The February New Era magazines are hitting mailboxes this week, and I hope you’re all excited that this month your children can learn how to be “Real Women” and “Real Men.” Here are the checklists they have given the YW and YM:
Real Womanhood
1. Develop Talents
2. Discover True Beauty
3. Embrace Motherhood
4. Focus on Eternal Goals
Real Manhood
1. Do Hard Things
2. Learn Useful Skills
3. Respect Womanhood
4. Serve and Strengthen your Quorum
5. Gain an Education
I can’t say anything here that Neylan McBaine hasn’t said more eloquently in her post about how problematic these lists are side by side. Her review is a must read. Instead of trying, I thought it would be more productive for me to write my own “manifesto” of how I want to teach my child to be a daughter of God in a way that could be applied to both genders:
Our highest calling in life is to be disciples of Jesus Christ. As you seek to follow the Savior’s footsteps, I pray that you will strive to develop virtues He exhibited: leadership and nurturing, strength and meekness, courage and submission. Disciples will help strangers, coworkers, friends, parents, spouses, and children feel God’s love for them. Disciples of Christ treat all children of God, regardless of gender (or what they are wearing), with respect and courtesy. Service is a very important aspect of discipleship and comes in many forms. Parenthood is a very important way we learn, serve, and exhibit discipleship. Heavenly Father has an individual plan for your life and it may not be what you expect it to be; you may end up single, childless, divorced, working, unemployed, sick, or poor. Disciples develop a personal relationship with God and seek His will in their lives. Disciples seek learning by study and by faith, and gain as much education as possible. The Proverbs 31 homemaker and the foreign, childless, single, poverty-stricken field gleaner Ruth were both called “eshet chayil,” Hebrew for woman of valor. I’m grateful the Bible teaches that God uses imperfect men and women in all walks of life to build his kingdom.
What do you think of my first rough draft? Is there anything you would include or exclude? It’s hard to get it into a handy checklist, but perhaps we are too dependent on checklists anyway.
p.s. If I never read the words “more points on my man card” in a church publication again, I will be one happy woman.
p.p.s. as some people are having a hard time going to lds.org and finding the page for the February 2015 New Era. As you see even from the digial lists, the articles are right next to each other.
Wheat & Tares 
Not a bad first bash!!!
The best part of your paragraph was the worst part of the magazines paragraph. None of the nine points in the magazine have any real reference to putting the Saviour first. Since when does developing talents and doing hard things make it to the top of a list of being real men and women in the Gospel. Your reference to discipleship is a breath of fresh air…
The site won’t let me say, “Well said!” so I have to think of how to put that in more words.
What matters is it people in the COB should read your lesson and ask themselves why they’re missing it.
Well done! I guess I’ve been wondering when we quit worshiping the savior and started worshiping gender roles. It seems to be a fairly recent development, but its dark roots have really taken hold on the hearts of church members.
Excellent! You should submit it as an editorial or comment to the Ensign.
FWIW I would personally switch out the word ‘Leadership’ with something like ‘teacher’. I think that in the church’s corporate culture “leadership” is over-emphasized. In the abstract sense, sure leadership is great and everyone can be a leader, but in a more connotative way, why is it so important that we all “be the boss”? I also would argue that Jesus was as much of a follower as he was a leader and that his most important work wasn’t done to be a leader or in the role of a leader, but in the role of a follower and servant. Additionally, His ability to follow and empathize with those who would follow made him a better “leader”, although he never used that word to describe himself. “Teacher” or “rabbi” were used instead which is a completely different type of “leadership” (if you will) which is centered in sharing light and lifting others up as opposed to “leading” them e.g. Moses through the Red Sea. Sadly, these roles (follower, teacher, servant) aren’t culturally appreciated today.
I feel like the teaching of gender roles undermines any belief that they might be innate – if we have to teach men and women how to be “real” then it is very likely that these divisions are constructs.
I like your version so much better, for so many reasons, but especially because it focuses on Christ as a role model. Seriously, I don’t understand how these sorts of things end up published, when there is so little focus on the Savior.
I especially love how your version focuses on developing the best traits – both those considered traditionally “masculine” and “feminine.” I think that if there really are differences between the genders, the only way to reconcile that with our divine role models (Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) is to believe that any differences between the genders must be overcome. For example – if men really are less emotional and nurturing by nature, they must overcome that to be like Christ. If women really are less strong and tenacious (which I don’t really think is true) they must learn to be in order to be like Christ.
It seems to me that teaching men and women to adhere to gender roles is only going to work against the ultimate goal of being Christlike.
Kristine, your manifesto is a beautiful call to discipleship and one that would be great for all YM and YW to hear.
But I think you are being unfair with the New Era lists. I don’t think they were meant to entrench gender roles as much as they are an attempt to respond to the different challenges YW and YM face.
The YM are encouraged to do hard things because YM are less responsible and hard working these days than YW, being absorbed in video games and such. They also thoroughly uncommitted to their Priesthood quorum, and they regularly objectify women. They are slipping behind women as far as their education and marketable skills are concerned, hence the admonitions towards utility and education.
YW have somewhat different challenges. They are battered by constant media objectification and are thus inclined to judge themselves in more vain and superficial ways, hence the admonition to try to understand true beauty, and focus on Eternal goals. They are already ahead of men in their pursuit of education and utility, so the aggressive pursuit of personal development is softened with the more abstract “developing talents.”
Nate if a young man was to be taught to aspire for my “manifesto” wouldn’t he naturally become hard working, respectful, and ambitious man? I don’t see how any young man or woman who tries to follow the “manifesto” will not turn out in a way that we would be proud….
Also, did you read Neylan’s review? She is the most conservative, least critical advocate for women’s rights in the church; so when she actually critiques something put out by SLC (which she does so rarely), there’s a problem.
It would have been nice if you had linked to the actual articles so we could click and read.
While I really liked your paragraph, I see that as teaching a different message than was presented in the two articles.
For one thing, it is not like there was a single list or chart side-by-side. The two articles were written by two real people, who shared stories from their own lives. To criticize the articles seems like a slap in the face to those two authors, who were willing to share their thoughts with young readers.
We have a crisis in the US with the lack of young men pursuing higher education. That may be part due to problems in our education system, that it somehow favors the learning or testing styles of women. But it is a problem, and I think it should be addressed somehow.
I only have one end goal for YM and YW in this church = discipleship. It will be interpreted differently by each individual via personal revelation. I don’t want my daughters and sons checking lists, I want them to seek His will in their lives and do it. HF may want a YM to become a something without much education and a woman to become a world renowned brain researcher – but he’ll have a harder time leading them there with one size fits all checklists. As for education for men, I clearly covered that in my paragraph, and as a woman whose local faith community and family did not emphasize education AT ALL I disagree that we don’t need that for women. I look around local wards and see women with children and no education have to get jobs working minimum wage at walmart to help make ends meet. So yes, I find it a glaring omission from the YW list.
This ‘crisis of masculinity’ will take a while psychologically for men to adjust to, just as everyone had to adapt or die during the agrarian->industrial revolution. Globalization has changed the world, shifted a lot of historically male vocations overseas and opened equal opportunity in the marketplace in a way males have never had to compete with. It will take a while, but each generation adapts to the new conditions.
The two articles were next to each other in the New Era, it is hard pressed not to draw a comparison. These positions solidify gender roles and I am in favor of a Christ based approach; less Proclamation, more Living Christ.
I was not aware that it was completely off limits to ever criticize anything LDS, ever – I made no personal attacks on either author; I said the editors presented a problematic message which Neylan explains much more elegantly than I ever could.
Naismith, we may have a crisis in the US with the lack of young men pursuing education, I don’t know. But in the LDS church, it is the young women who are discouraged from pursuing education beyond 2-4 years after high school. The New Era is aimed at LDS youth. Our boys are doing better than average in the US educationally but our girls are not because they are continually given the message that anything beyond a bachelors degree is “choosing a career instead of motherhood”.
Utah Women & Education Initiative states…
A report from the Utah Department of Workforce Services stated, “While prior to 1990, Utah women showed a higher rate of college graduation than U.S. women, by 2000, Utah women had lost their ‘bachelor’s degree or higher’ educational edge. Utah shows by far the largest gap in the nation between male and female college-graduation rates.”
Since apparently all opinions are equally valid, here are the lists I propose to make “real women” and “real men”:
Women
1. Floss daily.
2. Learn how to forego eating on dates without your stomach rumbling.
3. Never poop.
4. Read bodice rippers.
Men
1. Know that nobody will ever love you like your mother.
2. Pump gas for women.
3. Learn to belch the alphabet.
4. Cultivate body hair.
The Influence of Religion and Values on a Young Woman’s College Decision
“Many LDS women cannot envision a life of integration. They cannot imagine being simultaneously married, having children, and continuing college (even one class at a time). Some believe that women need to ‘give up’ or ‘sacrifice’ college for their husbands/families. Several participants said it was their ‘duty’ to drop out of school.”
“In the minds of many LDS participants, ‘going to college’ gets lumped into the same category as ‘going to work.’ If they believe they should not work, they also believe they should not attend college.”
Thank you WI_Member.
E, do you actually have statistics on LDS young people and college attendance–not just Utah which is only a minority subset of the church?
I guess I had been looking at things like the applications to BYU, in which there are many more women applying than men
http://yfacts.byu.edu/Article?id=83
I realize that all our experiences differ, but I was totally supported by church leaders in pursuing my graduate degree, my daughters had a great deal of help from their YW leaders in getting college scholarships, and since one YW president was a PhD student expecting her first child, they had a variety of role models.
What my daughters and their classmates never got was any counsel that perhaps certain professions might mesh better with motherhood, and allow part-time options. That was verboten. Counselors had to assume that every student of either gender would be employed fulltime during their entire adult lives. I am very grateful for the advice that I got at BYU to get an education that would accommodate motherhood.
“I was not aware that it was completely off limits to ever criticize anything LDS, ever – I made no personal attacks on either author; I said the editors presented a problematic message which Neylan explains much more elegantly than I ever could.”
And when did anyone ever say it was “off limits” to criticize “anything LDS ever”???????
It absolutely is insulting and unfair to the authors’ work to sum up what you think they said without doing them the honor of linking to their actual work so that people can read and judge for themselves. That is a basic requirement of serious scholarship. A lot of us will NOT have that magazine landing in our mailbox for another week, or don’t subscribe. (Kudos to church magazines for uploading before tnhe first of the month.) What is the purpose of not making that link–are you too lazy, insecure that someone might not agree with you, or…??
What I got from Neylan’s piece was that while each of the articles had value, having them side-by-side was problematic.
I don’t see your suggestion as an alternative to these articles but rather as a whole different approach. One that the article authors might even nod and agree with. No one article can cover everything and still fit within page constraints. Those two, and yours, each present a different point of view. I imagine a campfire giving off the light of truth, and each of you writing from a slightly different angle.
Although do I think it is totally inaccurate to lump Parenthood together as if motherhood and fatherhood are equivalent. Maybe they are for moms by adoption and those lucky types who have absolutely no nausea, diabetes, back pain, sleep disorders, bladder issues, or the many other physical ailments, some permanent, that women often experience as a result of pregnancy (and for which we are grateful, because at least we didn’t die which was so common in past centuries).
srsly
1) “insulting and unfair” to sum up their work? I took the exact numbers they have in their articles and then wrote them down, changing the verb tense.
2) then I said someone else blogged about why this is problematic, and to read their review because I loved it more than anything I could say and I linked to their review.
3) I didn’t include a link because I used a hard copy to make the list from. I certainly could have but didn’t think it was required or difficult to find.
4) Basic requirement of serious scholarship? bahahahah. This isn’t my dissertation. Should I go ahead and post these critiques of yours over on Neylan’s blog? She didn’t link to them either, that darn Yale graduate and her lack of basic knowledge of serious scholarship on blogs.
5) you said: “To criticize the articles seems like a slap in the face to those two authors” how is that not to be understood that you think it’s beyond criticism? and if a small article to you is beyond scope of criticism; then what, pray tell, is open for critical public thought? Please inform and I’ll make sure those items are blogged about forthwith.
6) I absolutely 100% value my husband’s nurturing and fatherhood as equivalent to my motherhood. I didn’t earn any extra value by birthing my child. I made that sacrifice, sure – but once that kid is out and alive my influence is no less important than my husband’s.
7) My critique is to drop the gender role hub-bub, and by focusing on pure discipleship of Jesus Christ ….. SURPRISE! You have men and women of God without the silly need of gender prescriptions.
Naismith I do not have statistics on LDS people as a whole. Interesting that BYU has more women applying than men. There must be some statistics on how many of those women graduate versus men. What do you think? Are those women graduating at the same rate? No they are not. Look down your ward list and tell me, who has more education, the men or the women? In every ward I have lived in, whether in the Mormon corridor or not, husbands tend to have more education than their wives, with few exceptions. The survey linked above was done in Utah but I see no reason at all to think that LDS youth outside of Utah are not getting the exact same messages that make them feel that higher education is somehow not compatible with motherhood. And most of those women at BYU are not from Utah.
http://universe.byu.edu/2011/12/24/final-story-comms-321/
http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleCranneyEducation.html
I think you’re being completely unfair and purposely misleading to anyone who didn’t actually read the articles (which may be why you didn’t have the courtesy to link to the article you were critiquing.)
The author started out by saying the article would highlight “four of the MANY things that you can aspire to as a DAUGHTER OF GOD.” So, obviously, it was not an all-inclusive list.
The final three paragraphs are under the subtitle, “Becoming a Woman of CHRIST” and yet you imply that the author isn’t concerned with teaching the youth to follow Christ.
As a mother and a YW leader, I was so GLAD to have an article about focusing on divine nature and not just what girls can “achieve” in an ever-changing world. My YW are soooooo stressed out in school with their academics, deeply competitive extra-curricular music/sports/dance, and very annoying social scenes. They are emotionally exhausted from these stresses that will NOT get them to heaven. Aren’t the YW you know exhausted? Our youth are constantly having these carrots stuck out in front of them to chase after and we’re always trying to get them to slow down, breathe and focus. I thought this article was a great reminder to NOT get stuck in the wet cement of non-eternal goals. I’m absolutely confused why you don’t think our YW need to hear that.
I try to read these blogs written by LDS women to learn more about the culture I joined when I was baptized and I’m constantly disheartened by the sadness and frustration voiced in the entries. Also, I always so confused why so many women in Utah are unhappy with the Church. What in the world is going on in Utah?!?!
I came through the YW program in the 80s, and was fed a steady diet of this, which is still part of the manuals used today.
President Ezra Taft Benson – “The first priority for a woman is to prepare herself for her divine and eternal mission, whether she is married soon or late. It is folly to neglect that preparation for education in unrelated fields just to prepare temporarily to earn money. Women, when you are married it is the husband’s role to provide, not yours. Do not sacrifice your preparation for an eternally ordained mission for the temporary expediency of money-making skills which you may or may not use” (“In His Steps,” 64).
President Spencer W. Kimball – “The husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment. Her place is in the home, to build the home into a heaven of delight.”
President Spencer W. Kimball – “Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment. Two incomes raise the standard of living beyond its norm. Two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life, break into the family prayers, create an independence which is not cooperative, causes distortion, limits the family and frustrates the children already born. …”
This, combined with the constant drumbeat to marry and have children as quickly as possible, very much contributed to my fear that my educational goals were selfish, and that I should scale back and not challenge myself in areas where I was naturally strong (math, computer science).
So pardon my whiplash when the “I’m a Mormon” campaign featured women with careers and doing other interesting things in addition to raising children.
It is always interesting to me that when one has a pretty entrenched point of view or opinion, all things are either for that POV or against it.
I thought Kristine gave very short shrift to the actual text of the article (Once I could figure out which one it was) and chose to apply her own “definitions” to the headers as to slightly mislead her blog readers to the actual content of the article.
And while I do completely agree with the sentiments of her paragraph, I could also see that the message of the New Era article could just as easily apply to Young Men as to the intended Young Women audience.
We do have specific gender roles based on shear biology and it seems that some would like to ignore that simple fact.
This post was not written in critique of the content of the articles because I thought all of the things the articles brought up were good goals. What this post attempts to critique is:
1. the notion that there are “Real Men” and “Real Women.” Newsflash: are you alive on the planet earth and do you identify as a man or a woman? Congratulations, you are a real man or woman!
2. The *difference* in messages we give by gender can be problematic. It is totally 100% fine for you to disagree and to LURVE gender role teachings. I get that. Just know that I think they are superfluous (because by teaching discipleship alone youth will develop into what God wants them to be) and in some cases damaging. I know a (male) gentle musician in my last ward who requests sunbeam teacher and who despises scouts, YM, and EQ callings because how they make him feel about not meeting up to gender roles. I wasn’t prepared for the life plan God gave me because of the gender roles I’d been taught and the messages I received by HOW it was taught.
Jeff: Never once have I ever claimed there aren’t biological differences between men and women. The church teaches them as complete separate spheres, whereas in real life biological differences are overlapping Venn diagrams. But what I do assert is teaching separate roles are unnecessary if we replace it with discipleship, and in some cases (my own) damaging.
Of course some people will continue to ignore the simple fact that strict gender roles CAN be damaging.
OK,
“because by teaching discipleship alone youth will develop into what God wants them to be) and in some cases damaging.”
So if we teach everyone just reading and writing, they will automatically comprehend Physics, Chemistry and classical literature? No need for any specialized training?
“The church teaches them as complete separate spheres, whereas in real life biological differences are overlapping Venn diagrams.”
Even the much-maligned Family Proclamation does not say this.
The only people who seem to insist that there are “strict” gender roles are the ones criticizing the Church and everyone else who even suggests that are basic gender roles…..
Great post, Kristine. I’m sorry you’ve gotten so many crazy responses.
Ziff, is there any chance that you could possibly consider just leaving it at complimenting the post?
Why the need to also label comments as “crazy”?
Thank you for this important post, Kristine.
E, here is the thing: I am just as radical and unhappy with the status quo as any feminist. It is just that I want to destroy the male-normative notions of 4-year college graduation and a 40-hour workweek, and replace it with a system that respects nurturing and allows women to meld career and motherhood in a different way.
So I am not particularly impressed with short-term graduation rates that show a few fewer women finishing in the usual amount of time. One of the women who got pregnant and dropped out was June Oaks. At the time she had children, BYU had a wonderful program where moms and kids could come to stay for the summer in Helaman Halls. They purposely offered classes that would help teachers recertify, and many women finished their degree that way. Sister Oaks was living in Chicago at the time and could have just transferred her credits over to a school there, but she wanted to graduate from BYU. And the summers there ended up being a good thing, because later her husband was the President of the University.
I had some of those women in my classes during the summer and thought they were great role models. It may be a self-fulfilling cycle, though–younger women look at them and think, “I can always finish that way…”
Also it was thrilling because there is a chapter in The Feminine Mystique about universities offering such services to their alumna, and it was cool to see it implemented.
And in the years since, I have met so very many women who put off childbearing until after their career is solidly established…and find they have major infertility problems that bring great pain. So that the idea of having children while young seem not quite so stupid.
At BYU, I had a neighbor, mom of two preschoolers, who was in BYU law school. She had helped her husband study for the LSAT and they took the test together. But she wasn’t planning on applying right away until a BYU faculty member (also a mom) contacted her and convinced her that it could be a very family friendly profession.
One of my LDS friends got her first assistant professor job at age 52, after her kids were mostly married/on missions. Her husband retired early in order to follow her several states away to pursue her dream career.
My ward RS presidents have included a dentist, faculty members, an IT security professional, and so on.
I am one of the “worst” examples in my ward. A few years ago I was offered a very nice fellowship to get my doctorate, and I turned it down because I prayerfully came to the conclusion that was not the path that the Lord would have me take. So I have contributed to the “lack of ambition.” I have no apologies, and I am grateful for the spiritual guidance that I received, which in retrospect was absolutely the best thing.
#12 (Hawkgrrl) – 🙂 (formerly :)) ) Geez, you’re tough! All along is was girls couldn’t break wind! Now can’t even poop?
Mine eldest became an engineer just like dead ol’ Dad – that didn’t stop her from having four kids. She found a way to continue her career and not merely drop them off at daycare.
I have the task of raising my youngest, now a teenager. Of course I want her as educated as possible. I want her to in her good time become a wife and mother, but not necessarily being financially and emotionally dependent on some jerk.
Our New Era just arrived. My daughter took one look at the blurb on the front cover and said: Nothing good can come from something described as “Manly men and real womanhood”. She hasn’t yet opened the cover to read the articles, and already she is put off.
And think there is something to be said to gearing the articles in a magazine for both sexes to both sexes. Otherwise there is always the danger of appearing to imply that this is for boys (not girls), this for girls (not boys), however good the things discussed in the articles themselves.
Niasmith I really do agree with a lot of your sentiments and love the examples you cite in your last comment. I wouldn’t describe myself as “radical” or even “feminist” but I believe we have a problem as a church with the messages we send to our young women about education. I believe we have a problem as a people with young women concluding, as a result of some of the messages we (inadvertently?) give them, that it is wrong to invest time and money in their own educational pursuits because to do so is a sign that they are choosing “wordly” pursuits “instead of” motherhood.
Naismith: “I am just as radical and unhappy with the status quo as any feminist. It is just that I want to destroy the male-normative notions of 4-year college graduation and a 40-hour workweek, and replace it with a system that respects nurturing and allows women to meld career and motherhood in a different way.” Countries like Australia, NZ, and Scandinavian countries are leading the way. Oh that we would follow!
Naismith, your complaint about Kristine’s post not following standards for “serious scholarship” qualifies as totally 100% completely crazy.
#33 – Well THANKS for BLAMING the ‘males’ for the 4-year college matriculation process and the 40-hour workweek as cultural/economic norms. Gee, ya think that SOMEWHERE the participation of women either directly in the workforce or through their husbands just MIGHT have been a factor also? Methinks you can do better than gratuitous male-bashing. As for what other countries (Scandanavian or Aussie/Kiwi) are ‘doing’, if its a result of market forces at work, fine, else if it’s some politically-derived ‘feel good’ edict, in today’s global economy they’ll prove detrimental to the economic well being of their citizens.
Wouldn’t it be “more good” if there was one article that addressed being good people? There’s no need for separate ones. YW and YM should prepare for possible marriage and possible parenthood. Not all will marry, nor have children. But all will benefit from education. All will benefit from learning to respect each other. All will benefit from learning to strengthen their peers. All will benefit from following Jesus Christ.
“What I say unto one, I say unto all.”
E (#10) says: Naismith, we may have a crisis in the US with the lack of young men pursuing education, I don’t know. But in the LDS church, it is the young women who are discouraged from pursuing education beyond 2-4 years after high school.
A telling point. (I’ll add parenthetically that too many young people, LDS or not, are going on to get MBAs and then kidding themselves that they know something about business.) Naismith then cites (#15) things like the applications to BYU, in which there are many more women applying than men”.
Also telling, and Naismith inadvertently, I think, backs up the point that E and others are trying to make. The important stat, of course, is graduation rates – and by the time it comes to getting the diploma, that enrollment rate disparity evens out to a dead heat, in data going back 25 years. So women enroll, but they do not finish. Why not? Re-read that heartbreaking quote in #13.
“Insulting and unfair” to the authors? The authors manage, when their articles are placed side-by-side, to create a picture in which young women are marginalized and taught to be soft and decorative, and young men are taught to run the world, and in which neither is asked to focus on being a disciple of the Savior. Kristine (and Neylan) have actually written very fair summaries of the content and effects of those articles. I hope that the authors, should they read this post, would choose not to be insulted. That way they might learn something.
First of all, the high rates of college application by women should not be ignored. They do demonstrate aspiration by young women. If men don’t apply, they can’t graduate, and there is a problem at the high school level (not just among Mormons–also a matter for discussion at the state U where I served on the Family Advisory Council.)
Graduation rate calculations do not include everyone who graduates.* They include only those who finish in a “reasonable time” which in the late 1990s was standardized to 6 years after initial enrollment for federal reporting purposes. I am not sure if BYU has an exemption for missions. Given those rules, certainly the rate among LDS men will likely only rise, since some men are choosing to go on missions at age 18 and not start college until their return.
Some women like June Oaks do choose to have babies while they are young, and finish college later (an option that a lot of infertile professional women in their 30s wish they had considered more seriously). They are not counted as graduates, even if they finished later or transferred to another college to complete the degree.
I don’t deny that some women may not be able to envision a life that includes education and employment; that may be part of it, for some women. But a part of it may be that women prayerfully decide to put education on hold for a while in order to put family first. And that is not a bad thing. [I have done that at seasons of my life, and I resent anyone telling me that I was “wrong” to do so. I’d rather listen to the promptings of the Spirit than your put-downs, but still.] The messages I have heard over the pulpit and what my daughters received through their YW program have been very supportive of education for women. Don’t want to get into the dueling quotes game, but there is a lot there.
I wholeheartedly support anything we can do to promote women’s education, including part-time options for employment and education, but that is not the trend. When I was offered a fellowship for more graduate work, that program required full-time enrollment only, and the university where I am now employed requires even undergrads to go fulltime.
So given the differences in biology and the physical demands of pregnancy and lactation, how can we support women? The program that BYU had for moms to return during summers helped a lot of women. I also benefited from the half-semester classes there; one year I gave birth in late August, didn’t feel up to returning in September, but was able to finish a required class in the latter half of that same semester.
Here is what I found unfair to the authors: They didn’t write their articles side-by-side. They each seemed to be writing the article from their heart, sharing personal stories and not claiming to offer a comprehensive list in the limited space available to them. So it seems unfair to me to leave out their wonderful personal stories and focus only a list, which they never claimed was a comprehensive formula for success. I suspect that it is the editors, not the authors, who wrapped up that package. The way all journalists are at the mercy of headline writers.
*This was a political kerfuffle a few years back–some educators proposed that universities be required to track all enrollees to see if they did transfer or graduate later, but it was nixed by those who felt that such a database would be a violation of privacy.