Before we go further...

I have more critique to give, of both President Nelson's comments in the Saturday evening session, and of gender constructs within the church in general. However, before I do that, I want to point out some things that are good.

We should be better than other churches, given the resources that we have. In some ways we are. We are certainly not always better enough, and if we can come to some understanding about why that is - and improve it - that would be ideal.

One thing that I have hinted at but am not done talking about is how there seems to be a doubling down on chauvinism that I think is a backlash to #metoo and other things. That is not exclusive to our church, and I think is much worse outside the church.

Some other religious types are starting to bring up Eve's mistake more, for their justification of how women taking the lead ruins everything. We know that was something that needed to happen, and was a good choice.

On the purely speculative side, I have wondered whether perhaps men having the priesthood and taking the leadership roles is because of that. Since women are more likely to take the initiative and accomplish things, and since much of mortality is getting better at things that are hard for you, then maybe it is logical that roles have been set up so that everyone has to do what is harder, including women waiting for men to do the right thing. However, that is just speculation, and probably less likely than a lot of it being that gender doesn't really matter all that much except for man-made constructs.

(I will get more into the things get said about gender in church next week.)

I will also allow that getting back to early feminism, with The Feminine Mystique and the problem that had no name, women inside the church were probably better off.  Remembering that it was a problem more of middle class women who didn't have enough to do, with church callings and service and at least some putative doctrine of equality, I could believe that women in the church had more fulfillment than women outside the church. It wouldn't have been perfect, but nothing earthly is.

Still, a lot has changed now, and that might not hold up. For example, one reason women with lower incomes did not worry so much about the purpose of their lives was that they were too busy working. There are now far fewer women who have the luxury of choice.

There are good things in that, as some women have found fulfilling careers and undiscovered abilities.

There are also bad things, in terms of encountering sexual harassment, a lack of respect in the workplace, unequal pay for unequal work, and unequal distribution of labor in the home despite both parties working.

As the world moves forward in this way, I am afraid many members are ill-equipped to grasp the problems there, and probably not very well-motivated in the case of the men. After all, the old system has worked really well for them.

More on that next week.