Sexism inside the church

If you'll recall, last week I promised to spend some more time on the question: why is it so easy for men to suck?

I am posting this late because after multiple attempts to write about that, I think I need to lay some groundwork first specific to gender inequality within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

I say that partially because I do sometimes pick up readers who are not members and will not be familiar with some of this, but also, there is that reminder that despite a highly homogeneous culture we don't always hear the same things or pick up on the same things (something I have been noticing more lately).  

First of all, of course this is dominator culture. We can call the specific area "patriarchy". Other words that might work include chauvinism, sexism, misogyny, or male supremacy.

The sexism may at times be benevolent, where women are honored, but so much of what is wonderful about women is how much better we make life for everyone (really men) through our gentleness and intuition, which is largely required in a society that puts men over women.

I want to be clear that this is an area not limited to our church. I will even go so far as to say there are ways in which our church is better about it.

First of all, on religious grounds we seem to be unique in believing that the Fall was necessary. Other religions believing in the Fall will often blame Eve for her action and consider that to be a part of women's weakness, but not us.

Our leaders have specifically stressed that we are equal, while still tending to reinforce gender roles, but then it gets more complicated.

There are really no traits that they attribute naturally to women (at least, no positive traits) that are not also Christ-like attributes that men should aspire to. 

Primarily, you end up with the expectation that men will have the primary responsibility for financial support, while women will handle the domestic front. 

Women will have no greater calling than motherhood, but does a man have a greater calling than fatherhood? Anything more eternal? No.

Now, we could take a whole detour here into how it used to be more possible for a single income to support a family -- except that it was one true if it was the income of a white man -- and that is no longer true, largely due to conservative support of economic policies that lead to wealth consolidation and are supported by dominator culture. We could look at how work responsibilities were shared under more agrarian societies, and how the difference between a job with a set shift and hours feels versus never-ending home and childcare, emotional labor, and how the undervaluing of work performed by women leads to shortages for some very important roles. 

We're not going to do that right now, but remember that those are things.

(Also a thing, how misogyny makes homophobia and transphobia bigger deals.)

Again, I have heard many church leaders talk about showing consideration for your wife and preaching very good things, but it is quite common to hear of men feeling no need to help with housework, childcare, or doing anything to shore up an overworked wife who is probably also earning income as well as domestic roles. 

A smaller subset will then feel they deserve someone younger and hotter. Again, this is an area where I think our church does better, in that the majority of husbands are good enough to not consider adultery or desertion. They may still be coasting enough that the wife might wish they would leave, or consider leaving herself.

This sounds very harsh, but there are a lot of unhappy marriages where the root is ultimately chauvinism. 

This may surprise you, but I don't think the priesthood being restricted to men makes that much difference. 

Based on the amount I have to say about that, I think this will require another post, before we even get to the mediocrity part. There is still one more thing that I want to add to this post.

A while back I was talking with another church friend who also skewed liberal, and we were talking about the disconnect between what we preach as a church -- our flaws notwithstanding -- and what some of the members believed. 

She pointed out that the church leadership has them for an average of 2-3 hours a week, but then a lot of them were listening to talk radio or "news" that preached something entirely different.

I frequently have concerns with the stated doctrine, but my bigger concern is that so many members are worse than they need to be. 

We cannot ignore the influence of the outside. I wrote years ago about us being infected by evangelicals... perhaps "corrupted" would be a better word, but that's still an issue.

We talk of being "in the world but not of the world"; what does that mean to you? I think a lot of people focus on sex, but I worry more about the hate and greed, because not enough people do seem to worry about it.

What are you taking in? How is it influencing you?

Those are important questions, and something to think about before we get to priesthood and men sucking.

My mother, my talk

Remember how two years ago I gave a talk in church and ended up spending five posts covering it?

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2022/08/my-talk-pioneer-heritage.html 

Last Sunday, I spoke in church again.

I don't believe I will spend five weeks on it, but there is one thing that really goes along with dominator culture and what I was going to write about next. 

It will probably make more sense if I explain about the talk first though. So, maybe two posts.

Like last time, I was assigned a conference talk to build from. It was "Covenant Confidence through Jesus Christ" by Elder Ulisses Soares from April 2024 (Saturday morning session).

My talking points become very clear because of an encounter Julie had with someone who used to be in our ward. She has moved in with her sister now, because both of them were recently left by their husbands for other women.

Obviously there was a sense of betrayal, but what stuck was that she felt like she was left with nothing, having been taught all along that if you married a return missionary in the temple, then everything would work out.

That has not been my experience, and not only because I have remained so consistently single. 

I remember a vivid lesson in Young Womens about all of the things that could go wrong. I mainly remember a nervous breakdown one woman had for fear of something happening with her having no skills, and a hypothetical of Prince Charming falling off of his horse and hitting his head on a rock, but I think Prince Charming going after a different princess was listed.

Also, in my project of reading all of the old conference talks, I am currently at 2011 (from 1971). In 40 years of conference talks, they mention things going wrong and being really painful a lot.

Maybe things don't always sink in. Maybe some people have more idealistically wrong youth teachers. I think we can be conditioned to hear things a certain way based on other life factors. I don't want to be too harsh, because I do have an idea of the pain. 

What I ended up largely talking about was my mother, who was also cheated on and left. 

In many ways her situation was similar. What was different was that she knew she was not left with nothing. She had her testimony and her membership and her covenants.

That doesn't mean it was easy. 

Well, let me clarify. My father first cheated when I was 9. He did not leave, but he did stop going to church then. He did not actually leave until I was in my last year of college, once all children were safely over the age of 18.

When he first stopped going to church, Mom did feel judged and gossiped about. We went back to our old ward in Tigard for about a year. Then our home ward split, and the people she had worse feelings about were in the other one (which is the one we are in now, but that was many years ago),

The point is, she kept going. She kept serving, in callings and as a visiting teacher. Once there was a temple locally, she started going regularly.  

As her memories deserted her, there was a time when she couldn't really go to the temple anymore, and a time when she couldn't really focus on church anymore. Even so, when she could still speak in complete sentences -- even though she was talking about people who were long gone or had never had those names -- she would often talk about her faith. She told me that she knew God loved her and watched over her. 

Even now, when complete sentences don't really happen anymore, she still has a peace that a lot of of other dementia patients don't. She has kept her sweetness, 

Yes, her husband broke their marriage covenants, but she didn't. She continued to be blessed by her covenants and those blessings are eternal. 

I do not doubt that she is still bound to her children, even though I don't know how that will all look on the other side. 

As I thought about that, I knew that there was no greater testimony to covenant confidence that I could give than to talk about my mother.

It also felt a lot like giving her eulogy and saying goodbye; I wonder if we are closer. There are some things you only find out by moving forward.

In all of that, with those sisters, and our mother, and other people we know, there was a high incidence of women left by husbands, much higher than the other way around. 

Dominator culture has a lot to do with how much easier it is more men to suck (specifically the patriarchy section of it).

That's what needs its own post. 

Dominator Culture and Reproductive Health

I am going to suggest a couple of things that could easily be taken as offensive, though it is not my intent. 

First of all, there has been this one thought over the past few years, that all of my friends with LGBTQIA+ children are from church. 

That includes gay kids and some transgender and non-binary children. 

It has kind of made me wonder if these children are being sent to us to force us to get right on the issue.

I can see how that would seem kind of cruel, but fortunately, these have all been supportive parents. Part of that support often leads to them no longer attending church. I cannot blame them for that, but I believe there is a better way. If we start asking the right questions and really opening our hearts we can get there.

I mention that thought because if I had never had it, I don't think the other one would have come to me. 

It also comes because I know of someone who recently moved to Texas to be near her first grandchild. I imagine there is a hope for other grandchildren.

Personally, between Cruz and Abbott, the only state I could possibly have less desire to move to is Florida, maybe, but a lot of members like getting away from liberal Oregon.

I also know of someone who recently got a new grandchild, but there were complications in the pregnancy, where there was some danger.

Are we paying attention to how much danger anti-abortion laws cause for difficult pregnancies? Are we rooting for the things that could kill our daughters and daughters-in-law?

One difficulty with political discourse lately is that a lot of people seem to end up fully divorced from reality. One really unpleasant person around here (whom I do not personally know, but we have mutual acquaintances) posts pretty frequently about how Democrats delight in abortion. Trump voters will echo claims of post-birth abortion, which, yes, would be murder, but also doesn't happen. 

I don't know where to begin to connect such a person back to reality.

I am not saying that God will smite us with dangerous pregnancies to teach us the error of our ways. I just know that if you reinforce enough cruelty, that cruelty spreads everywhere. 

If you lie to yourself about the cruelty, you can spread it further and faster. 

If you truly love babies and want to protect them, there are great starting places. We could look at extending prenatal and neonatal care, expanding WIC, making childcare more affordable, and also sex education just so that everyone is clear on where babies come from.

Naturally access to birth control would be important, but no, women should not have sex if they don't want babies, even if they already have babies, and let's get rid of the exceptions for abortion and incest, and any programs that might help a woman escape abuse and build up some independence, because that's what it's really about, control, but somehow without laws affecting men.

For an example, let's go back to Texas:

https://www.tiktok.com/@the.texas.amanda/video/7401199934600482078 

Amanda Zurawski and her husband wanted their child, but their child was dying in the womb. There was nothing that could be done about that. 

Amanda's doctors were afraid to help her because of the law. There could be fines, imprisonment, and the loss of their medical licenses. They needed her to be sick enough that her life was in danger, which has in more than one case already meant going into sepsis.

Sepsis is really dangerous. It destroys and kills. Amanda lived, but with permanent damage. Now she cannot conceive or carry a child. 

Republicans are coming for IVF too, which could effectively eliminate surrogacy. 

Is traditional conception along with adoption enough? I think that's the wrong question. 

The right question would probably be something about how to help families and protect children. 

It would have an answer that was more about helping than control. 

It would be the appropriate answer for followers of Christ, but somehow missed by many who claim to follow him.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/12/truly-being-pro-life.html 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/12/two-plans.html 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/11/patriarchy-and-moral-issues.html 

Gender, the Olympics, and Dominator Culture

Yes, this is at least partially about the boxing, but not entirely.

Without even paying that much attention to the Olympics, I have seen many examples of dominator culture. This is primarily in how people react and when they latch on to something. It is frustrating how often those reactions are fueled by hate and ignorance.

However, in trying to defend against the hate, ignorance sometimes comes up there too. Perhaps that means what we really need is a post about how to process and share news, but this post is committed more to gender.

This article is a good initial summary:

https://www.vox.com/sports/364856/olympics-boxing-imane-khelif-angela-carini 

A few transphobes started calling the winner of the bout, Imane Khelif, a man, spreading it everywhere and fueling outrage that such a thing could happen.

I suppose one thing that helped is that Angela Carini gave up so easily; you expect someone competing in Olympic boxing to be able to take a punch. 

Another factor could have been that Khelif appears taller, though some of that could be photo angles and choices for presentation. Both women are in the 66 kg weight class (welterweight).

The biggest factor is probably that Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Boxing Championship by the International Boxing Association. Many people are assuming that this means she has higher testosterone levels.

That's not impossible, and we will get to that, but there are some concerns about taking that as evidence.:

1. The IBA allowed her to compete in 2022.
2. The disqualification came by a Russian official after Khelif beat a Russian boxer. The bronze medal winner, Lin Yu-ting, was also disqualified.
   
3. They say it was not a testosterone test but will not say what kind of test it was or the results. (The confidentiality is appropriate for medical issues, but it should also make people cautious about what they say.)
   
4. The IOC has banned the IBA from any Olympic regulation due to "concerns over its financial dealings, leadership, and allegations of match-fixing."

Apparently IBA president Umar Kremlev told TASS that Khelif and Taiwanese box Lin Yu-ting had XY chromosomes, and that was the reason for the disqualification.

This is why Umar Kremlev and the IBA should not be considered the most reliable sources. 

(It does give me flashbacks to the quid for pro on the 

The most obvious problem is the people spreading transphobic hate, not only detracting from someone's win, but quite possibly endangering her life. They do it with no factual basis; only a "righteous" indignation that something terrible happened, even though it didn't.

(Resounding silence on the player who served jail time for raping a 12-year old.)

The next thing you get is that people trying to defend Khalef are calling her a biological woman. They are using the same term that the transphobes use which, in a way, cedes the ground to them.

We should think twice about that. I mean, people lying to spread hate is bad, and truth is important (I wish some of the people quickly spreading lies would remember that sometimes), but is it the right counter? I am not sure.

However, another great thing to think about is that gender is not as clearly defined as you might think. 

You may know that the "I" in LGBTQIA+ is for intersex. 

That may be commonly understood to mean both male and female sex organs, but often the differences are much more subtle. It would be easy to never know that there was a hormonal or chromosomal difference.

If there is a visible difference, it is not unusual that a doctor will decide that surgery needs to be done then to correct it, which has led to later problems for many of these children.

In general, transphobes are in favor of surgery on infants to make them conform, and quite possibly with hormone supplements. They are then not in favor of gender affirmation for teenagers, when their feelings and wished could make a difference.

That is the key to dominator culture right there, wanting to be able to exert control over others, generally along traditional lines. Adults get to decide for children. Men get to decide for women. 

European people get to decide for a Northern African woman and a Taiwanese women, because they are coming after Lin now as well, because she had another win.

For sportsmanship purposes, that was a bronze that Lin lost. Khalef has lost matches. An actual transgender swimmer did break one college record, but she also lost several races to other swimmers. The unfair dominance is not happening. The old persecutions keep chugging along.

It does give me some flashbacks to Russian collaboration with the French to fix pairs figure skating and ice dancing, even though the French ice dancing couple were the clear favorites. 

People are not always logical in the ways they suck.

Here's some additional food for thought:

The estimated rate of women born with the 46,XY karyotype is about 1 in 80,000 births. For Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS, but can also be PAIS for partial) it is about 1 in 20,000.

You can find stories covering a wide variety of differences at https://www.interfaceproject.org/stories, but here's another thought for you.

There is a very good chance that you assume that your karyotype and your ability to process Androgren matches your birth certificate, driver's license, and your personal identity. It probably does, but if it doesn't, and you don't know, that's not that uncommon.

Do you think someone else should get a say in that?

Should you have to prove it to anyone?