Place of Women in the Church

If you have influence – please read and use your influence.

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What the heck, I’ll read it anyway.

This is a very frustrating topic for me. There are hardwired and systematically very few places for women in the church to lead. On the other hand those women that are deepest enmeshed in the church likely find parts of their identity and support structure in defending the status quo.

If we want our daughters to stick around, we have got to do the work of taking them seriously.

For my own daughter this is a delicate balancing act. We try to prepare her for the stiflingly sexist attitudes she may encounter at YW and yet we ask her not to rock the boat – to bring her concerns home and we can talk about them. We do not want our daughter accepting wholesale subliminal and/or explicit messages about her place in the church but we do want her to be welcomed, accepted, and fellowshipped by the other young women. Rock the boat too much and you get tossed overboard.

I cannot say if my daughter will stay in the church long term. Honestly, I am just trying to get her into adulthood as stable, well rounded, and with as much of a support network as possible.

Perhaps one small success that I have had in this area is in referring to the auxiliary presidents as President (Last Name). This does tend to make women uncomfortable. I have been asked to call them by their name but I have explained that I am using the formal title in order to highlight women in leadership role models for my daughter.

I have also asked that we not use the word modest in our home when it comes to being critical of DD’s clothing choices. I hope whatever we have to communicate can be expressed without resorting to the blanket statement “that is not modest.”

I think this is a large problem for all members of the Church, men included. Excepting a few top-tier positions, I feel the general stance of the Church is “Agree or Apostasy”. The leadership seems largely to be given to those in strong support of the status-quo. Any deviations get called out and shut down pretty quick, unless you’re 75+, when most members will simply roll their eyes and ignore you.

It can be painful at times being an accidental deviation. I managed it in the past by believing that my deviance (if respectful) was what the situation needed, or else why had God placed me in that position (or allowed myself to place myself in that position).

Now I am learning how to be a stubborn, deliberate, respectful deviation provided to those in the world around me to provide color and contrast. Of course, this is when they realize they are in the presence of a deviation (I do try to conceal myself in self-defense).