MormonLeaks: "Gender Equality" in the Church

[Jeffret]

I'm not sure I'm reading more recent portions of this thread correctly, but perhaps one thing we're seeing is a typical gender divide. This isn't an inherent sex characteristic but a socially constructed gender characteristic.

I've observed from many long years on NOM and various other parts of the DAMU that there tends to be a difference in what causes women to the leave the Church, or what distresses women about the Church, etc., from men. This isn't strictly true because there are many exceptions, but I've noticed the trend strongly exists. I find myself a bit of an exception to my own rule.

For the most part, men tend to be concerned with historical issues. Many of these are more academic in nature. Men tend to be more concerned with the Church's truth claims. As Corsair wrote, "Having women apostles might change some social policies, but it won't make the Book of Mormon more historical, nor will it erase onerous legacy of plural marriage." Polygamy tends to be an issue that disturbs both genders, though they tend to react to it differently. Men tend to be more concerned with what the Church has done in the past and the misdeeds of its early leaders. Runnells' CES Letter is kind of the epitome of this sort of approach -- a great compendium of historical, factual issues.

On the other hand, women's concerns tend to be more pragmatic, more personal, and more current. They're not as focused on what the Church has done in the past as what it does now. They're more concerned with abuses, problems, and discriminations in the current Church. They're less concerned with historical polygamy and more concerned with its current and future aspects. They tend to be more concerned with equality issues in the Church.

There is a strong tendency for men (who fit the pattern described above) to consider their concerns as the only valid concerns and discount those of women. I've seen many times where men insist that women cannot be fully deconverted from the Church until she accepts the primacy of the historical issues. These men insist that concerns about equality, current abuses, and treatment of minorities are not real concerns.

These differences are not absolute. In some ways I've exaggerated them in order to highlight the differences, but in some ways I've minimized them because I don't have specific examples to share. And there are plenty of counter-examples of women or men who approach it differently.

[MoPag]

As for more liberal religions. I'm not an expert, here, but I'll lay this dish on the table and hopefully someone who knows more about it will comment. In my religious search, I took a moderately serious look at Wicca. What I found there is that Wicca is just as hierarchical as any patriarchal religion. There are good heads of covens and they're are covens where the leader is on a power trip. However, Wiccans are free to leave a coven if it isn't right for them and it's my understanding they leave their covens because of dysfunctional dynamics. When those witches leave their covens they don't necessarily leave Wicca, but become solo practitioners. It's my understanding there is a lot of dysfunctionality in organized Wicca, because individual witches are free to leave covens without the shame people in patriarchal religions have heaped upon them.

I think you've got one of the best answers to the original question. Wicca is probably growing and has a better record on gender equality than most other churches. I asked a former Mormon, Wiccan friend for some clarification. His observation is that Wicca has always trended towards more gender equality than society in general. This gets back to my original question / comment about anything in society having real gender equality. I don't know that anything truly does or could at this time, so it really comes down to which things do a better job. Wicca trends better than society. Mormonism lags far behind. There are a variety of traditions or approaches within the Wicca umbrella. Some are Dianic, very focused on the feminine and not necessarily interested in egalitarianism. Some are led by a High Priestess. Some by a High Priest. Some by a combination of both. Lots of variation, but trending towards more equality.

The reason Wiccans have High Priestesses as well as High Priests isn't from a desire to be PC or forward-thinking. It's a part of their doctrine and a part of the very core of their worship. If you have a God, you have to have a Goddess. If you have a candle (male symbol) on your alter, you have to have a challis (female symbol). The highest aspect of something is balance, the lowest aspect is extreme. I'm not Wiccan. But I worship with a group of Wiccans in my area. They hold public Sabbats where anyone can come. What I've noticed is that there tend to be more women than men. But during ritual, both a Priest and Priestess preside. Women aren't seen as chattel, or walking uteruses, they are a part of the core system of beliefs. They have to be or the whole thing falls apart.

I would love to see women get the priesthood, actual authority, in the church. We have to make changes. That's one of the big reasons I feel compelled to stay in the church; is to be a voice for change. But even if someday we have a female prophetess and the whole Q12 were women, we would still only pray to a male god and try to emulate a male savior. We would still read horrifyingly sexist scriptures that are mainly about men. We have a long, long way to go.

[Corsair]

I'm not sure I'm reading more recent portions of this thread correctly, but perhaps one thing we're seeing is a typical gender divide. This isn't an inherent sex characteristic but a socially constructed gender characteristic.

Corsair, I thought you have been around on NOM long enough to hear some of the ways this church damages women. Do you really think it is OK for any organization to continue doing so?

I fully acknowledge what you are saying, and I'm not trying to place women in some subservient role. I agree that it's not a defensible position. My problem is that I'm an engineer tasked with the near humorous examination and exploitation of financial data in network traffic. I am responsible for painful and practical solutions to dangerous problems in my office. My dear, believing wife has dealt with my not so hilarious disregard for the feelings of others when trying to figure out how to fix a problem. I really appreciate you, and Jeffret, and others who have valiantly pushed back on my line of reasoning.

I was trying to think of the problem in terms of how to convince the apostles that improving the status of women in the church would be beneficial for the institutional longevity of the church. I fear that only a catastrophic decline in both membership and tithing revenue is going to convince them. Establishing a Socratic dialogue about gender equality is not going to convince conservative, religious businessmen and lawyers born before 1940.

However, suppose we could point out a church that did go through a progressive change with gender equality and it resulted in increased membership and tithing revenue. That would be a model worth examining for the LDS church. Community of Christ had this painful introspection and they made an admirably principled decision to change their doctrine risking a precipitous decline in membership. But we all know that apostles are going to treat outside ideas as not worth their time since revelation is supposed to be how the church changes.

Spencer Kimball worked for years examining the question of race and the priesthood before establishing a new revelation. McKay examined it and decided it was not time in the 1960s. Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee were short timers and did not take a look. They were probably opposed in the first place. Spencer Kimball was the last prophet we had who was under age 80 and he worked quite diligently to make "Official Declaration 2" happen in 1978. Kimball did not do a lot in his time after that revelation.

[Jeffret]

That's a rather different question.

The most reliable method is to wait for the current leadership to die off. Maybe 30-50 years, perhaps. Unless societal change happens more dramatically and quickly. That's pretty much what it took for SWK to make the changes prohibiting blacks from the priesthood. They had to wait until the biggest objectors passed away and then they could manage to set it up with sufficient support, the necessary societal forces, the increasing difficulty of implementing the current policy, and just a dash of "revelation" thrown in.

It is extremely rare for a group in power to voluntarily relinquish power. It is practically unheard of for a group in power to accede to a simple, polite request for power-sharing from a minority group.

It is very difficult to rationally convince someone to abandon their prejudices and biases. The speed at which support for gays increased was practically unprecedented, but it is still much higher among the younger people. What was really unusual was how quickly that vectored through the older age groups. Usually it takes a very personal situation, which cannot be otherwise eliminated, or as part of larger introspections. Charles Cooper defended Prop 8 against gay marriage. Since then, his position seems to have changed, as he willingly attended his lesbian daughter's wedding and supported her.

Demonstrating other churches with successful growth would accomplish nothing because of course they know that

all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

No matter how successful the other churches, that changes nothing about their religious leadership and responsibility.

It's going to be larger societal forces that make an impact. Pretty much nothing from inside will make a difference, though like with blacks and the priesthood, it could eventually become a factor, as part of other complications. The Ordain Women movements are not necessarily worthless, but they were doomed to failure in any sort of near-term.

Though, there's another way to look at it. The Mormon Church succeeds by being relatively mainstream, but sufficiently different. That's why it always lags 20-30 years. It can't get too far behind or it falls out of relevance. It can't get too close or it loses its distinction. If society changes so that women achieve a notably different level of equality than in the Church, the gap may grow wide enough to exert sufficient pressure on the Church. Women may find the difference by how they're treated elsewhere and in the Church sufficiently at odds and choose a society with more options and recognition.

[Give It Time]

If there is change, I think it will come from the outside. The two most plausible scenarios I see, is the church loses enough women, it finally starts getting some revelation. The other is through legislation. I know there is separation of church and state, but if the church were to lose its tax-exempt status for discrimination, I'm sure the heavens would open very quickly.

BTW, what MoPag says about Wicca and Paganism is true. I once read a definition of pagan as being any religion that falls outside the Abrahamic religious theologies. That means Buddhism and my own Taoism fall in there. I can tell you that Buddhism and Taoism are much more observant of nature than the Abrahamic religions. I came round to Taoism when Wicca just wasn't quite working, but I still wanted to stay within the pagan fold.

[alas]

If there is change, I think it will come from the outside. The two most plausible scenarios I see, is the church loses enough women, it finally starts getting some revelation. The other is through legislation. I know there is separation of church and state, but if the church were to lose its tax-exempt status for discrimination, I'm sure the heavens would open very quickly.

BTW, what MoPag says about Wicca and Paganism is true. I once read a definition of pagan as being any religion that falls outside the Abrahamic religious theologies. That means Buddhism and my own Taoism fall in there. I can tell you that Buddhism and Taoism are much more observant of nature than the Abrahamic religions. I came round to Taoism when Wicca just wasn't quite working, but I still wanted to stay within the pagan fold.

Check out Asatru. It is similar to Wicca in that it is a European pagan religion, but doesn't have some of Wicca's problematic aspects, according to my Asatru high priestess daughter. She went from Mormon to Wiccan to Asatru. It is the Norse version and I think the preservation/restoration has been better. But, then I don't really know that much about Wicca, so I can't give specifics on what is different.

[alas]

I'm not sure I'm reading more recent portions of this thread correctly, but perhaps one thing we're seeing is a typical gender divide. This isn't an inherent sex characteristic but a socially constructed gender characteristic.

Corsair, I thought you have been around on NOM long enough to hear some of the ways this church damages women. Do you really think it is OK for any organization to continue doing so?

I fully acknowledge what you are saying, and I'm not trying to place women in some subservient role. I agree that it's not a defensible position. My problem is that I'm an engineer tasked with the near humorous examination and exploitation of financial data in network traffic. I am responsible for painful and practical solutions to dangerous problems in my office. My dear, believing wife has dealt with my not so hilarious disregard for the feelings of others when trying to figure out how to fix a problem. I really appreciate you, and Jeffret, and others who have valiantly pushed back on my line of reasoning.

I was trying to think of the problem in terms of how to convince the apostles that improving the status of women in the church would be beneficial for the institutional longevity of the church. I fear that only a catastrophic decline in both membership and tithing revenue is going to convince them. Establishing a Socratic dialogue about gender equality is not going to convince conservative, religious businessmen and lawyers born before 1940.

However, suppose we could point out a church that did go through a progressive change with gender equality and it resulted in increased membership and tithing revenue. That would be a model worth examining for the LDS church. Community of Christ had this painful introspection and they made an admirably principled decision to change their doctrine risking a precipitous decline in membership. But we all know that apostles are going to treat outside ideas as not worth their time since revelation is supposed to be how the church changes.

Spencer Kimball worked for years examining the question of race and the priesthood before establishing a new revelation. McKay examined it and decided it was not time in the 1960s. Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee were short timers and did not take a look. They were probably opposed in the first place. Spencer Kimball was the last prophet we had who was under age 80 and he worked quite diligently to make "Official Declaration 2" happen in 1978. Kimball did not do a lot in his time after that revelation.

OK, I see where you are coming from. What measurable kind on incentive can we find to make the church change?

I won't be as pessimistic as others about the futility of change from within. When the church gave black's the priesthood, there were three sources of pressure. 1. From outside the church. Things like basketball teams refusing to play BYU. 2. From inside the church. Just like ther is ordain women today, there were organized groups of members putting pressure on the church and getting excommunicated for it. 3. Best interest of the church. The church was having problems in places like Brazil where determining if someone had any black ancestors was a problem. So white looking guys would join, get the priesthood, do genealogy, and lose their priesthood because they found an ancestor from Africa. An in anticipating doing missionary work in Africa, they knew they needed enough priesthood to have wards and stakes, so for very pragmatic reasons, they needed to give black's priesthood.

Of those three pressure points, #3 is the one I think is most significant. That is not going to happen for women because there is no continent with 90% women. #1 is also a problem because the Catholic women are busy with their own church and so is every other religious women's group. It is still just too acceptable to have only male priesthood and some churchs even state a reason beyond tradition. The Catholic priest is standing in place of the Savior, and females can't be proxy for a male. Personally, I don't see why not. Jesus had a beard and they let priests with no beard be proxy. So, if someone can do it with no beard, why can't someone with no penis? Because men won't let her. Anyway, so that really leaves our best hope with #2, the pressure from within the church.

It is not so hopeless. The temple ceremony changed in 1990 because of pressure from members. An organized effort to get women allowed to pray in General Conference worked using pressure from within. So, it can happen if we apply pressure from within. I am not sure how long it will take, at least another generation. We will be waiting until there is a prophet who was raised by a working mother, who EXPECTED his own wife to work. Perhaps someone who came of age in the 1990's instead of the 1950's. So, by the time someone born after "women's lib" got a good start, so born about 1975-1980. So, maybe my son's age. When someone who is now 35-45 becomes prophet when he is 80. That's only about 40 years from now. To give women priesthood and then 20-30 more years to get women into the 12 and 15 more years to get a woman as prophet. But between now and then, we have to have constant pressure pushing toward equality. And it will be incremental. Women will be given more of a voice, more leadership positions, more attention until gradually things approach equality.

[moksha]

In my religious search, I took a moderately serious look at Wicca. What I found there is that Wicca is just as hierarchical as any patriarchal religion.

True Story: I attended a Wicca meeting once in which I was surprised to see a friend who had brought her son. The boy was sitting by himself and looking very forlorn. It made me feel sorry for all the sons of witches.

[Jeffret]

Predicting the future is folly, but I think women leaving the church will have the largest impact. That's not really changes from within, though it kind of is. Or possibly women just refusing to go along with what they are told to do. Which I suppose would more fit your idea of change from within. I think ultimately what is going to happen is that the gap between what women experience in society and in the church will grow large enough that they won't put up with it anymore. I think we're seeing some of that with young women today.

I have to wonder when Mormon mothers will stop putting up with letting the church isolate their kids from them on missions. The moms that are sending their kids out now didn't grow up in the always-connected era. When those moms start sending out their kids, I wonder if they'll just go along with the restricted communication.

[LostGirl]

women just refusing to go along with what they are told to do.

I can't leave but I am better at choosing for myself what I am willing to do these days. If there are others like me then maybe that could make a difference. But it is just as likely that we are seen as slackers or troublemakers and labelled as such to motivate the rest to toe the line to avoid being discussed in ward council.

[Jeffret]

I can't leave but I am better at choosing for myself what I am willing to do these days. If there are others like me then maybe that could make a difference. But it is just as likely that we are seen as slackers or troublemakers and labelled as such to motivate the rest to toe the line to avoid being discussed in ward council.

Yes, but if enough women do likewise, it will eventually lead to change. Our personal choices like that will have no noticeable impact. But the aggregate of many of those individual choices will. And, whether or not our choices help bring about an aggregate change, those choices result in useful and meaningful individual change.

[Korihor]

Just found this thread - Holy Awesome Sauce!