LDS Women Don’t Hold the Priesthood: A Professional LDS Woman’s Perspective on Equality, Gender Roles and the Family

LDS Women Don’t Hold the Priesthood:  A Professional LDS Woman’s Perspective on Equality, Gender Roles and the Family

Over the course of my professional career, my colleagues have inquired, with respect and concern, how I could be a member of the LDS church.  They wonder how a women who is intelligent, educated and successful embraces concepts of gender roles that they view old fashion or demeaning to women.  These questions allow me to correct fundamental mis-understandings regarding LDS doctrine and LDS families.

Not only do I live and work in a man’s world, I work with some very rough men in a tough industry.  The experiences solving business problems with them, knee to knee, have caused me to embrace rather than reject my femininity.  As I sit around the table, a decade younger than anyone else in the room and in a brightly colored dress and heels, nobody is going to mistake me for one of the guys.  Nobody is going to seek me to be their next drinking buddy or to watch the game with the guys (I have been solicited for other types of extra-curricular activities, but that is another issue entirely).  I am clearly a woman and am comfortable being a woman.  My professional opinion is sought and embraced without me feeling the need to embrace more masculine characteristics. (Although these business situations frequently have no place for my more feminine attributes or strengths).

My observations in these settings have reinforced my view of innate gender differences.  I recognize that I have a softer, nurturing side that is different than my male colleagues.  I am also comfortable with the fact that I am frequently more vulnerable than the men I work with.  The fact that I seek a mate who will be a protector, preside in our family home, and will be the primary provider does not make me feel demeaned.  It does not lessen my intelligence, skills, capability, or voice.  That my church embraces these “traditional” gender roles does not mean that it denigrates women—it means that it values us and elevates female divine characteristics even while our world today seeks to exploit or crush them.

“How will you be able to enter a marriage with a man that views his role to be the primary presidor, protector, and provider?” 
 

I am asked forms of this question regularly.  My response:  With gratitude and appreciation that a wife who has not been a professional could never equal.  I have pushed through the rigors of an advanced education and the professional grind for close to a decade.  I recognize the discipline, fortitude, and commitment that this type of success requires.  I intimately recognize the daily emotional and physical exertion required to maintain this type of success.  Every day that my future husband walks out the door to continue this grind of behalf of our family, I will recognize and appreciate his efforts with the empathy of someone who has walked in his shoes.  I will never take it for granted. 

While the fruits of professional success may seem more glamorous than maintaining a primary role of nurturing a family, I know first-hand the trek of a professional is exhausting and frequently dehumanizing.   That my husband will be willing to walk this trek for our family will signal to me his respect for and elevation of womanhood and the role of a wife and a mother.  It isn’t a superior position, but a partnership.  One that I will embrace just as I will embrace the opportunity to comfort and support him.  That I have the education and experience to be his professional equal makes me appreciate, rather than reject, these truths. I will also never view myself as interior simply because I am a women.

“Women Belong in the Kitchen.”

From time to time a male friend will make a quip such as, “well as a women, your place is in the kitchen.”  To which I respond, "I can kick your a** in any courtroom, and I can feed it in the kitchen.  Find a man who can do that!"  Kidding aside, these joking references make me realize that his own mother must have been very different from my  mother and from the wife and mother that I hope to become.  I cherish the many hours that I spent in the kitchen with my own mother growing up—the moments of nurturing, teaching and love that involved far more than simply preparing food.  To this day, one of my favorite places to be is in the kitchen.  Now, in moments where the solitude and loneliness of being a single girl are overwhelming, I frequently seek solace in the kitchen, a place that reminds me of the nurturing and love of my mother and the spirit that her tireless mothering brought to our home.  To me, because of my wonderful mother, the kitchen and the work that happens inside is a place of love and service, rather than a place to perform menial tasks.

My own mother, a convert to the LDS church, is extremely intelligent and educated.  Her talents would have made her an incredible professor or counselor.  The fact that she chose to use her talents to serve her family and countless teenage girls through church callings over the years does not make less of a woman than one who channeled her teaching and counseling time into a professional position.  Rather, it just signifies that her quest was motivated by love rather than ego or self-fulfillment.  To me, this makes her a stronger woman than her professional counterparts, rather than a weaker one.

She frequently reminds me of the counsel that she received in a women's leadership class from a professor at BYU.  "If you want to change the world, teach a Laurel class [Sunday class of LDS 16-17 year old girls]."  In my own life, I have spoken at conventions before hundreds, battled in the courtroom, drafted legislation, been featured on the front page of the newspaper, published scholarly articles, met with Senators, and traveled the world on a private jet.  Yet the moments in which I feel as if I am making a lasting impact on the world are those when I sit in a small circle teaching teenage girls on Sundays.

What Does the LDS Church Teach Regarding Gender Roles:

LDS teachings on gender and family are summarized in the document, “THE FAMILY: A Proclamation to the World.”  The overarching doctrine is a declaration that, “The Family is ordained of God.”  Further explanation is provided as follows:

·         “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”

·         Fathers’ Responsibilities: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.”

·         Mothers’ Responsibilities: “Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”

·         Adaption Appropriate:  “Death, disability, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.

·         Gender Hierarchy:  “In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”

Female Gender Responsibilities:  The ability to conceive and bear children is obviously central to a mother’s responsibility to nurture her children.  This ability is exclusive to females.  The role of female creatures to conceive, bear, and nurture children is not limited to females of the human race.  It is the mother bird that nests waiting for her young to hatch.  It is the mother bird that feeds the baby birds until they are old enough to leave the nest.  It is the mother dog who nurses her puppies and keeps them warm as they grow.  It is the mother duck that leads her little ones.  No ardent exercise of feminism or advances of science have allowed man to conceive, bear, or nurse children.  It is simply not a physiological possibility.  That a mother continue this nurturing of her children to adulthood seems consistent with nature.

Male Gender Responsibilities:  An essential element to a man’s tri-fold gender responsibility to (1) preside, (2) provide, and (3) protect is a man’s authority to hold the “priesthood.”  The authority to hold the priesthood is limited to male members of the Church (starting at the age of 12).  The priesthood is the eternal power and authority of God.  Priesthood duties include preaching the gospel, administering the ordinances of the gospel, and governing the kingdom of God on earth through holding church leadership positions.  Notably, the most important exercise of a man’s priesthood takes place in the family.  In LDS families, the father is to serve as the family’s spiritual leader, leading the family in regular prayer, scripture study, and family home evenings.

LDS Church: Historical Gender Views?

A friend recently suggested to me that any movement toward gender equality in the LDS Church is of recent origin and not historical church basis.  This is not the case.  One example that always makes me smile, is a sign that hung in the kitchen of Joseph Fielding Smith (LDS Church President in the 1950s): “Opinions expressed by the husband do not necessarily constitute the opinions of the management.” 

On a more serious note, Brigham Young was asked if he had to choose, would he educate his sons or his daughters?  President Young responded that he would educate his daughters because of their future role as mothers.  The importance of this perspective is reinforced by a recent secular study sought to explore the socio-economic factors likely to lead the most successful children.  After exploring a number of combinations of income, education, and family situations, the researches concluded that the two most important factors in a child’s success were: (1) the income of the Father, and (2) the education-level of the Mother—provided the mother was integrally involved in rearing the children.

While there may be either episodic or systemic actions by male members of the LDS church that seek to impose a sort of "gender hierarchy" will never make this behavior either divinely mandated or divinely condoned.  With Christ, himself, as our very example and His mortal ministry as evidence, no social hierarchy--gender, educational, social, racial, or income--will ever be Christian behavior.

Why Can’t Women in the LDS Church Hold the Priesthood?

Some women I know indicate that they could never join the LDS church because women don’t hold the priesthood.  To them, that indicates that the church elevates men over women.  I never understood why some women want men and women to be the same.  Being “equal” does not mean being “identical.”  We will never be identical—women will always be able to bear and conceive children and men will never be able to conceive.  I frequently joke in response, “well, we have to make sure that the men do something!  To be equal, we have to give the man some job otherwise the women would have to do it all.”

These comments also involve a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a priesthood holder.  I have tremendous respect for priesthood holders, it is a working responsibility.  It is not a position of glamour; it is a position of service, both inside and outside the home.  Some women cry to become a "bishop" or "stake president" because they view it as a position or prestige or power.  I look at my own bishop and stake president with gratitude for the exhausting service they provide to their callings.  I suspect that when they walk into church leadership meetings at 6am every Sunday in a suit and tie or sit through exhausting hours of counseling struggling members, evening after evening, that their motivation is one of sacrifice, love, and duty rather than power and prestige.

My Own Aspirations:

Living through my late 20s as a single girl have provided amble solitude to contemplate what I seek in life and what I seek in a family.  My professional success and amazing professional experiences have put me in a position of making that choice without feeling as if I need to prove anything to myself, my family, or some other audience.  That I am capable of being as financially successful as my male peers has already been demonstrated.  (Not to say that I would be averse to entertaining a suitor whose abilities far exceed my own in this category :).  I look forward to have a man as a partner in my life--not just when I am moving, assembling cheap particle board furniture or craving a good snuggle.  Because life has delayed my earnest desire to have a family has strengthened my desire to create my own family consistent with the divinely created gender roles that I cherish.  And I can do it with the peace of mind that--whether popular or not-- I need not prove why to anyone else.

I do not criticize or judge anyone.  Some of principles of the LDS Church that I will always embrace are our strong focus on "agency" and not judging others.  Each of us selects our own path based on our own situations and strengths. Modern times have made traditional families both harder to come by and harder to keep in tact. I will always admire and cheer for any woman who seeks to excel at using her talents and always respect anyone who creatively adapts division of labor in their marriage to make their family work. 

Rather, I encourage all women to embrace rather than "equalize" their femininity.  In a quest to be "equal" I see too many women marginalize rather than emphasise those divine attributes that truly make us strong and individual.  I admire domestic women who choose a primary occupation in their home.  This is a position frequently selected not from desperation or weakness but from strength and almost always requires sacrifice.  I am saddened that so often society views women who choose to walk this path of love in their homes (a path that is frequently less glamorous) as "less" than either men or professional women.  I firmly believe that both our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ hold an elevated place for these special women and will reward their sacrifice and dedication.