I have read all the comments an concur with the female statements. I personally do NOT want the priesthood at all, i have enough responsibilities. I also think the dynamics of the priesthood suit a man’s psychological make up, namely, a need for a structured hierarchy and a commission to duty and action. Many a friend of other religious organizations have commented that the Pastor may be a man, but that the church, the programs, and activities are performed mostly by women, as they are the ones actively stepping up to the plate.

My grievance however, is with the organizational psychology that these men are “over” me; but as such they are ill prepared to understand (even consider in some cases) a female perspective as well. I don’t come to church to voluntarily plug myself into a power play. What I mean is best explained by using recent examples.

A Bishop, who is in fact a good man and would insist from the pulpit that he used the spirit as a judge in Israel, did not like my direct manner in asking for help last year when I almost died twice from kidney failure (as opposed to a more docile, meek, and feminine approach). He yelled at me for simply expecting help from the church. I explained to him that as a single mom I held three callings, was going to graduate school full time and half (got two degrees in three years), was working and now was out of commission for two months due to illness/recuperation and would need help paying some stuff. He spat back that when he went to school full time he worked 4 jobs (thereby making him less inclined to be sympathetic). What he left out -and I did not point out to him- was that he was not weak and sick at the time, that he had a wife who cooked for him, washed his clothes for him, took the kids to the doctors for him, dealt with family emergencies for him, ran the errands, cleaned the house, did all the after school and teacher conferences for him, made all the phone and scheduling arrangements, etc, etc. I was doing ALL of it, on top of doing what he seemed to consider the “man’s role”. By myself. I realized the he was relating to me as man, rather than taking an honest look at what my life encompassed at the that. All he could see was his experience, which obviously didn’t include the acknowledgement of his wife’s contribution to his “success”.

I’ve had Bishops and Home teachers forcibly (in tone) insist that I take certain courses of actions in my life. They never prayed about it (perhaps because they assumed that God put them in that role to have power over other peoples lives and decisions?), but even if they had NO ONE RECEIVES my personal revelation. Only I do. I was “scared” into making some decisions (job directions) that proved detrimental and ended in firing. Other decisions were too crucial to mess up so I took it to the Lord and received different answers then what the overbearing -thinking he was doing good- priesthood member was trying to enforce. When called on it (for not praying about it themselves), they did back down but still insisted I needed to consider their admonishment. Fortunately, I went with the spirit and things went very well! I receive my own personal revelation. A Bishop or a home teacher does not.

Mind you, I know that all of these men were actually trying to fulfill their priesthood “duties” as they saw it, but this is where the inequality comes in, too. If it is true that priesthood holders have the right and responsibility to tell others how to decide things (*not* total misconception), and only men can be priesthood holders, well, you can do the math. Men telling women what they should do, choices they should make, etc. Because one has the priesthood does NOT mean they get to tell others what to do, nor receive automatic reverence for all that comes out of their mouth, nor does it imply that my life will follow some script they have in their own head. To this I do not submit.

I have been told that the priesthood is a power of service. Why, then, is it that in a room full of accomplished professional 40 yr old women, it’s the 19 yr old Elder that is “in control”? The priesthood? I thought it was a power of service and love, not one of control. As a woman in that scenario, I would glean more from hearing the women speak than the 19 yr old. If one says it’s because the priesthood is also an organizational hierarchy, well, there you go. This is the logical reason why women know there is no power equality; the system first designates a hierarchy of control and then doesn’t allow them in it. (But again, I personally do not have an issue with men only having the priesthood, just wish they would put more of a conscious effort into wielding it in peoples lives more as the Savior, which respect, love, and meekness.)

Okay, rant over….for now

That’s my repeatedly stated motive for posting statements like these when I find them: to look at the way women’s roles have been defined, and the explanations given, in hopes of better understanding what we’ve taught, what we’re teaching, and maybe what we’ll teach in the future.

A real or perceived “outcast-within-the-church status” cannot be an easy burden to bear. People will try to offer hope and solace and understanding by sharing their thoughts on why things are the way they are. Some of these attempts might fit Ardis’s description at the end of her no. 27, but surely not all attempts do. Some attempts can be offered in good faith, even if they are unacceptable to the listener.

The “outcast-within-the-church status” is sometimes felt by others, as shared in no. 28. Also, perhaps by a 50-year-old elder or a physically unattractive man and so forth. I’m in the latter category, and I know consequently that I’ll never hold a high office or an office that affords dignity where I can fully exercise my abilities and desires, and I’ll never be equal with better-blessed men within our church society, both structurally and in its social circles. So I find happiness at home (and I’m thankful for that blessing) and success in the workplace (I’m very good at what I do, and well paid) while looking for nothing more than an opportunity to serve and worship at church. Maybe I’ve come to this point after having been tumbled in the tempest described here.

But in all this, to me the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is very precious to me. In everything I do, I want to help build faith.

I think something is missing from the church where women are concerned. I don’t think we are yet fully organized, and that there is something else that still needs to be given to, done for, organized with, women.

I’m not going to try to speak for women who are wives and mothers, as to whether they are satisfied with the rhetoric that, in Elder Widtsoe’s terms, makes woman the childbearer and man the provider.

I do know that *I* am not satisfied with that rhetoric, because it leaves me, a non-child-bearer, out in the cold with no place in the plan. At least in 2011 I *can* receive my individual temple blessings — when Elder Widtsoe wrote this article, a woman in my position would *not* have been equal to a man even in the ways he outlines here — single men could go to the temple; single women could not. What’s this equality of temple blessing he speaks of when women like me were excluded?

It may be that things as they are, are precisely the way God wants them to be. Okay, I could live with that (I don’t believe that’s the case, but if it were, I could live with it). What I find very difficult to live with is man-made (Y-chromosome-made) explanations for the way things are as they are. It’s the rhetoric that is unsatisfying, that doesn’t account for my experience, that equates motherhood with priesthood, that makes no place for a woman who cannot be a child bearer and child rearer. What Mommie Dearest said:

I don’t want the priesthood unless or until God tells me that’s what he wishes. I don’t have any desire to denigrate anyone’s priesthood authority, whatever that means. I just have a number of very serious questions for which I hope someday there will be answers. That’s what it means to be female in this system.

And I’ll first scream, then ban for life, anybody who pats me on the head and gives me some standard, rote, thoughtless, supposed-to-be-the-answer non-answer, as if I would be perfectly satisfied if I weren’t so stupid that I hadn’t heard such-and-such patent bit of nonsense that some man finds a perfectly acceptable explanation for my outcast-within-the-church status.

If you want to know the truth, I doubt I’d be cranky at all if priesthood leaders, and people in general would at least try to acknowledge the “difficulties” associated with gender differences, or just say what we know for sure, that this is the way the Lord allows it to be, which works for me. But you can’t smooth over the top of something that is lumpy underneath, call it good, and expect it not to irritate us who see (and feel) the lumps.

This is such a sensitive topic that it cannot be explored at all in our meetings, and hardly can be discussed on blogs without creating a huge brouhaha. I had to forage for some non-prickly terminology just to frame my thoughts, and I probably didn’t succeed. I don’t want to stir up a brouhaha here at Ardis’s.

In my experience, there are only two areas where we can be sure we are equal before God—God loves us all equally, men, women, bond, free, good bad, what have you, and this I know beyond faith; and, according to the revelations of the prophets, our promised blessings in the next life will be “equal,” meaning fair. Everything else in this life is most painfully not equal, and often not very fair, and it only adds to the pain to say, however innocently, that it is.

To illustrate some of the unfairness of men v. women in the priesthood system as it exists in this world, using the previously cited example of Jacob’s family –the origins of the House of Israel–I wonder where does Dinah fit in all of it? Remember her? Jacob and Leah’s daughter. Not only is she a forgotten afterthought that most people have to go back and review to remember the details of her life, but in all the millennia since, prophets and priesthood holders have never sought revelation about what becomes of Dinah, either because they think they already know, or they just don’t care enough.

Dinah represents to an uncomfortable degree how low and powerless women can be in the world of men, particularly women who aren’t attached to priesthood holders (men) and don’t have children, and we already know that this raises a ton of questions for which there are too few answers. That’s why I get cranky when offered, yet again, another non-answer.

I don’t want the priesthood unless or until God tells me that’s what he wishes. I don’t have any desire to denigrate anyone’s priesthood authority, whatever that means. I just have a number of very serious questions for which I hope someday there will be answers. That’s what it means to be female in this system.

I agree with Clark #21, Joseph’s turn at bat is pretty much complete. The question is what are today’s leaders going to do about the structure of women’s leadership, and how are we as the body of the church going to receive it. It seems that those who are aware, and still sticking around, are all waiting more or less patiently for the glacial changes to happen.
Also, time-consuming jobs like bishop, stake president, RS press, etc. are both sacrifices and opportunities.

My point was that each had different blessings and responsibilities given them; Reuben given dignity and power, Levi to be ministers, Judah to lead, Naphtali to advise, Gad for war, etc. Israel was strongest when all worked together, whatever their contributions.

I do understand that there are many who believe that women are less for not having the Priesthood – I just disagree. (and thanks for asking for the non-dogpile)

My personal belief is that some time in the future, not all righteous men will be given the Priesthood, but will not be less than those that do. Just as in the past only the Levites had the Priesthood in Israel, and even now the literal decendants of Aaron can be Bishops without any additional Priesthoods given them.

Yes, apostle can be a holy man. But the assistant librarian can also be a holy man. Holiness is not connected to office.

I appreciate Elder Widtsoe’s attempt to explain that men and women are equal. I try to appreciate every person’s attempt to teach correct principles. I acknowledge that in this they are teaching their own view of correct principles, but surely in good faith. Maybe sometimes we have differing definitions of the same word. In D&C 90, we see God saying the President of the Church and his two counselors in the First Presidency are equal. But in common practice, we don’t treat them as equal. Maybe we should.