My stake realigned its ward boundaries on Sunday. After a hymn and prayer, the stake president announced the changes at a special meeting that was broadcast via Zoom on Sunday afternoon. “If you’re unhappy, blame your bishops,” the stake president said. “They got a lot of input.” It felt like a strange attempt at both levity and deferring responsibility. 

After his remarks, two or three other men who have stake callings gave brief talks about how the process was inspired and how change was hard, but the members would adjust and get through it if they had faith. 

It was not a secret that ward boundaries were changing, and some of the changes had been openly discussed prior to the meeting–I’m not sure how widely, but the couple of guys I know who serve on the high council or as stake clerks were pretty open about the likely changes when asked. This was refreshing to me. The church gets so weird about secrecy, even when it’s unnecessary at best and harmful at worst, and women are disproportionately the ones affected by the secrecy culture because they are excluded from priesthood-only spaces.

“Priesthood only space” pretty well defined the parts of the meeting I saw last weekend; despite the fact that the announced changes equally affected women, only men spoke, only men sat on the stand in the Zoom frame, and only men were involved in the redistricting process. And it seemed that quite a lot of them had been involved, from what I gathered: all the bishops and the stake presidency and clerks, so about 12 men. As far as we were told, and as far as I could tell, the stake and ward Relief Society presidencies were not consulted or involved in the process at all. My friend on the high council told me that the boundary changes, once they were finalized, were presented to the stake council, which includes the female stake auxiliary presidencies, but they were not asked for input.

Interestingly, the church’s General Handbook only specifies that the stake president is the one to propose ward/branch boundary changes. It uses the singular “he” in describing the process for determining the criteria for revising boundaries. It does not mention any other people to involve or suggest forming a committee, but neither does it forbid involving others. 

Surely the people who came up with the procedural guidelines in the handbook did not intend for the stake president to crunch the numbers and figure out boundary changes all on his own. Even though it is not specified, surely they expected him to ask others to assist with this task. So why not include women?

Presumably, my stake president read the procedures laid out in the handbook [1] and determined that seeking counsel and insight from stake priesthood leaders and bishops was the best way to figure out which boundaries to adjust.

I think it’s great that he interpreted the handbook’s guidelines in a way that fit his situation, but just as the handbook did not specify whether or not to consult with male leaders, it also did not specify whether or not to consult with female leaders. The stake president, with the exact same rationale, could have just as easily consulted with female leadership about the proposed changes as he did with the male leadership.

But he did not.

One of the main reasons they chose to adjust ward boundaries was to help balance the number youth and Primary children in each ward. Since the stake president is only required to consider total number of members and active, tithe-paying, leadership-quality Melchizedek Priesthood-holding men in each ward boundary [1], I was relieved to hear that other demographics were also considered. I found it disappointing, though, that the female leaders who might have had the greatest insight into the names and circumstances of the families represented by those numbers were not consulted.

Speaking about women’s exclusion from policy-making in the highest levels of the church, Chieko Okazaki, former counselor in the general Relief Society presidency, said, “Sometimes I think they [male leaders] get so busy that they forget that we are there.” If this happens at the highest levels, is it any surprise that it also happens on the local level?

A friend in my ward, knowing about my views that women are underrepresented and underutilized in the church, told me about a funny interaction she had with some of the other women in our ward. She smiled as she said, “I told my friends, “They need to have the Relief Society in there to help with those boundary changes! You know those guys are going to mess a bunch of stuff up. The women would get the job done right!”” She said her joke was a hit and her friends all laughingly agreed. “I thought you would appreciate that,” she said to me.

I told her I absolutely agreed with her, and that what she said was funny but also really not funny because it was just the truth. Women’s inclusion shouldn’t be a joke. Of course Relief Society presidencies would have a different perspective and should have been involved in this process. Of course women should have been in the room. 

And there was no reason they couldn’t have been.

[1] Here are the only two criteria given for what must constitute a ward in the US and Canada: they must have at least 300 members (including less active members), and they must also have one “active, full-tithe-paying Melchizedek Priesthood holder capable of serving in leadership positions” for every 20 members (active and less active), with a minimum of 20.