As a young woman, we had a combined camping trip with laurels and priests in our stake. When it came time to go on a hike for the trip, the laurels went on a completely flat hike while the priests went on a steep hike up the side of the mountain. In testimony meeting the boys talked at length about how difficult the hike was and how much they learned and how it took several hours. The next morning, a group of us young women who were on the cross country team ran their hike in about thirty minutes. We felt pretty awesome about our accomplishment but also knew we couldn’t talk about it because it would some how make the young men feel bad and our experience would not be validated.
– Hope
This year I was in Young Women. Our church building was new to our branch and needed some altering to become fully serviceable (we live overseas). We had a big fountain in the parking lot that needed to be removed. It was announced to the branch for weeks that the branch was invited to come help dismantle/smash it into pieces on Young Women/Young Men night. My entire YW consisted of eight Laurels, most of whom were athletes (volleyball, basketball, soccer… etc); none of them were delicate ‘oh I broke a nail!’ kind of girls. They showed up to help that night. They were excited. This was the coolest thing they were ever going to do in YW. I, as their leader, was fully under the impression that we were going to participate. No one had ever said the words ‘women are not welcome.’
Turns out women were not welcome. When we walked in, the branch president (American) informed us that we wouldn’t be helping. He was concerned for the girls’ safety. He assigned us the task of tracking down absent members on social media instead. He wanted teenage girls to send private messages to strangers (most of whom were men) with personal invitations to come on out. We didn’t have actual contact information for any of these people. We were soliciting strangers based on their profiles hoping they were the right guys. It had ‘invite strange men to stalk you’ written all over it.
My girls came dressed and ready to help. They had long sleeves and closed toed shoes. They were healthy and strong. The branch president (who was so concerned about safety) let 10 year old boys and grown men wearing flip flops swing sledgehammers. But the 17 year old athletes who’d thought far enough ahead to dress properly might get hurt.
One of my girls went home that night and sobbed for hours. She almost didn’t come back and I couldn’t have blamed her. She’d already been struggling with her place as a woman in the church and she’d just been told her female participation wasn’t wanted because ‘the boys need these sorts of activities more than you do.’
I was told the same thing in Young Women 20 years ago. I’d hoped things had changed since then. Apparently they hadn’t.
Amy H.
Pro Tip: Allow women and girls the same opportunities and privileges as men and boys.
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“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)
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When I was in the YW Presidency in the DC area we got a call to gather the youth together to go shovel our single older sisters out after a gigantic snow storm. I showed up with my daughter and an all wheel drive van ready to go to work. The Bishop from California and the Counselor from Las Vegas we quite uncomfortable with my ability to drive in the snow and had hoped that my husband would come. This girl who grew up in Idaho and lived in Chicago passed the other crews as they were digging themselves out of various snow banks several times. My crew felt empowered.
As a sister missionary I had to BEG members to let us participate in physical service projects like the elders. I just wanted a chance to wear jeans and do something that felt useful instead of getting doors slammed in my face for a few hours. They almost all refused and the elders wouldn’t let us know when they were happening. One family FINALLY let us come over and help with their home renovation and it was like manna to my soul.
The best preparation I had for the rather physical activity of giving birth to my children was…hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim with my brother’s scout troop. He was twelve, I had been in college for a year. My dad was the scout master and invited me to come. It involved camping overnight. That experience is so valuable to me and taught me so much about what I was physically capable of. It makes me furious that I had to break the rules to get it.