As a blogger, I understand the value of asking an open ended question to spur debate, and I understand that the Washington Post’s On Faith feature presumes a degree of religiosity in its participants. But I still find it jarring for Sally Quinn to ask me “Does God Intend Women to Work?”

Rather than harp on that, though, I’ll stick with the substantive part of Quinn’s question.

This week in Doha, Qatar, I attended the Brookings Institution U.S.-Islamic World Forum. One of the papers presented was “on the impact of oil wealth on women in the middle east.” The author, Michael Ross, argues that the real culprit of the lower status of women in the Middle East is oil. That’s right. Oil. The concentration on the production of oil eliminates manufacturing, where women have the best chance for jobs. But more interestingly, because the average woman living in an oil-rich country does not need the extra income she stays home. Therefore the culture and society are dominated by men and women have much less political influence.

Do you think that if most American women did not need to work they would choose to stay at home? Is it in our nature? Is it what God intended? Of course, given the current state of the economy, we won’t have that problem in the U.S. for a long time! But I do think that our culture and traditions now encourage women to work outside the home, regardless of their financial status, and despite the fact that many of our faith traditions discourage it. Once women have a taste for running the world, there’s no going back. Or is there?

The way I see it, people like to work. Most people don’t love it, and they want to work reasonable hours for good pay…but most people are not really content to be idle. A housewife has a lot of work to do, but the typical workload (assuming you don’t have a large family) is probably considerably less than that experienced by women throughout most of world history, whether as farmers or as hunter/gatherers. There was a narrow period of time in the post-war period where many women did not need to produce income for the family. They didn’t need to milk the cows or slaughter the chickens or create clothes and crafts. Basically, they could stick to taking care of household and parenting tasks that were naturally of value and essential. But, when compared to rural women or women in the work force or women in the rest of recorded history, they had it pretty easy.

The funny thing is, they didn’t find the Laura Petrie experience all that fulfilling. So, I don’t think God gives a damn either way, but I’m pretty sure women were meant to work just like men. Although, it’s possible that God’s plan was fulfilled by Oprah Winfrey and the wonders of daytime television. Maybe we can run that theory by Sally Quinn.

What say you?

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