestors.  So Palin can be VP because she's *smart*, whereas Little Suzie is more than one standard deviation below average IQ.  College is not worth it for unintelligent students.

If only the feminine elements of early xtianity hadn't been edited out and these extremists had more respect for women. Where's my time machine?
As for American college education..is it really that crap? Would you deny a woman even a crap education on some daft religious basis or because some are crap college students ?
Don't you think that the daughters of religious extremists deserve the opportunity to be exposed to even a second rate college education?
The preoccupation of xtian extremists with their daughters' virginities seems a bit creepy, verging on incestuous to my mind. If going to college allows women to get away from this stifling patriarchal attitude then it is a good thing.
It would be nice to see a rise in religions that weren't just masks for the gynophobic authoritarianism of certain patriarchal men.

The title of tyhis thread?

 Yes , it happens....quite often. Its practically a norm or average now.
However, one of the players in my group - she went to college and waited til she was married.

College is also the place where many young women discover that they prefer women as romantic partners or even that they might be bi-sexual - that could also be frighening to some small-minded groups in this country.


- Ed C.

American colleges aren't that great, but you can easily get a good education out of even the worst of them. the problem is that most young people don't come to school with getting an education in mind. In large part, people from the US in the 18-22 range lack the maturity (and the study skills) necessary to secure a good education, and most colleges, especially large state colleges, take too many students every year to provide proper coaching to the ones who don't have the right attitude (or skills) to do what is necessary.
A lot of this comes down to the way high school works. More of it comes down to wanting to live Animal House or some variant of the same for themselves- and, hey, who can blame them, that shit looks fun. Really, most American kids at that age have no fucking idea what is actually at stake.

 Furthermore, if you have parents who are willing to pay, or you have access to some other sort of funding, all you have to do is hang in there for a couple of extra years and, even if you are the most mediocre of students, you can get a degree in something.

Many people sneer at kids who are going after English or History or some other sort of similar degree- the question, "What are you going to do with that" has got to be as cliched as "What's your major?" The fact is, though, the bank, or the insurance company, or the phone company, or whatever company largely doesn't care what degrees their respective horde of cube monkeys hold. If you just want to be a cog in the wheel, the most important things to emerge from college with are computer literacy, the ability to use Power Point/ Word, an awareness of how to kiss a little ass and follow directions- no matter how goofy,  a desire to have enough money to buy a bunch of shit, and diminished expectations.
The thing is, and I speak from my own experience here, most parents are not only happy to see their children become cogs- it's what they want for them. Cogs are safe. Cogs can live in the same town as you- so you have access to the grand kids. Cogs don't have crazy uncomfortable ideas- or if they do, they've been conditioned at work to keep them to themselves. The last thing you want in the family is a fucking overachiever, they make everyone else feel inadequate. Not to mention the fact that many (not most, by any stretch) overachievers (and I spend all my time with undergraduate losers and post graduate over achievers) ARE really elitist assholes who only appreciate what they've accomplished when they compare it to what every one else has not.

Quote from: Aos;271854The thing is, and I speak from my own experience here, most parents are not only happy to see their children become cogs- it's what they want for them. Cogs are safe. Cogs can live in the same town as you- so you have access to the grand kids. Cogs don't have crazy uncomfortable ideas- or if they do, they've been conditioned at work to keep them to themselves. The last thing you want in the family is a fucking overachiever, they make everyone else feel inadequate.

There's also the working class version of this, where kids aren't expected to go beyond community college because anything more than a well-paying blue collar job is considered both unneccessary and snobbish.  Seriously, it is amazing how many people out there want nothing more for their kids, or expect nothing better, than some crappy $8-12/hour job.

One of my best friends is the IT guy for a senator (he may even be heading into a white house job now for all I know, haven't talked to him since the election).  He's considered the black sheep of the family because he went to college (talk about putting on heirs) and has kept a good, steady job with a salary (salaried being one of those things only hoity-toity people have and all).  His mom has been demanding he buy her a new house for years (since, clearly, having a middle-class job makes one a millionaire).

Yeah, I was raised by the worst kind of trailer trash (and I've got the relatives in jail for incest to prove it) and I encountered this kind of resistance in one form or another each time I took a step forward. My dad wanted me to be a factory foreman where he worked, or a (shudder) HR manager. When I first returned to school I was shunned by about half of my blue collar coworkers, and my boss, who at the time was a real good friend of mine, actually became a bit hostile towards me (he had no degree, there fore my presence was a threat). He never missed an opportunity to downplay my prospects. Actual quote, "I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you'll never get into graduate school." Whatever, motherfucker- like he knew anything about it. As an undergrad I ran into some resistance from a couple of professors (many many more were supportive an helpful- really helpful, though) who obviously thought I was too old, or too low class and should just sink back to the level at which I belonged. I and many of the people i know are often asked if it's worth all the trouble to do what we do. Fucked if I know, but it's worth it to avoid all the trouble that comes with the alternative.

QuoteI suspect the fundies who don't want their daughters going to college believe the following:
1) My daughter will lose her virginity at college if she goes to college.
2) My daughter has very little, aside from virginity, to offer any husband.
3) My daughter is not interested in learning.
4) My daughter has few realistic career prospects beyond "homemaker."

If you read the literature on these "Vision Forum" christian sites and such, you will see that its not really any of the above that they cite as their reasons.

Their reasons are:
1. Biblical theology states that women/girls must be under the "protection" of their father until such time as they marry, when they must be under the "protection" of their Husband. At no time are they supposed to be out on their own. Thus, going to public schools or to college for women (or even christian private schools or colleges) is unbiblical.

2. And here's the important one: its not that they're worried that girls who go to college will lose their virginity; that would obviously be a catastrophe for them, but they don't even consider that something that horrific could happen.
What they're really worried about is that a girl, away at college, could learn or be exposed to "unbiblical" or "anti-christian" values, the values of the world, that  might lead her to question her father or her family's beliefs; that mere exposure to these ideas could threaten a girl's faith and as such her immortal soul, and lead her to become rebellious or disobedient to her father. So them going to college represents a risk to their soul and their obedience that is not worth it.

Note that in material they've produced, the literature and videos like "return of the daughters", these people go out of their way to claim that their daughters ARE intelligent and interested in learning, but that this intelligence must be directed biblically in a woman's role, that of being a helper to her father, assisting her mother in helping the household and the family, and preparing to become a future "Helpmate" to her husband. So your point 4 is kind of right, though its more of a corollary reason.

RPGPundit

Is it just me or is all this talk of "protecting" your daughter and having her "serve" her father seem a bit...creepy?

Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.

Thank you,
Bill

I wish I'd married the girl who lost her virginity to me in college.

It's tough to meet educated women outside of school.

I agree with Bill.

Quote from: Aos;271854American colleges aren't that great, but you can easily get a good education out of even the worst of them. the problem is that most young people don't come to school with getting an education in mind. ...Not to mention the fact that many (not most, by any stretch) overachievers (and I spend all my time with undergraduate losers and post graduate over achievers) ARE really elitist assholes who only appreciate what they've accomplished when they compare it to what every one else has not.

[Bitter laugh.]
I have the worst of both worlds.  I *am* an elitist jerk, but I don't have the resume that would justify the level of bragging I would like to do.


I would be less bitter about this if I heard fewer complaints from undergraduates to the effect of, "We're trying, and the system is designed to swindle us."

Just this morning I had to soothe two irate business undergraduates who may have to protest against their department.

So I don't think one can "easily" get an education. Edit: Note that the undergraduates to whom I spoke are Americans seeking an education abroad, so my skepticism is not specific to American undergraduate programs, but rather to the whole pattern of modern undergraduate education.

As an anecdote of how bad education has gotten, please consider the following horror story from ultra-elitist CMU (which, despite its snobbery, still can't compete with MIT):

QuoteBy far the worst was a woman who worked at the Software Engineering Institute. She was a brand-new hire from CMU, one of the top-rated computer science schools in the country, or perhaps the world. She had written

printf("The value is %d," value);

and the compiler was giving her a syntax error. I spotted it (can you? Go take a look...) in seconds.

So I said to her, "you transposed the comma and quote mark" and walked away. A few minutes later as I passed back she told me it still wouldn't compile. So I saw the same error, and said "You have to put the comma outside the quote mark". She looked at me, and in perfect sincerity said "But the comma always goes inside the quote mark!". I started to explain to her that no, it was a parameter separator and had to go outside the quote mark, and she interrupted me to insist the code was syntactically correct. Everyone knows the comma belongs inside the quote mark! Why, her English teachers had downgraded her text when she put the comma outside the quote mark!

I made some remark about she was clearly too stupid to know how to breathe, and I was certainly not going to waste my time explaining C syntax to a CMU B.S. in Computer Science. I did my best to get her removed from any place that might put her in actual contact with a computer, but there was no one with the taste or intelligence to get rid of her. But I managed to avoid her the remainder of my time there. She once wrote a program we were all supposed to use; it was so bad it would have been an embarrassment to my nephew when he was12; he had been programming two years at that point (he graduated in 2003 with a degree in computer graphics).

Source:
http://www.flounder.com/bricks.htm

Quote from: HinterWelt;271892Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.

Of course, because you wish to prove that you are well-educated, you would be best served by just citing a resume of your academic or professional accomplishments.  Perhaps the prominently displayed "Hinterwelt" logo in your sig was meant to be an implicit resume.

I'm not sure whether you intended to communicate:
1) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have learned how to write "Fuck."
or
2) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have founded Hinterwelt Enterprises, an international business empire of world-shaking potency, by virtue of my educational prowess.

Quote from: RPGPundit;271878If you read the literature on these "Vision Forum" christian sites and such, you will see that its not really any of the above that they cite as their reasons.

I am sad to say the website in question does not lend itself to quick, convenient navigation, and I don't have the bandwidth to download and watch videos, so I'm going to have to take your word for it, unless they have handy text summaries somewhere.

Anyhow, I speculate the people making the videos -- who are women, IIRC-- may have one agenda, and the men buying the videos have a different agenda.

Insofar as the people are making the specific arguments you mentioned, Pundit, then I applaud and encourage your counter-arguments.

Quote from: Koltar;271837College is also the place where many young women discover that they prefer women as romantic partners or even that they might be bi-sexual - that could also be frighening to some small-minded groups in this country.


- Ed C.

Well, I think you're using "frightening" as a shaming word.  The implication is that hetero fathers who disapprove of lesbian daughters are fearful, cowardly, unworthy of respect.

Let's just put it in terms of economics.

If you were a father who was asked to pay $20,000 USD per year, for four years, so that your daughter could get a degree in Women's Studies and announce that she was a lesbian -- would you want to pay $80,000 USD for that data, or would you want her to just move out of the house and send you a postcard?

Personally, I would prefer not to pay $80,000.  If that means I'm afraid of lesbians, so be it.

Well thats a cliche....

The hypothetical daughter might just as well be a business major, and start a small business that makes oodles of money....and she winds up reluctantly voting 'republican' - because she hates taxes.


....and the woman she wants to marry watches football too much.


- Ed C.