A poster advertising a BYU club’s Wednesday night activity took the internet by storm… and not in a good way. A club member created a letter-size poster with photographs of invited speakers for the monthly activity. This student then put those photographs at the top of the page, above a prominent display of the club’s name.
Whoa. Wait, what’s the problem again?
The problem is the club is called “Women in Math,” and all those pictured speakers above that club title were male professors. Another female undergraduate student saw the advertisement on campus, took a photo, and posted to Twitter asking incredulously, “Is this satire?” Outrage ensued, and the story was picked up by major media outlets like the Huffington Post and Salt Lake Tribune. Local TV stations also weighed in: KUTV News and Fox 13 News. (Media outlets owned by the LDS Church, KSL TV and the Deseret News, didn’t seem to find it newsworthy. Update 2/24/18: About 12 hours after this post was published at Wheat and Tares, the Deseret News finally published an article about the poster, and KSL shared that news article on their Facebook page late last night.)
The BYU Math department performed damage control with what I thought was a pretty good response on their Facebook page:
But, some people didn’t appreciate parts of the response, like the fact that people “got a good laugh” at the department. (I didn’t mind that bit; I laughed nervously when I first saw the poster, too.) And they didn’t like throwing the student under the bus by suggesting despite good intentions it was “poor judgment.” So the message has since been edited:
Funny thing is, something similar to this happened a few years ago, but there wasn’t nearly as much uproar.
In August 2014, a poster was released by the LDS Church advertising a special “Sisters’ Meeting” in Europe. The event was for all women, ages 12 and up. So who did they display to get sisters excited for this event? Well, men, of course. On the poster were the smiling faces of Elder M. Russell Ballard, Elder David A. Bednar, and Elder Donald L. Hallstrom. A news reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune asked the church about the curious design choice, and, well, she got a response from a church spokeswoman:
“The list of speakers for the meeting has not been finalized,” [Jessica] Moody said Tuesday, “and will definitely include female speakers.”
The meeting did end up having female speakers, as reported by Wheat & Tares blogger Hedgehog, an attendee. One was a Stake Relief Society President, and the other two were wives of visiting authorities (Elder Hallstrom and Elder Patrick Kearon). So, I mean, even if they did have the full line-up ready, would those women really have made the poster? Probably not. It makes sense the poster would highlight the most important speakers, and any member of the church would recognize that Ballard, Bednar, and Hallstrom, as the highest ranking authorities, would be the strongest draws.
But, just because it makes sense from one angle doesn’t mean it’s the wisest course of action. Remember how I phrased the description of the Women in Math poster at the beginning of the post? It’s just photographs of speakers above the name of the club. It makes sense. But, as the BYU Math department initially pointed out, in spite of good intentions there was some poor judgment. And it’s not that the female student who made the poster isn’t smart (hello, Women in Math people), it’s that she failed to see what the poster would look like to an outsider. She saw four professors totally supportive of women in mathematics graciously accepting the invitation to speak to interested undergrads (btw, I highly recommend watching Fox 13’s 2-minute coverage of Wednesday night’s activity. That room was packed with women). But with recent tensions, other people just saw further proof that BYU doesn’t respect women’s voices. With a university that already has a much smaller percentage of female professors compared to other schools, it’s low-hanging fruit to point out that, even when narrowing the field to just math departments among Utah schools, BYU has dramatically lower female representation among math faculty. The poster just amplified the message that women’s voices are scarce (yet a quick glance over the BYU Math Department’s Facebook posts from the past 6 months clearly shows support for women).
It was a similar issue with the 2014 European meeting poster. It was only a couple months after Kate Kelly‘s excommunication (of Ordain Women fame), and gender disparity among church leadership was still a sensitive subject. Cynthia L. at By Common Consent wrote, “How is it possible that not one person in these meetings noticed that this flyer has really, really bad optics?” Jana Reiss at Religion News Service made the point that even moderate feminists not looking for priesthood, like Neylan McBaine, would’ve picked up on possible problematic messages ahead of time. Yet there was no indication that the church saw anything wrong.
But there are times when the church does have effective damage control when unintended messages are sent. A little over a year ago, Wheat & Tares blogger Andrew S. pointed out some serious racial undertones with a youth song published by the church. The song, “White,” was based on Isaiah 1:18 and talked about how the red stains of sin could be washed away and our hands made white. Even though the songwriter (and the church) never intended for the message to be anything other than metaphorical, our history with tying righteousness to skin color added a dimension that someone obviously hadn’t considered. The church pulled the piece, and spokesman Eric Hawkins explained, “It’s important to church leaders that there not be feelings of offense or misunderstanding associated with the song.”
When it comes to sensitive issues in this church, like gender and race, messages intended aren’t always the ones received. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. But, hopefully, it inspires introspection, discussion, and understanding–on both sides.
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Identity politics is a lot like chimps throwing feces…
Every one who plays ends up with crap on their hands and faces…
And no there are no racial did whistles in the comment… Because that would be identity politics.
Why doesn’t anybody point out the huge disparity and lack of men in nursing? Why is there no uproar over this?
Deborah, we’d love for you to write a guest post on the topic. The subject of men facing discrimination upon entering traditionally female fields is also fascinating.
Edited to add: After thinking about it, a poster of four women above a large print phrase “Men in Nursing” would likely cause a few snickers, but I suspect people questioning motive would see it as a personal dig at those specific women rather than a commentary on the male minority in the profession. Which itself is interesting–flipping the gender on the photographs making a difference in people’s assumptions.
Nice framing of this Mary Ann.
I do think there are many professors at BYU that are very supportive of women. But I do think what this shows is a lack of deeper understanding of how things look. Let’s face it. The church and BYU have not been at the forefront of pushing for women to getting an education and establishing something of a career. We certainly are not in the rear of this either. But if I just look at my sisters and sister in laws, it is rather obvious that they were encouraged to get an MRS degree. Almost every one went to BYU and none of them finished a degree. Now if we look at the next generation, that has changed. So given that past, it isn’t surprising that many look at such items as the poster as evidence the church as not come all that far. I think the truth is probably between the two. But it clearly shows a bit of naivety. I would hope the BYU marketing department never would make such a misstep.
It reminds me of a neighboring ward Relief Society that decided to take the talk about “Look Up!” (which is about having a positive outlook – great talk). Well not one of the RS sisters seemed to think that placing the words, “Look Up!” right across their chest on a t-shirt could be taken as the equivalent of, “Hey – my eyes are up here!” All of the husbands were saying, “You are not going to wear that are you?” and some sisters then got it, but from what I heard, many had to have it explained. Not being “of this world” does tend to create a bit of naivety. I also heard that one Mormon boss commented when a lady at work bought a nice new car, “Wow, you must have a sugar daddy” and he was trying to say, “Wow, your husband is nice and must love you.” That is not the street definition of “sugar daddy.”
Deborah – That is a reasonable question to dive into. I don’t know how it relates to the topic at hand. I think the topic here is if you would find it odd to go to a seminar “Dealing with the social aspects of radical mastectomies” and it has 4 men as the speakers. It doesn’t mean that 4 men couldn’t be excellent speakers. One could be an oncologist, one a therapist, one a husband of someone affected with this, and another that leads a hospital department in coordinating assistance to patients. These 4 men could be making great strides in helping women in every way they can, but having only 4 men just looks bad/odd. Wouldn’t it be better to add at least one women that has experienced a radical mastectomy to talk about how it feels actually being in that situation first-person?
I also don’t see much of any barrier to men going into nursing. I have a brother that did this and had no resistance in any way was welcomed by his female peers. In fact he is well liked. He gets all the “big” cases as he is quite muscular. He is quite sociable and very nice, but he is also the kind of person that is MORE than willing to whisper into the cantankerous old patient that is driving all the nurses crazy, “Let me tell you something, if you are mean to all these nurses, who knows what they are going to do to you. I have seen things. So you had better be nice.”
Two comments. First, I think the poster is a perfect illustration of “mansplaining.” I’ve never really understood that term but the poster brings it into perfect focus. Second, whoever put the poster together probably has a future running the Boston PD twitter account:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/02/11/boston-police-tweeted-black-history-month-tribute-white-man-and-twitter-was-not-happy/qsC9EsYmRxKpNgH96R0QmL/story.html
Happy Hubby wrote he hoped the BYU marketing department would not make such a mistake. Aren’t they the ones who (falsely) claimed for years the reason there was no caffeine on BYU was b/c there was no demand? Perhaps the marketing people and BYU public spokesperson are different, I dunno. But whoever was responsible for that oft repeated lie has a solid career in marketing ahead of him or her.
RB – I was thinking the marketing department – the ones that teach marketing.
It was the administration that kept saying, “there is no demand” even while Uchtdorf was admitting in conference he enjoys his diet coke. The same administration that keeps saying beards being allowed at the Y would bring on the second coming.
The poster was created by a woman who was part of the club, so it’s not part of “BYU Marketing”. It was an unintended blind spot that happened to hit the outrage machine in just the right way.
So my daughter went through the BYU Math program and got her degree. She had a great experience with fine profs who supported her and gave her research opportunities. I’m quite happy to wink at the poster (let he or she who has never said something stupid cast the first stone) and applaud the BYU Math Dept.
“beards being allowed at the Y would bring on the second coming.”
Or at least the return of polygamy.
Makes it a little tricky for a woman’s organization to advertise an invited male speaker. If I were the guy, I’d stipulate that my face doesn’t go on any posters!
Oh, hey look! Deseret News suddenly found it newsworthy earlier today: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900011224/byu-student-run-women-in-math-clubs-flier-makes-national-news.html
I mostly liked the department’s response. Honestly it’s not surprising that female BYU students are generally naive about how it looks to show a panel of men addressing women at a Women in Math event. BYU is very slow to create parity in STEM enrollment, graduation rates and teaching positions. The church has a LOT of catching up to do.
I attended the YW New Beginnings this week with my daughter, and it’s disheartening how much the girls are encouraged to do easy things more than challenging ones. If we spent an evening talking to the YM about how they need to learn how to make hand crafted items for their future homes, we’d lose them a lot earlier than their 20s. We keep the girls by telling them they don’t have to do anything but get married and have babies: degrees and missions are optional.
Angela, I found that the messages on the BYU Math Facebook page were very supportive of women gaining education and getting degrees. And that was also my experience with my department at BYU. One time in an upper-level anthropology class, the professor asked upfront how many people were getting that major (1) to get a job in the field, (2) to jump towards a graduate degree in a different field, or (3) seemed like an easy major and not planning to use it at all because they weren’t planning on being employed (housewife). About half the class was in the third group, and the professor was visibly discouraged. In any other university, that attitude would seem ridiculous. I think the professors are generally excited when students are interested in the specific fields and will do what they can to help that student succeed. But wider cultural expectations are hard to change.
Mary Ann, I’m reminded of a cartoon that was in the BYU Univerfarce when I attended BYU. It was a female student standing at a podium saying, “I came to BYU to learn nuclear physics. Not to work in nuclear physics, but to teach nuclear physics to my children in the home.”
Martin, “Makes it a little tricky for a woman’s organization to advertise an invited male speaker.” The club could create a distinctive logo or just write “Sponsored by the Women in Math Club.” There are several ways they could’ve avoided sending the message that an all-male panel was going to talk specifically about women’s experiences in math.
At first glance, I first read the “Women in Math” as a caption to the photos, curiously identifying those 4 people as women in math. At second glance, I read it as the subject of the event, as Mary Ann suggested. Any such misreading could easily have been avoided, with even ordinary sensitivity to the fact that there is no reason to suppose that an ordinary English speaker would think “Women in Math” is the name of a club. The same kind of insular, insider thinking and language use also pops up regularly in conversations in which Mormon-speak is mistaken for English.
Naming the club Women in Math seems questionable, but that is actually a common name for that kind of club. My college had a Women in Computing club that focused on connecting undergraduate women with research opportunities and promoting academic research as a career choice. They usually had a few meetings every year where professors would present on their current research and try to recruit women as undergraduate research assistants. The faculty were nearly all men, so the speaker list usually looked just like one from BYU’s event. I don’t think the club ever put their name at the top of a poster to avoid someone from outside the department misinterpreting the club name as a description of the presenters.
I think the topic here is if you would find it odd to go to a seminar “Dealing with the social aspects of radical mastectomies” and it has 4 men as the speakers.
Speaking as someone who knows a man who wants a radical mastectomy, that wouldn’t be strange at all if they were all trans men.
They’d call it something different, though.