BYU’s Women in Math poster features only men

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

But in the LDS we do things like this all the tme without realising it.

That’s a really pathetic excuse for not working to change the behavior.

[Anonymous]

NightSG wrote:

SamBee wrote:

But in the LDS we do things like this all the tme without realising it.

That’s a really pathetic excuse for not working to change the behavior.

Don’t shoot the messenger. 🙄 It wasn’t an excuse but an explanation. My point is that most of the time they are not even conscious that they are doing it.

I’ve just this past week put up some inspirational quotes from church leaders on our ward notice boards. I made a point of including some from Relief Society presidents – so you’ll see Sheri Dew up there as well as Dieter F. Uchtdorf. I try not to be part of this problem.

Our ward has male leadership mostly – due to the nature of the church in SLC! – but we have had one or two SMs in the last few months where other than whoever is presiding from the bishopric & those blessing the sacrament, everyone else leading the service has been female. The speakers. The piano player. The person conducting the music. The opening and closing prayers. In one of these instances, the basic fact of this only struck me afterwards, because it had all been done so well. It was not even by design AFAIK. No one else even commented on the fact, which I think is a healthy thing.

There’s little doubt that our ward would fall apart without the sisters and several brethren have commented to me recently how much better run our local RS and VT are than our EQ & HPG. We have had discussions in local leadership about which callings women can take without violating the handbook. So in those terms we have to dance between “them rules” and practicalities. I’d prefer women took on a stronger role of course.

I have argued on this board that women can be said to have the priesthood already – according to orthodox Mormonism e.g. the gift of the Holy Ghost/confirmation and yes, the endowment, despite its shortcomings. And there is even an argument that Joseph Smith was trying to develop RS into a kind of priesthood organization before he was murdered… and that it has some of those functions already. It just takes others to recognise that. Using this route to recognize female priest(ess)hood is probably more productice and less confrontational than the “ordain women” movement. If we say women are kind of ordained already in the church, then it is more likely to be accepted – much like the whole business of prayers in GC.

Unfortunately contemporary capitalist “liberalism” in America prefers to make societal groups into factions in order to compete against one another rather than encourage co-operation between them, probably because it subconsciously fears being socialist. This is a result of its individualist roots amongst the rich, and mirrors the market itself.

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