Sunday, September 29, 2024
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Gender Norms and the Adoption of the Plow
In fact, the economic analysis of fashion often falls into a broader subfield of economics called cultural economics, which looks at the relationship between culture and economic outcomes. Since culture is notoriously difficult to define, cultural economists ended up studying everything from fashion and media to technology and institutions to social norms and values like trust and competitiveness.
For instance, one of the most surprising findings in this field came from a study which found that modern gender norms might have been influenced by the adoption of the plow. Plows are heavy and require much more strength to use than other early farming instruments like hoes and digging sticks. So, in societies that used the plow, men had a natural advantage in farmwork. This contributed to a gendered division of labor – men started disproportionately working in the fields while women worked in the home. And this division of labor in turn influenced beliefs about the appropriate roles of men and women in society.
By contrast, this didn’t happen as much in societies which didn’t adopt the plow. Men had no natural advantage in using other farming tools, so everyone there was involved in farmwork. There was no reason to think of work outside the home as “men’s work”, so gender norms regarding work developed differently too. Amazingly, economists found that these historical differences affect gender norms to this day. It turns out that societies that did not adopt the plow still have higher gender equality and higher female labor force participation!
September 3, 2024, Planet Money
By Sofia Shchukina
American Christianity and Methodists
Women dragged their whiskey-drinking husbands to brush arbor revivals, where they converted to Christianity, gave up booze and became stalwarts of the community.
AL.com, May. 13, 2024, Greg Garrison
The Methodist Church has conducted camp meetings here since 1820. Camp meetings are religious revivals at which participants eat and sleep on site. Those who traveled long distances to attend the Gatherings here, usually held in later summer, spent two to three weeks in brush arbors. Wikipedia
Monday, September 02, 2024
Beloved, Let Us Love One Another
I think that what everyone privileges to be the heart of the word of God will be the shaping force in their life of faith. If you believe that the love of God is the center of God's word, then that is a grounding for you. That will shape your theology. It will shape your relationship with God and with other individuals.
If you believe that adherence to what you think is the law, is the center and the heart of God, then that might ground and shape your relationship with God and with others. What do you hold as sacrosanct? And so for many, it was more the love of God. If we think about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, John Wesley preached more on 1 John 4:7-8 than any other biblical text. That is, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, episcopal leader of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences of the United Methodist Church.
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At the 2024 General Conference, delegates voted overwhelmingly, 692 to 51, to repeal that 52 year old ban.
These decisions that have been made over these last few days is a testimony that we are claiming that we are a church where everyone belongs. We are a church with open hearts, open minds, and open doors. And as John Wesley said, although we cannot think alike, may we not love alike, may we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion. These last two days, is a testimony to the diversity and the beauty of that diversity.
Bishop Tracy Malone, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops.
On Point, May 23, 2024, Meghna Chakrabarti
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