Reader Question: Thoughts for A Female Investigator Struggling With Gender Roles?

A couple of weeks ago, I took a stab at answering here a question posed to me privately. With the asker's permission, I am answering another question here, but I've also enlisted the help of several trusted friends to weigh in too. If you or someone you know has a question you'd like to pose to me and a panel of other trusted women, please email me or message me on Facebook.

 

From Amy:

I'm writing to see if you have any resources on helping women investigating the church understand their role if they were to join the Church. I have a friend who is a very successful, professional young woman. She is 25 and already hugely successful in her career, with more ambitions in her sights. She is very interested in the Church, but has some trouble with the all-white, male leadership.

 

It's one thing for someone like me--also a young professional woman with ambitions--to STAY in the Church, where I have been raised and able to nurture a testimony over 25 years, even amid contradictions between my lived experience and what I see in the Church. But how can you ask a bright, professional woman to overlook concerns of being a woman in the Church, while still struggling to gain a witness of the truth of the gospel? 

 

Another thing to consider is that in other Churches that a believing, professional woman might join, she has the opportunity to lead and teach more. My friend has been a part of churches where the women are powerhouses. They are preachers who perform ordinances. While I believe in the restored gospel, prophets and the Book of Mormon--it's hard for me to express to her why she can't aspire, or even be called to, those same types of leadership roles.

 

From Neylan

Amy, your friend demonstrates the most important stratetic question regarding gender I believe the Church faces today: How should we cognatively and spiritually navigate the fact that a Mormon woman’s lived experience in the world diverges from her experience at church? This question, I think, is at the heart of all of our impassioned discussions. And it forces us to examine so many other questions: Are we as members or are those who are considering becoming members truly converted to the larger message of the gospel and to the covenants and saving ordinanced it offers, rather than viewing all of that beauty exclusively through a lens of gender discrepancies? Are we willing to sacrifice some of assumptions and comforts (regarding parity for women) in exchange for other, even more valuable knowledge? Do we have the humility to acknowledge that sometimes God's ways are not our ways? The discrepancy between the way modern America builds women and the way the Church builds women offers potential female converts a definite hurdle that hasn't previously existed for investigators, but I think the insights, tesimonies and optimism of the women below will help assure your friend that the leap of faith is worth it.

 

In regards to specific "resources," I would suggest the best thing you can do is continually emphasize to your friend that joining the Church will not hamper her ability to pursue her personal ambitions. She will have all the tools she needs to develop a full spiritual life and reach her spiritual potential. She will have an enhanced channel for personal revelation from God, that will allow her to bless her own life and minister to those around her. Direct her to the interviews at the Mormon Women Project, the biographies of professional, public Mormon women on the Mormon Women Project's Our Cooperative Ministry, the history of our Mormon foremothers, and to examples of women like Sharon Eubank who runs LDS Charities. Encourage your friend to be part of our solution to bringing more women to the forefront of our own community. We need her and others like her.

 

From Robin, Attorney, Policy Advisor, mom of two

I can relate to this question as I joined the church in my twenties as a bright professional woman. Joining the church, however, does not have to do with ambition, human plans, or desire to serve in particular positions. The covenant of baptism is based on a witness that Jesus Christ is her Savior and that He, with Heavenly Father, restored his church through Joseph Smith.

After baptism, the questions become (1) how can you best serve? and (2) does the structure of the church enable and magnify the talents of each of its members so as to best build the Kingdom of God?

We easily overlay church service with our experiences in the world, where prominence and title indicate success. The scriptures dissuade us of that notion. As Jesus said to His disciples, “he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.” Luke 22:26-27.

Ammon, from the Book of Mormon, is a great example of this. Not only did he tend Lamoni’s sheep and horses, after meeting Lamoni’s father and being given the opportunity to convert the king of all the lands, he did not seize this opportunity, because “the Spirit of the Lord ha[d] called him another way” Alma 22:4. Each of us has the opportunity to serve in the church.  The prominence of the calling truly doesn’t matter. What matters is our willingness to serve and be open to the Spirit of the Lord as we do so.

The second question is a more complicated one. I know men who would make excellent primary presidents, and women who would be great financial clerks, but currently the structure of the Church does not enable them to serve in those callings. I don’t fully understand why this is, and I think that some of these rules limit the Church’s full potential. But I don’t think that these limitations hinder an individual’s the potential or development, so long as we each heed the Spirit of the Lord as we serve where called.

When I was considering joining the church, I was concerned that by becoming part of this church community I would need to conform to a particular mold of women (which I perceived to be largely stay at home moms). I got the great advice that I did not need to change who I was, but rather bring my full self to contribute to the church. I also realized that there is not a particular mold of LDS woman, but rather, each person brings diverse experiences and a unique perspective to the church. The belief in continuing revelation that brought me to baptism also provides me hope and assurance that the Church will evolve and change to serve the Lord’s purpose over time.

From Mehrsa, Law professor, mom of three

I actually think this might be a great opportunity rather than a problem for your convert friend and for the church as a whole. Many of the church's problems with women are cultural baggage. She comes in with none of that and can create her own space here. Most wards I've been in give converts a lot of leeway to do that. Being a convert (and a perpetual outsider) myself, I have felt much more freedom than my traditional mormon friends. Part of it is that I've given myself freedom, but I think people in my many wards have given me more space. We are a friendly people to outsiders (for the most part). She should be prepared for the sexism she will no doubt encounter, but I think as more smart, professional women come in and ask for space and power, this can be a benefit to all of us "insiders" to ask for it too. It's much easier for outsiders to do this.

From Marin, Flutist, Education professional, mom of two

I think I've been spoiled by living in a place where so many women find a way to be in the world in various capacities (working, volunteering, etc.) and still find a way to be diligent in their worship and religious practices. There will always be things about this church that are not perfect in everyone's eyes, because the members that make up the body of the church are far from perfect. We are fed what we, collectively, can digest. And let's face it, much of the body of the church hasn't got the appetite required for the tolerance many of us are craving. 

 

Life itself is a balancing act. In the church it is not different: we are taught to strive for moderation in all things. I am not a preacher in our church, but every Sunday I am the voice that leads and guides several amazing Young Women as they press forward hoping to come closer to their Savior. I am not a Bishop, but I spend more time and energy on those girls than their Priesthood leaders can. I invest myself in their spiritual and temporal needs. I plan and pray and receive guidance an revelation for each of them more often than I ever thought possible, which has taught me one over-arching truth: God loves those Young Women. Each of them. And He wants them to help us figure out exactly how they will fit into the structure and pattern of the Church as time presses forward. He knows their individual needs, and because I have been given a responsibility to lead and to lift them, I am often blessed with insight, with understanding and with knowledge that could only come from such a loving Father. Nothing about that relationship is demeaning to women. I have never once asked my bishop whether or not the spiritual impression I have received was correct, because I know it is. Because I receive revelation for those under my stewardship and care. If I am faithful, if I am constant. Just like my husband.

 

Life is all about contradictions and opposition. In fact, the Lord makes no secret of this and fully discloses to us that "for it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things." 

 

It's a silly comparison, but I occasionally think about the sub-par Disney movie Wall-E when I think about opposition. Not because of any major point in the plot or storyline, but because of the people. The people faced no opposition in anything they did: not what they ate, drank, did with their time, or even moving their bodies. Once they were placed back into an environment where there was gravity, they could barely stand. They had to figure out how to do absolutely everything. God gives us opportunities to face regular and constant but manageable opposition (I've had my fair share) so that when we reach a place where we are truly challenged, we have the strength, the knowledge and the tools to act. 

 

I look forward to watching and waiting patiently to see whether or not in my lifetime changes to the structure of the church will happen. But I choose not to push impatiently. I choose to stay focused on mastering the things in my own life that give me opportunities for real growth now, so that I am ready and my posterity is ready for anything that God may see fit to send our way in His own perfect time.

 

From Lisa, Tony Award Winning and Grammy Nominated singer, mom of three.

I am a Mormon woman who has been preaching from the pulpit of the Mormon church through word and song since I was 2 years old. I have enjoyed this opportunity as a lay member, minister, and formal missionary of my church to teach, preach, lead discussions, activities, and missionary efforts, as well as participate in ordinances more than most women in most other religions world-wide in my 36 years of weekly attendance and an 18-month stint as a full-time missionary.

As female members and lay ministers, Mormon women have more opportunities to preach, teach, minister, and perform & participate in ordinances than any other religion of which I am aware. All women have the opportunity, from age 3 until death to teach and preach from the pulpit in the capacity of formal teachers, member witnesses, volunteers, formal speakers, counselors, matrons, missionaries, and/or presidents, in at least ten differing contexts throughout a woman's life.

I personally have preached and taught Sunday school to Primary children, Young Women, Relief Society sisters, entire congregations of men, women, and children, including world-renown professors at Yale University and hundreds of male High Priests (and their wives) at an annual Stake meeting. I have also been given full reign at firesides to preach to hundreds of men and women through inspiration word and song, much like I imagine my evangelical peers doing.

My voice has never been silenced at church, nor have I ever felt excluded from opportunities to lead or preach. I attribute much of my success in show business to my upbringing by deeply devoted parents in the Mormon church and the weekly opportunities it allowed me to memorize, recite, and teach song and word in front of up to hundreds of people in ways that ultimately groomed me, with the help of my parents, teachers, and mentors within the Church, to win a Tony Award and a Grammy Nomination in my early twenties and thirties.

In Christ's church there are jobs for everyone, male and female, young and old, and each must be "called of God." The "callings" Mormon women receive are inspired, accompanied by blessings of empowerment and encouragement. No one, male or female, "aspires" to a calling - callings are "inspired" not "aspired" to. Bishops do not "aspire" to be Bishops, and Relief Society presidents, local or General, do not "aspire" to be to presidents. Inspiration for callings comes as a result of both prayer and input from both male and female leaders in the church, and each calling is confirmed in the heart of the called and may be rejected or accepted based on personal inspiration and desire. Nothing is forced, and no calling is more important than another - each, as Christ said, is vital to the functioning of the church. Some are accompanied by more breadth of stewardship, more hours of work, more attendance at meetings, more administration, coordination, and delegation than others (like being Bishops, Relief Society presidents, or full-time missionaries), but all allow the same privileges of holy experiences with the Spirit and gifts of the spirit, holy experiences with a mantle of authority and the inspiration that accompanies it, holy experiences with sacrifice and obedience, holy experiences teaching the Gospel, working, loving, and serving others. Isn't this what counts most? Isn't this what the Gospel is about? I believe a full-time female missionary in the Church is privy to the same kinds of practical experience as a Bishop running a congregation, albeit on a smaller scale. I don't believe I am missing out or have missed out an anything as a woman with ambition in the Church, and all women have equal access to these opportunities as desired.

 

 

 

Comments

[Joanne]

To say "God's ways are not man's ways" doesn't cut it for a struggling investigator, nor for many LDS women who see very real gender inequality in the church. That would imply that all policies of inequality in the church are presumably "God's ways", requiring blanket acceptance, which is not the case. We understand that many apparently sexist policies and structures are based on custom and tradition. I would emphasize to a professional woman investigator that the church embraces continuing revelation, that we are seeing changes elevating the status of women in the church (missionary age, etc.), and that we can place our hopes on these indications for continued moves toward gender equality. I would also emphasize the great value of individual revelation through the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Also, the investigator needs to get personally connected with LDS professional women who find fulfillment through their active presence and voice in the church.

[Emily Adams]

Thank you for these nuanced answers given from women of faith.

[Kathy]

This makes me sad. I have a decent testimony... But I would tell her. "Don't do it." Particularly if she's single.

[Sheri]

This was wonderful. Thank you.

[Susan]

I read this post earlier and felt puzzled by it. A line from your recent book kept echoing in my head: I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it's hard. I read the above post as repeating that sentiment, that we must have the humility to accept that God's ways are not our ways--and here is what I'm wondering, are you saying that God doesn't want women to have parity? Is this the Gospel we offer the world? I understand that there are other truths, but is it either/or or yes/and?

I'm just wondering, Do any of you think Joseph Smith was proud when he entered the Sacred Grove to pray?

What I feel is that these impassioned conversations we are having are not about a lack of humility. Perhaps women have had too much humility and it surfaces as lack of confidence, lack of responsibility for our salvation, lack of ownership as we travel the road toward Zion.

What if we as women are every bit as capable of receiving revelation and directing our beloved Church and that is what God wants and needs us to do? Is this our moment in the Grove? Do we have the humility and the dedication to God's truth to speak what is our spiritual truth even when it goes against the norm of current Church culture (and doctrine)--as Joseph did? I don't want to apologize for what feels like a revelation to me. I don't want to lower my standards for a Church unready to digest this truth. Yes, there is patience and long-suffering, but no there is not a lesser truth. Perhaps there are different truths for different people, but my God expects allegiance only to the truths offered me, personal revelation.

I would caution the investigator. I would express concern and a desire that she enter into not an idealized version of our Church, but a real version. Yes, our Gospel has heartbreakingly beautiful teachings but it also has a history that has often fallen short of those teachings. The Church is really all of us, and just as we use the Gospel and its teachings to reshape ourselves, we simultaneously are reshaping the Gospel line upon line. If your investigator is interesting in rolling up her sleeves and getting dirty, I would welcome her to the fold.