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Roy – Quote:The last thing that he wanted to do was to be seen as reprimanding a woman for speaking out of turn about an announcement that emphasizes the need of women’s voices in the church.
:clap: :thumbup: We need a like button.
hawkgrrrl wrote:bear in mind that traditionally, women are better at exercising “soft power” than men are (because they haven’t had a voice or been in power)”
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True True. Maybe if the sisters bring a bunch of baked goods they might be able to get the old fat brethren in the meetings into a sugar induced near coma and take over the meeting.
LH: Touche. Quote:“This, and other small changes like letting women pray in General Conference, are CLEARLY being made in response to social pressure. Yet the Church leadership is able to maintain a straight face while insisting that the Church doesn’t respond to social pressure.”
Shhhh. Don’t slow them down by pointing this out.
A positive step. This is a good thing. It might be a baby step to some of us, but is not a tiny thing. It is a major change – and it is one of quite a few lately. There is no way I am going to complain about or belittle this. It is a good thing.
Also, I am not going to even imply an insult of these women. Ain’t gonna happen.
From the SLTrib article. Does this statement from the Church strike anyone else as being incredibly insulting? Quote:When asked whether women are members of other key committees in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spokeswoman Kristen Howey said, “there are literally dozens of church committees. Women serve on many of them but we have no way of knowing that number without counting each of them.”
“Literally dozens” is really not that many. (And “many” of “literally dozens” probably isn’t that many, either.) Is it really that difficult to calculate the number of women serving on Church councils? There’s not ANYONE working at the COB who could crunch a few numbers and answer this question? No one has the ability to throw together a quick Excel spreadsheet or anything? I thought the Lord’s house is a house of order.
ETA: although as the BSA press release has shown, the COB’s math skills tend to break down when it comes to counting females…
Joni wrote:From the SLTrib article. Does this statement from the Church strike anyone else as being incredibly insulting?
Quote:When asked whether women are members of other key committees in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spokeswoman Kristen Howey said, “there are literally dozens of church committees. Women serve on many of them but we have no way of knowing that number without counting each of them.”
“Literally dozens” is really not that many. (And “many” of “literally dozens” probably isn’t that many, either.) Is it really that difficult to calculate the number of women serving on Church councils? There’s not ANYONE working at the COB who could crunch a few numbers and answer this question? No one has the ability to throw together a quick Excel spreadsheet or anything? I thought the Lord’s house is a house of order.
ETA: although as the BSA press release has shown, the COB’s math skills tend to break down when it comes to counting females…
At least she was honest in that she said she didn’t know. From other sources we know that women do serve on some committees (Otterson’s FAIR presentation indicated there is a woman on the PR committee). Does it really mater if there is a woman on the building maintenance committee? Isn’t it possible that there are committees in the Primary and Relief Society organizations that don’t include men or only sometimes include men? The committees mentioned in these articles are major committees – let’s give credit where credit is due.
[Moderator note: Generally speaking we don’t refer to church headquarters as the COB here. On forums where COB is commonly used it is often used in a derogatory manner. While the Church Office Building does house the offices of the departments of the church, the leadership offices (general authorities) are housed in the Church Administration Building.]
Shawn wrote:This was announced on Facebook. Weird. That seems to lessen the significance of it.
These days facebook seems to be the fastest way to spread information among members. Even if the church newsroom breaks a story most people find out about it because one of their friends linked to it on facebook. Look at it this way… the newsroom dragging it’s feet? As Sister Oscarson demonstrated, there’s an app for that!
Joni wrote:And I think it’s interesting. This, and other small changes like letting women pray in General Conference, are CLEARLY being made in response to social pressure. Yet the Church leadership is able to maintain a straight face while insisting that the Church doesn’t respond to social pressure.
If that’s the case… at least we appear to be responding to social pressure in a more timely fashion than we did in the past. No more: Social Pressure? Oh yeah? Well we’re going to sit on it for a few decades before we make a change just to show that it wasn’t social pressure, so there!
:angel: The Priesthood and Family Executive Council. Sigh. Why not call it: The Priesthood Encompassing Relief to the Family Executive Council Team.
There’s your acronym.
DarkJedi wrote:Does it really mater if there is a woman on the building maintenance committee?
Why
wouldn’tit matter? Women use the church buildings; women pay tithing to construct and maintain the church buildings; women show up on Saturday mornings to scrub toilets in the church buildings. :sick: Quote:Isn’t it possible that there are committees in the Primary and Relief Society organizations that don’t include men or only sometimes include men?
Actually, I wish that there was more gender balance in the Primary. Teaching the Gospel to children shouldn’t be seen as only a female role. I think it’s one of the most important things we do. I think the ONLY place where it makes sense to have a strict gender division is in the leadership of organizations that are divided by gender lines. That being said – I’d be shocked if committees involving the RS and the YW don’t include at least one man, sorry, one
priesthood holder. Remember that women don’t preside over women’s sessions of General Conference. Quote:The committees mentioned in these articles are major committees – let’s give credit where credit is due.
It kind of does beg the question, how many other committees are running the church – ‘dozens’ isn’t really a helpful answer – and why do we know so little about them? What makes these three councils so much more important than the others, that an increase from 0 females per council to 1 female per council is worthy of a press release? Is it possible that ‘less important’ councils have a higher percentage of female participation (and is that a good thing)? I’ve been a member my whole life and I have only the vaguest idea that there are committees and councils making decisions that affect my life in the Church. Do they not talk openly about these councils because it feels kind of secret combination-y? Is it not something we can be trusted to know? I dunno, for me this recent action by the Church actually raises a lot more questions than it answers.
Joni wrote:It kind of does beg the question, how many other committees are running the church – ‘dozens’ isn’t really a helpful answer – and why do we know so little about them? What makes these three councils so much more important than the others, that an increase from 0 females per council to 1 female per council is worthy of a press release? Is it possible that ‘less important’ councils have a higher percentage of female participation (and is that a good thing)? I’ve been a member my whole life and I have only the vaguest idea that there are committees and councils making decisions that affect my life in the Church. Do they not talk openly about these councils because it feels kind of secret combination-y? Is it not something we can be trusted to know? I dunno, for me this recent action by the Church actually raises a lot more questions than it answers.
I don’t have any particular insight into the organization of Church councils and committees, but it doesn’t seem to me to be surprising or eye-opening. I mean the 28-story LDS Church office building isn’t just used for temple recommend interviews. The Church has a large number of members across most of the earth. It operates over 3000 STAKES, over 400 MISSIONS, 150-ish TEMPLES. It’s not possible to run that organization with 15 people in their 80’s. The particulars aren’t that super interesting to me.This article refers to the three councils mentioned as “three key councils” and implies that these are the big three. It makes sense, because in the 80’s and 90’s there was the very visible “Three-fold Mission of the Church” which aligns with these councils as follows:
Perfect the Saints – Priesthood and Family Executive Council
Proclaim the Gospel – Missionary Executive Council
Redeem the Dead – Temple and Family History Executive Council
More recently, the Church has (less vociferously) said that it has added a fourth mission, to Care for the Poor and Needy, which would correlate to existing ‘committees’: the General Welfare Committee and the Executive Welfare Committee, both of which already included the entire RS General Presidency.
I am not well versed in the administration of the church beyond the local (stake/ward) level. However, I am also not at all surprised that there are dozens of committees. I don’t expect that any one office, including the PR people, to be aware of all of the committees and what they all do. Any large organization has intricacies not understood by the vast majority of people – and in general there’s no need to know or understand what everybody does. If these churchwide committees work like local committees/councils, they don’t have any real power to make decisions anyway. All real change and all real decisions are in the hands of the top two leadership bodies of the church. In reality the committees are nothing more than advisers to them, and they may choose to heed, modify or discard any advice they are given. This is true right down to the ward council and ward PEC level – whatever happens there, the decision is up to the bishop. Not everybody gets or needs a say – the church is not organized a democracy.
I will stand by the idea that where there was no female voice there is now and that is a positive step.
DarkJedi wrote:
I will stand by the idea that where there was no female voice there is now and that is a positive step.I agree that it’s a positive step, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. The Church has been making a lot of baby steps towards gender equality. I have hope that we will continue and maybe someday we will even lengthen our stride.
However, there’s a law of unintended consequences thing that’s inevitable in moments like this. Proudly declaring that you’re now allowing women on the major councils of the church does unfortunately mean admitting that there weren’t any before. That’s going to raise eyebrows, and I think Church PR knows it.
The follow-up statement that there’s no way of knowing how many women serve on other councils without going and counting them just strikes me as absurd. Count how many women there are on these councils, and then brag about that number! That’s what I’d do if I was trying to make the point that women’s contributions are equally valued.
You and I both know that’s not how the church works Joni. The people in PR are clearly not you or they would go and count – but there is little point form their perspective in doing so. You’re asking (in the wrong place, I might add) for trivial information that is irrelevant to the bigger point. Complaining about it here will not affect their decisions. We also both know that the vast majority of the active membership neither know about this news nor really care about it. From what I can gather the orthodox view is “that’s nice.” And it is nice. We can hope that one woman today means many more in the future. DarkJedi wrote:Complaining about it here will not affect their decisions.
Hey, I’ve gotta complain SOMEwhere, don’t I?
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