Women and Religion

[Anonymous]

At BYU in the mid-90s I dated a female chemical engineering major. She was a formidable trifecta – book smarts, street smarts, and very attractive. She would tell me that women have more power than men but they don’t know how to use it. She called it the power of the vagina. I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that but I have some ideas and I didn’t want to be manipulated by her so we broke it off after a couple of months.

For years the word “feminist” scared me – largely because of this ex girlfriend – until a good sister in my ward explained to me that being a feminist just means standing up for all human rights, including women’s rights.

[Anonymous]

I think ‘feminist’ is a very murky term that can mean a lot of different things, depending on who you ask. It can range anywhere from meaning ‘egalitarian’ (where I stand personally) to “female superiority and misandry” (which seems to be the more popular ideology right now). There are genuinely good parts to every wave of feminism, but there have just about always been toxic people on both sides of the issue. And people that like to ignore the facts or take them out of context. Equality is a very complicated issue and just about as murky, where it can imply either equality of outcome or equality of opportunity.

I’m actually not surprised that most of the sexist comments come from women. Men just don’t really feel qualified to tell women what to do, and they probably don’t actually care that much TBH. (Looking at biology, what women do for a living has very little impact on youth or fertility in most cases- which is biologically what men tend to be driven to look for in women.) I think it is a kind of toxic groupthink where those acting contrary to the group are looked down on for not conforming. You can observe this kind of toxicity from both sides of the issue. For instance, I was listening to a story of a right-leaning woman and her toxic interactions with a women in tech group, for instance. She was banned from several women’s tech groups because she refused to do a workshop exclusively for women and generally differed ideologically. Then, of course, there was your daughters’ experiences on the other side.

The thing about feminism that bothers me the most is that it generally refuses to acknowledge men’s issues. Even if men’s issues are less severe, they are still problems that need to be addressed. What about men being able to choose any career they want without discrimination? Last I checked, men are judged for choosing careers in elementary education, are paid way less in modeling, and are very strongly discriminated against for any career that involves young children for fear that they might be a pedophile. Men can’t even sit next to minors on certain airlines because of that prejudice. Not to mention that stay-at-home dads are often looked down on. And men almost always get the short end of the stick in divorces… Yeah. The list goes on. I guess you could say I’m a men’s rights advocate/activist (a term that is very tainted by the media) and a feminist.

I think it’s also important to recognize that women are actually losing the choice of whether to work or not. With it becoming increasingly difficult to support a family on one income, women have to work unless their husbands make 6 figures. There is also a growing prejudice against women who choose not to work.

[Anonymous]

Men telling women what to do is a pretty good summary of general human history.

Just saying.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think we’re going to see significant change in the way women are treated at church until the oldest leaders die off, and the much younger generation (meaning those who are kids now) start to get into leadership roles. I would hope that my own generation would make these changes (I’m nearing 40), but as many have said, the current leaders, both men and women, and still holding on to outdated beliefs. However, watching my son encourages me for what’s to come. He turned 12 about 8 months ago. So, for the past year or so, he’s been bombarded by messages about how important it is for young men to get the priesthood. He has decided that he doesn’t want the priesthood, and he has stuck to that. When he turned 12, I told him it was his decision. But, I told him that if he decided to get the priesthood I wanted him to be able to tell me why he wants it, and if he decided not to get the priesthood I wanted him to be able to tell me why he doesn’t want it. When he turned 12, and he kept insisting that he didn’t want it, I sat down with him 1-on-1 and asked him to tell me why he doesn’t want it. He told me that he thinks it’s sexist that women can’t get the priesthood, and he doesn’t want to be part of something that is sexist. I was floored! I’ve never talked about anything like that before. But, I couldn’t argue with him, because I completely agree with him. When we went into the bishop for him 12-year old interview, the bishop asked him who he wanted to give him the priesthood (just assuming that he was going to get it, instead of asking him if he actually wanted it). My son told the bishop the same thing; he didn’t want it, because it’s sexist. The bishop gave the typical responses that we’ve all heard about men’s roles and women’s roles and how neither is better than the other. 🙄 But, my son stuck to his guns and refused the priesthood. I was impressed to watch this little 12 year old look his bishop in the eye and tell him that the priesthood was sexist. We need more people, men and women, to voice their concerns about women’s roles in the church before we’ll see the culture start to change.

[Anonymous]

I read it. I liked how the author boiled down the ghosts into three sets of behaviors that I could scan and decide if they applied to me.

If I can comment as a male who is generally not threatened by women….and generally prefers reporting to women rather than men.

1. I couldn’t relate to any of the ghosts other than the one where the man is afraid of some consequences as a result of the attractive woman (or even unattractive woman for that matter). Over the years, I have been schooled by managers never to meet with the door closed in my office with my female students. There have been instances where people have been accused of sexual impropriety which may have been a misunderstanding, a valid concern, or made up. I remember a senior manager telling us that even if the claim against us isn’t true, we’d lose on it. In that respect, we are a vulnerable population.

So I always meet with females in glass windowed room etcetera, an open place, or with the door wide open.

I am actually quite concerned about that. So, that ghost exists to some extent. When you are in a position of power, and have the ability to deny people access to privileges, or simply not give them what they want on operational issues, people can get upset with your. And, whether real or imagined, it can be perceived as a real risk to certain men to be accused of something you didn’t mean, or didn’t even do.

2. The other two ghosts I couldn’t relate to. I always speak to women as if they are peers. And I have never been afraid of them usurping power. I can only think of one time in my entire career when a woman was clearly out to relegate me to second fiddle when I had legitimate authority. It was in a retreat and the senior manager appointed myself and this other woman as co-leaders of a cost reduction project/brainstorming idea in workshop groups — to be continued and operationalized.executed over a period of months.

Rather than approaching it as a collegial, co-leader effort, she bowled me over, took charge in a rather dismissive way that put me down in front of the team. A couple people even mentioned privately to me afterwards “boy, she really put you in your place as follower”. So I knew i wasn’t just personal perception of being completely marginalized.

My response was not to react. I replied to one of the people on the team who noted it (my boss, a woman) that I had enough meaningful projects going on — if this “co-leader” wanted this project, I was happy to follow along. I do remember feeling a bit embarrassed in front of the team though, and my relationship was wary with her after that, she was so aggressive and her approach so demeaning. I remember slowly dropping off the project and letting her manage it entirely. She never sought my input in the future and my contribution was minimal. We never discussed it and managers never commented on it. The strange part was that I barely knew her.

It came up at the Golden Globe awards. I was watching it with my sister, and I was amazed at how most people were commenting on the “It’s time” initiative and the “Me Too” initiative regarding sexual harassment. My sister told me it’s a problem that has to be addressed. Good looking, professional, desirable, she told me that it’s been a problem throughout her life, even in the highest of professional situations she works in (she is a doctor/specialist and a researcher). What seemed to me at the time as simply another instance of Hollywood furthering a liberal agenda, was to her a real problem. I realized I’d never harassed anyone and had never experienced it either, which opened my mind a bit about why Hollywood was raising awareness of it because my sister gave me her window into the likely experience of these women….

So, I guess there are different men out there, with different perspectives.

One thing I have noticed — if I have ever been construed as trying to take away the authority of a woman in charge (and NOT intentionally), I normally get a pretty big push back. Big. There have been at least two times when in an effort to help, or get involved, I have been perceived as overstepping my boundaries and they have been very aggressive with me. To the point of being vindictive and harmful/hurtful — even punitive and certainly, offensive. In fact, one such situation is what has landed me here at StayLDS because it lead to a nasty note, full of hateful statements distributed to the entire leadership in the Ward. I couldn’t reconcile the emphasis on relationships in the church with this woman’s behavior.

I have learned now to simply stay in the bounds of my own authority in all aspects of my life. Also to see the warning signs when a person is perceiving me as taking over. I back away, and retreat into my own projects where I have full authority. I tend not to offer help and advice to others now, unless they approach me. And even then, I hesitate to get involved unless I’m delegated a piece of authority, or the parameters under which I participate are very clear. No more. The experience in the paragraph above was extremely harmful — it plunged me into my first bout of diagnosed depression, led to loss of sleep and walking pneumonia, and completely sapped my commitment to the church. I am now very much aware of the impact such behavior can have on me. It could have been inflicted by a man, so gender is not so much the issue here as the behavior itself.

Anyway, I digress. So, of the three ghosts, I can relate to the one that is afraid of being accused of something for whatever reason, and will take steps to make sure circumstances don’t imply it, and that I am not behaving in ways that are perceived to be improper. But not all the behaviors described there.

[Anonymous]

TataniaAvalon wrote:

I came across an image on Facebook that made me want to weep. It was a series of umbrellas each getting smaller. The largest was Christ. The next was the husband with protect family and provide for family under it. The smallest umbrella was labeled wife with children, managers of home underneath it and the whole thing labeled the natural order of the household. This was shared by one of my TBM friends. I can’t express the pain I felt when I saw that. What a damaging teaching. The women are only good as wives and for their reproductive organs. Why must the wife be under the husband? Why not on the same line if we are supposed to be equal partners? The fact that women are supposed to be subordinate to their husbands is alive and well in the church.

I know. That’s not right my friend. 😐

[Anonymous]

To the OP, I don’t think there’s as a big of a bridge between the author’s experience and the LDS woman’s experience, and the largest possibility could be because women aren’t in the ministry in the LDS church as much as they are in other churches. I think the Child ghost is quite common, however. I also think the Temptress is experienced in our church, but somewhat less so. Garments make fashion choices limited for women, and garment-wearers make up most of the adult, active women. Therefore some of the chatter around women’s bodies dies down a little bit. But heaven help the woman who doesn’t abide by the fashion expectations of garment lines.

As to the phenomenon where women are more hostile towards each other than men are to women, I think it’s most likely a result of being invalidated and patronized by men in leadership positions, especially at church. It’s a defense mechanism called displacement: you’re being ignored or patronized, however you have no recourse for effective action, therefore you take it out on those around you. The most classic example out there is the man who gets mistreated by his boss and deals with it by mistreating his family. It happens in a lot of situations, however, it’s not an excuse to dismiss the cause of feminism.

I think that if you’re unable to listen to someone talk about their issues without bringing up your issues and to demand that your issues be given equal weight before you validate their position, then you’re being incredibly tone deaf and defensive. Rights, human decency, fairness, equality – these things aren’t pieces of a pie that decrease your share if someone else receives them, too. A rising tide lifts all boats.

I had a manager consistently bemoan the fact that workplace sexual harassment policies have made it impossible for him to compliment a woman co-worker’s appearance without fear of lawsuit. I think that if that’s the biggest sacrifice for him, as a man, to have to make to help ensure that women aren’t harassed in the workplace then so be it. Also, if that’s a sacrifice, then that’s a pretty good life, my friend! 😆 Additionally, I would cite the growing financial need for women to be earning incomes for their families as a facet of the economy, not simply a result of feminists.

If some women don’t want to be in leadership positions, that’s fine. But stay out of the way of women who do. If some women don’t want to stay at home raising children or even after they leave the home, that’s fine. But stay out of the way of women who do. If some men think they know better what God wants for me, that’s fine. But stay out of my way.

[Anonymous]

DancingCarrot wrote:

If some women don’t want to be in leadership positions, that’s fine. But stay out of the way of women who do. If some women don’t want to stay at home raising children or even after they leave the home, that’s fine. But stay out of the way of women who do. If some men think they know better what God wants for me, that’s fine. But stay out of my way.

Agreed. Well said. :thumbup:

[Anonymous]

I tend to give a lot of comments at church. I try not to monopolize the lessons, but sometimes I am sure it happens. I hate the silence of crickets.

One Gospel Doctrine lesson my husband and I wound up sitting by one of the counselors in the stake presidency. We didn’t know him very well – I think I knew his name and position, but I am not sure my husband even knew that much.

We wound up doing group discussion with this man, and I made a lot of comments. At the close of class, my husband pointed out that I had probably made too many comments (anti-cricket you know), so I turned and offered a mini-apology to this member of the presidency. He turned to include my husband and myself, and said that he valued the comments of women – some of the best counsel he ever got was by listening to comments from his beloved wife. Through the years this has always stayed with me because I did not expect it.

My husband and I do a decent job living our lives as a partnership in raising our family. He handles what he can, and I handle what I can, and our resources are enhanced to get things done, or it doesn’t get done and we figure it out. My husband is not comfortable with the traditional concept of feminist – ghost #1 I think. In the last 5 years though, when we talk about it (I describe myself as a feminist in that I feel that there is work to be done to treat women fairly – including equal pay for equal amount of work) he always winds up agreeing with me. I point out regularly to him that it does not make sense to me that living men can be sealed to multiple women while living women can only be sealed to one man. I am not trying to argue or demand explanations (I have my theories). At first he was very defensive, but now he understands I just cite it as a policy that does not make sense to me, and that I am not casting rocks at a glass wall.

I think his biggest struggle is that I don’t and refuse to fit into traditional conceptions of roles especially socially. Trying to bake gives me anxiety. I think asking me to wield a curling iron is a bad idea with my lack of fine motor skills and spatial deficits. I will be as tactful and respectful as I can – but I don’t have it in me to be quiet just because. I also have this uncomfortable habit of getting to the heart of the matter from an unusual perspective over and over again. I know he loves me in part because I am not conventional – but I also know his life is not easy because I am unconventional.

[Author]

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