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What a great post by Kristine: https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/08/28/can-women-matter/ My comment:
Quote:Very insightful and helpful post. I’ve said before that Mormon men are individually and on the whole less sexist than most of their non-LDS counterparts I’ve met–in terms of things like listening to women, pitching in with child-rearing (putting families first), and being a partner in marriage. Obviously there are exceptions to this, but that’s one of the fruits of church culture.
And yet, and yet, I can’t tell you how many times I as a girl or woman have thought about something I could do or experience only to realize that no, I can’t do that or that will never happen, simply because of my sex. I’ve never felt more invisible or unnecessary at those times, like when I realized I could never be a leader on my mission or become a mission president one day (just two examples). The church is a grunchy place.
For those unfamiliar with the term grunch:
Quote:The term grunch means the sensation a woman has when she was for a time free of conscious awareness of the male gaze and did not feel othered, but is then reminded in some way that she is a woman first and a geek (or colleague, or writer, etc) a distant second. That is, being grunched is the sensation of being firmly and unexpectedly othered.
The word is onomatopoeic, because being grunched includes an unpleasant physical sensation like that of crashing into your own body.
“Grunch” (and the verb “grunched”) appear to have been coined by Dorothea Salo in 2002, who also used “grunchy” as an adjective for discussions about sexism.
A woman can feel a grunch happening when she walks into a glass door.
I am so glad she still posts. This was a great observation.
Quote:Women who are happy in the Church exactly the way it is are not suffering from false consciousness.
I struggle against this because I have so much hope for our higher potential. I have no desire to be a Bishop. I do desire Relief Society Presidents to be fully over their flock. At the same time I have sister’s who are serene in the place’s we are at. My little girl heart hasn’t matured enough to not get rankled at our differences.
Not sure about that grunching thing… one of the English universities had to shut up about this whole “male gaze” thing when it received complaints about people with Aspergers and ASD who can’t control their gaze in a “neurotypical” way, and how they were being bullied by the student body on account of it. Autism is more common among men too. (Male gaze is partly the reason we’re all here too and it comes from biological instinct to some extent, not just cultural programming. It’s all about balance, appropriateness and moderation.)
I wish we were free of our natural tendency to notice attractive women, and sometimes, treat them differently than women who are not attractive. As I’ve grown older, and plans for any kind of new relationships, even if I were single, are not something I desire, I find it easy to treat all women the same regardless of their attractiveness. I’ve also experienced it where women start stretching down their skirts, pulling their sweaters or jackets around them, or other signals that indicate we are staring too much at them. It hasn’t happened much in recent years as I guess I “got the message” and became more conscious that I was doing it. But I wish that tendency in men didn’t exist, because I found it embarrassing that it happened, and also sad that I made a woman feel uncomfortable. And there were times I didn’t even know I was doing it until the woman started giving me the signals.
Interesting, I had a good friendship with a woman at work years ago. It was purely platonic. She was a foot taller than I was, and very attractive (like, runway model attractive), and I was her mentor. We quickly became friends and could talk about anything — literally ANYTHING — even topics men and women normally don’t talk about with each other, even sex. One day she came to work with a blouse that revealed a lot of her cleavage. More than I was used to seeing in my insular Mormon circles, and in my regular work day over the last 10 years at the time.
Any heterosexual man would notice, I was sure. I stood at her cubicle talking to her about various work related items. At the end of the convo she said “You did a good job”. I asked what she meant. She said “You were straight as an arrow the entire time we talked, focusing totally on my eyes and face, in spite of the blouse I’m wearing”. I said thanks, and walked away, because she was right. I noticed, but then kept myself completely focused on her face and the conversation, blocking the rest of her body out of my mind. I have to confess, it was an achievement given our male proclivities, and this was a situation where I had no romantic interest in her at all.
Anyway, it seems this isn’t something that goes away with age in some men. For example, Bill Clinton appears to be staring below:
http://www.ladbible.com/news/celebrity-watch-bill-clintons-reaction-to-ariana-grande-20180901 This is an issue where even small (win-win) steps seem to be difficult. DW and I serve in the cub scouts. We are regularly frustrated that capable and reliable individuals are either not called for these positions or called but then quickly reassigned to weightier callings. This is because there is high demand for capable and worthy men in the church. However there seems to be no prohibition against having a female cub scout leader or a pair of female co-bear, wolf, or webelos den leaders. No priesthood necessary. Why not give these capable sisters a opportunity to serve/lead AND possibly have a cub scout program that is a little less dysfunctional?
We have female Cub Scout leaders in our ward, and I am pretty sure that has been the case in most of my wards throughout my life. I know it was in centralmUtah when I was in Cub Scouts. The limits on women serving in certain callings is one of my biggest frustrations. Some, like clerks and Sunday School Presidencies and even Ward Mission Leader, have no legitimate reasons I can see for gender restrictions.
Our ward council gets major female input. Obviously bishopric is all male ditto certain other roles but women get a decent say despite that. Tje Relief Society seems to be much better run than the male orgs.
A while back I mentioned that when my wife was released as YW president the bishop said that he wished she could be one of his counselors given her contributions in ward council, etc.. I expect we could get along without women in the running of the church but we’d be sorry, real sorry. Just sayin’. GBSmith wrote:
A while back I mentioned that when my wife was released as YW president the bishop said that he wished she could be one of his counselors given her contributions in ward council, etc.. I expect we could get along without women in the running of the church but we’d be sorry, real sorry. Just sayin’.
This begs the question…
Why can’t we open ward council to anyone in the ward that would like to attend? It’s a ward council, not a dozen people with a specific calling council.
Maybe it would make for extra-long ward councils, but since when has the threat of obnoxiously long meetings held us back?
Please, Dear God, no. 
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