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OON posted in the woman in a man’s church thread about the dialogue here not suiting him anymore and he’s going to leave. That’s fine, people come and go all the time and he has been gone for extended periods in the past. I do respect him and his opinions, and I’m not exactly sure what has his knickers in a knot. I did send him a private message asking him for clarification about what triggered this, and I explained that my take on Ray’s post is that he was just trying to head off a wildfire because these threads can easily and quickly ignite (and it was not directed at him). As you all know I usually stay away from those threads for good reason. Just wanted you to know I’ve reached out to him. I have my own concerns about some posters and negativity, so I want to understand if that’s one of the other factors driving him. Indeed, if that is an issue we will need to address it as a team. I truly want others to have that experience of being able to make peace with themselves, their families, the church and people in the church as I have made.
I also sent him a PM. I asked OON to be careful in expanding upon his assertion that finding peace with yourself and with people at church is no longer what this site is all about. Otherwise it could be like tossing a hand grenade on your way out of the building. I believe there is progress from feedback and “exit interviews”. Not so much good to be had from disparaging remarks and burnt bridges. I asked him to try to keep his upcoming goodbye post focused on the former and to avoid the latter. Wow. I’d be interested to hear what he has to say. I sent a PM earlier today, but before I read his post. Now that PM is gonna sound stupid.
😥 OON has always had that way of smoothing out my edges.I will miss him. He has been a great contributor. I would like to hear what he says to each of you, but that is up to you. I was surprised by the comment about us no longer supporting finding peace with ine’s self and the Church. Actually, I was shocked and baffled. If we appear to be atryaing from our mission, I want to know – because I have not seen it.
If he felt attacked by my extended comment, I can’t help that. Men around my age and older can have a difficult time recognizing the issues encapsulated by “toxic masculinity” – and I felt it was critical to point out that it was all men who were commenting on and taking exception to a post written by a woman. We have to recognize that if we are to have a chance to fix it.
Interesting so many of us reached out to him. Like you have said, OON has been a great help to me as well, sometimes doing what Ray does and throwing in a whole different perspective that makes me say “Wow. Why didn’t I see that before?” People do move on and I’m OK with that (some way more OK than others 
OON reached out to me by PM on Friday at the time it happened, and I responded on Saturday. He said he had taken offense at Ray’s post, but didn’t go into specifics. I honestly hadn’t paid much attention to Ray’s comment, and would still need to go back and read it more closely. He appreciated that I responded to him & Dande48 separately because he sees himself as being completely different from him in perspective. Perhaps he felt lumped in with him?? Anyway, I felt like things were good between us in the PM. He is very emotional around gender issues and being seen as a bad guy perhaps. I clarified to him that most of my observations are not local PH quorums (where I have very limited insight), and COB top-down culture seems VERY aligned with Greene’s masculine style description. Local leaders are usually still involved in the work force and experience more gender-integration than top leaders ever did.
For example, the DNews article about Nelson meeting with NZ PM Arden. He seemed genuinely surprised at how capable she is despite being a mother, and he oddly gifts her a BOM, despite the fact that she was raised Mormon and left the church over sexism and LGBT issues.
OON did respond to my PM.
Quote:Roy,
I understand and agree. I’m not going to mention my reason for leaving. I’ve already done that and am not going to expand on it. My final post is something I’ve been mulling over for awhile, and doesn’t have anything to do with my leaving. I just want to get it out there before I leave, if that makes sense.
This removes my major concern. I wish him contentment and peace wherever his journey takes him.Fwiw, a lot of men have a hard time accepting commentary about male privilege and toxic masculinity because they take it personally. The difficulty is that men almost have to take it personally in order to understand it, we tend to be blind to our own privilege, and good men, especially, have a hard time seeing how the privilege they obtain at birth impacts their lives. I share that here because I can’t share it in the thread right now. If anyone else wants to elaborate on that – or even just reword it – go for it. If not, that’s cool.
Old Timer wrote:
Fwiw, a lot of men have a hard time accepting commentary about male privilege and toxic masculinity because they take it personally. The difficulty is that men almost have to take it personally in order to understand it, we tend to be blind to our own privilege, and good men, especially, have a hard time seeing how the privilege they obtain at birth impacts their lives.I share that here because I can’t share it in the thread right now. If anyone else wants to elaborate on that – or even just reword it – go for it. If not, that’s cool.
I agree but I’m also not the one to reword it or elaborate because that’s why I avoid those threads to begin with. Also at play is what Hawk pointed out – Dande was using a definition of the term that’s not really what it’s about but I think is also a common misinterpretation/misunderstanding. (“You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”)
That said, I do think the issue with OON is bigger than this. As I recall he said farewell a couple years back, then reappeared a few months later, no? I do hope he finds the peace he seeks.
Yeah, there seems to be a misunderstanding with some people thinking that to be male and those traits that they use to build their male identity are now being demonized.
Quote:This description is the main reason I did not join OW and haven’t really wanted women to be ordained to the current PH structure. To me, the structure is toxic and goes against gospel ideals.
The above quote is confusing to me. If the current structure is toxic and goes against gospel ideals to the point that opting to not participate in the structure is preferable than opting to participate then what is the proposed solution? Tear it all down and start over? That line is confusing to me and makes me feel that I don’t understand what Hawk is talking about.I can only guess that OON and Dande may have felt similar confusion.
Male-only structures have a lot of traits that go against gospel principles (fealty to authority, hierarchical thinking, competitiveness, forcing the leader’s will, status seeking), and from what I see, the PH suffers from those and always has. The first apostles jockeyed for position with each other, trying to be the “most important” or to sit on the right hand of Jesus. They competed with each other when they disagreed. And what’s the alternative? It’s a question I have long wondered about. Either 1) you integrate enough women, high enough up, that it shifts to a gender-integrated cultural style rather than the current “masculine” style (but even at Amex where I was an executive, it was still a predominantly “masculine” culture, and it was deliberately trying to fight against a lot of those impulses–it was still a hell of a lot better than church organization), or 2) yes, burn it down and start over.
Obviously 2 is impractical, and those in power don’t want to do 1 because they don’t see the problem with how it is now which brings up the question of whether it’s just a power issue (I don’t think it totally is, but this is the kind of discussion feminists have all the time). Is that a “masculine” structure because people in power behave that way (power corrupts)? Is the so-called feminine style (consensus building, participative, relying on discussion) the way that it is because it is a structure that emerges from people who were raised absent power?
So when it comes to church, I mostly divest. But I also find that it’s not nearly as bad at the local level because most local leaders work in a more gender-integrated culture than there is at church so they integrate that style into church councils.
Roy wrote:
Quote:This description is the main reason I did not join OW and haven’t really wanted women to be ordained to the current PH structure. To me, the structure is toxic and goes against gospel ideals.
The above quote is confusing to me. If the current structure is toxic and goes against gospel ideals to the point that opting to not participate in the structure is preferable than opting to participate then what is the proposed solution? Tear it all down and start over?
Leadership roulette and all that, but I’ve got two recent examples from my ward/stake.
1)
I requested to opt out of ministering. I was told I wasn’t allowed to. I told leadership I was opting out anyway. The next day I had a different set of families assigned. This repeated on three separate occasions over the course of a year or so. The last “no, you can’t” coming as recently as a few months ago.
Here ministers are expected to visit people and ensure their families are praying, doing home church, reading scriptures together, etc. and IMO that’s not ministering.
It became such a recurrent thing that at one point I thought that I’d have to go completely inactive to stop being bothered. I didn’t want to go inactive, but local people weren’t capable of respecting my boundaries. Then it occurred to me… if I could somehow relinquish the priesthood it would solve the issue. I could use the dogmatic approach to my advantage. Don’t have the PH? Can’t be a minster… the only thing they’d understand. But the only way to do that would be to resign from the church and rejoin. Not worth it. In the end it’s just easier to attend and ignore.
PH started to feel like this thing that allowed others to get their hooks in me (toxic).
2) They recently reorged all ward boundaries in our stake. No one got any input in the decisions except a few leaders and they made one really bad decision where members in one ward have to drive past a church building (literally) to go to their assigned building that’s 15 miles away. Members in the ward that took the spot of the displaced ward were equally confused because their new building assignment was a longer drive for them as well. ASKING anyone for input up front would have likely prevented the issue (what both wards wanted) but now when people bring it up it’s, “You’ve got to have more faith.” Meaning, deal with the decision because we ain’t changing anything.
IMO it’s a really, really big issue at church. You don’t get a voice and you are expected to do what the leaders tell you to do.
Stripping the issue of its context, and since we’re talking patriarchy, I’ll stick to a patriarchal example:
A situation comes up that will seriously affect the lives of two families.
Father A retires alone to his study, carefully weighs the options, makes a decision, and calls the family together to share his decision. Each family member is expected to listen and the father demands that each family member comply with his decision.
Father B gathers his family, explains the situation, solicits input from each family member, takes the concerns of each family member into consideration, and decides the best approach. If one family member is more negatively affected by the decision than another, perhaps the father does special things for that family member to help mitigate the negative aspects of the decision.
Both fathers are deciding, both examples are patriarchal. One father (IMO) is taking a more toxic approach.
That’s what I’ve felt locally. People making decisions for me, not with me. People judging me and others as weak, unfaithful, unrighteous based solely on their willingness to adhere to decisions that were made for them
that have nothing whatsoever to do with the gospel. So yeah, I feel the PH hierarchy is toxic. Tippy top to the very bottom. Give women the PH, that actually would please me. At least the female perspective would be present among the scant few of the scant few members in church that have a microscopic portion of autonomy. …but it wouldn’t solve my problems. Makes no difference to me if a woman or a man tells me I can’t opt out of ministering for the fourth time. Makes no difference to me whether a man or a woman tells me I gotta go to the next town over to go to church instead of the one next door to my house. Makes no difference to me whether the person issuing orders that they believe I have an obligation to follow has a tinkle-dink or a tinkle-dinker.
What’s the solution? Not sure. The current environment has enough cultural inertia to make me believe the only solution is to distance myself from it.
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