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Not long after I read that Utah came in last in multiple metrics for gender equality, I saw this article from the Deseret News. Perhaps it is a response to the ranking and perhaps not.
‘We need a broader vision of gender equality’
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2025/08/07/a-broader-vision-of-gender-equality/ Overall, I understand it to be saying that men outside of the church can be terrible “unrestrained, irresponsible, uncommitted and uncaring” while men inside the church are much more respectful, kind, and family oriented and this equates to women being treated better in relationships by LDS men.
I feel that this is a bit of a bait and switch. The article has gender equality in the title and even promises a “broader vision” but then goes on to say that simply seeing equal numbers of women in leadership and decision making roles is “too narrow” and that what we really should be asking ourselves is what is best for women overall. And the answer is training men to be their best selves and helping men to “rise above” their tendencies.
“What if priesthood roles and responsibilities teach men restraint, responsibility, commitment and love? … for anyone who is concerned about systems in which men are dominating women, this should be really exciting news, because we have a training program for dealing with that in our church,”
Sooooo, the broader view of gender equality is to elevate men into a brotherhood that requires the respect, admiration, and deference of women and that brotherhood is also a school of benevolent sexism that trains the men to be protective of women???
I really find value in LDS men being more family focused than men outside the church and I’d be quite supportive of an article that says that LDS men tend to make better fathers. I’m just really confused on how this can be packaged as gender equality. It feels like it is saying that women are actually better off not being equal but instead raising up men to take good care of women and then relying on the men to take care of them.
I think that the LDS standards of members regarding clean living (fidelity to spouse, WoW), acknowledgement of obligations to family and community do the heavy lifting to bless women and children and creating some of that family-friendly “equality” stuff that actually has nothing to do with equality. I think that at long as Patriarchy is prized as the organizational structure for church administration that there will be a “separate but equal” divide among men and women at church and in church culture with the priesthood authority being the bludgeon/flashpoint between men and women because the priesthood authority is the fundamental way in our church culture that boys are not girls and treated very differently.
FUN LINKS:
The marriage advice every couple needs, but no one getshttps://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/the-marriage-advice-every-couple The men who like women and the men who don’t. Yes we can tell.https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/men-who-like-women I’m a feminist and I think it’s harder to be a man than a woman.There cannot be gender equality while our marriage and sealing practices are intertwined. – This arrangement requires that a woman be sealed to only 1 man throughout her lifetime (and completely “Cancel” any other spousal sealings), while a man can be sealed to multiple women throughout his and gains “Clearance” to do so.
Roy wrote:
Overall, I understand it to be saying that men outside of the church can be terrible “unrestrained, irresponsible, uncommitted and uncaring” while men inside the church are much more respectful, kind, and family oriented and this equates to women being treated better in relationships by LDS men.
My initial gut reaction. It’s a claim that’s so ridiculous on its surface that it’s not a notion that can be seriously entertained.
I can see how an article written by an LDS person and published by LDS owned media would firmly believe that’s the case but I’d put it firmly in the category of just that, a belief. I also think it can be a particularly dangerous belief.
At best it’s something innocent, something akin to, “My family has the best chili recipe in the world.” There’s bias and it’s subjective but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter which family has the best chili recipe.
At worst it can be a belief that creates an environment where abuse can fester. Like if you are thoroughly convinced that your church has the absolute best safety precautions for children than any other church out there or that it’s all the other churches that have problems, not us. In that mindset you can let your guard down or worse, cover things up to maintain an image. It’s only not a problem because people refuse to acknowledge it.
The other danger of that mindset is that it puffs up our pride and becomes an excuse for why no change is needed.
Utah is considered the state with the highest level of affinity fraud and I think one of the reasons is that mindset. A belief that it’s the other people that have the problem, our people are always trustworthy, and bam. Someone gets taken advantage of or exploited.
The article gives one woman’s account of being in an abusive relationship, joining the church, and being skeptical of the criticisms that women are treated like second-class citizens. One thing that drew her interest to join the church was that none of the missionaries she interacted with attempted to make sexual advances at an age and time in life where men are “at their most destructive.” Again, I’m not a fan of the mindset that portrays members as angels and non-members as demons. The WoW can help with many things that get people into trouble but the church still has domestic violence, poverty, substance abuse, sexism, etc. We’re not immune to it and we may even see the same averages that non-members see. I’m just not a fan of the implications that this article makes about people outside the church.
I’m also not a fan of the other argument the article makes. I don’t know how to articulate it, but it goes something like, “It’s not a problem for this one woman so I don’t know what you are complaining about.” The environment is fine for that one woman, or some subset of women. That doesn’t mean it’s not an issue for
allwomen or the general membership of the church. My wife isn’t interested in holding an office in the priesthood but that doesn’t mean that women that
wantto hold an office in the priesthood shouldn’t be given an opportunity. In the church we have men that aren’t interested in the PH but it’s quasi-obligatory for them to have it and we have women that do want the priesthood but can’t have it. It’s kinda nuts. I think rising generations are seeing the inequality more and more with each passing year. The contrast between the roles women are filling in the wider community (the dreaded non-LDS people out there being all destructive
:angel: ), the roles women can fill in the church, and the gulf between the two. I’ve heard anecdotes on that end, that the church is the last remaining place in many women’s lives where they are told, “No, you can’t because you’re a woman.” Propping up women that say, “That’s okay, I don’t want to anyway.” is not a solution.Great discussion! I loved the “fun” links, Amy. I think that the church (leadership, publication, members) are trying to spin equality the best that they can.
As if to say, “We are not equal but what if being unequal is even better for women than being equal.”
In the third of Amy’s links was this sentence: “Women can be executives, but men can’t be homemakers.”
It reminded me of a male LDS friend with a very difficult male child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Because of his diagnosis and the trouble that was causing at school, they opted to homeschool. Because my friend had greater success than his wife in working with their son AND because his wife wanted to work, my friend became the stay-at-home parent. My friend’s wife told me that she needed to work because staying at home made her feel isolated, imprisoned, alone, and fearful of her son’s angry outbursts.
My friend told me that well meaning church members (especially the older generation) would continuously ask about his job hunt and offer ideas or other helps. Sometimes their offers to help came with hurtful comments that subtly questioned his manhood like, “If you got that job, then your wife wouldn’t have to work.” They just couldn’t imagine that having a stay at home father could be the best solution.
My husband has always stayed at home with our girls. He stays at home now because they still need him and the nature of his autoimmune illnesses, his skill set, and general disposition do not lend themselves to him being out in the workforce. - The sisters at my branch were always supportive and had a “you do you” approach whenever it came up. They have also by and large believed us about his pain and had empathy to us.
- The brethren in the branch largely left him to his own devices. There is an older, fairly fit branch member who thinks my husband would be better served by working – but he manages to be both blunt and actually minister to us (he is still our friend, I believe) – and also speaks his peace and then treats us the same as he had before.
The funny thing is that the power/authority differential between my husband and myself has an inverse relationship to how church engagement is going for us. When I was at my most “active” and believing, I let myself be treated as less equal and powerful in relation to my husband. As I drifted away from church commitments, I walked myself back into believing and treating myself as an equal, a decision-maker full of power and authority in my family. I have observed that when my husband is participating in more spiritual practices as taught by the church culture, he wants to “protect” me more and take on more of the decision-making – which omits my perspective and leadership (this is also problematic because sometimes he misses his female audience with his male perspective or hasn’t ever experienced PMS firsthand to viscerally understand when it is at play).
nibbler wrote:
Again, I’m not a fan of the mindset that portrays members as angels and non-members as demons. The WoW can help with many things that get people into trouble but the church still has domestic violence, poverty, substance abuse, sexism, etc. We’re not immune to it and we may even see the same averages that non-members see. I’m just not a fan of the implications that this article makes about people outside the church.
We aren’t immune to domestic violence and abuse, poverty, substance abuse, sexism, etc. We just tend to have “dry” versions of it:)
As a people, I think that what bonuses we gain in terms of community, industry, and clean living, we lose in individual guilt & shame, in self-righteousness and mis-judgement.
nibbler wrote:
I’m also not a fan of the other argument the article makes. I don’t know how to articulate it, but it goes something like, “It’s not a problem for this one woman so I don’t know what you are complaining about.” The environment is fine for that one woman, or some subset of women. That doesn’t mean it’s not an issue forallwomen or the general membership of the church. My wife isn’t interested in holding an office in the priesthood but that doesn’t mean that women that
wantto hold an office in the priesthood shouldn’t be given an opportunity. In the church we have men that aren’t interested in the PH but it’s quasi-obligatory for them to have it and we have women that do want the priesthood but can’t have it. It’s kinda nuts.
Our religious community uses the priesthood authority to determine who makes decisions – who sets up the legacy that is passed onto future generations. Patriarchy sets up the explicit official channels to be male-coded (hence priesthood-coded). It seems to be a catch-22 in my mind these days. If the priesthood power/authority is needed so much to perform miracles – then we need to expand the priesthood franchise to be a more powerful and influencing group of individuals. If it is a more limited power/authority that has been overstepping off and on for as long as it has been around, then we need to decrease the amount of attention and rationalization it generates (and eventually make it more available for everyone explicitly).
nibbler wrote:
I think rising generations are seeing the inequality more and more with each passing year. The contrast between the roles women are filling in the wider community (the dreaded non-LDS people out there being all destructive:angel: ), the roles women can fill in the church, and the gulf between the two. I’ve heard anecdotes on that end, that the church is the last remaining place in many women’s lives where they are told, “No, you can’t because you’re a woman.” Propping up women that say, “That’s okay, I don’t want to anyway.” is not a solution.
About 1x a week or so, I get a ringside seat in the “rising generation calling out the gender-based inequality” in conversations with my female children. Some of it is because my husband functions best/is at his healthiest with some accommodations that are perceived as “gender-based” but are situation based. Some of it is because I still practice practice some levels of gender inequality mostly subconsciously still.
The family has an uneasy truce over “modest clothes”. The specific rule is that clothing is a) activity appropriate, b) follows garment lines while in the common rooms (the girls got the sleeveless garment upgrade last year), c) doesn’t cause visceral pain for the viewer (this was after the neon unicorn jacket, faded flower shirt, and bold graphic striped pants/skirt/shorts ensemble situation popped up).
- My husband hates that this system is imposed to respect his preferences (he wanted it to come from God).
- My eldest just thinks it is dumb and would like to wear cropped shirts and off-sleeve shirts. She also wants him to get over the fact that shorts will always look revealing on her because her upper legs are longer then the average female’s.
- My youngest would love to wear sleeveless sundresses more and is outraged that she cannot combine all the patterns at once.
Roy wrote:
As if to say, “We are not equal but what if being unequal is even better for women than being equal.”
The church as an organization on a doctrinal level does not believe that men and women are equal. The church assumption is that women need “presiding over” and “covered for” [with the accompanying authority “over” and being over-ruled, spoken over, and dismissed] that men do not (at least not to the same degree). The priesthood is the symbol used to bring that point home regularly. Not expanding priesthood authority to women is in part a way to keep gender-based roles front and center. There are a lot of words to mask the premise as women are “more spiritual” then men, women “nurture” better then men (which is really about women doing the hard kin-work that men don’t want to do to anchor future generations), etc.
What I also think is happening is that men are left without protections or power and are bribed with access to women as the prize of sorts. It winds up looking like, “Your sacrifices on the frontier here with minimal or less then minimal supplies will be rewarded in town” for our men who take on the most hazardous jobs. I think we hear about in church culture most starkly when talking about our male missionaries. There are always the canned stories that male missionaries who complete their missions are more likely to get a hot(er) wife because of their church service.
I know when I served a mission back in the day, I wound up closing an area to sisters because it wasn’t safe for the sisters anymore (maybe hadn’t ever been actually), but was “safe” for the elders who took it over. This was the same area where I arrived and found that the rooms themselves noticeably needed painting. I wound up getting paint from the apartment manager and the senior missionaries helped me paint the rooms that needed to be painted. NOTE: I am not usually the one who notices decoration stuff, so the fact that I noticed it needed to be done was pretty telling.
AmyJ wrote:
What I also think is happening is that men are left without protections or power and are bribed with access to women as the prize of sorts.
I agree. I think this is why Elder Holland was very cross with young men stating that they wanted their future wife to be an RM and yet doesn’t appear to have any problem with young men stating that they want their future husband to be an RM.
I remember a lesson that we had in seminary about the attributes that we wanted in a future spouse. Every young woman put RM and temple worthy on their list, just like they had been conditioned to do. For young LDS men, the need to be seen as “dateable” within one’s community can be intensely motivating.
I left late on a mission (about 20.5 years old). I know that some young women that were considering dating me, felt wary because I hadn’t gone on a mission even though I was old enough to go. I don’t know if they saw my lack of missionary service as a red flag but certainly as a yellow flag.
Your story reminds me about how my husband was wary of marrying/dating a RM – and ended up with me (a respectfully opinionated, threateningly outspoken RM) 😆 I vaguely remember the spouse checklist and all that type of stuff.
To me, the most important trait for a future partner of either of my children is, “Do they fight fair?”.
Conflict with a partner is inevitable, but not all conflicts are created equal and not all conflict patterns are created equally either.
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