Gender equality and women’s issues are the topics I write about most frequently because they’ve personally affected me. My first article for the Deseret News shared my experience growing up outside of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how things drastically improved after I joined at sixteen. I’ve also written about how men’s responsibilities and contributions improve life for women, how its teachings honor women’s preferences, and how it provides safeguards against violence and abuse for women and children.
Over the years, some questions and concerns about my views have cropped up more frequently than others. I recently gave a presentation about broadening our view of gender equality, which also generated a lot of curiosity about where I’m coming from on this topic.
I thought it might be helpful to respond directly to some of arguments that I hear from those who disagree with me in good faith — coming from both sides of the political spectrum:
What do you think about feminism?
I care very much about the broad goals of feminism, like recognizing disadvantages that accrue disproportionately to women and seeking to promote women’s interests, especially where they’ve been undermined. I operate from the belief — embedded in Latter-day Saint theology — that men and women’s perspectives and contributions are equally important to God’s purposes. When women suffer, society as a whole suffers.
However, I started writing about women’s issues partly because modern feminism has proven inadequate, and even destructive, for addressing the needs of many women. To put it bluntly, feminism since Simone de Beauvoir has concerned itself with advancing the goals of the most socially protected women at the expense of the most vulnerable ones. In order to pursue equal status with men, on men’s terms, second wave feminism sought to jettison gender, marriage, family life, and sexual constraint as obstacles to female autonomy.
But ignoring uniquely female traits and vulnerabilities has only made them easier to exploit. This isn’t just theoretical on my part. Being raised by a single mother who endured cheating, abuse, and neglect from the men in her life left me exposed to opportunistic males from a young age. When you lack the protections and resources of stable family life and institutional formation for men, liberation to pursue more prestigious opportunities has little meaning. The burdens weighing down the vast majority of women have not been lifted by feminist ideology.
Since you write for the Deseret News, doesn’t your perspective inevitably defend the church? It’s hard not to dismiss your perspective when you are so obviously biased.
My religious belief certainly shapes my perspective, but I have tried to be transparent about this. I have written about how drastically my experiences with men changed when I joined the church. More importantly, my relationship with God changed when I was baptized. I have a deep conviction of the truthfulness of the church’s claims and that those tasked with its leadership are directed by God. Of course this steers my judgment.
But my confidence in church teachings doesn’t mean I expect all the evidence to line up neatly behind them. Things are complicated in real life. Women do suffer at the hands of bad men in every faith community, including ours. Some priesthood leaders use their authority incorrectly. People we love and respect may hurt us or uphold culturally-distorted views as doctrine.
Despite these things, I still trust that gospel teachings will best address the challenges of mortality, including challenges unique to women. And I truly want to address those challenges in ways that help and heal. I know not everyone feels the way I do about the church, but it’s important to recognize that no one’s perspective is unbiased. Everyone approaches the topic of gender equality and women’s issues with a certain story and set of assumptions about what constitutes the ideal life for a woman, complete with villains and heroes.
In modern feminist thought, for instance, a woman’s central struggle is often framed as the need to escape externally imposed responsibilities that constrain her autonomy, including marriage, motherhood, gender, responsibility, and sources of authority. Because this story is so frequently woven into the movies, books, and music of our wider culture, we don’t notice it. This doesn’t make those who prioritize the feminist vision of womanhood less biased. It only makes them less aware of their biases.
It’s great that you’ve had such a positive experience in the church, but yours is just one experience among many. The way you present it sometimes feels like you’re denying the experiences of other women in the church who feel differently.
I know not every woman’s experience is like mine (though I truly wish it were). Some women have been mistreated or abused by men in the church and disbelieved by leaders who should have protected them. Some feel disenfranchised, underappreciated, and unfairly limited. Sharing the many positives of my experience in the church is not meant to deny the reality of what others feel.
However, some of the conclusions that are drawn from those perspectives and experiences may need to be examined and challenged, because misjudging the church has real consequences. If the church makes life safer and more prosperous for women overall, but we draw our conclusions only from the exceptions, we endanger more women than we help. By sharing a positive experience of womanhood in the church, I hope to draw attention to how the church can help women who face problems like I have experienced in my life.
It’s also worth pointing out that even though my experience is one among many, that doesn’t mean it’s rare. The many thriving women within the church are also the ones we are less likely to hear from. I have found that women who are happy in the church think about the gospel message much more than they think about the institutional church. When something is working well for us, there’s no reason to notice it. It’s only when it breaks down that it becomes a focus for our attention.
If there are women who are unhappy in the church, shouldn’t their stories get more attention? Doesn’t this point to problems that shouldn’t be ignored?
The perception that a lot of women in the church are unhappy is not supported by the data we have. Pew’s recent Religions Landscape survey found that Latter-day Saint women report higher levels of happiness and well-being than any other group. The same survey finds women in our faith report the lowest levels of unhappiness, while leaving their religion at lower rates than women from other denominations.
So while we shouldn’t ignore the feelings of those who are unhappy in the church, the idea that the church is facing a systemic crisis among women as a whole requiring urgent institutional changes adds more heat than light to this important conversation.
This cuts both ways, however. There are needs for women that can be better addressed, and we won’t know what they are unless we are open to others’ difficult experiences. Concerns about female well-being in the church matter, and shouldn’t be dismissed without consideration. I just don’t want the concerns to dominate public conversation at the expense of other needed perspectives.
Your experience with men upon joining the church sounds a little black and white. It seems like you’re saying that all men in the church are good and all men outside it are bad.
That’s not what I’m trying to say, although I can understand why some may take away that conclusion. It’s true that good and bad men don’t line up neatly on one side of any institution. Shortly after I was baptized, a local priesthood leader I’d interacted with was arrested for serious crimes. Prior to my conversion, a high school guidance counselor took me under his wing and helped mend my spiritual and emotional wounds. I know the church doesn’t hold a monopoly on trustworthy men.
The point I’ve tried to make is not that church membership makes a man good, but that it almost certainly makes him better. The systems and culture within the church make it harder for men to be bad and easier for them to be good, and even great (perhaps especially to women and children).
The God of the restored gospel is tender, merciful, and patient. Beginning in boyhood, men in our church are shepherded toward sexual purity, love and concern for others, responsibility, meekness, and service. This is modeled to them by their leaders and other men in the church, and they are subject to discipline from the church for abuse or lack of sexual restraint.
Church teachings and practices cannot provide an absolute guarantee against abuse, lying, domination, or exploitation by a man, but my experience suggests they really can help a lot. I sometimes worry that people will think I’m saying church programs and roles for men are geared toward domesticating them. I think that may be a side-effect, but I don’t pretend to know the full purposes of the church’s organization. What I do know is that all things in the church are meant to lead us to Christ, and that is the surest path to real happiness for both men and women.