The women shut up and smile in a nicely practised, photo-booth way;

-- the guys come across as conceited jerks.  

Perfect!  (...is this a clip from Stepford Wives?)

Or was this a trick question? 

I.... seeeeeeEEEEE YOU! Chansen.  I can SEEEeeeee YOU!

Chansen, please! Listen to me before it's too late.

Please do not now  come on like one of the jerky guys and say.."see!!! this is what ideas about a non-existent god do to people": that would be far too ironic... please, don't embarrass yourself.

By the way, out of sociological curiosity I watched a 1941 movie called Dive Bomber! the other night. In it Errol Flynn playing a babe-trap in uniform (a U.S. Navy doctor) says between sucks on his cigarette to the lead woman character   > > > > >

"Women are like elephants...

I like looking at them but I wouldn't want to own one.."

Hilarious or what? And she doesn't even deck him. The elephant-owning guys in your clip would get the joke, I'm sure. 

Not unusual for the Evangelical version of Baptists

Men are the head, and therefore the spokesperson of the family.

At least that was how I was taught growing up in the Baptist church. My elder sister still believes that it is not her place to speak if her husband is capable of doing so.

Actually, typing "I.... seeeeeeEEEEE YOU!" would be embarrassing myself.  So I don't.

I just thought the video was funny and creepy, at the same time.  The bahaviour of the couples is the product of an emphasis on select bible verses, which is what all Christians do - emphasize select messages from the bible and de-emphasize others.

The couples interested me in that the relationship pattern was the same.

The men talked, the women smiled and said nothing.

Makes me wonder what do shy Baptist men and assertive Baptist women do?

Get therapy, attend Bible study, or leave the church?

The star of the video clip was this woman who appeared to be on her own with a handbag.

She was clearly in need of a strong whisky - she walked over to the coffee and tea area - and then, no doubt disappointed, she walked away.

A cameo role, but well played. 

Certainly creepy Chansen... creepy enough to be cool in a sad kind of a way. It's in a league with my experience of billy Graham.. it turned me into an atheist for nearly 20 years. But I don't see any validity in your application of it as an example or evidence of "all".

Faith is, for many a journey, not a place of certainty. And it's only when people stop journeying that things get absurd. It's like science saying, "we 've nailed the secret of energy... it's all about steam", and packing it in at that point. That would be as silly as sayiong, "we don't ordain women", "we don't ordain gays"... heavens, there are people of a comparable mindset who say, science proves there's no god.

Some "believers" do seem to work that way... they stick with religious steam and hot air. But many more make faith a lifelong search and are very much the better for it.

I moved past atheism because I needed to know more than science could tell me and because my personal experience was that atheism in the end makes a faith-based decsion about a logical negative...  I found it sounder to affirm something that I actually experience as mystery; at least it turns it into a testable hypothesis, something that the negative assertion does not do.

Meanwhile, tell me: how many dimensions do we inhabit? 

 All those women had to wear skirts even when bowling.

I couldn't hack that.

 All those women had to wear skirts even when bowling.

I couldn't hack that.

I mentioned that "The bahaviour of the couples is the product of an emphasis on select bible verses, which is what all Christians do - emphasize select messages from the bible and de-emphasize others."  I never said that all Christians or Baptists are like this.

?

Atheism is just the rejection of religious claims that are not backed by evidence, which is pretty much all of them.  If you want to go one step further and say that, because there is no evidence, then there is almost certainly no god, you certainly can.  I do.  But, at it's core, atheism is just the rejection of ancient crackpot hypotheses.

And when you note that "[you] needed to know more than science could tell [you]", you're seem to be saying that, to you, any explanation is better than no explanation.  This desire to have an explanation for everything, no matter how terrible the explanation is, confounds me.  It is present in so many religious people, but doesn't it just get in the way of mystery?  It seems to me that accepting a crackpot explanation just interferes with the search for real explanations.   I'm content to wait, not knowing some things.

It's not something I worry about.  I'm more concerned that drivers be alert about the two dimensions they definitely inhabit.

What a strange experience it was watching the video.  I felt like I was stuck in a time warp - back in the 50's or 60's.  I haven't seen so many speechless women in skirts and pasted on smiles for many, many years. Actually I have NEVER seen people bowling in skirts before.  Is that something peculiar to the Baptist Church?  Is it the norm for Baptist men to wear formal clothing to retreats?  Around here they are far more casual and comfortable - and the women have important voices too. 

Yikes, didn't they even NOTICE!??!  How unbalanced can you be and still be unaware of it?

Well you  will note that the MIKE was clipped on the male-it wasn't a hand held one that coould be passed back and forth.

The bowling in skirts was funny, as if you look close you will see some women in pants in the less formal interview shots. My guess was bowling was the entertainment one night, formal dinner another night.

I also question the whole idea of learning by sitting and listening to 1 speaker.

Imagine what would have happened if small group discussion took place.

Had some small group discussion occured some of the people might have started to think.  I got the impression that the last thing the organisers wanted was some thinking people!

Good observations Tabitha.

I noticed three women nodding enthusiastically, adding their feelings on the matter that way. It does seem a bit like brother Scott is getting rather a lot of gratitude for his services bolstering their marriages... as if they couldn't have done it without him. Seems to me they probably can't do much decision making at all without their pastors. And I noticed one woman try to get a word in at the end of their blurb only to get cut off!

No doubt the break from daily routine and kids, is also a major bonus for their marriages.

I started attending the S. Baptist church my parents still go to when we moved to N. Carolina in the early 80's. Someone said that it wasn't too long ago (I never got an exact year) that women weren't supposed to wear pants. In extreme winter (high enough altitude it could get viciously cold) they could wear pants under their skirts though. This is an unusually conservative church though and like I said, I never got a specific time frame as to when pants on women got the green light.

There is something in all this that I don't understand.  Could someone tell me what spiritual advantage some people see in controlling the clothing that  other people wear?  I see it here in Baptists in the video and close to home I see it in Mennonites and Hutterites.  In the city it is also Muslims. While explaining maybe you could tell me why it always seems to be the women who have to wear clothing that the mainstream of the community see as strange or old fashioned?

Well, to hazzard to guess, like other things that "beautify" women, they inhibit our freedoms or make us weaker. The long skirt, while I love them, if I HAD to wear one, I would probly not want to. They take more effort to move about in, you have to lift your hem to climb stairs, and need a couple fingers free to do so, so can't carry boxes up stairs in them. You also have to be careful how you crouch down or if you go on a swing, or if the wind blows, carefully tucking it in as you get in a car. High heels weaken our ability to walk, plucked eyebrows reduce the amount of pollutants filtered from falling into the eyes, lipstick makes eating and blowing your nose tricky, shaved legs reduce skin sensitivity, decoletage reduces your leaning over, rings reduce what you can do with your hands...

Aside from the weakening of the "weaker sex" it could be also a quick way to tell women apart from men...Tradition. ALso, well, women used to have to wear certain bulky items at a certain time of the month, and skirts conceal that.

chansen, naughty guy -- you've got me thinking aboot TURKEY BASTERS.  Sheesh.

Hey,

perhaps someone here could start a thread aboot the many strange rituals/beliefs/mores they find in their own culture?  I think that'd be neat.

 I love the way, when people on a trip drop by, we dose them with diuretics (tea or coffee) and wave them goodbye as they set out on extended car journeys. Always good for a chuckle...

I think that long skirts prevent women from running (away) faster than the man.

I do think that's kind of weird. Things work better when both people in the relationship are equally speaking their mind.

With groups like the Old Order Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, etc both men and women wear certain specific styles of clothing.  I believe the reason for this manner of dress is generally stated as being a way to be seperate from the world.  There are usually specific bible passages quoted to do with 'be ye not of this world'

Rowan, How sad. To will yourself apart from the Earth. I was once eyed up by a Hutterite man in Lethbridge, because I was wearing an old fashioned summer dress. Ew.

Heaven up in the sky, hell down in the earth. I think that might also refer to our fear of death and rotting. We'd rather think we go up into a heavenly realm than to be reduced to soil by the worms. Nowadays we put our corpses into sealed boxes where the worms can't get in. What a shame.

I'm starting a thread on choices in the clothing we wear, hair styles or coverings, etc.

Given that it is harder to get a guy to go to a couples retreat than it is for a woman, it's no surprise that the editor focussed on the guys saying it was a good experience. If it was all women saying how much better their marriage was afterwards, most guys would run away, very quickly, to escape the reprogramming.  The fact that the wives were all smiling showed they got what they wanted out of the event, and the guys didn't sound like they had been beaten up. Bowling shows that it was a 'normal' weekend that guys could tolerate, and thankfully they did not show the sessions where people were asked to  express your feelings through fingerpainting and interpretive dance.  Aren't stereotypes fun?!

Exactly, while the non-speaking spouse looks at the speaking spouse, doe-eyed.  Nothing creepy about that at all.

I too found it creepy - or staged.  Like the wedding pictures where the professional photographer sets up the scene and tells the bride to gaze lovingly into her husband's eyes.  I much prefer the candid pictures that family and friends take.  One of my favourite wedding reception pictures is taken from behind and  shows the bride and her bridemaid sister sitting quietly, with their bare feet (well they probably had on pantihose) hooked around the rungs of their chairs.  No doubt from the front their long dresses hid the fact that they had kicked their shoes off for the moment.

But these women - no candid shots here.  Mr. - you stand here with the mike.  Mrs.  - you stand close to him, slightly turned towards him, and gaze up at him with admiration as he shares his wisdom.

The moment my wife looks at me like that, with nothing thoughtful to add to an interview about us, is the moment I take her into rehab for whatever substance she is abusing.

    I don't really have a problem with women who are like this   It's their choice. 

    Not my choice though or my husbands.   If find it sad and weird for a number of reasons but that's my preferences at play.

    Any issues I have with this type of relationship dynamic is when people, both men and women who choose it decide that everyone else, including me should practice the same sort of dynamic and get aggressive and self righteous about it.

   Those types can stuff it and I've discovered that the few times I have personally come across that type making pronouncements about me and my marital relationship dynamic I don't have any problems telling them to do so.

  My exception 'to live and let live' is if I come across any sort of real abuse which can happen in any sort of relationship whether 'religiously' based or not.     About ten years ago I did get involved with a women at work who was in a relationship based on supposed 'Biblical' standards where the guy figured he could do whatever the hell he wanted because the Bible said he was in charge, including things like locking her in a room when he went out with his buddies and threats of beat downs if she didn't 'obey'.     It was sick and twisted.     I helped her get out, both emotionally and physically.

And isn't it interesting that it was always the male in that video... without exception.

Hmmmmmmmmmm....

I suspect you'll miss that point though, and try to turn this into a "waahhhh the liberals are oppressing me" thread.

Witch brings up a good point, though.  Why is it the male doing the talking, without exception?  Was it the decision of the organizers, as RevJamesMurray implies?  Or is something else going on here?

The presense of a strongly patriarchial home is the only conclusion I took from it.  That's damning enough.

That would be a hilarious video - lesbian baptist couples interviewed, where only the stereotypical butch member speaks.

It's flawed in the same way that white supremacy is flawed.

It would be interesting to know if Beshpin actually believes what he's saying, or if he's just being his normal contrary self, nay-saying any popular opinion just because.

Let's atart another thread praising the video for it's use of women in their "proper" role, and see which side he takes lol.

You're nothing if not predictable Beshpin.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in the maturer life.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803 - 1873)

Non-egalitarian relationships can work, surely.  A white-supremacy-based friendship between a white man and a black man can work, so long as the black man adheres to the same philosophy.  I can't see why he would, short of some sort of damaging indoctrination, though.

Granted, there may be contexts in which egalitarian, mutual-respect-based relationships exist, while in other contexts such relationships do not exist.

You're right, the fact that the woman is considered less qualified to speak in public doesn't mean that she is considered to be less of a person in other contexts as well.

Yes, I did notice a couple of trends, 1.) the men did the vast majority of the talking while the women smiled sweetly by their side. 2.) Generally speaking, as the couples got younger they became more casually dressed.

I do wonder, chansen, why you're interested in looking at videos about Baptist marriage retreats. Everything ok at home, brother?

I wouldn't be surprised if the couples had been coached on their presentation.

This I didn't get. They just expressed gratitude for the marriage conference.  

That men are the head is certainly what I've been taught in church. On the other hand, I've not been taught that men are to be the spokesperson. As I think about the couples at my church more times than not the woman speaks on behalf of the couple just as much as the man does. Some of the wives are of course better spokespersons than their husbands. I would never tell my wife not to speak, that's just crazy. What generally happens in our marriage is that I speak for us when the conversation is in English. She speaks for us when the conversation is in Korean.

Conservative Baptists would answer that no matter how shy a married man is, he is to step up to the plate and lead -- being shy is no excuse for not being dominant. Married women, no matter how assertive they might otherwise be, are to willingly submit to their husbands.

???

Did they say that? I missed that part.

A good number of women at my Baptist church wear pants even to Sunday worship service.

???

No. The only time I can personally recall when a group of Baptist women had to wear skirts was on a foreign mission trip. The church they were visiting in Grenada (sp?) insisted that they wear them.

At my church the men don't wear formal clothing to most services. We're pretty casual. Slacks, sweaters, sweatshirts, Ts are the norm. As for the women having important voices, they do, just not as pastors.

In all this dialogue about Baptists, it should be pointed out that not all Baptists are the same. The denomination I'm in is conservative but not all are.

Whatever would lead you to think that. We often have small group discussions. Indeed, I've led some of them myself.

As I believe RevJames suggests well, it's hard enough to get most men to go to church, harder still a couples retreat. Perhaps the doey-eyed wives in the video are simply proud of their husbands for going.

Did you ever consider that maybe some women are just introverts and didn't want to speak anyway, so they chose to let their more extroverted husbands do the talking. I can tell you that with my wife and I while she is very outspoken in her first language, when it comes to an English discussion, she steps back and lets me do most of the talking (this is not always easy for me as I am a shy introvert). Perhaps the women on the video didn't want to say anything as a personal choice. Did you consider that or did you just jump to conclusions about the nature of Baptist relationships.

If the wife and her husband are both happy living in a strongly patriarchal home, what is that to us?

It reflects on their necessary thoughts about themselves and each other.  Patriarchy is a situation in which the male is superior to the female.  It is entirely possible for this situation to be happy and tenable.  I refer you to my example of the white supremacist and his black friend, both of whom feel and agree that the black is inferior to the white.

This can certainly work.  One has to wonder what the rationale was behind the situation, though.  How did it come to be that the black man sees himself as less worthy (at least in some contexts) than his white friend?  As it relates to this situation - how did it come to be that the woman came to see herself as less worthy (at least in terms of public expression) than her husband?