This archive sunday post was originally posted by me (Alliegator) in April of 2011. See the original post and comments here.
Growing up my dad was one of my biggest cheerleaders when it came to the church. He spent the majority of my teen years as a counselor in the bishopric, and since he had access to a truck and trailer, this meant he did more than his fair share of hauling youth and their accessories to scout camp and girls camp. He’ll tell you he much preferred girls camp. His anectodal evidence was that they were more organized, cleaner, less obnoxious, and less prone to doing stupid things (we never accidentally used poison ivy as TP for example). He also instituted the annual “It Is Fair” hike, where he lead the YW on backpacking trips in southern Utah. I also credit him (though I don’t know for sure) for starting the Open Class in the pinewood derby, where anyone could enter, and I won second place the first year. I have a nice scar across one of my fingers from carving my car too.
I remember my dad saying essentially that “women are better” when it comes to church. I asked my brother what he remembers, because, kind sister that I am, I never thought about how a female superiority might have made him feel as the only son, with three older sisters. His response surprised me a bit. I really expected him to say that it made him feel bad about himself, as a male in the church:
Yes, I heard that message… although I think for him it was based on anecdotal evidence that was pretty solid from his perspective. I can’t recall him ever saying that statement alone (e.g. “women are better”) but it was always coupled with examples like, “The R.S. is on top of this or that” new program, while the men would all be lagging behind or not doing as much. He had a lot of leadership positions. He saw it… at least in our ward, which was pretty great to begin with. On the whole, women were just doing more than men were. RS lessons were generally better than HP lessons. Women did their visiting teaching at a much higher rate than men did. At the same time, I can’t recall him saying that women were more “spiritual” per se though, just more “active.” Anyway, his comments always made sense to me. On the whole, the RS sisters DID seem to have it together more than the men did. For sure, there were some great men as well, and he always pointed them out to me. I can think of many great men in our home ward. How did this affect me personally? It may have made me a little more judgmental of men in the church, whom I already did not feel as safe around as I did with women (again, in general, as there are always examples to the contrary!). I don’t think I personally ever felt “less than” in being male. I may have been more judgmental of men in general, but not of myself… at least not due to gender.
I grew up loving the idea that women were better than men, and that’s why men needed the priesthood. It made me feel superior in some way, at a time in my life when I felt shy and uncomfortable around boys, and very easily could have felt less valuable because I didn’t hold the priesthood. It doesn’t seem like hearing what my dad said hurt my brother too much (although it seems like he probably remembers more accurately what was said, while I grasped onto maybe what my teenage girl mind wanted to hear…), though I can see that the potential is there for causing problems, especially with the Homer Simpson syndrome. I’m certainly not trying to argue that women are superior, or that we ought to teach that they are, but I have a hard time reconciling what I heard growing up and the anecdotal evidence with my more enlightened “adult” views on life and equality.
Some other sources of evidence suggesting the superiority of women….
My Father in Law writes an extensive weekly journal and emails edited versions of it out to the family. He often talks about visits to the temple and nearly every time, he mentions how many more women are in the Temple than men (though this may partially be explained my my next piece of evidence).
44% of church members are men, 56% are women.
Talks in conference aimed at men often seem like a “you need to do better” sort of thing, while talks about women are more “yea, go women!”.
I recognize that all this is generalizing, but IN GENERAL, is there something behind the stereotype of women being more spiritual than men? I personally no longer believe the “women don’t need the priesthood because they’re naturally more service oriented” line anymore. I’ve developed much more interesting views on women and the priesthood, (but that’s a different post). I also don’t believe that women are spiritually superior, each of us, male or female, has to work out our own relationship with God. Our spirituality is what we put into it, it’s not based on whether we’re a boy or a girl.
That said, how do we account for experiences like my dad’s, or my FIL’s, or the focus in conference talks, or temple attendance?