The stark contrast between Meagan Kohler’s life before and after she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had made her skeptical of claims that the church is sexist — “that it prioritizes men over women or that women are second-class citizens.”
“In every way that matters, my life is significantly better than it was before joining the church,” she said Thursday during the 2025 FAIR Latter-day Saints Conference in Lehi, Utah.
During an address titled, “A broader framework for unerstanding gender equality in the church,“ Kohler described early experiences enduring domestic violence, poverty and substance abuse in her family.
“You probably have an idea where my life was headed, but that’s not what happened,” she said, sharing later photos alongside her husband after marrying and being sealed in a Latter-day Saint temple and of her college graduation.
‘Men can be trustworthy?’
Kohler, who is a regular contributor at the Deseret News, recalled meeting Latter-day Saint missionaries in the street as a teenager. “One of the first things that drew my interest to the church was that not a single missionary made any attempt to engage with me on a sexual level.”
At an age and time of life when “many men are at their most destructive” in relation to women, she said, “They were sacrificing their time and energy to God primarily … getting up at 6:30 in the morning to read their scriptures and then, you know, pray.”
This was “my first experience where trustworthy males were the norm,” Kohler said. Prior to this time, the trauma she experienced at the hands of different men was difficult. “My own healing is still a process,” she acknowledged, and “not something that I anticipate will be fully finished in this life.”
“Being in this church and experiencing the Savior through the programs and policies and doctrines of the church has been extremely healing for me,” she continued.
Then she asked, “What if the greatest harm to women is caused by everyday men who are ungoverned by the formative aspects of institutions” like this. And as a result, she said, these men are “unrestrained, irresponsible, uncommitted and uncaring?”
If that is the case, she added, “we need a broader vision of gender equality that goes beyond who’s in which roles” and which better accounts for “how men’s moral and emotional development impacts women.”
Institutional egalitarianism
The vision of equality she most often sees expressed, Kohler noted, is more structural, in asserting that “we can make men and women equal by creating church hierarchy that features men and women in equal numbers and roles.”
This reflects a belief that “seeing women in the same roles as men and at the same rates as men would address the gender imbalance.”
Kohler was quick to say, “I don’t think that this is a bad way of looking at things. I think that there are a lot of places in life where we need more of this, because men and women, for all of their differences, can bring different strengths and perspectives to similar roles and responsibilities.”
The problem is that this understanding of equality is ”too narrow” to address the kinds of painful, abusive and degrading circumstances many women around the world face, and in which she herself was raised.
“There are real costs to men falling through institutional cracks,” Kohler said, citing statistics on violent crime, sexual assault, substance abuse and single motherhood. “And those costs are disproportionately borne by women and children.”
Training men to be their best selves
So what can help men rise above tendencies to control, use and even abuse women?
“There are a lot of assumptions that we inherit from the world around us,” Kohler cautioned. “And if we import these assumptions and we never question them, then the things that the church does are not going to make a lot of sense to us.”
Rather than seeing priesthood and leadership roles in the church as something that “give you power over others,” Kohler encouraged a “perceptual shift” to see priesthood “in formative terms, in terms of responsibilities.”
Without denying real decision making and influence certain roles can wield, Kohler said, “it really would be inappropriate, I think, to characterize men’s roles in the church as being primarily about those things” — rather than being “primarily about service and formation.”
The institution is “placing men in these roles that require sacrifice from them” — a sacrifice that “had such a profound influence on me from my earliest associations with the church.”
This isn’t “just an intellectual exercise,” Kohler noted. She said the sacrifice of priesthood leaders in her early church experience “altered the course of my life” into her young adult life, where she continued to experience “men making very unexpected sacrifices to build up a young woman who was really torn down.”
“I remember priesthood leaders who were formally designated to represent the Savior sitting across from me and feeling through the Spirit that the way that they saw me was a reflection of the way that the Savior saw me.”
“I needed someone representing the Savior to see those things in me first,” she reflected, “and then I could believe them.”
‘Shaping men who care for women’
Koeher cited Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as sharing in a recent book that rather than priesthood leaders at the top of a “power pyramid” trying to control families “for their own interests,” Jesus calls for just the opposite: leaders serving families who occupy the most important pinnacle of the pyramid.
“That power and influence are a function of love and virtue,” Kohler said. “This is what we are explicitly taught in our scriptures and by church leaders.”
Citing the closing portion of Section 121 in the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the standard works of the church, she said, “Power is not about making other people do the things that you want. In fact, we’re explicitly told that if you try to do that, your authority will be revoked. Instead, power is about creating genuine connections with other people, understanding their problems and seeking to support them.”
“What if priesthood roles and responsibilities teach men restraint, responsibility, commitment and love?”
“And so for anyone who is concerned about systems in which men are dominating women, this should be really exciting news, because we have a training program for dealing with that in our church,” she said.
What about men who aren’t listening?
To those women who still feel their voices and ideas don’t matter, Kohler said, “I’m not saying that there isn’t room to improve. I am not suggesting that everything in this church is perfect.”
“I do think that there are things that will continue to evolve and change that will incorporate women’s voices and perspectives at all levels of the church, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
“But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that the way things are now does not have a purpose.”
Kohler described “profound spiritual witnesses that the senior leadership of this church are prophets whom God has called” — a conviction that has shaped her approach to these questions, she admits. “Because ultimately, I do believe that the way that this church is organized reflects a God who calls leaders that understand how he feels about women.”
“I think it is really important that you have a personal witness that of Christ and the leaders that he calls,” Kohler said, “not so that we excuse the wrong that our leaders do, but so that we can bear with their faults, knowing, as we do that the Savior has a plan, and if I do what he is asking, it’s going to be okay. My voice will be heard.”
“I do feel that our leaders do their best. They are going to have shortcomings, but I know that the Savior cares about what women feel, and I believe he is striving to have that be represented in the way that the church functions.”