21 minutes, 40 seconds.
That’s how many minutes the only two women speaking at General Conference last weekend took, combined.
2 out of 33 talks.
I have nothing to say about this that hasn’t already been said again, and again, and again.
Ladies, your Church leaders don’t respect you, they don’t think you have anything interesting to say, they don’t see you as equals. They don’t.
If they did, they’d behave differently. Full stop. This isn’t hard. Don’t be blind.
Last April, they sat you down in a Women’s Session to tell you not to talk about Heavenly Mother or trust your own experiences of her. This April, they just pretty much shut you up. And they invited your friends and families and your own children and the whole world to watch them do it.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
-Maya Angelou
Wheat & Tares 
Amen!
The priesthood is not required to speak and inspire others. The priesthood is not required to share insights. So therefore, why are women, who are certainly above 50% of the membership, not 50% of the speakers at GC? I get it that we have to hear from the entire Q15 each GC. But every other speaker should be a woman. We don’t need to hear from countless 70s at GC. If we did it this way, we’d have roughly a 50-50 split in speakers based on gender.
@josh h, the apostle to the apostles—the first witness to the resurrection—was a woman.
LDS leadership is either ignorant of or scared of that.
What I find so fascinating about myself when I was a TBM, (and now in those that are still TBM’s) is that I saw all this as perfectly normal, and as it should be. It was mostly comfortable….at least I thought it was. Yet, I could never figure out why I was so angry and frustrated all the time! I blamed it on everything and everyone else in my life. It never occurred to me that the anger came from being treated as a second class citizen with no rights in this Church. I was always being shut down and gaslighted. Now , I see this as plain as day. But that took 35 years! I think as long as women in the Church keep putting up with it, it will never change. We are conditioned to be this way.
From their first press conference in January 2018, it was clear that this First Presidency viewed women as already having enough attention.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/new-first-presidency-answers-questions-about-churchs-challenges-and-opportunities?lang=eng
A father of nine daughters, President Nelson spoke of his love and respect for the women of the Church. They play an essential, partnering roll with their male counterparts.
“We have women on our councils; we have women administering ordinances in the temple, and we have women presidents of the auxiliaries and their counselors. We depend on their voices.”
President Eyring spoke of the guiding, divinely appointed influence that women have on others as they serve in various capacities.
“No greater influence exists in the kingdom than with the women of the Church.
When Latter-day Saints get a grip on the reality that God’s power is not about hierarchy, but about lifting the very least member to the same opportunities, blessings and abilities as leaders, then we’ll see a change. Until that glorious day, we’ll struggle with the multitude of problems that exist in any social hierarchy.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
-Maya Angelou
^ ^THIS^ ^
When I was a child, my mother was the RS president for 10 years, before becoming the Stake RS president (1960s/70s). They were an independent auxiliary. They raised their own funds, ran their own meetings, had their own budget, were independent, etc. Fast forward 30 years and they couldn’t even make a visiting teaching assignment without the the approval of the bishop. They can’t have a lesson topic without male approval. They can’t plan an activity without male approval. The men can say they “depend on women’s voices” all they want but those voices have no value as the men hold ALL the cards and can veto/ignore anything they wish.
Elisa is spot on: “Ladies, your Church leaders don’t respect you, they don’t think you have anything interesting to say, they don’t see you as equals. They don’t.”
What to make of new YW president Emily Belle Freeman? I know she is popular in some circles, including with my wife who is 93% TBM
@chet, I think she is great and will do a wonderful job. I think she will focus on Christ. She’s not my cup of tea because I’m just not orthodox anymore so her stuff doesn’t resonate with me, but for what she is and the audience she reaches, she’s great.
AND, I think the church is totally irredeemably sexist in a way that harms women (and men) no matter how great the women leaders are. And that a person interested in making sure their daughters see themselves as fully human and equal in the eyes of God or making sure their sons learn how to treat women as peers and not ornaments should think twice about making their children sit through 9 hours of general conference that features 20 minutes of women speaking. Even if the women who speak are great.
I think about my grandmothers and great grandmothers and how the church has systematically stripped female power from the organizations they worked and sacrificed to build. They donated their “Sunday eggs” to help the Relief Society build an institution that could serve and advance the needs of the marginalized and poor among us. They had programs, wealth, and power built up which was appropriated by male church leaders. The Relief Society originally worked to advance the power of women and oppressed peoples in the church and in the greater society. Some even ran shelter systems for battered women. It now works to strip women of power and encourage women to be comfortable with being less than. They used to build granaries. Now I’m not sure what the RS really even does. At a local level all I see are Sunday lessons focusing on the words of men. When I first attended Relief Society lessons were practical and applicable to everyday life. Now I see them more often than not focusing on trying to make us feel content with things we perhaps are best not be content with.
Obviously many local leaders and other men in the church do not feel the way the first presidency does on this issue. Women can sometimes be heard on the local level. However the inherently patriarchal and hierarchical structure is enormously difficult for a man in the church to overcome on behalf of a woman, and impossible for a woman to overcome without a man’s support. Women are thus effectively silenced without the benevolence of men. It’s great some of our men are so benevolent. It’s too bad so many of them imagine they are benevolent when they really aren’t supporting women and their voices. It’s even worse that our leaders continue to reinforce a system that inherently makes such patriarchal benevolence an optional necessity for women to be heard equally. (Our necessity for being heard and being equal is seen as optional in our culture.)
Women are extras in the church structure, nice but unnecessary ultimately, except for child care, and a man can also do that, whereas a woman can’t also be bishop and make unit decisions.
We are like lace on a dress, unnecessary, and easily eliminated if we irritate anyone. We do irritate often because it’s irritating for patriarchal men that a woman has any expectation to be heard, to make decisions and to be truly equal in a way a man doesn’t preside over.
@familywomen and Octavia, exactly.
You’ll note that this post isn’t a plea with male leaders to do better. There is no way they aren’t aware of the problem – there was quite a bit of press about this over the last couple of years, and in Oct 2022 there were four women speakers so it seemed maybe they’d gotten the message. But I think this is an intentional signal that leadership isn’t going to bend to “worldly” pressured to have more women speak.
So I’m really not even interested in talking to the male leadership. What I *am* interested in is encouraging women to stop forcing themselves to feel comfortable with this and stop—just stop—making excuses for sexist leaders in a sexist church. It’s not ok, it never has been, it never will be.
I mean…. is the correct metric for “respect” number of minutes at the pulpit?
Cause we have other options.
20% of female general officers spoke in conference this time. 33% last conference, for an average of 27% of female general officers speaking.
27% of male general authorities and officers spoke in conference this time. Same as last time.
By that metric, it’s a roughly even split.
Another option would be to ask “how many times is each authority and officer given an opportunity to speak or pray in general conference?” (This is the reason why women were not asked to pray very often a few years ago. Those running conference wanted to make sure that every seventy had at least one chance to either pray or speak before they aged out, and female general officers were speaking an average of once per year.)
By that metric, speaking opportunities are weighted heavily in favor of females.
So why judge respect from leaders based on the metric that engenders the most anger and frustration? There are other ways to see things, and you have no idea how the leaders look at organizing conference. Why assume the worst?
The real issue isn’t how much time women spoke in conference, though I think we’d all love to see it be representative of the church demographics. The issue isn’t even a misunderstanding of what general conference is supposed to be. The issue is frustration and anger at God that he would set up an organization where general authorities are only male.
@elisa, agree about the sexism that harms women and men as you point out. I believe you introduced me to the Breaking Down Patriarchy podcast. It was eye-opening to realize that patriarchy establishes systems of power that harm men as well as women. I believe the line in the podcast is that patriarchy harms most men and all women. Most men (not only women) will be better off if we have a more egalitarian world (and if churches were more egalitarian). In the case of General Conference, it is fair to believe that men would benefit from hearing more women’s voices (so long as the women’s voices are actual women’s voices and not just parroting male leaders).
@greg:
Edit: “The issue is frustration and anger at [men] that [they] would set up an organization where general authorities are only male.”
@greg, conference speaking assignments have an element of policy. There have been occasions in the past where individuals (besides general officers) who were not general authorities have spoken in General Conference. Benson even tried to get the head of the John Birch Society, who was not a member of the church, to speak in General Conference but was unsuccessful in that attempt.
@mary Ann exactly! Hence the maya angelou quote. They are behaving exactly as promised.
So true. They talk the good talk but their behaviors are harmful. Everything is about them, the leaders, not about the wellbeing and functioning of people. Wake up! Stop participating in codependence.
Yep.
Greg you gave me a great idea for how to remedy this! Let’s only have one female general officer in the church and have her speak at every conference, then she would get an opportunity 100% of the time, which would prove how much women are valued, even more than the men!
@Elisa,
Even if the institution stacked General Conference with a more equitable ratio of women, do you think the women invited to speak would represent the vast majority of women in the Church?
Most women in the Church are not business professionals. They are nothing like Sheri Dew; they do not relate to the Sheri Dews or the Bonnie Cordons in the Church. I’d argue that even if more women were invited to speak at General Conference, the institution would still search out CEO-Sheri-Dew-types, which, some women concede, is about the same as having a man speak. What’s your thoughts?
@travis I think, “so what”.
At least my girls would see that women are capable of speaking to a global audience. At least my boys would learn that they are expected to listen to women authorities just as they might expected to listen to men.
The fact that there are a variety of people not currently represented in church leadership is its own problem to be solved. I agree it ought to be solved. We could and should complain about the lack of all sorts of people represented during conference. But none of that is an excuse for continuing to exclude half the population.
(Also, I’m curious where you are getting the idea that “most women in the church” are not CEO-types. You’re making a lot of assumptions about what women do and don’t relate to. And the auxiliary presidencies are more diverse than the male orgs because there are single women, childless women, women who stayed home, women who worked, BIPOC women. So to be clear I actually disagree with your premise but even if I agreed I don’t think it’s relevant.)
@Greg: “The issue is frustration and anger at God that he would set up an organization where general authorities are only male.”
I wonder if this issue (marginalization of divine female authority by men) could be framed if we took a fresh perspective at what Joseph Smith envisioned for the women in the Church (sans polygamy, please) in Nauvoo. What if we reimagined what the Relief Society could have been, and yet could be? See, “A Restorationist Framework for Female Authority in the Church,” https://www.owlofthedesert.com/blog/a-restorationist-framework-for-female-authority-in-the-church
What every Relief Society in the church should do is announce that they will have a lesson on Bonnie Cordon’s talk on April 23rd, and Camille Johnson’s talk on May 14th, and then Relief Society will not be held until next October when they might get some more material for RS lessons.
As a father of five daughters (and one son) I’m becoming more and more convinced that women, by nature, receive the gift of prophecy more readily than do the men. And that’s why I’m comfortable saying that our women leaders are prophetesses–not in the sense of a priesthood office–but rather because they possess the spirit of prophecy.
That being said–two questions come to mind:
1) Do our women leaders–prophetesses–feel disenfranchised by not being included more in general conference?
2) If they were included more in general conference would we receive their counsel more readily?
I hope this isn’t presumptuous of me, but could I ask as a personal favor that men stop using the fact that they have daughters or wives as some kind of support for their opinions about women?
Okay, Jack, if women (I’m not using the pet name you created as it makes me throw up in my mouth a bit) receive the gift of prophecy more readily, isn’t male leadership denying the faithful a ton of prophecy by keeping women off the podium? What do you think we’re not hearing about? And if your condescending complement were true, what is driving the perspectives most male church leaders share? Might it be ego? Would that then not be an organization led by the self-centered, unwise, and obtuse instead of those to whom God is actually speaking? And what kind of God would let an organization like that represent him? (This is probably where you respond with another condescension and say that men really need the growth more so God is allowing them to work out their issues in leadership roles.)
@jack, I don’t think generally that we readily accept counsel from women. Because we haven’t been taught to do so.
That 2 women spoke in conference is not an accident. It was a decision presumably by nelson.
Part of it is conservative culture. We had an election almost a year ago where a conservative government where 20% of the cabinet were women (still better than the church) were replaced, partly because of the representation of women, replaced with a Labor government where 50% of the cabinet are women. What a change in how effective the government is and how the culturre has improved.
In that context the church leadership is more obviously misguided.
Look, say the Red Chairs, God wants a boys’ club running the show. And so the boys -need- the opportunity to speak to the global audience. Token Lady Speakers ought to show the naysayers how open minded we are and how much we love women, but in the end, she’s taking that spot from a Real Leader who needs this experience far more than she ever will.
—
I feel like we’re never going to get past this as a people.
E,
What other experience shall I bring to bear on the discussion? That’s what I know. I’d hope that having been married to the same wonderful woman for 35 years–and having been deeply involved in the upbringing of my daughters — who are aged 20 through 31 — for the whole of their lives would afford me some insight into the thoughts, feelings, and spirituality of women. Because, if that were not the case–then I would be the most brutish of men.
jaredsbrother:
“Jack, if women […] receive the gift of prophecy more readily, isn’t male leadership denying the faithful a ton of prophecy by keeping women off the podium?”
I suppose we’d have to know how in touch the current leadership is with the spirit of prophecy–and that plays into my first rhetorical question. Because if our general women leaders don’t feel bad about the ratio between men and women speakers then maybe things aren’t so bad after all–that is, if they are indeed (ahem) *prophetesses*. 😀
“And if your condescending complement were true, what is driving the perspectives most male church leaders share? ”
I would hope that it’d be the same that drives the perspective of women leaders–the spirit of prophecy. Though (IMO) men often receive it through priesthood keys rather than solely as a gift of the spirit.
“Might it be ego? Would that then not be an organization led by the self-centered, unwise, and obtuse instead of those to whom God is actually speaking?”
It might. But if it were then we’d be in a heap of trouble. But even so, our women leaders, who are blessed with the capacity to discern such things, should be able to detect it.
@jack:
(1) you don’t really have experience to bear on the discussion because you haven’t experienced being a woman. What you can do is listen, and listen, and listen. And even if women express views and share experiences that differ from what you observed in your wife and daughters, you can listen.
(2) why does it matter whether the female auxiliary leaders feel bad about the ratio? Many of the rank and file women of the church feel bad about the ratio. Doesn’t their experience matter?
(3) If the female auxiliary leaders DID feel bad about the ratio, or detect there is a problem with male leadership, what would they even be able to do about it? They don’t get to plan the meetings. They don’t have any real authority or power. They can’t do anything to change it.
Elisa: “I don’t think generally that we readily accept counsel from women. Because we haven’t been taught to do so.”
That may be true. But on the other hand, we don’t always do a very good job of following the counsel of priesthood leaders either.
@elisa, when I looked at the list of speakers across all five sessions, I couldn’t believe I saw only two women. I’m glad you raised this issue. Honestly, I expected to see more outrage on platforms like twitter than I have.
It seems like it’s becoming more and more clear that changes to the temple endowment, adding a female general officer to the prophet’s executive council and adding one woman to BYU’s president’s council were largely placative measures, and not part of a larger plan to elevate the authority and influence of women on the institutional the church.
The Uchtdorf years made me feel like the church was entering it’s own period of glasnost, of openness. Real progress seemed to be unfolding as it related to acknowledgements of the imperfections of the church and its leaders, confessed in the spirit of working as one church body to overcome the painful parts of our past, grow and move forward. Efforts at transparency were being brought to many of the thorny parts of our history, even if that transparency was still diluted, edited with a heavy hand and left unsigned by the first presidency. I know this period in the twenty-first century church wasn’t without tension. After all, it was during the Uchtdorf era that John Dehlin and Kate Kelly were excommunicated for, as the saying goes, getting ahead of The Brethren.
We pulled through even more painful yet cleansing events: The Title IX debacle and national embarrassment at BYU led to a needed overhaul of the way BYU mishandled reports of sexual assault, further harming mostly student female victims. BYU honor code administrative leadership was turned over and reassembled. Later, overt acts of on-campus racial prejudice and insensitivity were met with an unprecedented review of student and faculty attitudes and behaviors on race resulting in the Report and Recommendations of the BYU Committee on Race, Equity, and Belonging. The report was raw, painful to read, yet gave me much hope that perhaps BYU could lead the church by example by closing the lacuna between our church’s words versus its attitudes and actions as it relates to racial equity. It’s hard to believe this report came out just over two years ago. Next the honor code was edited in a way that seemed to allow for gay dating, then the doors all started to be kicked shut. Despite there seeming to be positive change up to this point, retrenchment efforts were unleased.
I sometimes forget that it was during the same BYU faculty and staff meeting where Kevin Worthen made the highly anticipated announcement about the Office of Belonging in response to the committee’s report that Jeff Holland then rose and crushed the joy of that moment with his infamous (and despicable) musket fire talk by attacking gay students and Matt Easton personally, and arguing why the gay student community should be silenced.
Since that time we have heard appalling, regressive addresses that distort church doctrine and history given by Oaks and Gilbert (bifurcating the two great commandments), Renlund, Wilcox, Pearson, Hamilton, Corbitt, Haynie, and most recently the BYUH devotional talk given by an unhinged David Glen Hatch (WTF?).
We also saw the censorship of Fiona Givens and her removal from the Maxwell Institute for her discourses on Heavenly Mother. (And we saw the cancelling of Ben Park’s work from the Maxwell Institute website because of his Washington Post op-ed). It feels like we have regressed a half a century.
My point: Looking at the past couple of years holistically, the retrenchment we are seeing has also asphyxiated progress of women in the church. We are not seeing the advancement of more women to the most influential leadership councils in the church, and we are not seeing an increase of women in general conference. This unsettles me and makes me angry.
Also, @Greg, you are making an argument based on common size ratios, but there is one problem with your argument. When you appeal to common size ratios, you must use the same base. And that is precisely the problem here. Inadvertently, you make Elisa’s point even stronger.
Yes, Jack, exactly. The women of the church are definitely more spiritually attuned than the men and more readily receive the spirit of prophecy which is why we A) don’t answer to them, B) hardly hear from them, and C) never put their framed portraits on the walls of our chapels or seat them in the biggest chairs. Their spiritual depth is vastly superior which is why we never stand at attention when a female leader enters the room. Their prophecies are profound indeed which is why we excommunicate them when they have one and hold special meetings to remind them that that’s not ok.
@bigsky, yes to all that.
As an aside, part of me wanted to post about David Glen Hatch but I also just didn’t want to waste any time on him since he’s a nobody (in church leadership). And we can turn to Twitter for some hilarious takes anyway.
@kirkstall, oof, this one hit hard: “Their prophecies are profound indeed which is why we excommunicate them when they have one and hold special meetings to remind them that that’s not ok.”
Elisa, I have been listening for a very long time. And what I’ve come to believe is that women tend to tap into the spirit of prophecy more readily than men do. That’s my observation.
The rest of my argument is built upon whether or not the spirit of prophecy is active among the leadership. That is the crux of the whole matter. Because if it is present–then there is divine approval — at least generally speaking — of the way things are being run at present.
Kirkstall,
My sense is that a sister who possesses the testimony of Jesus doesn’t care too much about the trappings of leadership. Nor does she care about who is voice for the group–only that the gospel is preached according to the spirit of truth.
That said, I could get into the various domains of righteous influence and so forth–but that might be a discussion for another time.
@jack, you say you listen to women but that is just such BS. I don’t know any women who don’t care about leadership and visibility. I know many, many women who are frustrated at the way they are hamstrung and limited and overruled by their male leaders.
And then why is it that men who claim to possess a testimony of Jesus care so much about the trappings of leadership and who is (and is not) authorized to preach the gospel?
Seriously, we know you think that everything is fine in the church but the apologetics are getting so ridiculous. Stop speaking for women.
LOL, the “trappings” of leadership. A phrase, when said unironically, is almost inevitably said by someone with privilege upon privilege upon privilege. And someone ignorant of what that truly means.
Elisa,
“You say you listen to women but that is just such BS. I don’t know any women who don’t care about leadership and visibility. I know many, many women who are frustrated at the way they are hamstrung and limited and overruled by their male leaders.”
The only thing I’ve said that I’ve learned from listening to women is that I believe they tend to receive the gift of prophecy more readily than men.
“And then why is it that men who claim to possess a testimony of Jesus care so much about the trappings of leadership and who is (and is not) authorized to preach the gospel?”
If they do care about the trappings of leadership then they need to repent–IMO.
“Seriously, we know you think that everything is fine in the church but the apologetics are getting so ridiculous. Stop speaking for women.”
I don’t think that everything is perfect in the church. But–yes–I am a 100% optimist when it comes to the Kingdom. I believe it will prevail in spite of our weaknesses and imperfections.
Let me say this last bit as sensitively as I can: I think we need to be careful not to lump all women (and men for that matter) into one monolithic category with regard to how they view the church. I know that there are many women who love the church and its leadership warts and all. And so, while it may not be my place to speak for women generally–I think it’s only right to defend those who disagree with the basic premise of the OP.
“Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
AKA actions speak louder than words. I’d like to say the “brethren” could move past their deeply- seated misogyny. Unfortunately, it seems they’re comfortably blind following all the previous “leaders” examples going back to at least Paul who explicitly said women shouldn’t learn or speak in church much less usurp the authority of a man. They’re just following the leader. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a prophet who could provide inspiration that isn’t centuries to millenniums old?
@jack, please just let those women do that themselves. Stop speaking for them. For reals.
And don’t act like you are somehow protecting women by speaking for them when you’re actually just justifying the status quo and the men who run it. It’s dishonest.
@Eliza,
The culture of the Church in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho is not like the culture of the Church in other areas. No question the culture of the priesthood from Utah is unhealthy, chauvinist, and nothing like what we see in other areas, where the Church is more balanced and equitable.
Here in Hawaii, and throughout the Pacific, women are highly respected and we (men) rely on their voices, which personify Wisdom. Queens reign. This however is contrasted in La’ie, where mainland LDS have colonized the area around BYUH: there you will find the chauvinism of Utah culture. The same institutional culture that treats women like second-class, also treats the land, the water, and the environment the same way—pollution, contamination, concrete. We don’t like it. An institution that treats Mother Earth like something to exploit, act upon, profit from—most certainly will treat women the same way.
The institution is NOT the Church. The congregation is the Church—the Body. The institution is a manager and a manipulator. I somewhat expect the institution to be corrupt, authoritarian, and unjust—in the same way government and corporations are. The culture of the congregation in many parts of the world, however, is a healthy culture: it’s the culture of the institution—a culture of Mormonism, instead of a culture of the Church of Jesus Christ—that causes so much hurt and harm. Too many Mormons and not enough Latter-Day Saints.
It would have been nice to hear more from women at General Conference.
@travis, I definitely get that the local church culture differs across the world. I’ve lived in lots of places. Here, I’m talking about the leadership in SLC so I’m not totally sure what you are getting at.
“AKA actions speak louder than words.”
The problem with general church leadership is that it’s difficult to get in close. I think if we we’re able to spend some time with them–one-to-one–we’d see very quickly that there actions are motivated primarily by Christlike virtues.
@Jack,
The culture of the institution is patterned after the vile models we find in the secular world; Utah looks more like Sodom than the Kingdom. Based on my experience with BYUH administrators, and middle managers in the Church—mostly transplants from Utah—there isn’t much hope. These guys are dedicated to power and authority, that’s it: beta-males made for bureaucracy. Everybody is a nice guy in some lofty context, but if you cross their dogma, they turn into cowards or pricks. Or both. I don’t believe for a second that the middle managers of the Church “are motivated primarily by Christlike virtues.” Nonsense. It’s power and authority that motivates the culture of Utah-style priesthood; it’s about being in the fraternity.
My husband had a mission companion (18 ish years ago) who told him that the only reason women speak in conference is to give the saints a break to pee and refill their snacks.
By not allowing female leaders an opportunity to speak, they’re setting the culture for how women are viewed- an occasional, well behaved message, and then a camera shot where they’re seen and not heard. Besides, if they really had a testimony of Jesus, it wouldn’t matter.
Travis,
From the outside the church looks like a strange sort of hybrid of an ecclesiastical organization and a corporation of sorts. And where the church looks most like a corporation is in the way it protects its assets. But what it really is–is a priesthood organization. It is established after the pattern set forth in Alma chapter 13–wherein high priests are ordained in a manner that the people might know how to look to the Son of God for redemption. In other words, all the gifts and powers necessary for our redemption flow through Christ who is the presiding high priest over all of Gods children. And from him to those who are called after his holy order to stand in his place as high priests–and from them to those over whom they preside. Thus, President Nelson is ordained after the Savior’s holy order to stand at the head of the church both as a type of the Savior and as a presiding high priest. Likewise, stake presidents over their stakes and bishops over their wards–all are presiding high priests and types of the Savior to their respective flocks.
The pattern is duplicated as systems within systems–much like an extended family. And each system reflects the eternal order of the priesthood with a presidency of three and a council of twelve–the exception being ward councils. They are drawn from the various organizations within each ward. This is the pattern for the church, for Israel, and for the entire family of God.
And so what we have is an organization that is set up to dispense all things that are necessary for redemption through Christ by virtue of his holy order. In spite of whatever else the overall organization of the church may be comprised of–without the holy order of the priesthood there would be no church. Or at the very least it would not be the church that it claims to be.
@Jack,
I don’t worship priesthood. I tend to agree with Joseph Smith, and his Fearon-esque realism: “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of ALMOST ALL MEN, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” (Section 121:39). This is the rule, not the exception.
So even if priesthood is restored, what good is it, if men continually exercise unrighteous dominion? I speak with firsthand experience that institutional priesthood is willing to lie, bear false witness, and falsely accuse, in order to preserve a fictional, worshipful image. The priesthood betrays the Lord every time it attempts to “preserve the good name of the Church” through deceit and lies. I do not worship the image the institution nor its claim to authority. In The Revelation, the Church is depicted as both Bride and Harlot. The institution is the Harlot, and the congregation is the Bride. While I sustain and support leadership, I recognize that even Jesus had a Judas.
The woman holds prerogative power to legitimize birthright and kingship: if women in the Church continue to be marginalized by the institution, or by corrupt doctrine, priesthood will become a fraternity without patriarchy.
As a Bishop of a ward, let me give you my perspective FWIW:
1. We no longer have a PEC which was an all male, hour long weekly meeting.
2. With President Nelson, High Priest Groups with associated leadership and YM Presidencies were dissolved. That’s a net loss of 8 Melchizedek Priesthood callings in a ward.
3. The Priesthood session of General Conference was discontinued.
4. Home teaching, with any attending accountability, has become a watered down and nebulous ministering assignment.
5. I have not attended a Stake Priesthood meeting in several years. I think Stake Leadership training meetings have replaced them.
My observation is that at the local level they have done away with so much so as to produce a sense of equality with the sisters, that the brethren have lost a sense of brotherhood and fraternity that once existed. And the new Elders Quorum configuration is not providing it.
Sorry for the thread jack.
Anonymous, I see what you see as far as a complete failure for the men in recent years, but your reading only reinforces the problem: the leaders couldn’t possibly fathom elevating women, and would be willing to destroy everything else to facilitate refusingt treat women as they treat themselves. I see that they might be so destructive and short-sighted, but I think the more likely rationale, is that teir failing the men is less trying to pretend at some form of equality with the women and instead more evidence of their, well, failing.
@Anonymous:
Sadly, the church made organizational changes to lower the callings of men when it should have focused on giving women more power and authority. As the church attempted to create some sense of gender balance in ward council, it still only focused on men. It’s mind boggling to me how the church expected these changes to affect the power dynamic for women, when the changes weren’t focused on empowering women to begin with. It’s so on brand for the church to do this. Classic Mormon gaslighting.
I’ll throw some mud at the wall regarding this specific change. We young men’s presidencies in wards in an attempt to increase gender balance in Sunday leadership meetings. I’ll argue this has done nothing but weaken the YM’s organization. If the church was really interested in empowering women, why not create a youth presidency led by a woman? Why not call a woman to lead all youth 12-17, young women and young men? You can’t pretend to empower women by diluting male callings. That only produced weaker organizations. Empower women by giving them more power and authority. That wasn’t done.
I agree with your observations about how combining HP and EQ and other changes has watered down the brotherhood that once existed. I’m going to be careful not to speak for women, but think of how they have felt for so long not even being in charge of their own general women’s meetings and having to listen to male speakers tell them how they should live, in meetings for women! Women in the church through the RS were more empowered in the late 19th century than they are today. Bringing gender balance to meetings has some positive impact if we assume it give women greater voice by not having to compete with as many male voices overall (and I don’t think it’s achieved this), but if the church really wants to empower women, then women need to be given actual power and authority. Hard stop.
@anon, I’m really wrestling with your comment because it seems like you’re complaining that being a man in the church isn’t as special as it used to be because you don’t get to have weekly all-male leadership meetings. While I understand a desire for fraternity, I have a hard time feeling sorry if that fraternity required men to be in charge and exclude women. If men can’t find ways to create a sense of brotherhood without it requiring them to be in charge and exclude women – that seems a failing with them. And if you think wards are better off with all-male meetings making all of the decisions instead of men and women working together on issues that impact men and women – and forming male-female friendships in the process as they work together to lead and serve the ward – well, sorry but that’s just misogynistic and I’m sick of LDS men feeling like women can’t be their peers and friends. Adding women to those meetings enriches them, it doesn’t take away from them.
In any case, what Brian said – if it’s true they’ve done those things to create a sense of equality with women, rather than simply elevating women, they’ve indeed failed miserably. They should have just elevated women. Put women fully in charge of relief society and young women instead of having them answer to men. Etc.
My perspective is they did those things because it reduces the number of men they need to run wards and stakes and they kind of had to. So it had nothing to do with elevating women.
In any event, remember that they also watered down visiting teaching, eliminated the women’s session of conference, and that the elimination of YM presidencies has in my experience put increased burden on the YW presidency to run the youth programs.
The thing that struck me about anon’s comment is how many of those changes didn’t affect every man in the ward, just the “elite.”
Ward council. Stake priesthood leader training. YM Presidencies. The High Priests.
So this Bishop is discovering how it feels for the majority of the men in his ward. Hierarchical structures benefit those who are higher up. It’s not just women who miss out with the status quo. This is how the brethren who weren’t in these positions were already feeling. Disconnected. A lack of fellowship.
This is why we need more diverse voices. We’ve only been hearing from the men that benefit from the system.
What Travis and Anonymous are saying is the paradigm of the Corporate Church is to diminish the roles of all church members. What few local members have “leadership callings” they are to “look to the brethren” and act as cheerleaders for the Corporate Church.
Consider the changes to the youth program. The scouting program enabled both men and women to be involved in the growth of young men. I realize not every ward had women involved in scouting but I did as a youth and my kids did in their youth. That relationship / opportunity has been eliminated.
But more important is the elimination of independent ward and stake YM presidencies. Organizationally, this has the impact of shifting the YW leadership down. A High Councilor & the Bishop now directly manage the YM program while the YW leadership reports to the Bishop & High Council!
The organizational changes of RMN have succeeded in strengthening the Corporate Church and weakening local congregations. Yes, the role of women in the church has also been weakened. But this is mainly a consequence of power in the church further being consolidated in the General & Area Authorities, who, by all appearances are not interested in sharing the stage with women!
@Anon: Your comment reminded me of a few things. First, it reminded me of a post I did years and years ago about why separating the men into EQ and HP didn’t make logical sense when the RS has always been one big group of all women, aged 18-88+, and it created some feelings of anxiety and un-belonging when someone over 50 was still in EQ (and getting a “pity” invite into HP due to age, not status), and when someone really young was elevated into HP and felt he was surrounded by a bunch of doddering old self-important codgers and would rather be hanging out and playing ball with the young guys.
My second thought was about an incident years ago when I was talking to a guy in the ward about the RS book club that we were doing, and he was super jealous that the women got to do something he was so interested in. He wanted to join the group and was bummed that the RS activities were just for the women since the men seldom planned things that were fun and interesting, but the women always made the effort to do so.
And lastly, what your comment made me think about is the absolute banger of a musical number from How to Succeed in Business, the song Brotherhood of Man. The song is used, very cleverly, by the lead (J. Piepont Finch) to cover up his screw-up as he points out the flaws of all the other men around him, and reminds them all that they are really the same at heart. Eventually the head secretary chimes in (the one token woman), also celebrating this male camaraderie. I’ll post this here for everyone’s enjoyment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69WpCBLrdSQ
A Disciple, here in the UK and Europe we do have women at an area level, designated International Area Organisation Advisors, which is a bit of a mouthful.
I’m not really sure what they do. We recently had a women’s devotional broadcast in the UK, from a UK chapel where we heard from Traci De Marco (our IAOA) who was fantastic, and visiting general auxiliary presidency members Tracy Browning who was also fantastic, and Bonnie Cordon who did her usual praise of RMN thing. The video of the broadcast itself is now coming up as private but it got a lot of discussion here:
Count me as one who has been sorely disappointed by the scarcity of women’s voices in the latest general conference.
Great, hard hitting post, Elisa. I think you’re spot on. I found it especially disappointing that even as the First Presidency has become aged enough that they’re no longer giving multiple talks per Conference (other that Russell M. Nelson’s extra half a talk to announce new temples), rather than giving some of the time that’s been freed up to some women speakers, the Q15 just trims the Saturday night session down to an hour. Anything to avoid hearing from more women!
And I’m not surprised, but I’m disappointed to see the apologetic nonsense from Jack. It has been this way since the beginning of the Bloggernacle (and of course before). Women are so special! They’re so much more spiritual! But of course these are utterly empty words just designed to shut women up. They’re no different from the arguments men have also deployed to keep women out of positions of secular power, to keep them from voting. Of course if we took them seriously, we’d want to make women our leaders.
I think chicken patriarchy is still a great framework for thinking about this argument. GAs want to pretend that they believe in all kinds of modern values like equality. But of course their actions shout that they don’t.
@angela, mostly I just had no idea that Daniel Radcliffe could sing and dance! Terrific.
@ziff, chicken patriarchy is one of the most insightful concepts I’ve ever heard about the church. I think about if often. For readers unfamiliar with the term, read about it here:
https://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2007/11/30/the-trouble-with-chicken-patriarchy/
$100,000,000,000 in the bank means you can do any damn thing you please, including sidelining women. It’s called power. Follow the money. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Travis,
I wholeheartedly agree with the counsel given in section 121. Even so, that warning does not preclude the restoration of the priesthood. So the challenge is to participate in the Kingdom through the means which the Lord has provided in as Christlike a manner as possible–rather than rejecting those means wholesale because of the possibility that we may not live up to the standard they require.
@Jack,
I’m with you.
I think we only differ in that I have no illusions about blatant corruption and widespread unrighteous dominion exercised by the institution over the congregation. I don’t want my children to grow up in the same culture I grew up in. The fact that well over 50 percent of the youth leave the Church before age 25 for the past 20 years is evidence that those at the helm don’t give a damn about the youth. There is no question in my mind that you are a solid good dude. I am sorry that my words are sometimes too harsh.
Gosh, I’m glad for the reminder to scroll right past all Jack’s comments and all responses to him. Thanks.
Travis,
Thanks for the kind words. At this point the only thing I’ll say is that so many youth leaving the church could also be an indicator of the power of the world’s pull on the saints–as much as anything else, IMO.
Jessica,
I’m guessing that you read just enough of my comments to be glad for that reminder.
That reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch called “the Funniest Joke” (it think). It’s about a joke that’s so funny that anyone who reads it will die laughing. Ultimately the military gets its hands on it and uses it as a weapon during WWII. But the problem was how to translate into German. It had to be translated a chunk at a time by various people so they wouldn’t hurt themselves in the process. Sadly there was one person who translated too much and was maimed for life.
I just want to say thanks for the OP, Elisa. . +
I have avoided getting involved in most of the comments because I didn’t have much new to add. I’ll only say that some of the comments reminded me of a TikTok trend where men explained the definition of mansplaining to women. Y’all can decide which comments those are.
@Angela, it used to be so frustrating to me that every adult ward I had been in had a book club for women but the men only got together to watch sports, play sports, or bbq. Also thanks for the video link. I saw that show and the diminutive Daniel Radcliffe when it was running in Broadway. Nice memory.
Regarding the following comment made by Travis: “ Even if the institution stacked General Conference with a more equitable ratio of women, do you think the women invited to speak would represent the vast majority of women in the Church? Most women in the Church are not business professionals. They are nothing like Sheri Dew; they do not relate to the Sheri Dews or the Bonnie Cordons in the Church. I’d argue that even if more women were invited to speak at General Conference, the institution would still search out CEO-Sheri-Dew-types, which, some women concede, is about the same as having a man speak. “
Shall we reframe the statement and the question: Most MEN in the Church are not business professionals. They are nothing like Gérald Caussé; they do not relate to the Gérald Caussés or the Steven Lunds in the Church.
(Note: General information about Sheri Dew, Bonnie Cordon, Gérald Caussé, and Steven Lund are listed at the end of my comments.)
My father was a rancher in the remote desert of Utah who never had the opportunity to earn his high school degree. While he helped raise his children, he worked as a blue collar worker in a pipe manufacturing plant until the company went bankrupt, then as a seasonal farm hand while he tried to find full-time work during the 70s when job opportunities were extremely limited due to the recession. He finally found work as a laborer at a wood mill. My son-in-law is a stay-at-home father working on his bachelor’s degree. Another son-in-law is working towards a degree that will not lead him to become a business professional, an attorney, or a surgeon. I have dozens of LDS male friends who work on airplane and machine parts manufacturing lines. I have LDS male friends and family who are truck drivers, cooks, repair persons, sales personnel, janitors, yard care workers, carpenters, daycare workers, full-time farmers, general laborers, day laborers working in fields planting seeds and harvesting crops. And they are exposed, year after year, to the doctrines shared by male business professionals who monopolize each and every general conference. (Whoa…my mistake…they didn’t monopolize the last conference entirely. They did allow 2 WOMEN to speak. Thank God for that.)
And yet we never distress that the men within the LDS religious community who are not business professionals, who don’t have MBAs or PhDs or MD degrees, will feel unease or not be able to relate to the conference talks provided by men with so-called higher degrees of education and work experience.
If the premise of General Conference is that the speaker will deliver the words that God wants His people to hear, then the level of education and work experience of those presenting each message is null.
So, for the men who are not business professionals, professors, surgeons, CEOs, pilots, or attorneys, for the men who do not have bachelor’s degrees or master’s degrees, who are not Rhodes Scholars or who have not received degrees from 2 or more institutions of higher learning, please know this:
The Church’s current First Presidency includes a former surgeon (BA, MD, PhD, and multiple honorary degrees), an attorney (degree in accounting and Juris Doctor cum laude), and a business leader/business professor (bachelor’s degree in physics, master’s and doctoral degrees in business administration). The higher education strata of these three men includes LDS Business College, University of Utah School of Medicine, University of Minnesota, BYU, University of Utah, University of Chicago Law School, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Quorum of the Twelve includes one pilot, two attorneys, one accountant, one doctor, three educators of higher learning, and four business leaders. Some of these men have had professional occupations within multiple fields. Within this group are multiple degrees earned through higher education. Of all that I researched, I only found two business leaders in which there were no higher education degrees listed in their biographies (sources: Church website & Wikipedia).
And Travis, in his statement, questions whether women from multiple walks of life would be comfortable learning from other women who have earned degrees in higher education and worked in the spheres of business leadership, medicine, or law.
Tell me, Travis, since most men in the Church are not business professionals or pilots or MDs or attorneys or professors or accountants or recipients of higher education or summa cum laude degrees, do they relate to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve?
Talk about manspeak.
Notes:
– Gérald Caussé currently serves as Presiding Bishop (2015-current). He served a year in the French Air Force. He has a master’s degree in business from ESSEC business school. The Church’s website states that his career has been in the food industry, where he has worked with several supermarket chains and food distribution companies. Wikipedia notes that he worked for a strategy consulting firm in Paris and London, and was a member of the board of Pomona, France’s largest food distributor. In his life, he has experienced blessings and hardships. He has spoken at General Conferences in 2008, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022. Can you relate to the Gérald Caussés of the world?
– Sheri Dew served as a counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency from 1997-2002. According to Wikipedia, she grew up on a sprawling grain farm and “drove a tractor almost as soon as I could reach the pedals.” She was a standout high school basketball player. She learned piano and traveled on three USO tours. She earned a bachelor’s degree in history from BYU, with an emphasis in American religious history. She has worked at Deseret Book as an associate editor, director of publishing, vide president of publishing, and executive vice president of publishing. In 2002, she was named the president and CEO of Deseret Book. Bloomberg Businessweek reported in 2012 that “Deseret Book was a ‘flailing’ business when Dew took it over” and that she “pulled the publisher and distributor out of the red 10 years ago.” In 2002, Deseret Book launched its Time Out for Women event series. Dew is a director of the Bonneville International Corporation, a broadcasting organization owned by the LDS Church. She has authored several books, including biographies of three LDS Church presidents. In her life, she has experienced blessings and hardships. She has spoken at General Conference in 1997 (General Relief Society Meeting), 1998 (General Relief Society Meeting), 1999 (April General Relief Society Meeting, 1999 (October General Relief Society Meeting) , 2000 (General Relief Society Meeting), 2001 (October General Relief Society Meeting), and 2001 (October General Conference – Saturday Morning Session). Can you relate to the Sheri Dews of the world?
– Steven Lund currently serves as the Young Men General President (2020-current). He received an undergraduate degree in communications from BYU and a Juris Doctor law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. He served in the US Army and was assigned to Frankfurt, Germany. According to the Church website, he was an attorney before becoming president and CEO of a large Utah-based cosmetics company, and he is currently its executive chairman of the board of directors. He is also a former regent of the Utah System of Higher Education. In his life, he has experienced blessings and hardships. He has spoken at General Conference in 2020 ,2022. Can you relate to the Steven Lunds of the world?
– Bonnie Cordon (bachelor’s degree in education) currently serves as the Young Women General President (2018-current). She was a full-time missionary in the Portugal Lisbon Mission. The Church’s website states that she was a working mother who worked in management in the software industry, was a stay-at-home mother for a period of time, and eventually started her own business. She also participated in volunteer opportunities in the classroom, through the PTA, and within community council. She served with her husband while he was president of the Brazil Curitiba Mission from 2010-2013. In her life, she has experienced blessings and hardships. She has spoken at General Conferences in 2017, 2018, 2020 (*women’s session), 2021, 2023. Can you relate to the Bonnie Cordons of the world?