“I worshipped dead men for their strength,
Forgetting I was strong.”
Vita Sackville-West
For Christmas last year, I planned a bubble ball party for my nieces and nephews. I scheduled my ward building’s gym months in advance. However, on the morning of the bubble ball party, I noticed that my event was no longer on the calendar. Luckily, there was nothing scheduled until 5:00 that evening.
After an extensive setup, twelve kids were screaming and bouncing and rolling around the gym.
However, after a few minutes, a group of men charged in, phones in hand.
“What are you doing here?” One man demanded. I explained.
“Well, you are not on the calendar,” he said.
“Yes, I know that,” I said, “I did schedule the building, but it isn’t showing up anymore. I don’t know why.”
“I have the building every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for men’s soccer.”
Middle-aged men with soccer bags flipped chairs open with one hand and sat pulling socks up their shins, changing shoes, and laughing together.
“Oh. I’m so sorry. This is just a once-a-year thing for my nieces and nephews,” I said as my nephew, inside a bubble ball, rolled past, screaming with joy.
“Well,” the stranger said, with impatience, “You aren’t on the calendar.”
“You aren’t on the calendar, either,” I said.
“Well. I’m a bishop.”
“Oh,” I said, getting an idea, “do you have keys to the building across the street?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Great! Then can you guys go play soccer in that gym?”
“No. That gym is too small.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like I was missing something. “Well, how about you and your friends play soccer on half the court, and we will stay-”
“No,” he interrupted, “We need the whole gym. And you aren’t on the calendar.” Then he said again: “I’m a bishop.”
“I can’t be a bishop,” I said. He laughed.
He walked away and returned with his phone, pointing to “men’s soccer” on the calendar from 12:30-2:00. “See, now I’m on the calendar.”
My nephews were returning to Nevada in just a few hours; I had planned this event for weeks, and I had eight massive bubble balls that were heavy and expensive – I refused to pack it all up because this man told me to, even if he had just added himself to the calendar, even if he was a bishop.
But once my sister saw that the bishop’s event was on the calendar, she started heaving the balls onto the stage and telling the kids to get up there, too. A few men started kicking a soccer ball around the kids – the kids who began realizing they were being pushed aside.
I’m not sure how it happened, but we ended up on the stage, behind the curtains, with eight bubble balls that filled every inch of space, twelve restless children climbing around them, three women, and a table full of snacks while eight middle-aged men played soccer in the gym.
I felt like crying. Shame shivered out of my body as I stood in front of the closed curtain, protecting the kids from falling off the stage. I felt shame for giving in, for my confusion and lack of power.
“I am a bishop.” That phrase perplexed me because that is not what he meant.
I often find camaraderie with Catherine, Jane Austen’s character from the novel Northanger Abbey, who exclaims, “But why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood?” Indeed, how are people to be understood when they don’t say what they mean? It is confusing. My confusion made me accommodating. What the bishop meant was, “I get what I want. So step aside.”
Eventually, my sisters and I let the kids run through the church halls like a pack of wild wolves. We stayed on the stage for an hour and a half. Oh, the shame. The kids didn’t notice; they would enter the hidden stage every once in a while for snacks, all sweaty and red-faced from their exhilarating excursions into the mysterious dark corridors and tunnels of the abandoned church building.
But, actually, they probably did notice.
They probably noticed that a smaller pack of men forced the women and children to the sidelines. How could they not notice their aunts and mothers moving aside, staying hidden because a bishop’s voice said so? “Move aside; let the men take the gym.” I wish those men would have said those words. But they didn’t. They said one thing so positively and meant another all the while.
I felt pushed to my knees by a person who pretended it was where I belonged even though I knew it wasn’t . . . but I still allowed it. This silence, this normalizing of women’s obedience, scratches the insides of my skin like sandpaper.
Unfortunately, patriarchy constantly says one thing so positively and means another all the while. Step aside, it means, let the men give blessings, be witnesses, speak in conference, be ordained, fill ward councils and high priests and stake presidencies and bishoprics. Step aside, women. Let men bless your babies and baptize your children and write your rules and make God in their image. Stand aside women and sit in the pews and wait in the halls; wait for the men to call you and set you apart. Stand aside women, stand aside Heavenly Mother, stand aside Miriam and Huldah and Deborah and Anna. Wait to be ignored and told no and forgotten about. Stand aside, women, and learn how to quietly stand in your place on the side, behind the curtain.
I have learned to write under an alias. To think but not speak in ward councils. I have learned to pretend well that the system isn’t harmful. I have learned to see the good mixed in with corruption. I have learned to stand aside. To wait behind the curtain weak with shame.
I am so tired of seeing patriarchy and being invisible to it.
Photo by Rob Laughter on Unsplash
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
31 Responses
If I hear one more time about how lucky women are to not have the prieshood or the stress of being a bishop, I’ll scream. People will be quick to call out this incident as one bishop behaving poorly – but it’s a SYSTEM that allows only men to be in that position of authority to behave badly over women that’s the real issue here.
What if he wasn’t even a bishop, but just said he was so he could bump you out of his way? No one could know. But as a woman you could never pull that over on someone because they’d all laugh and know you were lying. We belong to a system that gives men consistent power and authority over women, even in the most mundane of activities, such as who gets to play in the cultural hall when there’s a scheduling mistake.
I agree. Thanks, Abby. I think that is exactly why this experience still makes me shake with shame – it’s so so stupid. It was just a gym. But even in that stupid scenario I was subordinate and powerless.
It’s THEIR clubhouse. We get to pay for it, clean it, prep food it in, stay in our lane in it, but, it is theirs, and they will flex when needed. We will never NOT be marginalized in it. Please, stay home on March 17th in solidarity with The Women On The Stand. Double and Triple check that your events are on the calendar, then raise hell if they get removed. Say NO to any and all callings from them. NEVER sit another worthiness interview, and don’t let the story that you need what is offered in the temple persuade you otherwise. The temples are just another of THEIR clubhouses, but the endgame is polygamy (new and everlasting covenant). Just say NO.
Thanks for your passion, Beth! I have not attended church since I read the article about women being asked off the stands in California. It was the last straw for me.
This story infuriates me. The fact that they felt no self consciousness or need to hurry along while you were waiting speaks volumes to their entitlement. The thing I try to explain, over and over, when saying why I can’t do this religion, is “women have no recourse in the church.” And here’s yet another example. I’m so sorry.
Thank you so much for your compassion, ElleK.
This was so well written, and makes my soul hurt. There aren’t words.
Thank you, Mikaela. My soul hurts, too.
That man is a bully and he used power to abuse you. His actions have a similar intent and effect as if he had physically beaten you. The other men are as complicit as they would be if they had watched someone being beaten and did nothing to stop it.
As to your questioning why you gave in – when we are threatened, we can’t control if our nervous systems are going to respond with flight, fight, freeze, or fawn. Our psyches and bodies go into auto pilot to do whatever is needed to survive. It’s hard not to shame and blame ourselves. At the same time, it’s not your fault. That man behaved like a monster and is the one responsible for harming you. It was really, really bad.
😭Thank you for your comment, Bailey. You wrote my feelings into words. Validating my physical response to such a subtle and confusing situation is so helpful.
Yeah my question is – why didn’t another man intervene and say “let these kids play.” A bully and a bunch of coward bystanders. This makes me sick.
Exactly my thoughts too!
Yeah. I wondered the same thing. They just assumed it was their privilege to get what they wanted, I guess.
I was waiting to hear that too.
I hope I could have said something like “Are you trying to pull rank on me? That sounds suspiciously what section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants warns about.” Or I’m a Bishop. “So what? That has nothing to do with this situation.”
A lot of these come backs have gone through my head since. I hope I am more equipped to handle this situation in the future. My strategy was to offer ideas and compromises but when that didn’t work I froze is confusion.
Wow – that made me furious. Couldn’t any of them see that this was a special event? Their soccer get togethers were a regular thing that surely wasn’t a big deal to give up for one time. Who plays soccer in a gym anyway?
Haha. Thanks, Di. Their overbearing confidence in their right to the space was disorienting. How does a woman reason with or compromise with people unwilling to budge or compromise or sacrifice?
That is just so outrageous! It is easy in hindsight to think of a better way to respond. You did the best you could at the moment..but it never should have happened.
Thank you, Constance Strong. Fabulous name, by the way! I need to embody your name.
It was insensitive of them to remove your event from the calendar. They didn’t even consult you. People like that shouldn’t be bishops.
Agreed.
Beautiful and terrible. This is my new favorite real-time example of the dreadful illness that is patriarchy. Thank you for beautiful writing. For telling it.
Thank you, Melody.
I had a LOT of swear words reading this (I blame it on being a woman “of that age”)…I am so sorry, for both your heart and for the injustice your nieces and nephews witnessed.
Thank you for your kind comment, Ruth.
This is a perfect example of what is rotten in the church today. I am so sorry this happened to you and your family but so grateful to you for documenting it and writing about it so beautifully and incisively.
Thank you, nicolesbitani.
“Step aside, it means, let the men give blessings, be witnesses, speak in conference, be ordained, fill ward councils and high priests and stake presidencies and bishoprics. Step aside, women. Let men bless your babies and baptize your children and write your rules and make God in their image. Stand aside women and sit in the pews and wait in the halls; wait for the men to call you and set you apart. Stand aside women, stand aside Heavenly Mother, stand aside Miriam and Huldah and Deborah and Anna.”
Thank you for giving voice to how so many of us feel! Beautifully said and made me cry. <3
What a compliment. Thank you, Jamie.
I can’t believe this happened to you (well, kind of I can). I’m so sorry. It’s so hard to know what to say in the moment. Thank you for saying it now and sharing it with all of us. Your words are powerful and matter.