You Can’t Listen to Women If They Aren’t Invited to Speak

This continually proves to be the MO of the church during conference, and it’s increasingly upsetting to see in real time. Say one thing, perform another. They continually say they love and support LGBTQ people and then just as continually lobby to have their rights taken away in America. They continually say to ask questions and be critical, then they excommunicate anyone who asks questions they don’t like. It makes conference feel increasingly less authentic when the only reason the church makes headlines is because they’re doing something most people wouldn’t have the lack of moral standing to consider in the first place.

This says it all “As part of his conducting duties, President Oaks on Sunday morning thanked “the Brethren for your great messages.” This was after Sister Aburto had also spoken, but it is so normalized that conference talks are given by men, that it isn’t surprising he forgot to include her.”
I just about fell out of my chair when he said this. I loved that the morning session was full of international voices but I cynically felt it may also be tokenism – the same way they throw crumbs to the women in the church.

Amen. Let’s start with listening to and acknowledging our Heavenly Mother. I have a prediction: this May the church will release a Mother’s Day video that lauds mothers’ sacrifices but make no changes in the church to make their jobs easier. They won’t make changes to have women be the decision makers of the policies that govern their lives. They will equate womanhood with motherhood because leaders cannot see any other attributes in women. They won’t compare mothers to deity, Heavenly Mother. Instead they’ll talk about the work women do for Heavenly Father’s children.

Then in June, they will have a Father’s day video that compares men to Heavenly Father, and how even though they aren’t perfect, they are doing what he does. So women do the work of angels, men do the work of gods. Women belong in the domestic sphere unless it looks bad for the church. Then leaders beg for their voices and tell them how important they are. Men belong in the public sphere and make all the decisions but are good priesthood holders as long as they occasionally seek advice from women in their life, which they can ignore without consequence.

That’s a nice hit-and-run, Mike. Would be interested in you providing some context and thoughts about the post and/or comments that causes you to shop elsewhere. Contribute.

I have enough negativity in my life. I don’t think that requires expounding. If you find it fulfilling then more power to you. I’m a full supporter of free speech.

Another point: it was made abundantly clear that it was President Nelson’s idea to have a conference session filled with international voices/singing. So you can’t tell me that he can’t add many more women’s voices to the speaker lineup.

It’s pretty much that we have men who make the decisions about who speaks unwilling to give up their places to allow more women to speak. And not only do we lose the opportunity to hear from women, it’s a very bad example for all the counsels around the world.

And, why does president Nelson think he needs to talk twice as much as all women put together. He spoke 4 times, while women gave 2 talks. He surely has control over how often he himself speaks and could hand over three of those time slots to women.

Last week there was a full-page newspaper ad placed by seven leaders of black-owned media. It complained that General Motors CEO Mary Barra has not met with them to discuss their wish for GM to increase its advertising in black-owned media. The ad also took a swipe at GM’s Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Wahl: “Mary, you have asked us to meet with your Chief Marketing Officer, Deborah Wahl. We have absolutely no interest in that because when Deborah was Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald’s, in our opinion, Black Owned Media was, once again, severely neglected, minimized and discriminated against. To be clear, Black Owned Media and not minority owned media, because minority includes white women and large corporations like General Motors can hide behind and tout their minority records while continuing not to do business with Black Owned Media companies.”

So, after that was put out last week, it is quite in the spirit of the times to see a similar sort of concern expressed today by white women after a General Conference that included talks by three black men.

Love this post, EmJen. Posts like this are exactly why I come to BCC. Jader3rd: I would love to hear your thoughts about Elder Andersen’s talk–I’m guessing we have some similar reactions. Please write a post with your thoughts, because there are so many of us who would like to discuss this in a safe place and with safe people. Heaven knows my family (especially extended family) is NOT a safe place to express any questions or concerns or doubts or observations.

Yep, this. Except I didn’t think about how this problem compounds in that not only do no women speak at conference – but then we end up studying only talks by men for the next 6 months. It’s mind blowing to me (in a bad way).

Setting aside that they could fix this by creating an equivalent to the Q15 and 70’s for women (or calling them straight to those), I don’t see why we have to hear from the Q15 every six months. They’re running out of material as many have been speaking every six months for decades. I would love to hear from a more diverse lineup – and no, expanding to more racial groups need not take away from women. We need both. The white men need to make way. It is total hypocrisy to say we need to listen to women and then not invite them to speak.

I am really quite shocked they haven’t fixed this. Even very TBM men I know think it needs to change.

The impression I got was that somebody saw this Conference session as being in the context of continuing October’s thread about racial equality, so we had two black men speak, rather than one every third conference or so. The black men took the speaking slots that women would ordinarily have had. There are only so many token slots to go around.

Excellent post, EmJen. It’s hard to say, but I kind of fear that for many or most GAs, hearing from *any* women more than zero seems to them to be a lot of listening to women. Either that or they’re just fine sending a hugely mixed message, claiming to want to hear more from women, but carefully orchestrating things to make sure that women don’t get a chance to speak.

Anna, I think you make a great point about there not being a need to hear from President Nelson so many times. Or the First Presidency in general. Elisa, I so agree about Q15 members running out of material. President Monson was one who frequently re-told stories, for example, and President Eyring seems to be at the stage too where he’s been in the First Presidency for so long that he’s given every talk he’s ever going to give that has anything original to say in it. I would far rather hear from more women leaders than hear a First Presidency member tell a story for the nth time.

And on the side issue of abortion, Anna, I’d like to “like” your last paragraph in your first comment about a thousand times. Amen!

Thank you for writing this. For me, I feel comforted knowing that I am not the only one mourning the lack of women’s voices. A few years ago when President Nelson said women’s voices were needed, I naively thought that actually meant that we would hear more women in general conference. That the opposite happened — only one or two across all four general sessions — has been heartbreaking. It doesn’t match with how I know Jesus treated women as full human beings of worth. It’s hard for me to hang onto my own value when there is a mismatch from leaders between what they say and what they do. As this post points out, are women really needed, wanted, called? It doesn’t feel that way to me.

A post sharing the response from the first presidency about this issue is revealing. It seems there is a struggle to see women as full-fledged leaders capable of speaking in conference. https://www.the-exponent.com/guest-post-calling-more-women-to-speak-at-general-conference-a-response-to-the-office-of-the-first-presidency/

Thank you, Emily. This is the post-Conference report we need!

(My wife’s immediate reaction to the “women and children” choir was to remark that no one would ever think to do a “men and children” choir, now would they?)

Hunter, British Anglican churches do “men and children” choirs a lot Maybe if we taught children to sing instead of whisper or shout, we could too. :)

@Wondering, I don’t doubt that the exclusion tends more towards “thoughtless” than “intentional.” But at this point, in 2021, and with SO many people noticing and commenting on it, it’s inexcusably thoughtless. Willfully malicious would be a pretty low bar for the Q15, so even if this is just willfully ignorant that doesn’t leave me feeling super inspired.

I’ve seen this discussion take place after each of the last several General Conferences and honestly I’m surprised they haven’t at least put a woman per session to improve the optics. It’s seems just plain incompetent. I listened to the sessions later but am boycotting real-time participation until this is fixed.

@OP one other thing to note – apparently it’s now “common consent” to appoint area authorities (who I presume will have authority over women in their areas) without a single female sustaining vote. At least that’s my assumption (that the leadership meetings in which these area authorities were sustained were priesthood meetings? If I’m wrong about that LMK. Would love for this to be discussed as well. I get why they aren’t doing this in general conference anymore but why not in regional conferences? It’s absolutely terrible to have no women participating in the vote if that’s what happened.)

Wondering, I’m well aware of the men and boys choral tradition. But bringing that up is off topic and beside the point. The point of my wife’s remark is that it is laughable (an afront, really) that women, as a group, are paired off with children in our Church.

Back to the post, please: this General Conference did not live up to its potential when it comes to including women’s voices.

p.s. Catholics look to hear the Pope. That’s it. Not cardinals, bishops, and nuns. And those people are important and matter too but they’re not the Pope.

Hunter, To quote one of our best female leaders Chieko Okazaki: “Lighten up.” :)
Are you saying all those men called to be Primary teachers and nursery workers and all those daddy-daughter dates don’t count as pairing men with children? Also, while I don’t know about the cultures from which those conference singers came, in my corner of western American culture and my former corner of European culture, trying to get musically untrained men to even be willing to sing let alone sound like anything you’d want to hear is very far more difficult than getting women to sing and sound acceptable. Perhaps the point was to represent membership in other places in the world participating in conference at a musically acceptable level. Maybe it wasn’t pairing women and children because that’s where women belong; maybe it was because the women could sing. Maybe the choice was even left up to the various participating congregations. If either, it was not an affront by general leadership, but a compliment that people can choose to take as an affront if they want to. (Shades of Bednar! Did I ever think such a thing?! Maybe I can repent as fast as J. Golden Kimball.) When we don’t have information about the reasons, it sure is easy to imagine the worst. I think I prefer Sister Okazaki’s attitude.
Though I could do without hearing from quite a number of the men we hear from in GC, general authorities or not, I could also do without hearing those “women who speak in conference [who] end up sounding a lot like the men who speak and end up quoting heavily from other men.” And I could certainly do without hearing from a number of GAs’ wives — at least that hasn’t happened in GC so far as I know. I would like to hear from a great many more Sister Aburta types, and regularly from the general RS, YW, and Primary presidencies, whether they happen to be types I respond to or not.
I might even go with Elisa’s “inexcusably thoughtless” evaluation, though there are also a good number of female voices like mez’ above who do not participate this comment threads like this one. I think having a place to vent frustration is valuable, but, in the end, I don’t think getting our garments in a wad over the multi-faceted and variously appreciated or frustrating problem is going to fix it to anyone’s satisfaction.

Commenters like Wondering and Nancy appear to think they’re being clever and that it’s amusing to use phrases like “garments in a wad” about an issue that is one of the root causes so many of our young people are leaving the church and taking their families with them. Entire generations won’t be attending church or the temple, but based on your words, evidently you can sleep easy because you can be flippant and dismissive of the deep concerns shared by many members of the church.

Seeing the callousness of church leaders and some commenters here and elsewhere is disheartening and is demonstrative of how this is being handled in local congregations, and why the inactivity rate of our young people is so high. (If you don’t know about that, check with your stake leadership about the number of unknown or inactive young single adults in your stake. Tends to be a shocking number.) This is the divisive message they hear so loud and clear on Sundays including at General Conference that other messages of love and inclusion barely shine through.

Perhaps we should appreciate people showing up to demonstrate exactly why we’re having this discussion, but it’s a serious challenge to do so when the stakes are so high.

@wondering there are tons of other ways women get paired with children besides choir selection. That was just an example.

*women’s conference a few years ago changed to “ages 8 and up” whereas priesthood stayed 12 and up. (I believe that’s since reverted which is good because the meeting was in no way targets towards 8 yr olds, unless you think they ought to be listening to Oaks’ transphobia or whatever).
*the way they have done the last prophet sustaining dividing into groups put women way behind deacons and with children.
*when they opened witnessing ordinances up to women, it was women and children.

Basically since women don’t hold priesthood officer there’s nowhere to “rank” them like there is with deacons teachers priests elders etc and they get lumped with children. It is totally ridiculous and insulting. Your examples of daddy-daughter dates have nothing to do with “rank” and “order” within the church.

I get that there are varying opinions here. I try to recognize that as much as I like my own I’m not always right and that often there is no “right.” But that’s not true here.

People who think it’s OK for 2 women to speak in a general conference are wrong. It’s fine for them if they are not bothered by it. But they are wrong. It is not ok.

Flippancy is often a defense mechanism used in place of others’ angry venting about the same concern. In those cases, it often results from experiencing the futility of anger or venting in an effort to get the concerns addressed. It has nothing to do with being dismissive of those concerns.

Yes, Elisa, there are tons of ways women get paired with children. Though irrelevant to the main point of the op, there are also some ways men get paired with children. There are tons of men who do not get called into leadership positions in the Church because they are single or are not bootlickers or are too busy actually trying make ends meet or to meet their responsibilities to others. There are others do not “rise” further in the Church hierarchy because they focus on service and not statistics. Like some women, these men are also effectively paired with children. Pairing with children is unfortunately often gender-based; sometimes it is not. Some people are complimented by or at least appreciate it; most who speak up in contexts like this one are not.

Whatever the reasons for it — good, bad, mixed, varied, variously perceived — it remains true that “You Can’t Listen to Women [in General Conference] If They Aren’t Invited to Speak”

Anna, I have just recently moved away from the church. I hesitate to say left because I haven’t asked for my records to be removed. And it’s for the reasons you state as well as the cultural disconnect from having moved from a country where the Church was less political to an area of the US where it is very political. More, though, is the attitude among my “community” here that any kind of criticism is taken as petty and brushed aside. If I can accept my husband’s remaining in the church as his choice, if I can listen respectfully to his reasons and not try to brush them aside, then why can’t he and the others in our ward give me the same respect? Why don’t my feelings count? If someone reads this article and thinks “well I disagree . . .” that’s fine. But I see several comments here which don’t honor someone’s feelings and right to express an opinion. And I think that’s sad in a religious community.

I haven’t read all the comments on which callings require you to be be married so somebody may have already addressed this, but in any case, last month Elder Holland did a five-stake leadership meeting in my area at which he said:

“You don’t have to be married to do everything in the church. You have to be married to be a temple president and a mission president and a stake president and a bishop and a patriarch. And other than that you don’t have to be. So use these able wonderful single adults, of whom there are more and more and more.”

Sorry, didn’t mean to post the same comment twice!

I want to go on the record as standing against mez’s comment, for two reasons:

1. I believe I can have a personal, direct relationship with God. I don’t need to go through my Bishop, the stake high council, or even the Prophet to get there. So while I’m not opposed to listening to him speak from time to time, I truly believe my connection to the divine is no less than his. Four talks seems a bit much then, in my humble opinion.

2. I want a diverse range of voices. I learn better in that environment. When women’s voices, or the voices of people of color, or even the voices of anyone below the age of 50 is ignored for ten straight hours, I am confident I didn’t learn as much as I could have learned. I want to hear the stories others have to tell, not just the stories of privilege told by white men born in the 1940’s.

“Only twice a year we get to hear from the Q12.”

Agreed….I mean, except for their presence on social media, print media, TV interviews, church website, Liahona, etc., I have no idea what they are up to or what they are saying except for those 4 days a year.

Mez, based on the comments here, I think “[I] prefer to see them speaking live” instead of “we” might be more accurate.

Chadwick–the reason I’d rather hear from the apostles is to avoid “the inspiration” from people ,of any age, sex or color, like Julie Beck delivering her “Women Who Know” talk. Julie Beck did not speak for the Lord as one of the twelve people He called to do so to the entire church in that Conference. Nor was she praying
for the Lord and the entire church as if she were one of the twelve when she gave the prayer at Trump’s rally. She, you and I shouldn’t be counseling the entire church in a worldwide conference.

Hi mez:

I have no intention to counsel the entire church. That being said, I have life experience that may resonate with people; life experiences different from a group of men whose life experiences are, with some exceptions, substantially similar. And I believe others have stories to share more valuable than mine; stories that would bring me closer to Christ.

Like I said, I’m fine listening to their counsel. But they can give it faster/more efficient, with time left over for a more diverse group of speakers. Can we agree on this?

So where do we cross the line on not speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed? The Relief Society President doesn’t count, but the First Presidency and Q12 do? So only men? That seems unfair.

Depending on how expansive your view of heaven is, it seems most people will get back to God without ever having heard these fifteen men. So I guess I believe I can too. That doesn’t mean I don’t find value from time to time in their words, but I suppose it seems I don’t value their words to the same extent that you do. And that’s ok, for my part at least.

– Yes, Chadwick we agree on that.
Brian–Infallibility? No, not at all. It’s the fallibility that makes me respectfully aware and relieved I am not accountable to God like they are for speaking to others as if God Himself. It’s enough hearing from them that I need to be better, etc.that everyone else should say they know what I should do or not too? I don’t speak for you–I can’t even say that people like me, “we” prefer seeing GA’s live, Uchtdorf especially, always so sunny and uplifting in person, without pushing someone’s button. The twelve have the authority to push my buttons.
Sure we all have valuable experience that would resonate with others and benefit them. I imagine so did members of the early church but it’s the apostles witnesses of Christ that are the New Testament. For whatever reason, Christ called twelve specific males out of all other people to be his apostles. Was it unfair to women? Did Mary and Martha feel “less than”?
I hope not because they weren’t.

My understanding is the twelve have a mission that differs from anyone else.
They are special witnesses of Him because they have actual knowledge of Him, whereas most of us are going on faith. If that’s not so, or you believe it isn’t, then you won’t see any reason to listen them more than anyone else.

True, most people will get to heaven not knowing modern day apostles but none will do so without hearing the accounts of original twelve apostles. If they accept the temple ordinances after death, they will hear about the others.

Who is considered the Lord’s anointed? In the Old Testament it seems to be prophets and the priesthood–which was only Levite men, not all men. Did the other men find that unfair? Maybe or they understood it differently. There was no equivalent of an RS president so anointed leader wasn’t referring to that role. RS isn’t the Church. RS has no saving ordinances. They can give you the baptismal clothing but they cannot perform the baptism.

I’m an older woman. It’s not the RS thinking about the widows in my ward. It’s the priesthood–the stake presidency, bishopric, elders quorum and the young men. They act like they feel anointed and responsible to God for the stake and ward members. The women’s focus is primarily their own family. The women are good at saying the most incredible Christlike things during the lessons but in my experience it’s the men who walk the walk.

Mez, I think you have articulated two important reasons why some disagree with you.
1. Apostles “are special witnesses of Him because they have actual knowledge of Him, whereas most of us are going on faith.”
2. “It’s not the RS thinking about the widows in my ward. It’s the priesthood–the stake presidency, bishopric, elders quorum and the young men. …. The women’s focus is primarily their own family. The women are good at saying the most incredible Christlike things during the lessons but in my experience it’s the men who walk the walk.”

As to the first, there are many who have understood the apostles to be teaching that their knowledge of Christ is of the same order as that of the rest of us. As to the second, assuming accuracy of perception, that is not the experience of some others. I expect there really is local variation in such experiences There has also been significant variation, in the perception at least, of various GAs walking the walk — or not.

Some of us tend to learn better from a variety of people, especially when they avoid authoritarian styles. For some, those authoritarian styles get in the way of learning — whether they are employed by apostles or not, by liberals or conservatives, by POC or by men or by women. It would seem that no one can be just the right teacher for everyone. But the experiences of a variety of people as to cultural, ethnic, national backgrounds, AND gender can be very helpful in learning to see beyond our own cultural and personal limitations. I appreciate the recent years’ increase in such variety among GAs, but for some of us there is still a long way to go and a very long way to go before the Church will hear women’s voices teaching to any significant degree. We are impoverished by the lack of them.

Thank you Wondering. I couldn’t agree more with your comment.

Mez, I’m so sorry that you have had these bad experiences. They are yours, and I don’t want to diminish them. To feel disconnected from your identified gender like this is painful.

Perhaps it’s easy to put the apostles on a pedestal because they are not in a position to let you down personally. They’ve never forgotten to call you when they said they would, or cancelled on you last minute when you needed them most, or said something unkind in a personal conversation with you. But local leaders we know and rely on will ultimately disappoint eventually. My experience is that neither men nor women are better or worse at this but that individual circumstances prevail. That’s my experience which is different from your experience. In both of us sharing this, perhaps we both learn something helpful. Thank you for being courageous enough to share your perspective.

I agree that this is a broader problem of the demographics of the church, since of the most of the leadership is white guys from the mormon belt, we hear mostly white guy mormon belt perspectives.

This conference it was nice to hear from some more “regular” folks this conference, like that sister from Nicaragua and another guy from Africa, I don’t remember exactly where. Especially that sister from Nicaragua who used a real, actual, challenge from her personal life (her brother dying in an earthquake) to contextualize her message

This was a stark contrast to a talk from the priesthood session in which a some white guy talked about how great he once was at football. I get that he was targeting youngish men, but still, someone should use that corpus of General Conference talks and look at how many times examples from football or such are used in conference.

It seems like there’s an increasing disconnect, almost a sort of tone-deafness, between how the church leadership represents itself and teaches vs. what actual members of the church are experiencing. It often comes off as a massive #firstworldproblems kind of thing where white guys talk about football and the handful of women that speak might talk about how they had to vacuum a lot that one time.

It would be great to not just hear more from non-white, non-wealthy folks, but especially more women, that probably make more more than half of the church’s membership.

They’re realizing that they’re too white, now it remains to be seen if they’ll realize whether subset of voices they prioritize first: women or low-icome folks.

EmJen, Brava! Excellent post.

Elisa, I miss Sister Kate Kelley.(She will always be “sister” to me.) Ring -ring- ring- calling Ordain Women to the rescue! It’s time to show up with our umbrellas when in-person conference returns another peaceful demonstration. Time to crank up the heat, they got lax!

Yeah, conference was a case study in implicit bias, a result of outright male chauvinism and clenched authority. But at the same time, that bias runs deeper than gender. The Brethren say they appreciate women and need women, but don’t actually include them. They say they love us, and yet they live cloistered lives, rejecting our letters and avoiding our company. They say they need us (men and women in the rank and file), yet they don’t rely on any of us- really. They build the temples, we are the sheeple that they have to accommodate. We are mere masses that hinder their efficiency. They are erasing all our fingerprints from inside the temples too. They write the curricula, we are the recipients/parrots. They make all the strategic decisions, we follow. No, we aren’t needed.

In the pioneer days, the rank and file had purpose. Without everyone putting their shoulder to the wheel, we wouldn’t have survived. We huddled together. Diverse talents and light were needed and put to use. But today, we aren’t needed, we are widgets to be manufactured and managed. In that process, conformity is obligatory.

When we lament that women don’t speak, we are simultaneously lamenting the fact that an entire gender isn’t participating- across all sectors of the beehive. As long as the Brethren keep thinking they are managing a membership organization that requires them to run everything while creating an illusion of purpose for the members, we’re missing the concept of Zion. Much like cruise ship captains responsible for every aspect of the journey while entertaining the passengers with shuffleboard tournaments, the Brethren have little use for our help, be we women or men.

Once we were a much more egalitarian society (in our earlier Masonic days). We’ve tragically jettisoned those ideals, first in leader worship, and then we developed amnesia regarding our own roles and value.

I once heard a wise man say that if you are starting a project, don’t wring your hands over the composition or shortcomings of the people who do or don’t show up to participate. Be in the moment and accept the circumstances as having meaning- perfect in imperfection. Everyone is there for a purpose- just go forward and the wheels of the universe will spin as they should. I wish the powers that be in the church office building appreciated us as we are- and not as they wished us to be (all white male businessmen). They might (gasp) catch the spirit of Zion, which is partnering together, using each covenanted member’s G- given gifts.

For example, what if women spoke. What if women who had personal testimonies and mIraculous stories about birth, miscarriage, and personal revelation regarding their bodies and reproductive timelines, were to have spoken? (I’ll say it, instead of a man who obviously did not.) What if our craftsmanship were needed to build temples? (Not just the factories in Utah, but in local temple districts consecrated their own China (as the Kirtland story goes) to the effort? What if Minerva’s murals were prized as a consecrated testimony as opposed to an old woman’s out-dated scribbling? What if the anxiety to correlate everything were calmed by trust that the new light coming from the members would harmonize and amplify instead of apostatize? I could go on, but you get the idea.

Mike, genuine question: If it’s God’s church, why did it take him so long to “correct” the brethren re. racist teachings (racist policies too, but at least the brethren have accepted the teachings were racist)? If it’s God’s church, why were children of gay couples not allowed to be baptised, only for that policy to be reversed a few years later? If it’s God’s church why did it take till 2013 for a woman to be allowed to pray in GC? Why didn’t God “correct” the brethren sooner?

Mike, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t realize how condescending your “genuine question” is, but surely you’ve noticed that an awful lot of people DON’T believe it’s God’s church anymore. I’m not sure that I believe it either, to be honest. I remain because I hope that it is. I wish God WOULD correct the Brethren, but I’m not sure what that would look like. Maybe He has tried through all the “commenters at BCC” and they just haven’t heard or listened. They have their agency too, after all. In any case, though, I suspect that what I was taught growing up about what it means to be “the only true and living church” is probably not right, or maybe I misunderstood it. It’s getting hard for me to keep attending as the membership (at least in my area) is skewing further and further right and the leadership, both local and general, seem more and more out of touch with what people like me are concerned about and less and less able or willing to hear us. My children have no interest in the church because it does not seem to fill any need they have. I want to hear what the General Authorities have to say – men and women – but their remarks are usually so vague and general that they can be (and are) interpreted any way the hearer wants, so they end up meaning nothing. Or worse, they have so much cultural baggage that it is hard to see past it. Again, I hope this is God’s church – whatever that means – and I hope that there is some power or authority in the covenants I have made and struggle to keep. But the Church as an organization seems to be failing a large portion of its stakeholders and I don’t know how to process that. I remind myself often that God’s ways are not my ways, but that is cold comfort most of the time.

Oops … “lets us” …

I recognize that individuals’ feelings about the church are more nuanced than I have intimated. But some of them don’t seem to be. I do think the situation requires people to do some deep soul searching to figure out what the truth is. If it’s God’s church, why has he not corrected the leaders? Is there purpose in his inaction? Do we think we can do a better job than God is doing?(that seems a dangerous position, but I’m guessing most people would reject that notion).

I recognize that leaders are fallible. God allows them to make mistakes, within a certain range. I don’t think it’s sinful for people to be concerned about what they perceive regarding how leaders handle things, but how far it’s taken can lead to a place from which it may be difficult to return.

Well, Sam, thanks for the feedback. I’m not sure how you are defining “off topic” but I’m not the one who has been taking the position that BCC commenters can slide in as substitutes for God, but if it’s rude to call a rose a rose then I’m rude.

Mike you’re running into the infallibility problem, the direct-phone line to God problem, the God takes away agency once you’re an apostle problem, the revelation is always clear and obvious problem, the muddied history of the church problem, the one way to think about anything problem, etc.

What evidence do you have that God has chosen not to correct them?
Alternatively, my friend is sick and in hospital. Apparently, God has chosen not to visit him. I was going to go myself but I don’t want to appear as if I know better than God. So I’ll leave the visiting to Him.

What I’ve figured out is that you expect God to do things we can reasonably do ourselves.

Mike, after announcing your intentions to shop somewhere else, it’s nice to see that you are, in fact, just as human as everyone else. So, help us out. Just to be clear, your position seems to be that the OP and other comments which call out the problems of not hearing women in Conference (after calls from leaders to listen more to women) are basically on the road to hell. Is that right? Do you see how some people might see that as rude (as Sam mentioned above)? Also, do you see that your ignoring of many of the objections to your complaint might lead others to question your honest, genuine interest in the topic and process–and that your concession of the possibility of ‘reasonable’ arc steadying sort of works against your main thrust and thus we have no real idea what your complaint is or why you are making it other than to call people to repent for the supposed crime of . . . pointing out that the plan from those ‘carrying’ the proverbial arc aren’t actually being followed by themselves? And you see this as heinous? As unreasonable? As some sign that people don’t believe God leads the Church?

never forget, The thing is, that happened BEFORE Conference. And from what I understand (I didn’t catch every word of every session), it wasn’t even mentioned then. Sort of like that ‘don’t tell anyone we’re not as sexist in the temple anymore’ fiasco. Huge missed opportunity.

Confluence is a time to hear primarily from general authorities.

Thanks to EmJen for this post! The comments from other women tell me that there are many women like me who occasionally read By Common Consent but never comment. So I am breaking a long habit of lurking but never participating. Nothing will change until women and men both have the courage to say what they really think in multiple settings and then act accordingly.
Media posts may help. But purposeful discussion and action at the local level, which is where the Church really lives, is what matters. There is space here for only one suggestion–men as well as women should “seek out” the best talks by women (including Rena Alburto’s fabulous sermon on the place of women as ministers and witness of Christ) and teach wherever they have the opportunity. I teach Relief Society every other month in my highly diverse Philadelphia Ward, so I choose as my topic “women and the resurrection of Jesus” and the week before asked sisters to read the NT scriptures and listen at general conference for any references to them. Imagine my joy when Sister Alburto spoke! Not only was her talk one of the very few that dealt directly with the Easter story, it was deeply moving, both well-grounded in scripture and in her own life experience. I was stunned by Elder Oaks reference to “the brethren” and felt deep despair at the virtual exclusion of women (although joy at the global reach) in the Conference. The range of comments in this discussion tells me there is a lot of work to do locally on these issues. I would love to hear more from others about what they might be doing. My one regret is that I failed to include in the lesson I gave yesterday the part of the Easter story about those who dismissed the women’s stories as ‘”idle tales.”

When I was on the high council speaking circuit, I made it a point to always include quotes from women speakers.

I don’t want to take this discussion off into a different direction, but I’ve seen several comments about Elder Anderson’s comments on abortion and how troubling they were. I read his talk this morning because of those comments but I must be missing something (perhaps because of my extreme white male privilege). I don’t think anybody should be surprised that the church opposes abortion in most cases and encourages adoption where possible. If I’m being insensitive to specific concerns I’d like to know where I need to adjust. The comments seem to assume that it should be clear to anybody what the problem is, but . . .

I won’t respond to all of your comments, except to say thank you for the response. Regarding the specific comment about Elder Anderson only giving specific examples of adoption or having more children, I suppose one might respond to say that it would seem odd for a GA to give a specific example of someone choosing abortion because it’s between that person and the Lord (though I suppose he could have given a specific example, but naming names seems risky, even assuming he wouldn’t have used someone’s real name–he would have used a name that was real and thus create the possibility that someone with that name had circumstances that might lead those around her to think she is the person he was talking about).

I’d have to ponder that issue a bit more, but currently it strikes me that the most appropriate way to address the issue would be to reiterate the church’s policy of rare exceptions that are decided with the Lord. But if people have a problem with the “rare” or even “unusual” circumstances I’m not sure there’s a response that would be satisfactory.

As a parent who adopted two children, I’m obviously grateful for adoption. The mother of the first one was in the waiting room for an abortion and felt prompted to leave and have the baby. I don’t think anybody should judge her harshly for listening to the prompting, which was clearly between her and the Lord. On the other hand, I can truthfully acknowledge there would be circumstances where an abortion would be the appropriate choice (hence, the church’s official stance reflecting this).

I would find it rather odd if a GA were to publicly encourage abortion. As Elder Oaks once told a group of leaders, “We (general authorities) teach the general rule; whether an exception applies to you is between you and the Lord.”

Mike, I appreciate you’re open to the possibility that abortion can be the right choice under some circumstances. Can you see, though, how when so many stories around abortion and fertility focus on women ignoring medical advice to get an abortion or stop having children, women naturally understand this to mean that the reality is that any Church rhetoric about how their health should be taken into account is just lip service?

If you’re up for it, see this post from a woman who vacillated and ended up feeling tremendously guilty for having an abortion when she had an ectopic pregnancy, that had zero chance of surviving to term. This is exactly what we get when we repeatedly say that exceptions are very rare and depict faithful women as always going against medical advice.

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2011/04/the-gray-areas-of-agency-2/

I appreciate you engaging reasonably on a potentially hot button topic. I’ll bow out now to avoid threadjacking further.

On the topic of the Anderson abortion talk, my objection was/is slightly different than (or perhaps supplements) what’s already been said.

I just don’t know why abortion needs to be prominently discussed at all, in 2021. I don’t want minimize abortion as an issue that’s worth discussing in conference…. but…. is it?

I think having an apostle talk about it is potentially problematic for three reasons:

1) It invokes the “visibility” bias and (in my view) signals that it’s a more pressing “problem” than it really is. With everything going on in the world right now, from income inequality to civil unrest to racial tension…. we’re going to go with a talk on the evils of abortion that could have come right out of the Roe v Wade debates from decades ago? Five minutes of googling shows that abortions are at an all-time low in the United States (e.g. https://www.statista.com/chart/19490/us-abortion-rate-guttmacher-institute/). So it just seems like a strange choice of topic, the selection of which encourages listeners to believe that it’s a more pressing social problem than it really is. Elder Anderson is talking about it so it must be important! (I realize this isn’t a perfect analogy, but it’s almost like insisting over and over that voter fraud is a problem when in fact it’s really not….and how in some circles the repeated assertions influence people’s belief that the problem is dire.) So in this sense, the 2021 Anderson abortion talk seems more like a dog whistle to people who already erroneously believe it’s one of the pressing social/moral problems of the day. Which leads to my second point….

2) I really don’t understand who this talk is for. It’s unclear who Elder Anderson was actually talking to or trying to influence, or what problem it’s really intended to solve. If the talk was aimed at women in difficult circumstances who are considering abortions, it’s not clear the talk was useful. If it’s intended as a congratulatory talk to those in developed nations who have chosen not to abort a pregnancy but instead utilize well-established adoption infrastructure… well, ok i guess. But why spend 15 minutes of Gen Conf time on that, for a church audience of 16 million people? Why are we talking about this? Who is the audience? And while the personal connection makes the talk “real” (certainly to the Andersons) it doesn’t necessarily make it useful, broadly. I just don’t get what the talk is trying to accomplish.

(Truthfully this is one of my pet peeves: talks that seem to be oriented more toward virtue signalling or policy projection rather than useful devotional application.)

3) Finally, I also think in many ways it’s one more example of US-centric “issues” that get highlighted, to the church’s disservice. I can’t help but think that saints in, say, Australia or Holland or Singapore probably listen and wonder why we’re hearing about an issue that’s only a hot-button political issue in the USA. Sort of like Oaks’ talk on the US Constitution. I mean, why. If I were living in Germany I’d probably think: whut? Imagine US viewers’ reaction to an apostle or member of the first presidency talking about the NATO charter or the current state of the EU in a General Conference talk… would that be weird? Why yes, yes it would. Which is why a talk on the US Constitution is also weird in that setting. Or (in this instance) a talk on a divisive American political issue for no empirically-supported reason. It’s just weird.

I think you made a very important comment…you don’t get it. My question is, “Why are we picking apart the apostles’ talks and complaining about them? There is definitely a reason why each of them speak about what they do. Their talks have to be approved ahead of time by the First Presidency. We may not understand NOW why they are talking about certain topics, but we will. Everyone wondered why President Benson talked so much about The Book of Mormon, but we get it now. People couldn’t understand why President Hinckley talked about The Proclamation on the Family, but we sure do now. We need to read and study their talks and see what is there for us personally. I loved President Oaks’ talk! I learned a lot, and he emphasized why the success of the United States affects the entire world. Jesus Chrust will return to Jerusalem and then the United States. He will dwell HERE during the Millennium. Please, let us learn from our apostles and prophets, rather than judge them.

Not a better example of a conspiracy theorist. Turns out they’re not only on the right.

A very dear friend of mine in the Church attended Harvard 45 years ago and later Harvard Business School. He’s got a sharp mind and is very curious and inquisitive. He’s spent the last ~12 years in the presidency of a local foreign language branch (last 3 as president). The congregation is small – fewer than 50 active attendees – and rife with problems that tend to accompany lower economic echelons in higher percentages. Put bluntly, it is not the kind of crowd where you’d feel at home discussing macroeconomic developments or best practices for a consulting engagement.

I asked him once if he resented being in this calling for so long, as it’s typical to serve in these “temporary” callings for 3-5 years at most. Serving this tiny branch has kept him from interacting with his home ward, with all the social benefits that arrangement is supposed to entail. His reply resonated with me (paraphrased): “I decided it wasn’t fair for me to ask to the Church to be my sole destination for every need. I joined my alumni club to get the intellectual stimulation I wanted. I’m now on the board of a nonprofit. But most importantly, the Church gives me a chance to interact with people who likely would not cross my path otherwise. They are helping me, in their way, to become more Christlike and develop his Holy attributes. And they don’t need to be the sole source of that development.”

There are so many comments in this thread lamenting the current structure of the Church and how it’s “denying” them all sorts of things. Perhaps the psychologically healthy solution might be to give and take what you can from the Church experience, and fill the other needs elsewhere. Struggling endlessly to mold the Church into your image will only produce resentment, not refinement.

If you’d like to respond directly to me after quoting verbatim from my post, Brian, you are welcome to do so. No need to couch your reply under a broad, passive blanket.

A careful – and indeed, superficial – reading of my comment will notice that I wasn’t lamenting anybody’s lack of faith. My comment was a suggested solution, which I fully understand is rarely the goal of a BCC comments section. It takes a mature faith to realize that your ward might not give you everything you want out of life – and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean the ward (or even the Church hierarchy) is broken. It takes a mature faith to realize that the Church does not have – and never will have – a structure that aligns perfectly with the world’s current and ever-shifting definition of “fair.” It takes a mature faith to choose belief. Perhaps we could do a little more, “Lord, is it I?” and less of, “Lord, what’s wrong with all these people?!”

Benson using the insights of a male leader who served for over a decade in a branch presidency to illustrate his position that I, as a woman, shouldn’t expect the church to ever fulfill my need to be valued for my unique insights is… whew. Something else.

Bensen, look I’m sorry for the typo, but I find it galling that women here and elsewhere are expressing a need to feel valued and heard in the building up the kingdom of God, and your response is that a branch president you know joined his alumni network. I hope you can see how misaligned that is. Assuring each member that they are valued and have something important to contribute to the work of eternal salvation is a pretty fundamental duty of the church, and no, the women whose church experience demonstrates otherwise can’t find assurance somewhere else.
“If you think your unique insights are only valued if you get to sit on the stand every week…well, that is something else indeed.”
This is the point of the OP, no? As a church, we claim to want to hear the insights of women, and yet they are given very few opportunities to be heard. Your no-glory, little-respect leader absolutely was given a position to have his insights heard. Women have very little access to any position with similar influence. Regardless of your friend’s experience, our church explicitly values the voices of men more than women; that fact is made plain in our leadership structure, which is overwhelmingly male. General conference is evidence of unbalance. Do you really believe women’s and men’s voices are equally valued in the church? How can they be when we hear from so few women? Honest question.

Do not the scriptures read “and a little child shall lead them?” Or how about “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons AND YOUR DAUGHTERS shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams…” It seems that if the daughters in this Church prophesied, they may never have the opportunity to voice it.

We need to value different voices. The idea that only the institutional leaders will be heard in church is not scriptural.

Bensen, the problem isn’t that you simply don’t understand correctly. I don’t think many commenting here would agree with your understanding of their posts or their premises. The fault is not a lack of clarity on their part, however, but a lack of understanding on yours, most likely spurred by your unwillingness to understand. Your examples miss the point, further reveal your myopic reading of the complaints, and smack of patronizing platitudes meant to calm down the ‘less faithful’ and ‘unintelligent’ women you are responding to. That you do it with such ignorance and high-mindedness is absolutely disgusting.

Mike, that’s not what I wrote.

Are talking past each other, Bensen? Because feeling heard and valuable in the church is about more than giving talks. I’ve been that 35-year-old mother-of-5 who gave a powerful talk. Many times. I’ve had members suggest I write books! And I’ve also had numerous, painful experiences that have demonstrated how little my opinions and insights, as a woman, are valued in the church. So many. And I know too many women who have similar experiences. But I’ve stayed, hoping and advocating for change. I can assure you my faith is NOT immature.

(And I recognize many men have also felt marginalized and excluded. But that’s not the point of the OP.)

But, to respond to your example, that’s great that your ward member’s talk moved you so powerfully. How many more people’s faith could she strengthen if she spoke regularly to all the wards in your stake as a member of a female equivalent of the high council? Might her insight be valuable in a ward council, where currently men out-number women 3:1 or even 4:1?

In the aggregate, the BCC comments section has a more thoughtful class of commenter than other social media (eg, Facebook). Accordingly, I’ve often experienced a sort of ‘crowdsourced wisdom’ when perusing the comments section. And I enjoy it.

In skimming over the first 130 comments on this post, it became readily evident to me that the Negative Nelly echo chamber was prevailing. I have, in the past, let mistakes (as I saw them) in Church policy and practice corrode my testimony of the divinity of this work. The resentment finally called for a reset, and I’m grateful for the crowdsourced wisdom that helped me turn more fully towards the Savior’s Gospel and the Savior’s Church.

My primary motivation in commenting here is to offer a perspective that is largely lacking. I don’t pretend for a minute that my proffered solutions or shared examples are some kind of spiritual panacea. But some positive action – centered around something an individual member can actually control – is so much more productive than the spiritual exhaustion that comes with constantly finding fault with the way things are run in the Church. It should not be a divisive, radical thing to say as much.

The Area Organization Advisers is a major deal. So why not celebrate it as a major milestone in visible female leadership instead of just complaining that it wasn’t rolled out to your particular satisfaction? It’d be refreshing to see a BCC post by this author – or any other – highlighting all that is going well with the Church right now. Plenty to choose from.

Here is wisdom
Feminists don’t want equality, they want supremacy.

Brian
In a school district women had become the majority of some area previously dominated by men. One of the educators applauded this saying it’s about time. But wait I thought it was about equality 50 50.
If women want to hear women’s voices, there is a general relief society meeting, is there not?
Frankly, I think conference is a time to hear principally from general authorities

Fousey, that’s not what feminism is about. It’s about equal access, equal opportunity. Whoever said that most likely breathing a sigh of relief, a ‘finally we’ve broken through a barrier that has existed forever.’ Feminism, contrary to whatever you’ve heard, isn’t a zero-sum game. Come on, brother, a better world is out there than such pettiness.

Fousey, that’s not what I wrote and that’s not the stance of feminists. You seem to have difficulty understanding the concepts here or are willfully being obtuse. Either way, I don’t play chess games with pigeons.