by Resistance is Futile 15 Replies latest jw friends
I was recently talking to a friend that's a former JW, and she argued that there are just as many women that live at Bethel as there are men.
Admittedly, we're both slightly ignorant on the subject, since neither of us have actually lived at or even visited Bethel.
I've made the assumption that there are significantly more men than women at Bethel, am I correct?
Former Bethelites, giving a rough estimate, what was the ratio of men to women at Bethel while you were there?
There are more men at bethel than women! (at least as of 96 when I left)
Back then the big way for women to get into bethel was to work as commuters (hold a job and pioneer while commuting to bethel as a voulunteer.)
Or they could marry in and both husband and wife are evaluated as to their staying. If the husband has a serious position that the WTS wants to keep his skills, I have seen the wife allowed to come in and slide into a generic position. The men were called "heavy brothers." Single women don't stay single for long.
Overall, not so many women. Many jobs are fairly physical and the WTS does not perceive as very strong.
I remember when building Patterson and commuting between Watchtower Farm and Patterson that there were was a serious shortage of women. Communters where one option, they rented their own homes and all stayed together. There was one single nurse at WTF named Ravena, she later maried Jeff? So be it.
I remember one brother at the evening dinner at the cafeteria bad mouthing a visiting sister. She was in a skirt and just as cute, .....no, she was beautiful, she could have been in an onion sack and still caused an arousal in all men. But she was a visitor. I regret now that I didn' t ask her for a date. Was there a shortage of women at Bethel, hell yes. The atmosphere just felt weird, it even smelled weird, like moth balls and ink. There were married women that would give me an eye of wanting; evidently they weren't satisfied with their men. (Speculation) But hard to resist.
If we go back to the original thought, that there were just as many women as men, that is an overstatement of truth. If you were a single man, this statement is just pathetic. Well, if you consider the old women in the sewing room, married women, and dorky women ok, perhaps there were just as many women as men. But as far as eligible women? Why did I assume this? Nowhere close, Bethell was just an un-natural atmosphere. How I wished that I had gone to college!!!! and lived in a dorm.
In the 70s 95% Men.
I've never been to Bethel. However, in my experience, the only women I personally knew who live in Bethel were all who happened to be married to MEN who were in Bethel.
Single men made up the largest demographic. Then married couples and then single women.
When I was there (Australia bethel) there was only four young single women. Two were housekeepers and two were nurses in the infirmary. Competition among the single blokes for three of these was intense! They were all married off within a short time.
Woman get the domestic jobs. Housekeeping (room maids - all were women) and laundry. Unless your husband is a bigwig that is. Then you get a nice office job.
There is the occassional female worker but usually they has some special qualifications.
I visited the Head Office many years ago and we enjoyed a lunchtime meal there and the blokes definately outnumbered the females probably 10 to 1, this was in the early 80s.
There are quite a few women at bethel. married sisters, commuters and single sisters, too. They work all over the place, from construction to the factory and everywhere in between.
I'd say it is probably at least 2/3 male. A lot of the long term members are married, and so there are quite a few wives there, but there are very few single sisters. They only take in a sisters for skills that they cannot find brothers, so when I was there in the 1990's there were a handful of single sisters working in the legal department and nursing. Where possible, they tried to get the sisters only as itinerate works, so some of the nurses would just travel in, rather than live at bethel.
