Becoming a woman...

Rubyvixen

I remember when I was around the age of 10 or 11, there was a book that Jehovah's Witness parents used in family bible study that had two versions (one for male, one for females) or maybe there was one and it just had chapters and I am remembering wrong.

I do remember vividly having to endure the rather male dominated view of what happens when a young woman enters adolescence and what a young woman has to look forward to in her 'duties' as a loyal wife and mother serving her husband *gags*.

Does anyone remember that? It covered masturbation, beastiality (albeit briefly), menstruation, a rather sterile description of sex (of course) and then the dreary life one should happily look forward to as a wife of an upstanding JW husband etc...

Anyway, I came across this the other day and could not help but see such HUGE similarities....

You have to check out these links if only to be horrified at the viewpoints and have flashbacks back to that era and/or those awful books of the JWs that preached the same nonsense:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/blinkytreefrog/80660.html?page=1#comments

For the equally awful chapter on homosexuality (which again mirrors the JW view) go here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/blinkytreefrog/81147.html

Something I found so interesting about all of this is that the author of the books that are scanned above in those links was a raging Seventh Day Adventist!

Correct me if I am wrong but weren't the 'founder's of the JWs heavily influenced by the Seventh Day Adventists? My memory of JW history is rather blurry these days being out of it for so long and having thrown out everything that had to do with the religion years and years ago. I just thought it was so fascinating that the author of the books above even had the same writing style as the JW publications that I grew up with. At time when reading those links, I even felt like I was reading an old JW publication! Maybe they borrowed a LOT from the Adventists in that way, including so many of those awful, awful beliefs and ideals?

PaulJ

I dont remember this at all!!! As a kid you had the Great Teacher Book, followed by the YPA book

Rubyvixen

Really?

It was way before the Questions Young People Ask book. I am thinking the book was from the 60's or 70's?

I was born in 1978 but my parents were a much older generation and kept every.single.publication. ;)

I keep remembering it being a pink colored book, not very thick but with the *exact* sentiment as the book I linked to...

PaulJ

Aaaahh! Now I understand. Cos we're similar ages and i dont remember a book like that. But then my mum and dad became JW's when i was 4 so they wouldnt have had much in the way of older publications.

I bet to read a book like that now would be hilarious, a bit like the 'Good Housewife' Guides from the 1950's.

Rubyvixen

That would make sense.

It definitely was full of 1950's rhetoric in terms of a woman's role and all that crap. Very, very pre-feminist that's for sure! :P

PaulJ

Cool. Well I hope someone remembers it. I think all that kind of literature is so out dated and thus funny as hell!

googlemagoogle

you mean the red book "make your youth a success" or something like that. it's about how to take a shower and wash your penis without getting an erection and stuff... lol

the bible students were a second adventists offspring, just like the seventh days adventists.

PaulJ

it's about how to take a shower and wash your penis without getting an erection and stuff... lol

Cruicial lifestyle counselling then. How could any young dub live without it??

Rubyvixen

Yes! That may have been the book!!

We skipped over the chapters about what happens to males during adolescence (but of course I read those anyway!! haha) and that does sound like something that would have been in the book. The book focused on the downfalls of 'heavy petting' while courting, thoughts that were not so pure and how to deal, how to resist the urge to masturbate and also tried to provide an anatomy lesson of what happens to females and males going through puberty.

PaulJ

I bet there was some great diagrams!!

Becoming a woman...

Share this