I will suggest a book, if you are interested. It's a fiction, by essayist and philosopher Marilyn French, called The Women's Room. It's one woman's experience of life as a new divorcee who returns to college. She is traditional in her thinking, and very down with life. She is the wife who supported hubbie through college, and got ditched for the new model. But that is just an intro to the character Her journey is a good read for the story, and also has deeper undertones. It changed my life. *shrugs* It does show how powerless a 30-something divorcee was in the mid-20th century.
I will have to read that. One of the things that helped me break free from the religion was the abysmal way women were treated. I was a typical subservient JW wife, and since my first husband was disfellowshipped I had zero status in the congregation. I was fine with that at first, I totally believed only men could be leaders, I never even wanted to work in the first place, I was forced into because my first husband couldn't keep a job.
Then I started working for a company that had a lot of women, as women seem to gravitate towards auditing and finance. As I began to work my way up in the company and got more responsible positions, I saw competent women managers, senior managers and directors and it started to make me aware of how stupid it was to treat women as if they were incapable.
I was promoted from admin to auditing then to a systems analyst and within two or three months was promoted two levels to a Senior Systems Analyst, even though I had not one college credit to my name. It was explained by my manager, a woman of course, that as my work was as good as anyone else's she could not justify paying me any less. I made the same as any man in an equivalent position, it was a good feeling and such a change. Then I would go to the meetings and become either stupid or invisible. I would go to the meeting for service and watch the young brother struggle with assigning car groups and it was hard not to think I could have done that job better, But I didn't have a penis, so it could never happen, no matter my skills or intelligence.
I never looked down on women who chose not to work outside the home, but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. People are generally happiest if their knowledge and skills are utilized to the fullest, for some women that may be child care and running a home, but others are better as different things. I believe the Watchtower devalues women whether they work or not, but they seem more distrustful of working women, strong independent women are a threat. Women could do a lot of the jobs at the Kingdom Hall, there is nothing that makes men inherently better at any of an elders duties, so they are basically wasting the talents of half their members.
