A while back we put up a poll asking commenters to vote on their top feminist concerns with the Church. The table below shows a few results, based on responses from the 78 people who have voted as of today (although second and third concerns each received only 75 total responses). Note that the “weighted votes” column assigns votes for #1 concern a value of 3, #2 concern a value of 2, and #3 concern a value of 1. The “votes” column simply counts the number of times a concern was voted for without weighting.
The major result of this poll is that limited female participation in Church administration is by far the top concern of those who voted. This response was not only mentioned most often as a top concern (24 times) but was also mentioned more often than any other concern as being second most important (15) and third most important (14). With 53 total votes, this was the only concern mentioned by over half of respondents.
| Concern | Weighted votes | Votes |
| Limited female participation in Church administration | 116 | 53 |
| Teaching that husbands “preside” in their families | 68 | 33 |
| Gender roles in the temple ceremony | 55 | 24 |
| Polygamy | 49 | 26 |
| Male-only priesthood | 49 | 25 |
| Lack of info about Heavenly Mother | 40 | 21 |
| Teaching that women should stay at home and raise children | 33 | 17 |
| Lack of women in the scriptures/female role models | 30 | 18 |
| Gender-exclusive language | 15 | 9 |
| Other | 4 | 2 |
Thanks for crunching the numbers into a chart, Ziff. (I’d heard somewhere that the errand of chart-making was given to men. ;))
One thing that intrigues me is that the top concern doesn’t seem to be tied any core LDS doctrine; in other words, I can imagine it changing without requiring an accompanying radical theological shift of some sort. (Obviously it’s related to male-only priesthood, of course, but I don’t think giving women more of a voice would necessarily require female ordination.)
I’m always up for fulfilling my divine chart-making role.
I think you have a good point that keeping women out of Church administration isn’t tied to any core doctrine. But as many people observed in the thread attached to the poll, that’s like the keystone of the whole patriarchal structure; if it were removed–if women got some more say in Church administration–a whole lot of other concerns would probably change as a result. Knowing that, I suspect Church leaders aren’t likely to consider such a change lightly, regardless of the lack of doctrinal basis.