When I was a missionary, I watched General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) at a church with other missionaries, most of whom were male, and was shocked to realize that male missionaries saw the very scarce women’s talks as bathroom breaks. 

Until then, I had always watched General Conference at home, either alone or with my family or with female roommates. My mission was my first experience watching a General Conference broadcast at a church building, and my first time seeing adult men stand up and excuse themselves when the only woman speaker of the session arose to speak.  

After our most recent General Conference, Exponent guest writer Leah Steelman pointed out that two of the three women speakers seemed to encourage this male bathroom break behavior by announcing in the first line of their talk that they were directing their message to specific demographics of church members that excluded adult men—children in one case and youth in the other. Only three of 35 speakers were women, and two of those women explicitly told men, “You don’t have to listen to me!”

I see where these female General Conference speakers are coming from. Of course the Young Women presidency wants to speak to youth and the Primary presidency wants to address children! That makes sense. Those are the demographics in their stewardships. The problem is that there are too few women speakers to begin with. If a couple of the 32 male speakers decided to address their remarks to a specific demographic, there would still be many more of them left to speak to the rest of us. Not so for women.

In fact, one of those 32 male speakers at the last General Conference did just that! Elder Steven R. Bangerter announced in the first line of his talk that he was directing his remarks specifically to youth, just like Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus did after him. (See guys? You didn’t have to hold it clear until Sister Spannaus’s turn! You could have taken your potty break early!) That still left 31 General Conference talks by men that included adult men in the intended audience, compared to only one talk by a woman.

We need General Conference talks that address the unique needs of specific demographics in the church, and with about 35 talks delivered at each General Conference, we certainly have ample time to direct some of these sermons toward certain demographics instead of trying to make every talk about everyone. And the women leaders who serve in presidencies with stewardship specifically over children or youth or women are uniquely qualified to address the needs of these particular demographic groups in their talks.

But we also need men to listen to women. We need men to hear women, and learn from women, and respect women. We need men seated in their chairs, pondering women’s words and insights, gleaning gospel truths from their sermons, feeling challenged by their perspectives and inspired by their teachings.

We need men to hold it until the rest hymn.

How can we have both? How can we make space for one or two or even more women to address their talks to specific demographic groups that may exclude adult men, while still having other talks by women directed to adult men or to the church as a whole?

The answer is simple. We need more women speaking in General Conference.