Below is my latest Sacrament talk:
My topic today is women in the Church. I’m not going to duplicate any of the marvelous General Conferences addresses that have been given on the subject or challenge them in any way. I hope only to augment them slightly with some points that haven’t really been made or aren’t widely available.
The World’s Idea of Equality
Much of the current concern about women is driven by ideas of equality. It’s much harder to define and describe equality than most people think. There is no universally accepted definition. It’s pretty complex, constantly shifting and no one actually agrees on all the facets. It’s a moving target.
The world isn’t very good at achieving or promoting equality even when it can sort of define it. Few of society’s current solutions are helping to solve the inequality it identifies.
Shouldn’t we be more concerned about what Heavenly Father’s ideas of equality are and how to achieve them than about the worlds?
Heavenly Father and Divine Roles
What I can say with absolute confidence is that societal views of equality are warping our perception of our divine roles.
In essence, the world objects to the notion of Heavenly Father’s designation of divine roles set aside for women and divine roles set aside for men. That is what it boils down to. Right now, the world even balks at the idea of gender itself.
Heavenly Father created the genders and has designated specific roles and responsibilities for each gender. We consider these to be divine roles. Society may value one role over another but that does not mean Heavenly Father does.
Society even has the audacity to assert that it values women and their traditional roles. This is nonsense. If you have spent your life being a wife and mother and you try and get a job in the secular world, your skills are worth minimum wage. That is the true measure of how much society actually values the role.
Society wants to free women entirely from this role, by encouraging them to pursue education and professional advancement, to the exclusion of almost everything else. This isn't expansion, it's contraction.
The world is trying to make us think that bearing and nurturing children is somehow a curse rather than a blessing.
As a professor, I felt frustrated in my teaching responsibilities. I felt that in order to really have the effect I wanted on my students I needed to have a much more personal one-on-one relationship with them for a much longer period of time if I was going to be able to nurture them properly. What am I describing?
The secular world may tell us that women’s divine roles on this earth are inferior to men’s but we don’t have to take delivery of that message.
If women and their roles weren’t important, Satan wouldn’t make them his target.
Society’s Criticisms of Us
Society levels its criticisms at the Church and those of us in it.
People concerned about so-called gender equality in the Church are only concerned about allowing women to do what the men do. Have you noticed that there is never any corresponding clamor over allowing the men to do what is reserved for the women?
Why isn’t anyone demanding men be allowed to be Relief Society President, Primary President, Nursery Leader, or something similar?
I think the answer is simple. People don't think responsibilities women have in the Church are as important as the responsibilities men have. Their underlying assumption is that they think what the men do is more important.
I’ll abstain from verbalizing the obvious editorial comment implicit in that assumption.
The Priesthood
The targets the world points at in the Church are the priesthood and the so-called leadership callings.
The priesthood was reserved for Levites in the Old Testament. Priesthood responsibility is much more egalitarian now according to current societal views.
But Heavenly Father can assign roles where he chooses. Priesthood power is the authority to act in God’s name. Since it is His church and His power, He can bestow it however He likes.
Dictating earthly notions of equality to Heavenly Father is just plain silly. There is tremendous arrogance in dictating anything to an omniscient, omnipotent being.
In truth, society doesn’t acknowledge Heavenly Father has any role in this at all. It assumes that earthly men in the Church are simply trying to protect what power they have and that is the only force out there operating. Society really doesn’t believe there is a divine being or that He has established a church He is personally directing.
Society assumes that the Church is suffering from the same challenges and problems that society is experiencing and it needs to adopt the current and fashionable societal solutions to what they see as a problem, even though they aren’t currently working for society.
When people get into a snit over the fact that women do not hold the priesthood in the Church, they don’t even understand what they are criticizing.
In most other religions, the priesthood means overseeing a church and its operations as an occupation and as a job. That isn’t what is means in our church.
It’s even more hilarious when they quote numbers of how many so-called “priests” we have. They don’t even realize the numbers refer primarily to 16–18-year-old young men.
Do I need to point out that men cannot ordain themselves or give themselves blessings? It’s not like they are the prime recipients of their priesthood authority. It’s exercised on behalf of others. If they need the blessings of the priesthood themselves, they have to seek out other priesthood holders to receive them. They don’t generally even administer the sacrament to themselves. They administer it to others.
Satan is trying to twist the emphasis of the priesthood into a right instead of a responsibility and an opportunity which it is, an opportunity to serve Heavenly Father, His church and His children.
The gospel and the covenants we’ve made endow women with tremendous power and authority. If we aren’t attaining our potential, we’ve dumbed down our role ourselves. We can’t blame this on men.
Women minister, exhort, teach, preach and everything else that clergy in other faiths do. We do this all the time and we’ve done it all the time in our past. Isn’t that what I’m doing right now?
Leadership
Let’s shift to leadership. The much-vaunted leadership roles in the Church are reserved exclusively for men.
In other religions, formal secular education generally ensures that you rise in church leadership as well. The intelligentsia are generally in charge in other religions. Not ours. Secular knowledge has nothing to do with personal worthiness or spiritual capability.
I think this is why our detractors and critics are usually a part of the intellectual elite in some way. They are ticked off that they can’t be in charge.
Worldly stereotypes of Latter-day Saint women are not flattering, to anybody. I'd like to point out that, if the system is so repressive to Latter-day Saint women, how have we produced so many admirable and accomplished women?
If members truly value all callings as equal, and simply as opportunities to serve, why do we even have this discussion? The answer is, because even members don't really believe that a nursery leader's status is on par with a that of a stake president. We are captives of our secular society values that tarnish our religious beliefs.
Sister Jean B. Bingham taught:
In our belief system, the core belief and our ultimate goal is the highest echelon of the Celestial Kingdom. Interestingly enough, men cannot make it there without women and women cannot make it there without men, as equal partners. Women are not kept from anything necessary for their advancement.
The World’s Idea of Equality
Much of the current concern about women is driven by ideas of equality. It’s much harder to define and describe equality than most people think. There is no universally accepted definition. It’s pretty complex, constantly shifting and no one actually agrees on all the facets. It’s a moving target.
The world isn’t very good at achieving or promoting equality even when it can sort of define it. Few of society’s current solutions are helping to solve the inequality it identifies.
Shouldn’t we be more concerned about what Heavenly Father’s ideas of equality are and how to achieve them than about the worlds?
Heavenly Father and Divine Roles
What I can say with absolute confidence is that societal views of equality are warping our perception of our divine roles.
In essence, the world objects to the notion of Heavenly Father’s designation of divine roles set aside for women and divine roles set aside for men. That is what it boils down to. Right now, the world even balks at the idea of gender itself.
Heavenly Father created the genders and has designated specific roles and responsibilities for each gender. We consider these to be divine roles. Society may value one role over another but that does not mean Heavenly Father does.
Society even has the audacity to assert that it values women and their traditional roles. This is nonsense. If you have spent your life being a wife and mother and you try and get a job in the secular world, your skills are worth minimum wage. That is the true measure of how much society actually values the role.
Society wants to free women entirely from this role, by encouraging them to pursue education and professional advancement, to the exclusion of almost everything else. This isn't expansion, it's contraction.
The world is trying to make us think that bearing and nurturing children is somehow a curse rather than a blessing.
As a professor, I felt frustrated in my teaching responsibilities. I felt that in order to really have the effect I wanted on my students I needed to have a much more personal one-on-one relationship with them for a much longer period of time if I was going to be able to nurture them properly. What am I describing?
The secular world may tell us that women’s divine roles on this earth are inferior to men’s but we don’t have to take delivery of that message.
If women and their roles weren’t important, Satan wouldn’t make them his target.
Society’s Criticisms of Us
Society levels its criticisms at the Church and those of us in it.
People concerned about so-called gender equality in the Church are only concerned about allowing women to do what the men do. Have you noticed that there is never any corresponding clamor over allowing the men to do what is reserved for the women?
Why isn’t anyone demanding men be allowed to be Relief Society President, Primary President, Nursery Leader, or something similar?
I think the answer is simple. People don't think responsibilities women have in the Church are as important as the responsibilities men have. Their underlying assumption is that they think what the men do is more important.
I’ll abstain from verbalizing the obvious editorial comment implicit in that assumption.
The Priesthood
The targets the world points at in the Church are the priesthood and the so-called leadership callings.
The priesthood was reserved for Levites in the Old Testament. Priesthood responsibility is much more egalitarian now according to current societal views.
But Heavenly Father can assign roles where he chooses. Priesthood power is the authority to act in God’s name. Since it is His church and His power, He can bestow it however He likes.
Dictating earthly notions of equality to Heavenly Father is just plain silly. There is tremendous arrogance in dictating anything to an omniscient, omnipotent being.
In truth, society doesn’t acknowledge Heavenly Father has any role in this at all. It assumes that earthly men in the Church are simply trying to protect what power they have and that is the only force out there operating. Society really doesn’t believe there is a divine being or that He has established a church He is personally directing.
Society assumes that the Church is suffering from the same challenges and problems that society is experiencing and it needs to adopt the current and fashionable societal solutions to what they see as a problem, even though they aren’t currently working for society.
When people get into a snit over the fact that women do not hold the priesthood in the Church, they don’t even understand what they are criticizing.
In most other religions, the priesthood means overseeing a church and its operations as an occupation and as a job. That isn’t what is means in our church.
It’s even more hilarious when they quote numbers of how many so-called “priests” we have. They don’t even realize the numbers refer primarily to 16–18-year-old young men.
The priesthood is not really so much a gift as it is a commission to serve, a privilege to lift, and an opportunity to bless the lives of others.Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught:
“President Joseph F. Smith described the priesthood as “the power of God delegated to man by which man can act in the earth for the salvation of the human family.”2” Other leaders have taught us that the priesthood “is the consummate power on this earth. It is the power by which the earth was created.”3People in secular society cannot delegate the powers of creation.
Ultimately, all keys of the priesthood are held by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose priesthood it is. He is the one who determines what keys are delegated to mortals and how those keys will be used.
Do I need to point out that men cannot ordain themselves or give themselves blessings? It’s not like they are the prime recipients of their priesthood authority. It’s exercised on behalf of others. If they need the blessings of the priesthood themselves, they have to seek out other priesthood holders to receive them. They don’t generally even administer the sacrament to themselves. They administer it to others.
Satan is trying to twist the emphasis of the priesthood into a right instead of a responsibility and an opportunity which it is, an opportunity to serve Heavenly Father, His church and His children.
The priesthood authority exercised by Latter-day Saint women in the temple and elsewhere remains largely unrecognized by people outside the Church and is sometimes misunderstood or overlooked by those within. Latter-day Saints and others often mistakenly equate priesthood with religious office and the men who hold it, which obscures the broader Latter-day Saint concept of priesthood. (See Gospel Topic Essay: Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women.)
The gospel and the covenants we’ve made endow women with tremendous power and authority. If we aren’t attaining our potential, we’ve dumbed down our role ourselves. We can’t blame this on men.
Women minister, exhort, teach, preach and everything else that clergy in other faiths do. We do this all the time and we’ve done it all the time in our past. Isn’t that what I’m doing right now?
Such service and leadership would require ordination in many other religious traditions.The whole idea of women and priesthood power has been addressed in detail by others and they’ve done a better job than I can, so I’ll leave it there.
Leadership
Let’s shift to leadership. The much-vaunted leadership roles in the Church are reserved exclusively for men.
In other religions, formal secular education generally ensures that you rise in church leadership as well. The intelligentsia are generally in charge in other religions. Not ours. Secular knowledge has nothing to do with personal worthiness or spiritual capability.
I think this is why our detractors and critics are usually a part of the intellectual elite in some way. They are ticked off that they can’t be in charge.
Worldly stereotypes of Latter-day Saint women are not flattering, to anybody. I'd like to point out that, if the system is so repressive to Latter-day Saint women, how have we produced so many admirable and accomplished women?
If members truly value all callings as equal, and simply as opportunities to serve, why do we even have this discussion? The answer is, because even members don't really believe that a nursery leader's status is on par with a that of a stake president. We are captives of our secular society values that tarnish our religious beliefs.
Sister Jean B. Bingham taught:
Satan incites comparison as a tool to create feelings of being superior or inferior, hiding the eternal truth that men’s and women’s innate differences are God given and equally valued. He has attempted to demean women’s contributions both to the family and in civil society, thereby decreasing their uplifting influence for good. His goal has been to foster a power struggle rather than a celebration of the unique contributions of men and women that complement one another and contribute to unity.In the secular world, everything is a power struggle and a contest.
In our belief system, the core belief and our ultimate goal is the highest echelon of the Celestial Kingdom. Interestingly enough, men cannot make it there without women and women cannot make it there without men, as equal partners. Women are not kept from anything necessary for their advancement.
Women can make it there without being a Bishop, Branch President, Stake President, Seventy, Apostle or even President of the Church! In fact, we are not kept from anything necessary for our eventual advancement even if we NEVER hold any supposed church position of so-called responsibility in this life.
Holding any of these so-called positions of leadership in the Church doesn’t guarantee eternal advancement for men, either.
The kicker is that the men's responsibilities, like Bishop and Stake President seemingly are perceived to have secular personal glory involved.
So, women are denied secular personal glory. Isn't that what Satan was after in the premortal life? Personal glory is not something we should aspire to. We should aspire to be like Jesus Christ, not like Satan.
We place a higher value on integrity than visibility.
However, we should all aim high in every aspect of our lives.
Aiming high involves a lot.
Holding any of these so-called positions of leadership in the Church doesn’t guarantee eternal advancement for men, either.
The kicker is that the men's responsibilities, like Bishop and Stake President seemingly are perceived to have secular personal glory involved.
So, women are denied secular personal glory. Isn't that what Satan was after in the premortal life? Personal glory is not something we should aspire to. We should aspire to be like Jesus Christ, not like Satan.
We place a higher value on integrity than visibility.
However, we should all aim high in every aspect of our lives.
Aiming high involves a lot.
Women Should Aim High
Some Latter-day Saint women believe that, since being a wife and mother is our highest goal and role, we need not seek high level education or gainful employment.
However, the opposite is true. The more women wish to devote their lives to their marriage and their family, the more necessary it is to aim high. Given our values, it makes sense for women to aim high and achieve all they can.
When I was young, there was an unfortunate notion that if you did seek higher learning, you should get it in elementary education because that would prepare you for marriage and motherhood.
I always found this a bit curious and unconvincing. A degree in elementary education is certainly a worthy education but it seemed more like a certificate in crowd control than viable preparation for marriage. Besides, I wanted to help my kids throughout life, not just in elementary school.
The secular world suggests you only seek education and employment in order to ultimately cash in by obtaining secular employment. According to this line of thinking, if you do not get paid somehow in the future, you have wasted your time and effort.
This is nonsense. To increase our knowledge and skills brings us closer to Heavenly Father and helps us become more like Him.
The more we know and the more we can do, the more we can serve the Lord, His church, our spouse, our children, our families, others and even ourselves.
Limited education and limited skills will limit just about everything in this life and the next. We are here to learn as much as we can and to progress in whatever ways we can, whether we are a mother with many children, a single professional or something else.
Also, the more you know and the more you can do the more able you are to identify and discern truth.
My first husband had a degree in Industrial Management from the Krannert School of Management from Purdue University and spent 32 years overseeing and managing industrial facilities in business. With my academic degrees and training in government, there wasn’t much of anything we didn’t know or couldn’t do.
However, we agreed that we would not have wanted to face the problems and challenges we had in life if we hadn’t had the knowledge, skills and abilities we had amassed throughout our lives. We were challenged even with what we knew and what we could do.
If you don’t pursue the opportunities you have to gain knowledge, skills and abilities, it doesn’t mean that the problems you face in life with be simple and uncomplicated. Satan will throw everything he’s got at you.
It makes secular sense to pursue all the knowledge, skills and abilities you can for that reason even though you should do it because doing so brings you closer to Heavenly Father and He has commanded us to do so. It is for our benefit now and eternally.
In D&C 130:19 we are told:
We will all be held accountable for the learning opportunities we had and did not make use of. And learning opportunities have increased, exponentially, whether through modern technological tools like the Internet or inside the Church with opportunities like BYU – Pathway Worldwide, now the Church’s largest school which is over 60,000 students.
What’s even more astonishing is that it’s affordable.
President Hinckley said education is worth sacrificing for.
The following comment on Reddit is instructive:
Being able to devote your time to your home and family is ideal, but sometimes women must work. Statistically, we know this is true.
Death of a spouse, divorce, unemployment, disability, single status and many other contingencies may require women to work outside the home. Chances are likely that all women will have to work outside at some point.
If you must work, it makes sense to be able to earn as much as you can, in the highest functioning job you qualify for. It makes no sense at all to have lousy hours, lousy pay, no benefits and an inflexible work schedule. Conditions like these are not conducive to anything.
If you have high-level education and skills, you may be able to bring down a good salary while working only part time. High level jobs often come with more flexibility, allowing you to more easily address family and individual needs.
My sister is a case in point. She has a mechanical engineering degree. She’s been working part-time from home for years because her company didn’t want to let go of her when she got married again.
When her husband lost his job when COVID started, she asked to up her hours to full-time so she could get health insurance for the family after losing his. The company said, “Sure, we can do that!” She’s still working from home, full-time now.
High level knowledge and skills are less likely to become obsolete or be replaced by things like technological advancements. Broad knowledge and skills increase your present and future options.
Latter-day Saint women should get all the education and skills they can. This includes secular knowledge skills and abilities as well those relating to marriage, motherhood and religion.
Being a wife and mother does not mean you have limited yourself. The secular world may put little value on these roles, but we don’t have to be defined by its roles. We define ourselves by divine roles.
Our value system has always held women to a high standard, much higher than the world's value system ever has.
No Double Standard for Men and Women Exists
Heavenly Father has commanded all of us to learn all we can, develop our talents and nurture others, all of us. You will not find a disclaimer anywhere in the scriptures or in counsel that this applies only to one gender and not the other.
Marriage is a partnership and you should not be unequally yoked. If women do not seek knowledge and skills for whatever reason, their partner may eventually exceed them. This is not a good situation for anyone. Marriages progress together, not when one partner is stalled and the other is progressing.
Women have been encouraged to choose marriage and motherhood.
Choice implies you have alternatives. If you cannot do anything else, is it really a choice? With no choices, you end up in a default position, because you have no options.
In order to choose marriage and motherhood, it makes sense that you have a choice of something else as well. It suggests that you could pursue a secular career but you choose something higher.
I recently queried one of my friends on what his oldest daughter was doing. She disappeared off my radar because she stopped posting on Facebook. She had a marvelous career with her law degree and Master’s in law but when I checked the Utah State Bar Association it showed her law license wasn’t active and hadn’t been for some time.
She served a mission in South America and married a man from Bolivia so I wondered if they had moved south of the border.
Her father assured me she was still living in Salt Lake City but had suspended her career to raise her four children as a stay-at-home mom and homeschool them.
At the time I found this out, I also saw an annual study done of women and equality. Utah came in dead last of all the states. I looked closely at the criteria on which they concluded this. Almost all of it was based on whether women were currently working in prestigious employment positions, how much formal education they had and how high up they were in some organization.
There was nothing that would measure my young friend with her impressive credentials choosing to stay at home, bear, raise and educate her children.
The notion that someone would actually choose this life isn’t even on society’s radar. They don’t measure it. There is no category or label for it and they don’t seem to realize that it even exists.
Under society’s value structure and measurement methods, they are considered failures and/or tragedies.
We don’t view them this way.
Society can get pretty obnoxious about insisting we comply with its beliefs and norms.
Our efforts to explain and justify our beliefs often amount to trying to justify ourselves using society’s value system, for example, by emphasizing the leadership positions women hold in the Church, their titles, how often they pray in General Conference and so forth.
By doing so, we emphasize our performance under their value system. This may appease some people for a time, but it’s never enough to silence our critics. They’ll find something else wrong with it.
Gender Based Models and Exemplars
Society instructs women to extol their gender and devalue men. Efforts have been directed at insisting we choose our examples, moral exemplars and instruction from only one gender, the one gender we belong to.
Why can’t we choose our moral exemplars from the entire population?
Why can’t we follow inspiring individuals, instruction, and examples wherever we find them, regardless of gender, color, or category?
A friend of mine in Hawaii said he initially resisted the gospel with the rationale, “Why should I believe in Jesus Christ? He is not Chinese.”
Society would have women ignore good advice because it comes from a man. Should men ignore good advice because it comes from a woman? This preoccupation with who said something rather than the merit of what was said is silly.
Following this line of thinking would cause us to ignore Jesus Christ. He’s a man after all. Maybe that’s the real intent. Surely, this is one of Satan’s intentions.
Conclusion
Next to the magnificence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, society’s silliness always falls flat. Only gospel truths and the eternal perspective helps us to determine what is truly valuable.
Since the Restoration, we have produced exemplary women … and men, worthy of our admiration and respect, worthy of our emulating.
Society doesn’t currently value women’s divine role. It suggests it is inferior to men’s divine roles and thus, unequal. However, this divine system is just that, divine. It is designed by deity. Heavenly Father is the only one that knows how to design a truly equal system.
We don’t need to apologize for a system designed by deity. A system designed by an omniscient, omnipotent God is much to be preferred to anything designed by human beings.
Yes, women have separate divinely appointed roles in this life and the next.
Sadly, Women who are not happy being wives and mothers in this life, probably will not be happy being wives and mothers in the next life either.
Society’s secular value system will not hold up in the next life. The gospel of Jesus Christ will and it will sustain us all, eternally.
It is my hope that we can all catch the vision of Heavenly Father’s eternal plan and the divine roles we each have in it.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen
Some Latter-day Saint women believe that, since being a wife and mother is our highest goal and role, we need not seek high level education or gainful employment.
However, the opposite is true. The more women wish to devote their lives to their marriage and their family, the more necessary it is to aim high. Given our values, it makes sense for women to aim high and achieve all they can.
When I was young, there was an unfortunate notion that if you did seek higher learning, you should get it in elementary education because that would prepare you for marriage and motherhood.
I always found this a bit curious and unconvincing. A degree in elementary education is certainly a worthy education but it seemed more like a certificate in crowd control than viable preparation for marriage. Besides, I wanted to help my kids throughout life, not just in elementary school.
The secular world suggests you only seek education and employment in order to ultimately cash in by obtaining secular employment. According to this line of thinking, if you do not get paid somehow in the future, you have wasted your time and effort.
This is nonsense. To increase our knowledge and skills brings us closer to Heavenly Father and helps us become more like Him.
The more we know and the more we can do, the more we can serve the Lord, His church, our spouse, our children, our families, others and even ourselves.
Limited education and limited skills will limit just about everything in this life and the next. We are here to learn as much as we can and to progress in whatever ways we can, whether we are a mother with many children, a single professional or something else.
Also, the more you know and the more you can do the more able you are to identify and discern truth.
My first husband had a degree in Industrial Management from the Krannert School of Management from Purdue University and spent 32 years overseeing and managing industrial facilities in business. With my academic degrees and training in government, there wasn’t much of anything we didn’t know or couldn’t do.
However, we agreed that we would not have wanted to face the problems and challenges we had in life if we hadn’t had the knowledge, skills and abilities we had amassed throughout our lives. We were challenged even with what we knew and what we could do.
If you don’t pursue the opportunities you have to gain knowledge, skills and abilities, it doesn’t mean that the problems you face in life with be simple and uncomplicated. Satan will throw everything he’s got at you.
It makes secular sense to pursue all the knowledge, skills and abilities you can for that reason even though you should do it because doing so brings you closer to Heavenly Father and He has commanded us to do so. It is for our benefit now and eternally.
In D&C 130:19 we are told:
And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.We have all been commanded multiple times by our prophets and leaders to get all the education we can. That doesn’t necessarily mean formal education, although it certainly can be.
We will all be held accountable for the learning opportunities we had and did not make use of. And learning opportunities have increased, exponentially, whether through modern technological tools like the Internet or inside the Church with opportunities like BYU – Pathway Worldwide, now the Church’s largest school which is over 60,000 students.
What’s even more astonishing is that it’s affordable.
President Hinckley said education is worth sacrificing for.
The following comment on Reddit is instructive:
I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.Secular Work is Probably Inevitable
I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments [sic] with strangers.
Being able to devote your time to your home and family is ideal, but sometimes women must work. Statistically, we know this is true.
Death of a spouse, divorce, unemployment, disability, single status and many other contingencies may require women to work outside the home. Chances are likely that all women will have to work outside at some point.
If you must work, it makes sense to be able to earn as much as you can, in the highest functioning job you qualify for. It makes no sense at all to have lousy hours, lousy pay, no benefits and an inflexible work schedule. Conditions like these are not conducive to anything.
If you have high-level education and skills, you may be able to bring down a good salary while working only part time. High level jobs often come with more flexibility, allowing you to more easily address family and individual needs.
My sister is a case in point. She has a mechanical engineering degree. She’s been working part-time from home for years because her company didn’t want to let go of her when she got married again.
When her husband lost his job when COVID started, she asked to up her hours to full-time so she could get health insurance for the family after losing his. The company said, “Sure, we can do that!” She’s still working from home, full-time now.
High level knowledge and skills are less likely to become obsolete or be replaced by things like technological advancements. Broad knowledge and skills increase your present and future options.
Latter-day Saint women should get all the education and skills they can. This includes secular knowledge skills and abilities as well those relating to marriage, motherhood and religion.
Being a wife and mother does not mean you have limited yourself. The secular world may put little value on these roles, but we don’t have to be defined by its roles. We define ourselves by divine roles.
Our value system has always held women to a high standard, much higher than the world's value system ever has.
No Double Standard for Men and Women Exists
Heavenly Father has commanded all of us to learn all we can, develop our talents and nurture others, all of us. You will not find a disclaimer anywhere in the scriptures or in counsel that this applies only to one gender and not the other.
Marriage is a partnership and you should not be unequally yoked. If women do not seek knowledge and skills for whatever reason, their partner may eventually exceed them. This is not a good situation for anyone. Marriages progress together, not when one partner is stalled and the other is progressing.
Women have been encouraged to choose marriage and motherhood.
Choice implies you have alternatives. If you cannot do anything else, is it really a choice? With no choices, you end up in a default position, because you have no options.
In order to choose marriage and motherhood, it makes sense that you have a choice of something else as well. It suggests that you could pursue a secular career but you choose something higher.
I recently queried one of my friends on what his oldest daughter was doing. She disappeared off my radar because she stopped posting on Facebook. She had a marvelous career with her law degree and Master’s in law but when I checked the Utah State Bar Association it showed her law license wasn’t active and hadn’t been for some time.
She served a mission in South America and married a man from Bolivia so I wondered if they had moved south of the border.
Her father assured me she was still living in Salt Lake City but had suspended her career to raise her four children as a stay-at-home mom and homeschool them.
At the time I found this out, I also saw an annual study done of women and equality. Utah came in dead last of all the states. I looked closely at the criteria on which they concluded this. Almost all of it was based on whether women were currently working in prestigious employment positions, how much formal education they had and how high up they were in some organization.
There was nothing that would measure my young friend with her impressive credentials choosing to stay at home, bear, raise and educate her children.
The notion that someone would actually choose this life isn’t even on society’s radar. They don’t measure it. There is no category or label for it and they don’t seem to realize that it even exists.
Under society’s value structure and measurement methods, they are considered failures and/or tragedies.
We don’t view them this way.
Society can get pretty obnoxious about insisting we comply with its beliefs and norms.
Our efforts to explain and justify our beliefs often amount to trying to justify ourselves using society’s value system, for example, by emphasizing the leadership positions women hold in the Church, their titles, how often they pray in General Conference and so forth.
By doing so, we emphasize our performance under their value system. This may appease some people for a time, but it’s never enough to silence our critics. They’ll find something else wrong with it.
Gender Based Models and Exemplars
Society instructs women to extol their gender and devalue men. Efforts have been directed at insisting we choose our examples, moral exemplars and instruction from only one gender, the one gender we belong to.
Why can’t we choose our moral exemplars from the entire population?
Why can’t we follow inspiring individuals, instruction, and examples wherever we find them, regardless of gender, color, or category?
A friend of mine in Hawaii said he initially resisted the gospel with the rationale, “Why should I believe in Jesus Christ? He is not Chinese.”
Society would have women ignore good advice because it comes from a man. Should men ignore good advice because it comes from a woman? This preoccupation with who said something rather than the merit of what was said is silly.
Following this line of thinking would cause us to ignore Jesus Christ. He’s a man after all. Maybe that’s the real intent. Surely, this is one of Satan’s intentions.
Conclusion
Next to the magnificence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, society’s silliness always falls flat. Only gospel truths and the eternal perspective helps us to determine what is truly valuable.
Being distinct and different from the world will draw some criticism, but we must anchor ourselves to eternal principles and testify of them, no matter the world’s response.Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson remarked:
If we don’t teach our children and youth true doctrine—and teach it clearly—the world will teach them Satan’s lies.The lives we lead and the Christlike qualities we embody as women of faith are the true measure of whether we get things right in the Church or not.
Since the Restoration, we have produced exemplary women … and men, worthy of our admiration and respect, worthy of our emulating.
Society doesn’t currently value women’s divine role. It suggests it is inferior to men’s divine roles and thus, unequal. However, this divine system is just that, divine. It is designed by deity. Heavenly Father is the only one that knows how to design a truly equal system.
We don’t need to apologize for a system designed by deity. A system designed by an omniscient, omnipotent God is much to be preferred to anything designed by human beings.
Yes, women have separate divinely appointed roles in this life and the next.
Sadly, Women who are not happy being wives and mothers in this life, probably will not be happy being wives and mothers in the next life either.
Society’s secular value system will not hold up in the next life. The gospel of Jesus Christ will and it will sustain us all, eternally.
It is my hope that we can all catch the vision of Heavenly Father’s eternal plan and the divine roles we each have in it.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen
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