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Permalink Reply by Shannon Kish on April 21, 2011 at 11:04pm

I think that religion does play a role in the perpetuating of strict gender roles. I am not convinced that religion created the gender roles.

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Permalink Reply by Walter Maki on April 22, 2011 at 11:04am

I grew up in a household where there were no gender specific tasks. I also have that same type of household where everyone helps with everything. To me why should anyone be stuck to a certain job because it's considered man's work or woman's work...to me its just work that needs to be done. I guess I grew up with atheist traits in a dogmatic world.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Emmaly Burgett on April 22, 2011 at 12:20pm

I was raised to think that a woman's only job was to put food on the table and clean up the messes created by my hypothetical jerk of a husband and 8 bratty children.  This idea has always been related to God and the Bible because pretty much everything I was taught at home came from the Bible, which seemed to form this ideal lifestyle that I had to be trained to one day live up to. I think the bible is what most people see as the standard of normalcy and you are supposed to draw every bit of guidance from it. The bible and it's rules were designed, in my opinion, to mold what is now considered "the perfect/christian society" and that includes highly specific gender roles. The ideas of the bible are old.. just like the idea that a woman should be like a Stepford wife is old. I think that the is the way it is because the bible has stunted it's abilty to properly evolve. There are independent women in the world and there are men that cook and clean  but I would guess that most of them have felt the pressure to not be that way and I think that has a whole lot to do with the bible and the ideas it provides. They are guidlines that have unfortunately molded our society into a place where we (atheists)... really mess up their idea of perfection. I obviously agree that men and women should be able to do whatever they want and that no job should be gender specific.

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