This week has been...different. It started off with some ridiculous feminist group deciding that men and women should be treated more equally in the LDS church and launching an initiative for women to wear pants to church today. I was glad to see that my ward choose not to use sacrament meeting as the time or place to draw attention to themselves, but to worship God.
Don't misunderstand me. I like pants. I wear them almost every day. I don't care what people wear...to a certain point. My very favorite investigators and friends on the mission wore pants every week. There is a man in my ward that wears jeans every week. Guess what they have going for them? They are there every week. I do think that the way we dress says a lot about what we think of ourselves, others, and the activities in which we are participating. There are some girls I know that wear really short skirts. There are some boys that wear really sloppy and wrinkled dress shirts. They wear the appropriate uniform to attend church, but do so in the wrong way. Our society has various uniforms for a myriad of purposes. If I were to show up to a baseball game in a prom dress, it would be inappropriate for the occasion. Similarly, if my doctor had shown up to help birth my baby in a tuxedo or a toga, I may have been a bit concerned. Feeling over-dressed is just as uncomfortable as feeling under-dressed, and clothing is designed to reflect the intention of our activities. Just as me going to school in sweats and expecting respect from my students would be less effective than if I wore slacks, showing up to church in less than my best is not as likely to demonstrate the respect I hope to show God. Now, my version of appropriate dress for church, and that of the person sitting next to me may differ. And that's okay. What really matters is if we are prepared for the activity in which we have come to participate, namely worshiping the Lord. If you feel like you can come closer to God by wearing pants, or a snowsuit, or a tutu, then be my guest. Jesus wore a robe and that seemed to work just fine for Him.
Your relationship with Him is yours and He loves you all the same. I am simply happy to be sitting beside someone who chose to come to church because that relationship was a priority. I, however, will continue to wear a dress. Yes, out of tradition. Yes, out of habit. Yes, because I will feel more comfortable because it is our culture. But more importantly, because it is the nicest way I know how to dress and I feel that helps me show respect toward God.
But, all of this mumbo jumbo about men and women needing to be equal (and wearing pants somehow accomplishing this) is just silliness, and when it comes down to it, quite sad. I say sad, because the people responsible for this "movement" or whatever you want to call it don't get it. They feel like they are being oppressed or bullied somehow. They feel like they are being left out or behind, or maybe that they are a step ahead in some cases. They feel like they are not being treated fairly or with as much love or something, and they don't realize who they are or what miraculous gifts they have been given. Being a woman is a divinely beautiful and sacred thing. Why anyone wants to degrade womanhood by parading around about wanting to be more like the boys is beyond me. It is heartbreaking when women take their God-given roles for granted, or minimize them, asking to trade places with men. We need more women of God.
Having said that, I don't think men are less important or less divine than women. We are all children of God with divine roles to fulfill and critical tasks to perform. We need each other. We are equal, but different (and this is not one of those ignorant separate-but-equal ideas from the 1950s regarding race). We stand before God with equal importance, value, and love. We simply have different jobs to get done, and we must help each other working hand in hand.
I came across a very interesting article that I loved (READ IT!) regarding the gifts and individual stewardships given to men and women. Both are essential and amazing. Women have been given the stewardship of helping Heavenly Father's children to enter this life, and men have the responsibility to help everyone return to God from it. I have never thought about these roles quite like this before. The author of this article (seriously, read it!), Valerie Hudson Cassler, displays feminism in a way I had never considered and I think she is spot on. Her narration of the garden of Eden is insightful and inspirational. Two people. Two trees. Two stewardships.
I do indeed believe that "ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." I think that there are a lot of men (and women for that matter) who don't understand that women should be treated better in a lot of cases. There are some things that are pretty messed up culturally. But, let's focus more on becoming the kind of women God intended us to be and make our homes and wards and communities better for being in them, not more contentious by demanding to be noticed. I do not want to be treated like a man. I want my door to be opened for me. I want my hand to be held when the street is icy. I want to stay at home with my baby while my husband braves the demands of working to support our family. I want to be given flowers and told that I am beautiful. I want my husband to kill spiders for me. I want to raise my sons to be gentlemen and my daughters to be ladies.
I have the power to literally create human life. My son entered this world through me and we are responsible for helping him to learn, grow, and love. My husband has the divine role to help him receive essential ordinances through the priesthood. Family is the team God created for entering and exiting this life with the greatest chance of success and happiness, and I am so grateful to be part of an eternal one.
These silly pants people complained about things like not being able to hold callings in the church that are always held by men. Let me just say that my husband works harder than I typically want to, and his calling has nothing to do with power or being better than women. As the Elder's quorum president, he spends 100% of his time serving, and the majority of his time being a mass-texter, a snow-shoveler, a chair-setter-upper, a no-charge-mover, a last-minute-teacher-backed-out-lesson-planner, and a referee. He has great influence over those he serves, I can see that, but I do not envy his job for one minute. I mean, isn't my job difficult enough? I know there are some women who think pregnancy, labor & delivery are a breeze (I tend to hate those women a little bit, by the way ;)), but for us normal ladies, it is HARD work! Read my labor story if you are confused about the major role God has given women and how much work it can be. I don't need to do my husband's work on top of that to feel like I am valued.
Some of the issues that have been argued about this week are outlined in this article:
"While Mormon doctrine does recognize differences between men and women, they ask, are there not more powerful similarities that we share as children of God? And setting aside the issue of women's ordination, why are some non-priestly responsibilities in our all-volunteer church restricted by sex? Why, for example, do only men handle the Church's finances? Why do women appear so infrequently in Scripture and even in some contemporary Church lesson manuals? Why have decisions and doctrines impacting women around the world been made without consulting the presidencies of the Church's global women's auxiliaries? Why do Mormons routinely downplay our belief in a Heavenly Mother and refuse to talk about her in church on Sundays?"
I suppose some of these things might bother some women, but I feel like they should be non issues. Talking about sacred things which we have nearly no knowledge about (Heavenly Mother) for example is not only a waste of time, seeing as it would be mostly speculation and guesswork, but it is disrespectful because God, as the ultimate gentleman, chose not to let Her be profaned as He has been by those in this world who have little or no respect for Him. I hope that my husband does the same for me when choosing what to say and write about me in public. Why do women appear so infrequently in scripture? Well, most scripture is written about times of war, which were fought by men, and priesthood duties, which were performed by men. Yes, I support women who choose to go to war, but in general, this has not been commonplace in the world's history. All scripture that we currently have has been written by prophets, who are men. It has been one of their priesthood duties. Beside that, the purpose of scripture is not to merely give accounts or narratives of women, or men for that matter. Rather, scripture is given so that we have instructions for how to live righteously and how to use the priesthood (man's "tree" responsibility, remember) to return to God after this life (the stewardship given principally to men) . We in turn do not need instructions on how to enter this world (woman's "tree" stewardship) because...well, we already did that part! We are already here!
Maybe the scriptures we had before coming to Earth (if there were any hypothetically), were all written by women, and told mostly stories about the process of birth and the many adventures and pains women would go through to let us enter this life. Think about that for a minute. Maybe some of these women who are complaining about the scriptures we have now wrote those scriptures then! Who knows? (I bet they were even printed on beautifully crafted paper and designed in heavenly photo-shopped programs worthy of pinterest sharing.) ;)
In addition, we have been taught that modern-day revelation is scripture. Please sit through ONE session of general conference. You cannot tell me that the prophets and apostles do anything besides praise women, and not only encourage, but insist that men treat women better, with more respect and adoration. President Hinckley was the prophet of my youth and he is one of the greatest champions of women the world has ever known. If all men treated women with half of the dignity, equality and respect as he showed his wife, there would never be a woman to complain about the "inequality between women and men in the church" again.
Maybe I am old-fashioned. Maybe I don't agree with you. Maybe you think I am closed-minded or ignorant. But maybe, I am just lucky to have a husband who makes me grateful and proud to be a woman every day of my life. Maybe if we supported the men in our lives better and helped them to be the men God intended them to be, we would be more comfortable with the role God has given each of us. You rarely hear men running around demanding to feel labor pains, or experience morning sickness, or swell to the point of not being able to wear any shoe on the planet. Yes, I understand that women have very often been treated horribly in the past (and the present). Women have been and often are the objects of abuse, neglect, and horrific tragedy. I have seen that firsthand in my own family life. Single moms are some of the worlds greatest heroes. Many men do look at women as inferior creatures. God however, does not. Any man who is living completely the way God expects him to, sees woman as a creature equal, if not superior to himself, and reveres her as God's greatest creation. Yes, woman have been treated differently in the workplace. But until 100 years ago, there was rarely such thing as a workplace. For the majority of the world's history, man has toiled with the ground to produce food, and woman has toiled in labor to produce children. Call me crazy, but we are responding to issues that we have only recently created.
As I reflect upon this past week and look at things that are much more important than wearing pants to church or feeling jipped because I don't "get" to stay after church for hours on end to count and report tithing money, I am saddened by the priorities that some people have. 27 innocent women and children were tragically murdered two days ago in a situation that hits home far to close for my comfort. I was only recently a 27-year-old teacher responsible for the safety and welfare of my sweet students, much like Victoria Soto, or any of the other teachers who died Friday.
When faced with the prospect of sending my son to school and having to grieve over him not coming home, and the pain my husband and I would have to become acquainted with, it not only seems irrelevant to question whose "role" it is to do the dishes tonight, but foolish. (My husband does more than half of the dishes and cooking in our house by the way. I claim the other dreaded jobs of laundry and bathrooms.)
Life is far too short and fragile to worry about anything beyond making our homes and communities joyous places to live and grow. Yes, men and women have different assignments in this life, but we have all been commanded and blessed with the responsibilities of loving God and our fellow man. We are responsible for serving one another and loving all of God's children, especially those we call our own in this life. We have been instructed to forgive others, to mourn with those that mourn, and to become the best we can be through charity, or the pure love of Christ.
This scripture has had a greater impact on me this week than in the past:"...and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life--now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts...covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his spirit more abundantly upon you..."
"And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." (Mosiah 18:8-11)
These people did not clap their hands for joy because they were finally all the same, or because women were proven to be better than men. They did not rejoice because they no longer experienced tragedy in this life. They clapped their hands for joy because they desired to do the will of God and help each other on the way toward eternal life.
So, stop demanding that life be fair. The students in my class knew that if they ever said to me the phrase That's not fair, that they would get a quick response from me that fair is where you get cotton candy. We can't stand it when kids whine about things not being fair. Why do we think God is any different when he hears it from us?
Let's get our priorities more in line. Talk about pants and guns and mental healthcare, but just be nice and love each other. Do your part to make the world better, not more complicated. As Ghandi so wisely put it, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
Don't misunderstand me. I like pants. I wear them almost every day. I don't care what people wear...to a certain point. My very favorite investigators and friends on the mission wore pants every week. There is a man in my ward that wears jeans every week. Guess what they have going for them? They are there every week. I do think that the way we dress says a lot about what we think of ourselves, others, and the activities in which we are participating. There are some girls I know that wear really short skirts. There are some boys that wear really sloppy and wrinkled dress shirts. They wear the appropriate uniform to attend church, but do so in the wrong way. Our society has various uniforms for a myriad of purposes. If I were to show up to a baseball game in a prom dress, it would be inappropriate for the occasion. Similarly, if my doctor had shown up to help birth my baby in a tuxedo or a toga, I may have been a bit concerned. Feeling over-dressed is just as uncomfortable as feeling under-dressed, and clothing is designed to reflect the intention of our activities. Just as me going to school in sweats and expecting respect from my students would be less effective than if I wore slacks, showing up to church in less than my best is not as likely to demonstrate the respect I hope to show God. Now, my version of appropriate dress for church, and that of the person sitting next to me may differ. And that's okay. What really matters is if we are prepared for the activity in which we have come to participate, namely worshiping the Lord. If you feel like you can come closer to God by wearing pants, or a snowsuit, or a tutu, then be my guest. Jesus wore a robe and that seemed to work just fine for Him.
Your relationship with Him is yours and He loves you all the same. I am simply happy to be sitting beside someone who chose to come to church because that relationship was a priority. I, however, will continue to wear a dress. Yes, out of tradition. Yes, out of habit. Yes, because I will feel more comfortable because it is our culture. But more importantly, because it is the nicest way I know how to dress and I feel that helps me show respect toward God.
But, all of this mumbo jumbo about men and women needing to be equal (and wearing pants somehow accomplishing this) is just silliness, and when it comes down to it, quite sad. I say sad, because the people responsible for this "movement" or whatever you want to call it don't get it. They feel like they are being oppressed or bullied somehow. They feel like they are being left out or behind, or maybe that they are a step ahead in some cases. They feel like they are not being treated fairly or with as much love or something, and they don't realize who they are or what miraculous gifts they have been given. Being a woman is a divinely beautiful and sacred thing. Why anyone wants to degrade womanhood by parading around about wanting to be more like the boys is beyond me. It is heartbreaking when women take their God-given roles for granted, or minimize them, asking to trade places with men. We need more women of God.
Having said that, I don't think men are less important or less divine than women. We are all children of God with divine roles to fulfill and critical tasks to perform. We need each other. We are equal, but different (and this is not one of those ignorant separate-but-equal ideas from the 1950s regarding race). We stand before God with equal importance, value, and love. We simply have different jobs to get done, and we must help each other working hand in hand.
I came across a very interesting article that I loved (READ IT!) regarding the gifts and individual stewardships given to men and women. Both are essential and amazing. Women have been given the stewardship of helping Heavenly Father's children to enter this life, and men have the responsibility to help everyone return to God from it. I have never thought about these roles quite like this before. The author of this article (seriously, read it!), Valerie Hudson Cassler, displays feminism in a way I had never considered and I think she is spot on. Her narration of the garden of Eden is insightful and inspirational. Two people. Two trees. Two stewardships.
I do indeed believe that "ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." I think that there are a lot of men (and women for that matter) who don't understand that women should be treated better in a lot of cases. There are some things that are pretty messed up culturally. But, let's focus more on becoming the kind of women God intended us to be and make our homes and wards and communities better for being in them, not more contentious by demanding to be noticed. I do not want to be treated like a man. I want my door to be opened for me. I want my hand to be held when the street is icy. I want to stay at home with my baby while my husband braves the demands of working to support our family. I want to be given flowers and told that I am beautiful. I want my husband to kill spiders for me. I want to raise my sons to be gentlemen and my daughters to be ladies.
I have the power to literally create human life. My son entered this world through me and we are responsible for helping him to learn, grow, and love. My husband has the divine role to help him receive essential ordinances through the priesthood. Family is the team God created for entering and exiting this life with the greatest chance of success and happiness, and I am so grateful to be part of an eternal one.
These silly pants people complained about things like not being able to hold callings in the church that are always held by men. Let me just say that my husband works harder than I typically want to, and his calling has nothing to do with power or being better than women. As the Elder's quorum president, he spends 100% of his time serving, and the majority of his time being a mass-texter, a snow-shoveler, a chair-setter-upper, a no-charge-mover, a last-minute-teacher-backed-out-lesson-planner, and a referee. He has great influence over those he serves, I can see that, but I do not envy his job for one minute. I mean, isn't my job difficult enough? I know there are some women who think pregnancy, labor & delivery are a breeze (I tend to hate those women a little bit, by the way ;)), but for us normal ladies, it is HARD work! Read my labor story if you are confused about the major role God has given women and how much work it can be. I don't need to do my husband's work on top of that to feel like I am valued.
Some of the issues that have been argued about this week are outlined in this article:
"While Mormon doctrine does recognize differences between men and women, they ask, are there not more powerful similarities that we share as children of God? And setting aside the issue of women's ordination, why are some non-priestly responsibilities in our all-volunteer church restricted by sex? Why, for example, do only men handle the Church's finances? Why do women appear so infrequently in Scripture and even in some contemporary Church lesson manuals? Why have decisions and doctrines impacting women around the world been made without consulting the presidencies of the Church's global women's auxiliaries? Why do Mormons routinely downplay our belief in a Heavenly Mother and refuse to talk about her in church on Sundays?"
I suppose some of these things might bother some women, but I feel like they should be non issues. Talking about sacred things which we have nearly no knowledge about (Heavenly Mother) for example is not only a waste of time, seeing as it would be mostly speculation and guesswork, but it is disrespectful because God, as the ultimate gentleman, chose not to let Her be profaned as He has been by those in this world who have little or no respect for Him. I hope that my husband does the same for me when choosing what to say and write about me in public. Why do women appear so infrequently in scripture? Well, most scripture is written about times of war, which were fought by men, and priesthood duties, which were performed by men. Yes, I support women who choose to go to war, but in general, this has not been commonplace in the world's history. All scripture that we currently have has been written by prophets, who are men. It has been one of their priesthood duties. Beside that, the purpose of scripture is not to merely give accounts or narratives of women, or men for that matter. Rather, scripture is given so that we have instructions for how to live righteously and how to use the priesthood (man's "tree" responsibility, remember) to return to God after this life (the stewardship given principally to men) . We in turn do not need instructions on how to enter this world (woman's "tree" stewardship) because...well, we already did that part! We are already here!
Maybe the scriptures we had before coming to Earth (if there were any hypothetically), were all written by women, and told mostly stories about the process of birth and the many adventures and pains women would go through to let us enter this life. Think about that for a minute. Maybe some of these women who are complaining about the scriptures we have now wrote those scriptures then! Who knows? (I bet they were even printed on beautifully crafted paper and designed in heavenly photo-shopped programs worthy of pinterest sharing.) ;)
In addition, we have been taught that modern-day revelation is scripture. Please sit through ONE session of general conference. You cannot tell me that the prophets and apostles do anything besides praise women, and not only encourage, but insist that men treat women better, with more respect and adoration. President Hinckley was the prophet of my youth and he is one of the greatest champions of women the world has ever known. If all men treated women with half of the dignity, equality and respect as he showed his wife, there would never be a woman to complain about the "inequality between women and men in the church" again.
Maybe I am old-fashioned. Maybe I don't agree with you. Maybe you think I am closed-minded or ignorant. But maybe, I am just lucky to have a husband who makes me grateful and proud to be a woman every day of my life. Maybe if we supported the men in our lives better and helped them to be the men God intended them to be, we would be more comfortable with the role God has given each of us. You rarely hear men running around demanding to feel labor pains, or experience morning sickness, or swell to the point of not being able to wear any shoe on the planet. Yes, I understand that women have very often been treated horribly in the past (and the present). Women have been and often are the objects of abuse, neglect, and horrific tragedy. I have seen that firsthand in my own family life. Single moms are some of the worlds greatest heroes. Many men do look at women as inferior creatures. God however, does not. Any man who is living completely the way God expects him to, sees woman as a creature equal, if not superior to himself, and reveres her as God's greatest creation. Yes, woman have been treated differently in the workplace. But until 100 years ago, there was rarely such thing as a workplace. For the majority of the world's history, man has toiled with the ground to produce food, and woman has toiled in labor to produce children. Call me crazy, but we are responding to issues that we have only recently created.
As I reflect upon this past week and look at things that are much more important than wearing pants to church or feeling jipped because I don't "get" to stay after church for hours on end to count and report tithing money, I am saddened by the priorities that some people have. 27 innocent women and children were tragically murdered two days ago in a situation that hits home far to close for my comfort. I was only recently a 27-year-old teacher responsible for the safety and welfare of my sweet students, much like Victoria Soto, or any of the other teachers who died Friday.
When faced with the prospect of sending my son to school and having to grieve over him not coming home, and the pain my husband and I would have to become acquainted with, it not only seems irrelevant to question whose "role" it is to do the dishes tonight, but foolish. (My husband does more than half of the dishes and cooking in our house by the way. I claim the other dreaded jobs of laundry and bathrooms.)
Life is far too short and fragile to worry about anything beyond making our homes and communities joyous places to live and grow. Yes, men and women have different assignments in this life, but we have all been commanded and blessed with the responsibilities of loving God and our fellow man. We are responsible for serving one another and loving all of God's children, especially those we call our own in this life. We have been instructed to forgive others, to mourn with those that mourn, and to become the best we can be through charity, or the pure love of Christ.
This scripture has had a greater impact on me this week than in the past:"...and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life--now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts...covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his spirit more abundantly upon you..."
"And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." (Mosiah 18:8-11)
These people did not clap their hands for joy because they were finally all the same, or because women were proven to be better than men. They did not rejoice because they no longer experienced tragedy in this life. They clapped their hands for joy because they desired to do the will of God and help each other on the way toward eternal life.
So, stop demanding that life be fair. The students in my class knew that if they ever said to me the phrase That's not fair, that they would get a quick response from me that fair is where you get cotton candy. We can't stand it when kids whine about things not being fair. Why do we think God is any different when he hears it from us?
Let's get our priorities more in line. Talk about pants and guns and mental healthcare, but just be nice and love each other. Do your part to make the world better, not more complicated. As Ghandi so wisely put it, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
Well said, hermana! I too was glad that no one in our congregation chose to do the pants thing--I think especially in the light of the recent tragedy, maybe people realized more and more where our true priorities should lie (and what the gospel of Jesus Christ is really all about).
ReplyDeleteI'm happy that you keep a blog, btw :). It was fun to catch up on the life of one of my favorite MTC teachers!
http://autodidacticambitions.blogspot.com
Thanks Torrie! I love reading your blog. You are super cute and such an excellent writer!
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