Stueben, I have to say that’s an outrageous comment from sol’s stake presidency! If sewing is part of my divine gender role, I think I’m in for a rocky eternity–I have never hated another class with the vehemence with which I detested eighth-grade sewing.

Cynthia, I wonder though what prevents women from exercising the priesthood outside the temple or holding priesthood offices, if it is in fact doctrinal that women have the priesthood? Also, I’m personally uncomfortable with the equation of the powers of mothers in Israel to priesthood power. To the degree that we value agency, mothers’ power is limited (by their children’s agency). But perhaps we’re approaching a conceptualization of priesthood power that is equally vacuous.

I am told that several seminaries around out city do in fact have female presidents.

it is a bit of a stretch to say that the next step will be calling sisters to be sunday school presidents… but it got me thinking.

thanks for a thought-provoking post (as always)

The situation reminds me a bit of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, and the problem of infant baptism. Since the consequences of an infant dying without baptism were presumed to be so drastic, the rules had to be bent as far as who was allowed to administer it. Better to let non-ordained people perform functions normally limited to the ordained than to risk infants being shut out of heaven. (With Vatican II, of course, and its acknowledgment of the possibility of salvation outside the Catholic church, the baptism issue became less pressing.) But I think there are some parallels to our struggle to make sense of what women can and cannot do. The spectre of a mother who doesn’t happen to have quick access to a priesthood holder dealing with a gravely ill child, for example, is disturbing enough to call forth the hope that she can do something that is just as good.

Today I observed two non-LDS acquaintances, one of whom was about to go deal with a challenging situation. The other woman put her arm around the first, and said a prayer for her. It made me think of this post, and I’m curious–would those who believe that female prayer is potentially as efficacious as priesthood extend this to those outside the LDS church? Or would something else (the gift of the Holy Ghost, maybe) be invoked as contributing some vital ingredient?

Thanks for your comment, Geoff–I’m not sure whether I consider it problematic or not. I have to admit I wouldn’t find it an appealing “solution” to apparent gender inequalities if priesthood shriveled away to nothing.

J. Stapley, regarding topics such as the lionization of motherhood becoming prominent only in the last few decades, I’m going off my memory of things like Armand Mauss (which I don’t have with me at the moment). If you disagree with his analysis, I’d actually be interested in a post explaining how you would trace the trajectory of the rhetoric of motherhood in the Church differently. Same thing for wifely subordination, both in theory and in practice. But of course no pressure, obviously.

Janeannechovy, it’s interesting how some areas cling tenaciously to the idea that only Melchizedek priesthood holders should offer sacrament meeting invocations, long after the policy was revoked! Even though this frustrates me, at the same time, there’s something I find appealing about its insistence on a robust concept of priesthood, both in terms of ecclesial privilege and its apparent metaphysical ramifications (although I’m not sold on the gender discrimination aspect). Sometimes it seems like we downplay and denigrate our spiritual gifts in an effort to console ourselves that they’re not universally available.