(All images from Church Newsroom and churchofjesuschrist.org)
Top male church leaders frequently assure Latter-day Saint women we are loved and respected by the men in our church. But is simply saying that enough, if women are never given a permanent seat at the table with them? This is called benevolent sexism, and both men and women in the church have been socialized to believe it is the highest form of honor a woman could ask for – but it’s not.
President Russell M. Nelson turned 100 on Monday, and a special birthday celebration broadcast aired from the Conference Center in his honor. I’m grateful to have called one of his granddaughters a friend for more than two decades (a relationship I first discovered while looking at her wedding photos and saying, “Hey – there’s an apostle in your family pictures!”). She loves her grandfather very much, and I have witnessed much of his rise in church leadership through her eyes over the years. She shared photos of her family participating at the Conference Center birthday event, which made me curious enough to find a link to watch it myself.
To be clear, this man is very beloved to his family, and I don’t doubt his love for all of them in the slightest – and any man this loved by so many people has led a very successful life.
With that disclaimer, one theme kept popping up during this event that really stung for me – the repeated assertion that President Nelson loves and respects women so much.
For example, in a very sweet tribute from his great granddaughter she said, “My great grandfather has a profound respect for women. I’ve been able to see just how much he loves me, his wife, his daughters, his granddaughters, and all of the women in his life…his respect for women is innate….He loves and respects men and women equally…Because he loves others so deeply, regardless of gender, he is able to love God. I have been empowered by his love and respect for women. I have never felt less around him. I am grateful for his understanding…of my powerful role as a woman.” I appreciate her sharing this point of view, but I actually don’t feel very respected by men who exclude women from all final decision making, their priesthood only meetings, and literally every single position of authority in the church. In fact, from my perspective there is nothing more disrespectful to me as a woman than locking the door in my face to any possibility of leading within my own religious community.
In a tribute from his daughter talking about the relationship between her parents, she said, “There were several years of Mother’s Day corsages for her (his first wife), and single carnation corsages for each of us (the daughters) honoring her as mother, and as daughters our potential to become mothers.” I’m glad that he loved his wife and daughters, but I wish their most important attribute in his mind wasn’t their potential to have babies.
Relief Society General President Camille Johnson spoke and said, “Thank you for helping us understand what it means to be covenant women of God…by expressing the crucial part women play in building up the kingdom of God”. Yet after this, she referenced God many times and referred to him by exclusively male pronouns. It’s clear she was only speaking about Heavenly Father, not Heavenly Mother or Heavenly Parents. Near the end of her remarks she said, “President Nelson, you have blessed the sisters of the church to feel loved, and precious, and necessary.” For me however, no amount of a man telling me I’m important and special to him makes up for the complete erasure of my existence and purpose in the eternities. (A painful erasure that he is in the unique position as a prophet to end through revelation.)
Finally, Elder Oaks and Elder Eyring both gushed over his love and respect for women:
Elder Oaks: “…when people enter the room, he almost always stands for them. But he *always* stands if there are women in the room.” Elder Eyring adds: “Always!”
I genuinely don’t care if a very old man stands up when I walk in the room or not. (I also don’t care if he holds the door for me, or tells me I’m special or pretty or sweet.) Rather, I feel like men in power say and do these things in an attempt to placate me, then expect me to sit obediently at their feet like a child and follow their commandments without question. When this happens, I feel angry and invalidated – like they view me as a beloved pet. I want the type of respect that truly values my insights and experience in the world as a female, and the type of love and admiration that encourages them to follow and learn from me in return.
The birthday celebration included pre-recorded greetings from other important religious leaders. There were ten male leaders: Elders Holland, Oaks and Eyring, Reverend Dr. Amos Brown, Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal, Professor Robert P. George, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Carl B. Cook of the Seventy, Dr. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr, and BYUH President John S.K. Kauwe II.
As for women, there was only one: Sister Monica Kauwe. She is the wife of BYUH president John Kauwe and was only included because she was standing next to him in his video message.
No female religious leaders from afar were recorded based on their merit alone.
As a final example of this unseen sexism, I cannot think of a single scenario in the LDS church that would honor a female leader in such a grandiose way as we just did a male prophet. And if a woman was ever honored in a similar fashion, would we have ten female religious leaders record messages of congratulations from afar, and would the prayers admonish those in attendance to have the “courage and faith to adhere to her words and teachings”? (This is what Elder Soares said about the prophet in his opening prayer.) Women leaders are praised for their obedience to male leaders, but never honored for their own assertiveness and leadership skills.
I’ve tried in the past to explain the frustration I’ve felt as a woman in a benevolent patriarchy using my pets as an example. It can be hard to understand at first, but when you finally do see it you will never be able to unsee it – even at a birthday celebration for a beloved grandfather.
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31 Responses
I did not watch the broadcast. Reading all of these quotes together is incredibly bizarre. It feels like some PR person talked to Nelson’s family and female leaders and coached them and was like “make sure to talk about how much he loves women and how he’s changed your life as a woman.” It reminds me of a politician professing their love or appreciation or service for a minority group. When people have to emphasize something that much, it doesn’t seem sincere. And like you said, we know if men respect women by what they do, not what they say. Even with the positive things Nelson has done throughout his presidency, temple changes, having women be witnesses, etc. he and church leaders deliberately tried to bury these changes and actively discouraged people from talking about them. Think of that logic, here Nelson makes things a smidge closer to equality and instead of making these things something the whole church should celebrate, he tries to hide them. What does that tell you?
The straw that broke the camel’s back for me with church attendance was the April 2020 conference where the whole time leading up to it, Nelson had told all the women to study the priesthood and there was going to be a special combined adult meeting. Prior to that, the temple and witness changes had happened. In my naiveté, I honestly thought he might extend the priesthood to women or significantly change women’s roles for the better. Then the conference came, and we got condescending talks about how special women are in supporting the priesthood, the tandem bicycle talk, the talk about getting blessings, etc. It was enraging and demoralizing to sit through all these messages professing the same sexist platitudes when I had hoped and prayed for so much more. I took a break from church after that and haven’t been back since. Leaving was the hardest decision I made and was so anguishing. But I didn’t know how to stay sane and trust myself in an institution that constantly invalidates my relationship with God, my eternal worth, and my human potential.
I really appreciate your description of this series of events and these insights. It makes sense. “When people have to emphasize something that much, it doesn’t seem sincere.” Bingo! It’s like my kids trying to reassure me that they aren’t overusing screens, that they’re being really responsible. Or an addict hiding their use and assuring their family they have changed.
That’s a great comparison with your kids. Exactly. I find it so strange that the quotes from women in the OP don’t point to things Nelson did to uplift women. It all seems to be stories like, “he loves women because he is so nice to them and tells them how great they are.” As the author pointed out in a later comment, people love their pets but they don’t see them as human.
This reminds me too of the press conference when Nelson became the prophet. Peggy Fletcher Stack had to repeatedly ask him about women in leadership. He was like “women, I love ’em” and then spewed garbage about how their roles as mothers are what really matter. It infuriates me how male church leaders use motherhood as a smokescreen to deny women their humanity. If you want to really honor mothers, then ask them what they want and need and do it. Reform church and society to be a place where families thrive and mothers’ physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing is paramount.
Mary – these weren’t even all of the references to how much he loves women during the celebration. I just picked some highlights for this post!
The changes he’s made to make the church slightly less painful for women so feel pointless to me without an apology or acknowledgement for the pain doing it the old way caused so many of us – and because they are literal breadcrumbs for starving people from the full spread banquet he (and other men) are eating from.
Oh wow. I can’t believe there were even more. Very strange. I totally agree on the breadcrumbs. I’m very happy the church has in small ways been trying make amends with the African American community. But of course they refuse to acknowledge the priesthood and temple ban was manmade. But it seems like male leaders will never acknowledge the evil decisions of past leaders or current policy harms for women. It drives me crazy in the gospel topics essays how for the racial priesthood ban, they acknowledge the racism of the time when the ban was enacted. But for the essays about women, they refuse to go there. It’s so glaringly obvious that historical and current sexism is why the church operates the way it does. I feel incredibly sad at the potential of the church. It could be a force to be reckoned with by modeling equality and respect. But leaders don’t seem interested in true partnership between the sexes.
I agree. The grief at our unfulfilled potential is real. And I agree about the gospel topics essays. The ones about polygamy are garbage. They are illogical, still founded in Joseph Smith’s really careless and self-focused readings of the Bible, and their arguments/justifications been effectively debunked by writers and thinkers elsewhere.
I love your phrase “careless and self-focused readings.” Right, it’s like how can I cherry pick biblical verses to support my desire to commit adultery? Hmm, ancient polygamy? Sounds good. Every biblical interpretation needs to be founded on the absolute truth that all are God’s children. All deserve respect and dignity. By the church’s polygamy logic, rapists should have to pay fathers money for damaging their property.
Mary, this is something I wrote for a piece I’m posting her in Oct.: “Contrary to D&C 132, where we finding Joseph’s thinking about polygamy in the Bible and his justifications for practicing it Isaac never had plural wives and the text does not recount prophets being commanded to practice plural marriage. Polygamy was just one of the non-spiritual, worldly and carnal aspects of ancient cultures. A harem was a ubiquitous symbol of royalty, power, and wealth. The Old Testament makes clear that the law for Israel’s Kings was monogamy, as laid out in Deut. 17:14-17, which states: “Neither shall [your king] multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away.” Joseph’s reading ignored all the stories in which polygamous lifestyles create schisms, unhappiness, jealousy, and sin. He didn’t notice the stories about men repenting from having excessive sexual partners in their journeys to God. Instead of basing his insights on the text, he seems to have created his own mini mythology in D&C 132 about polygamy being a commandment and priesthood rite in the Bible.”
Oh my word, I had the exact same expectation of the April 2020 general conference. In that Saturday evening session, I was geared up for it, and RS President Bingham gave a beautiful talk about men and women working together. I thought for sure she was tee-ing up for the big Restoration announcement about women being allowed to give blessings again, but the next talk was Oaks with a double-down on “men only preside.” I was devastated. I gave the Sunday morning session a shot when the big deal announcement for the 200th anniversary of the First Vision was … a proclamation … What a lot of build-up for nothing.
I’m still in the church – I actually have had a kind of Heavenly Mother “awakening” since then that keeps me going even when I’m ready to throw in the towel. But April 2020 was definitely a pivot point and my participation in the church has changed dramatically to be on my own terms.
Yeah I forgot about that Oaks’ talk. It was awful. I started praying to Heavenly Mother around 4 or 5 years before that 2020 conference, and it helped me for a while. But it was too hard realizing that the men leading the church were the ones holding it back, not the members. Look at how they responded to the Ordain Women movement. They won’t even seriously engage with the role of half the population from a philosophical or religious standpoint. It’s such nonsense and hypocrisy when they tell members to study the scriptures but refuse to wrestle with them themselves. I love how priesthood authority is the end all be all and yet there is the story in the Bible of a man using Jesus’s name to perform miracles and he wasn’t an apostle or didn’t really follow Jesus around in the physical sense. The apostles were like “hey what about that guy? Can he use your name to do that?” Jesus was like “yeah if he’s not against us, he’s with us.” The exclusion of God’s daughters from accessing authority to use God’s power is in direct conflict with this story. In the story, a person’s intention is what mattered instead of man-made rituals to police authority.
I remember that build up too. I felt shattered.
Cringe to all the niceties. It’s lipstick on a pig.
I just rewatched the Matrix after listening to Valerie Hammaker’s Podcast on the cave (I even left another comment on this blog about it….its making an impact and I see it everywhere!). I fee like all the Leaders of the General Church leadership have taken the blue pill (remaining in a state of blissful ignorance), while we here on this blog and its other formats (along with many others) have taken the red pill (accepting a painful reality ). Like what Abby said, “when you finally do see it you will never be able to unsee it”.
Abby, I love how you capture that the good feelings, seeming good intentions and love are real, and how all at the same time, the benevolent sexism and assertions of patriarchal authority and dominance– whether people are fully conscious of if or not– is crafty, corrupt, propaganda-like, manipulative, even cult-like. What defines a cult? One thing is having charismatic leader, he who is to be pleased and followed. I hate comparing my church to a cult, but I have to admit it slips into the unhealthy, coercive and conformist tactics of a cult when it comes to veneration for powerful priesthood leaders.
I really love how you point out that for us as mature women, Nelson’s gestures toward women and girls are ultimately meaningless and insubstantial. True respect and greater love would yield to so much more. When I was growing up, certain men in my life loved me. They made lots of nice gestures. Put me on a pedestal and gave me exaggerated praise. But I’ve come to feel they did this largely to control and coerce me into submission; I was not given space to be a full person with preferences and feelings or truly given space to say no or make some major decisions that really should have been mine to make. These people learned these kinds of tactics in Church culture. They probably unconsciously thought conditional manipulative love was the way to go to have the relationships they wanted. I’ve grown out of valuing that kind of “let me kiss your hand but mold you to be the way I want for my own purposes” affection. I don’t give a crap what fluff priesthood leaders say about women’s qualities or their hand kissing.
Candice – I love my dog and my cat very much – I’m sure they also feel loved by me in return. That doesn’t mean I see it that them as my equals or think I should ever follow them. That’s how I think men are often trained to view women in the church – love us like crazy, protect us, and guide us where *they* want us to go. Sure, they’ll ask for our input before deciding something if they feel like it, but they aren’t going to let us make the final decision because we might pick something they view as wrong.
“In a tribute from his daughter talking about the relationship between her parents, she said, ‘There were several years of Mother’s Day corsages for her (his first wife), and single carnation corsages for each of us (the daughters) honoring her as mother, and as daughters our potential to become mothers.'” <–This just made me full-body flinch.
This feels like someone saying, "Just trust me," which is universal code for "Do not trust this person and maybe run far away." Having to continually repeat that a man, "loves women! He respects women!" makes me feel like he definitely has a problem with women. Men who see women as equals just show that by treating women as equals. They don't need to continually insist that they're doing it and have you noticed how they're doing it and did you hear Susan over in accounting's story about how he treated her like an equal?
Of course, there's also a difference between loving women and seeing women as equal. I can believe he does the first. I know for a fact he does not the second, and I know that because I have eyes and ears and I see the church he runs and I refuse to be gaslit about how inequality is actually equality when you squint and the light is low and you don't focus too clearly.
Heidi – when I heard the Mother’s Day carnations for his daughters thing, I thought “a single blogger should weigh on on this comment – like Trudy or Heidi!” It’s aggravating enough for me as a woman with children. I can only imagine what it feels like for single women who don’t have children. Do you want a carnation for your potential to be a polygamous wife after you die for one of them and make extra spirit babies for their worlds without end?
I’m glad that the corsages were there – and curious whether he actually completed the emotional labor to go to the store / do the shopping to get the corsages or whether they were outsourced to hired help and/or a female family member.
The message “he loves us all so much he arranged this” is meaningless if it was primarily handled by others.
Heidi, that is what I noticed too! “honoring her as mother, and as daughters our potential to become mothers” Pres. Nelson is a moral, decent person. However, he doesn’t see women as individuals as humans like himself. It feels like something from the book and movie The Help. His view of women is a significant blind spot for him to the point that it is baffling that he can’t see this shortcoming in himself even after 100 years of life. It makes me really want to do the work to listen to other people so that I don’t go through life this dense to my own blind spots and others life experiences.
On an episode of “Latter-day Struggles” awhile ago, one of Valerie’s guests said, “If we don’t want people to think we’re a cult, we should stop saying and doing culty things.” That resonated so much. We can debate whether or not it’s a cult (I lean toward yes more than no at this point, but anyway), but the fact is that I totally understand why people think we’re a cult. And it is totally on the church.
**This was supposed to be a reply to Candice. Nesting fail. :)**
I really appreciate all your comments, Heidi! At a recent stake conference, the “just trust the Q15” messages were strong and direct. I was told that if I feel like the Q15 are out of touch with today’s young people and today’s issues, I need to let go of these feelings and just choose to trust them. I was told that I need to trust them and their discernment and decisions about things over my own feelings and conscience, academic research, online communities, etc. Teaching people to not trust themselves and move the locus of power outside is a form of spiritual and psychological harm. They are the ones that need to get with the program. I know for myself there is truth in my assessment that they are out of touch.
Several years ago we attended a shindig dinner and program the College of Medicine put on for Russel M., cardiac surgeon supreme. The testosterone fumes and sycophantic tones were so thick I could hardly stand it!! Needless to say, later on when he was elevated to church president, all I could think of was that opulent dinner!!
I’m imagining the scent of testosterone fumes and idol worshipping that was for sure going on and I’m so glad I’ve never had to go to anything like that!
Re: RMN changes for women in the Church.
When you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig.
My thoughts exactly!! Great minds think a like.
All the comments have helped me define why I felt angry and yucky during the birthday celebration. First of all it was a church meeting, not what I would want for my birthday. The idol worship was thick.
Just one correction: Kauwe is president of BYUH. He is the first person of Hawaiian descent to ever serve as president of BYUH as far as I know.
Thanks, Elizabeth – I will go fix that error. I think it autocorrected to say BYUI instead of BYUH (I’ve probably never typed the second one before), and I didn’t catch it!
I feel all of this so much. And have been thinking a lot lately about how anyone saying something complimentary or accepting of another person is already making the assumption that their opinion should matter to said person. A few months ago I gave an unconventional Easter talk in church. Afterward, a gentleman in a leadership role whom I know holds extremely different views from me walked across the chapel, interrupted to handful of women gathered with me discussing it to state he “appreciated my willingness to speak and the time I spent r
Preparing”. I not so graciously informed him I did not in fact spend much extra time on it because it was simply what I had been pondering as I prepared for Easter. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why his comments and unwanted but presumed consensual handshake bothered me so much. Hours later it dawned on me. He said nothing of my comments, content or very vulnerable testimony of the Savior. He thanked me for “being willing”, code for “doing what I was told” and my time. He did not value my insight, opinions or reflections or vulnerability. And he clearly felt coming and commenting to me was supposed to make me feel special for him taking the time to address me. It wreaked of just this thing, benevolent patriarchy, and the odor still hangs in the air.
I do not need or want men at church to thank me for my willingness to do what I am told, I do not want them commenting on how I smell (yes, this creepily happened too) or to intereupt me in a deep gospel conversation in the hall to touch me without consent and tell me they like my shirt (also real!), and I don’t need them grasping for straws to come up with a platitude to say are their discomfort when I give a talk that unsettles them. I need them to stop thinking this is treating me as an equal as they look down their nose and congratulate themselves for being so kind
Mikaela, have you read this post on the exact topic of the handshake you’re talking about?
https://exponentii.org/blog/the-mormon-handshake/
And I can just *feel* the Mormon man condescension you got that day after your Easter talk. Mormon men would say all day that they treat women with respect and consider us equals, but that icky feeling is because you know inside they actually don’t. They can’t if they support a patriarchal church that gives them total power over women and enjoy benefitting from it!
Yes, I have read it. And I have noticed a troubling trend that the only people at church that generally even try to shake my hand are men of a certain age who have been in leadership callings and are making a very thinly veiled attempt to connect with me in what can only be seen as a rescue mission. These men approach intentionally, force an uncomfortable handshake I don’t want to participate in and then proceed to make horrible small talk because we do not in fact have anything in common. They mention grandchildren as though I will automatically be invested in the conversation because they assume I have ovaries. It is clear they think interacting with me is doing me a favor despite the fact I am extremely extroverted and perfectly comfortable finding someone I talk to I actually want to engage with. And the idea that I might not actually want to tough them- especially after a world-wide pandemic never, ever occurs to them. Because “good men” are blessed with access to women and “good women” listen to the men.
I didn’t watch the birthday celebration, but I am thinking of that time, not quite six months ago, when the church’s public affairs people took a quote about women’s power and authority in the church from the women’s broadcast that had just happened, and posted it, out of context, on Instagram. Tens of thousands of LDS women immediately responded with their concerns, their opinions, and their feelings. The comments came down for a while, then came back up – the church said it was a system error, Instagram said it wasn’t, so who knows – and thousands more responses were added. I loved reading the comments that day and I waited to see how our GAs were going to respond in upcoming conference to all the strong feelings that had been expressed. And as we know, all that feedback was apparently ignored, although two speakers did tell us to put on the big girl pants – literally big: knee-length white cotton – and that was that. To me, that showed complete lack of respect and regard for the female half of the church, however much they may say they love us.
Well said, Cate! Love the big girl pants analogy, hilarious, snarky, and a really good point.