1) Julie’s initial post is great. That principle can be applied not just in addressing women who argue that women should be “softer and more feminine,” but also can be applied to men who are misogynists or even just benevolent sexists. Isn’t the appropriate point when someone is assuming an authoritarian role over another to point out that Jesus taught us all that we should be more like Him — and that He was the servant of all. Cite the example of His sacrifice for each and every other person. Or washing the feet of the apostles. So when someone isn’t quite living up to that standard (and is being annoyingly sexist about it), isn’t it OK to subtly point out that maybe they haven’t met that standard yet?

2) When I was called into the Bishopric in the late 1980s and was given responsibility over the youth programs in the ward, the out-going YW President (my wife) cornered me about the inequity in the YM and YW budgets, and argued that it was UNFAIR! (Note: maybe the influence of their mother is why 2 of my daughters are on this blog) Upon investigation, we found that there were differences (which we corrected), but that the biggest difference is in camp costs. Scout camps cost a LOT of money because they use Scout land, offer extensive camp facilities, and paid Scout professionals. YW Camp is typically at a public camp with low fees, few facilities, and no professional staff. Unfortunately, we found no camps for YW with facilities and staff anything like the Scouts. And the YW and their leaders (for the most part) are OK with that discrepancy. While I can’t speak for all wards, I can speak for that ward, and the 2 wards since then where I have served as YM President and/or Bishop, and I can say that other than Camp costs, the funding has been equal.

3) You might enjoy this story. At the time of Elder Ballard’s famous “Strength in Counsel” talk in the Oct. 1993 conference, I was serving as Stake YM President. We went to Stake Council Meeting a few weeks later, and our Stake President quoted from Elder Ballard’s talk, and then said we need to do more of that as a Stake Council. He then proceeded to ask each of the sisters at the Stake Council Meeting (Stake RS Presidency, Stake YW Presidency, and Stake Primary Presidency) to “counsel the Stake Council by giving a report on what they are doing to achieve the goals assigned to them by the Stake Presidency.” I was absolutely dumbfounded.

Tanya Sue, I’m glad that the people who are giving you a hard time for your sensitivity are also appreciative of it at times.

Naismith, I don’t like coming up with all-encompassing narratives because I don’t think that my mortal understanding can fully understand what things will be like in the eternities (and so trying to come up with some kind of justification for the status-quo doesn’t really seem to be the best use of my time).

I was not attempting to offer an “all-encompassing narrative.” I was simply sharing how I see it, and how that view has allowed me to be happy with the status quo. I didn’t “come up with it,” BTW, it was given to me. To me, not for anyone else.

My point is that there are lots of way to look at the situation, beyond the feminist views that you have eloquently espoused or the narrow view of women’s role that is often expressed (overemphasis on marriage, women only having worth as mothers, etc.), which I think is mostly horribilizing as I haven’t come across that much. My girls never did a makeup night for YW; they have learned fencing and shooting alongside the young men, and most of the young women in my ward (including my daughter) serve missions.

All I know is that I have a strong conviction of women’s equality, it doesn’t seem to be compatible with what I see on the earth nowadays,

And I think men and women are equal, but different. I don’t feel powerless in the church. That’s where we disagree.

I think there are a lot of things about feminism that are not ultimately going to be compatible with the gospel, and these things will be left by the wayside. But I also don’t think that the the way the church functions now will be the way the gospel functions in the eternities. All I know is that I have a strong conviction of women’s equality, it doesn’t seem to be compatible with what I see on the earth nowadays, but that it is important to God’s eternal plan. And I hope someday things will come together and make sense for me. But I think coming up with a specific narrative about how that will happen (especially one that justifies current inqualities and sexism) is premature.

I want to talk and to think more about the benevolent variety of sexism, and to read the rest of the comments on this thread, but first I want to pass along something I’ve discovered that might be helpful to someone who is ever threatened as was discussed in that article. Such threats are sadly more common than we like to suppose.

I’ve found when dealing with vicious, low, violent, sexism of a sort that seems to have most, but by no means exclusive, currency among the ignorant and coarse, I’ve found that exhibiting a healthy self-preservation instinct, and no undue delicacy about the vigor with which one might exercise it, has much efficacy. I went to a violent inner-city school, and some time in my second or third year of being beat up, harassed, shoved, shaken down, etc. I hit upon the way to make it stop instantly. Since then, this method has served me well whenever I’ve encountered such threats, whether over the web or in person.

Though in the backwoods, the wilds of rural or urban culture, among the lazy, violent, and contemptuous, a righteously indignant girl doesn’t get a whole lot of respect, I have found by experience, that a righteously indignant girl with a shotgun very much does.

Being ready and willing to violently defend oneself against violent threats is quite effective in quelling them. On the web, asking for someone’s real name and address, so that one can continue addressing character defamation issues through legal channels is quite effective in silencing vicious and libelous attacks. When you up the ante, in a decisive and resolute way, violent bullies almost always back down. They aren’t, after all, in the business of risking a hair on their own precious heads, no, Precious, not at all.

I would encourage you to come up with a paradigm based on the reality of church doctrine, rather than accepting feminism as sacred and trying to cram the church into the framework of feminism.

That exercise is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and of course it isn’t going to quite fit, and sadly some bits of it are going to be chipped off and left on the ground in the process, and then people aren’t going to quite understand the shaved-off version that does fit, because it is missing vital things.

Interestingly, it sounds to me that this is exactly what you are doing, Naismith. You claim that men have to run the Church in order to make them better people, while women are already better people by default. This is a common rationalization for denying women the priesthood or any real power in the Church hierarchy, but it is not doctrinal. You appear to be holding your apologist stance for a male-only priesthood as sacred and trying to cram the church into that framework.

I think the gospel is clearly more compatible with feminism, which is concerned with allowing women more opportunities, than it is with sexist apologetics, which is concerned with explaining why women don’t actually need those opportunities.

You are saying, I think, that men are spiritually retarded.

I don’t think so. “Retarded” implies that they can never learn. I think men CAN be just as spiritual as women, but in general it is not as effortless or natural to them so the training they receive helps a lot.

A few years ago, I was going through a challenging time, trying to pack up to move to another country as a single mother of four, the youngest being 2. Because of where we live, most of my friends are not members. My non-member female friends were there for me just as much as the LDS ones, bringing in dinner, etc. My male non-member friends kinda waved and said have a nice vogage (it just never occured to them to help). My male LDS friends came over to pack and one of them cleaned my refrigerator:)

That’s the difference I see. And in the case of my own husband, I have observed the huge growth in his compassion and understanding of life’s vicissitudes that has come from serving in the church.