Should Elder Uchtdorf step down?

[Calm]

Mike, If it worked for your daughter, that is great, but such treatment would horrified me at any age, would have been torture for me in the past because there is a good chance I wouldn’t have said anything because I believed other people had a right to treat me that way and I should feel grateful even if I hated it.  Especially as a child or youth when I suffered from terminal shyness. 
 

The only message it would might have sent me if I thought past the impossible embarrassment and discomfort is that people had to be forced to engage with me. 
 

It is important to take the time to find out what an individual is actually comfortable with or needs, some women and men do prefer being ignored even.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Calm

[AtlanticMike]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Mike, If it worked for your daughter, that is great, but such treatment would horrified me at any age, would have been torture for me in the past because there is a good chance I wouldn’t have said anything because I believed other people had a right to treat me that way and I should feel grateful even if I hated it.  Especially as a child or youth when I suffered from terminal shyness. 
 

The only message it would might have sent me if I thought past the impossible embarrassment and discomfort is that people had to be forced to engage with me. 
 

It is important to take the time to find out what an individual is actually comfortable with or needs, some women and men do prefer being ignored even.

You put your message out, I'll put mine out, both can be beneficial, depends on who's reading it. Someone might see a glimmer of hope in mine and same for yours, not everyone has to think a like on this board.

     At first my daughter was extremely uncomfortable with what I did, she is the shy one of the family, that's why I took her out of school for two weeks. That boy made her crawl into her shell and she hardly peeked her head out, only to eat.  I could of ignored it and took the route I think your might be suggesting, but I didn't. I have a lot of experience with people who felt ignored, problems is, sometimes you just never know when they're going to say, Fxxxit, and give up, wanting to see if there's something better waiting for them on the other side. I spent alot of years feeling that way. To me, being  ignored can sometimes be worse than abuse. Here's a poem

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by AtlanticMike

[ttribe]

21 hours ago, Calm said:

To be fair to Rongo’s father at least, it appears it may not be the donation itself, but that his dad believes it was intentional ignoring of the policy, Elder Utchdorf knew about the policy and decided it didn’t matter, going against church instruction in this view...or so it appears from the way Rongo wrote about his response.  This would also mean Elder Utchdorf is now lying to cover up his choice to rebel.  That may be what is bothering the dad more than the political party. 
 

 

Yours is a far more charitable read on the situation than mine.

[ttribe]

21 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yep.

And there are other members whose beliefs pertaining to other sociopolitical groupings are "certainly placed above their belief in the Church and its leadership."

Yes.  I was going to bring up an example of a church member on the other side of the political spectrum who had publicly wished/hoped for the deaths of certain leaders of the Church based on a personal preference to have another apostle take over.  However, I'm hoping the individual has had a change of heart since publishing such ugliness, so I won't re-publish the remarks here.

Yep.  We need to stop politicizing everything.  

Thanks,

-Smac

It wasn't my intent to imply there aren't unclean hands on all sides of the political spectrum; my comments were simply focused more on the situation at hand.

[Tacenda]

15 hours ago, Calm said:

I think nowadays commenting on personal appearance when not relevant is wise because way too often it is offensive as it can be sexual objectification of others. And way too often the offenders justify their too far comments by pointing to others and saying they are doing the same thing...even when it is not. 
 

I do not think what you said was offensive, just wiser not to make comments like that. 

The comments have made me remember a time I was working at Zion's in downtown Salt Lake out of high school and I happen to have put eyeliner around my eyes a little differently than usual. It was just me and the bank manager left one night, maybe someone was around but I just remember it was just he and I, a married older man, and he commented on how my eyes looked so good and what had I done to them. Well, I didn't feel comfortable, maybe I was too sensitive, and he's not the first superior that has made me feel uncomfortable. I wonder why that is, because I wouldn't have felt that way with a woman superior. It was kind of silly now that I'm thinking about it. 

[Vanguard]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

The comments have made me remember a time I was working at Zion's in downtown Salt Lake out of high school and I happen to have put eyeliner around my eyes a little differently than usual. It was just me and the bank manager left one night, maybe someone was around but I just remember it was just he and I, a married older man, and he commented on how my eyes looked so good and what had I done to them. Well, I didn't feel comfortable, maybe I was too sensitive, and he's not the first superior that has made me feel uncomfortable. I wonder why that is, because I wouldn't have felt that way with a woman superior. It was kind of silly now that I'm thinking about it. 

I don't think it was necessarily silly. Those kinds of moments are hard to navigate. As for myself, I love to compliment others on their appearance and especially women and especially women I find attractive. One important gauge for me has been whether I am an 'equal opportunity complimenter' or can I legitimately be perceived as favoring one or more people in the office with compliments. However, even if I found the particular woman attractive, I would probably not compliment her when we were the only ones around after hours. That kind of situation is simply too laden with danger on more than one level. I am however in agreement with Mike that I will not completely stop this practice. It is not me to never compliment another - that would be too much of a sacrifice of the best parts of myself. : )

[bluebell]

34 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

The comments have made me remember a time I was working at Zion's in downtown Salt Lake out of high school and I happen to have put eyeliner around my eyes a little differently than usual. It was just me and the bank manager left one night, maybe someone was around but I just remember it was just he and I, a married older man, and he commented on how my eyes looked so good and what had I done to them. Well, I didn't feel comfortable, maybe I was too sensitive, and he's not the first superior that has made me feel uncomfortable. I wonder why that is, because I wouldn't have felt that way with a woman superior. It was kind of silly now that I'm thinking about it. 

I don't think it's silly at all that that made you feel uncomfortable.  It would have made me uncomfortable too.

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

It's certainly not my intention to offend. I don't know that I personally will change much off this board,  but I do understand the complexities of today's society and of course being a woman I know what it means to be objectified (or at least having once been a young woman - today I'm ignored which has its pros and cons).

I will apologize for offending you Scott and will no longer mention appearance on this board unless it is absolutely clear that it is appropriate to do so.  My apologies to anyone else who was upset by my comment. For what it's worth, I'm not attracted to any general authority or women authorities.  Never have been.   

Back to the topic at hand.  No I do not think the authority in question should be removed, and IMO the whole issue is political. 

In my Mormon circles, very faithful believing women commented maybe online or FB can't remember, that Elder Uchtdorf was the most handsome apostle. You're not alone. I'm sure Scott has seen that, especially his days of working at the newspaper. @Scott Lloyd??

Maybe it would be a little different if you had gone up to Elder Uchtdorf and said something to him in public, that might come off uncomfortably. I wouldn't doubt some unthinking LDS woman might have done it spontaneously. 

Now that I've been thinking more on this, I wonder what Scott thought of Pres. Hinckley commenting on the appearance of the missionaries or the old pamphlets to the young women on their appearance. https://www.ldsliving.com/-For-the-Strength-of-Youth-over-the-years/s/67696  And how about Elder Ballard on mentioning women need to put on some lipstick! 

 

[AtlanticMike]

My kids and I will pull up to a street light and ask the car beside us to roll the window down. Once they do, we will tell them how beautiful they are and then tell them we hope they have a great day and drive off laughing 🤣. 

    Life is short, be happy!

 

 

[AtlanticMike]

Are these frowns or smiles, I cant tell? 

https://youtu.be/

 

[Tacenda]

9 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

Are these frowns or smiles, I cant tell? 

https://youtu.be/

 

Maybe not concentrate on looks only, but their smiles, kindness, or how are they going to know their kindness unless they see it in action? Is this more a backhanded cat call, not sure. They may be smiling, but inside I wonder if they're wondering how sincere it was, and wondering what the guy really wanted. Because he's a stranger still. And if it's mainly on looks, I wouldn't like it at all.  

Edited March 16, 2021 by Tacenda

[AtlanticMike]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Maybe not concentrate on looks only, but their smiles, kindness, or how are they going to know their kindness unless they see it in action? Is this more a backhanded cat call, not sure. They may be smiling, but inside I wonder if they're wondering how sincere it was, and wondering what the guy really wanted. Because he's a stranger still. And if it's mainly on looks, I wouldn't like it at all.  

The question is would you rather live in a world where this happens, or never happens anymore? Me!! I rather live in a world where this happens all the time. I complement people outside my family almost everyday, 1000s of times in my life, i can only think of maybe 2 times i didnt get a smile. You were on the recieving end of one of my good deeds when i ran to the beach and wrote your name, after asking yourself why is this random guy doing this, did it make you smile eventually?  

 

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

One should never forget their heritage.

 

Absolutely brilliant! Thanks!

[Tacenda]

20 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

The question is would you rather live in a world where this happens, or never happens anymore? Me!! I rather live in a world where this happens all the time. I complement people outside my family almost everyday, 1000s of times in my life, i can only think of maybe 2 times i didnt get a smile. You were on the recieving end of one of my good deeds when i ran to the beach and wrote your name, after asking yourself why is this random guy doing this, did it make you smile eventually?  

 

Oh yes it did! But you didn't comment on my looks and I sort of knew you, lol! But it was the nicest thing someone has done for me for a while.

I guess you'd have to be a woman to understand. I worked in downtown Salt Lake for several years, and walking from the parking lot to the bank it was a ways and a lot of construction downtown, I worked at 3 different banks through the years, I'd get the catcalls, and I had one guy approach me that wanted to help me get into modeling and could I go with him for a photo shoot. Even when I worked as being a teller in one of the banks, a guy I knew approached my window and said,  "You look good in bed, I mean red". I was wearing red. That disturbed me. It runs the gambit. When I commuted by bus I was hit on as well. So even a polite compliment on looks, may feel icky because of all of the icky comments, perhaps. 

[Tacenda]

12 hours ago, halconero said:

It is interesting reading through the comments on this article. One thing that comes up repeatedly is abortion, with members claiming it is the most important issue to them, and claiming such for the Church generally.

I can understand why some feel that way on a personal level, but am puzzled on the premium they place on it with regards to the most “Church-aligned” position or issue. There are other issues, including refugee resettlement, drone warfare, welfare (a non-exhaustive list) etc that one might feel are more important as it pertains to their morals, ethics, or Gospel orientation, which might find themselves land differently on a candidate and I wouldn’t blame them, especially when the Church does not hand out a voting guide.

I hate when the Republicans constantly bring up the abortion issue with Dems, because I read a study that there were more abortions during a Republican presidency than a Democratic one. Don't know how accurate. Plus, people actually believe a woman would abort a child at nine months, seriously? It's usually because the baby died in the womb a month or so before. 

[rodheadlee]

NO. 

We have more important things to do than eight pages over this.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

You put your message out, I'll put mine out, both can be beneficial, depends on who's reading it.

I don’t present mine as a one size fits all.  It is very important in offering ideas to emphasize that one doesn’t expect others to follow suit, but instead are offering to perhaps trigger ideas that will work for them. 
 

I never said ignoring what was going on at school was a better option. I just said one, that kind of attention was damaging to me when young and undesirable now. Me knowing my parent had told others to compliment me would have underscored any feelings I had that people didn’t naturally like me since it wasn’t spontaneous on their part and something they had to do to keep their boss happy. 
 

Parents and others need to fit solutions to the child and not the reverse. Having grown up in a culture where everyone assumed females wanted to be complimented about their physical appearance, being someone who did not generally appreciate it as well as a number of other experiences helped pound into me it is necessary to pay attention to individual needs and sometimes if you aren’t willing to do that, to take the time to talk and listen, it may be better not to interfere and instead be supportive from a distance. But if you are willing to take the time and help the other find their own way and not yours, it can make all the difference in the world. 
 

Quote

The question is would you rather live in a world where this happens, or never happens anymore? 

Why in the world do you go to only these two black and white options?

Edited March 16, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

Quote

So even a polite compliment on looks, may feel icky because of all of the icky comments, perhaps. 

Quote

 They may be smiling, but inside I wonder if they're wondering how sincere it was, and wondering what the guy really wanted. Because he's a stranger still. 

 Very well explained, Tacenda. 
 

Quote

i can only think of maybe 2 times i didnt get a smile.

When you grow up in a culture that teaches you it is important that people like how you look, smiling may be an automatic response based on that rather than a touching of the heart. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Vanguard said:

I am however in agreement with Mike that I will not completely stop this practice.

I would never suggest that it be stopped. You taking the time to assess the appropriateness of it is what makes the difference, imo. Adding in awareness that for some women it may be uncomfortable in most occasions and taking the time to consider whether it should be done and then paying attention to her reaction in order to know better in the future is a healthy approach (is she startled, does she freeze or tense up for a moment, does she have to think of a response or is the response a canned one rather than feeling a natural spontaneous one).  If a woman going to “why is this guy complimenting me, what does he want, what should I do to protect myself, where are my keys”, there will likely be a slight delay in her responding.

Isn’t it great to know our girls have to get taught in Sex Ed and PE classes how to self defend possibly as early as junior high?  That already they are having to look at relationships in terms of ‘is this guy just nice or a stalker type’?

Edited March 16, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

12 hours ago, Tacenda said:

. It was kind of silly now that I'm thinking about it. 

This breaks my heart...not only do women have to live in a world where we have to constantly assess our safety, but then our culture makes us feel guilty and stupid for doing so. 

Added: You are not silly, not stupid, not weak or fearful, not making yourself out to be a victim when you were not.  This was a valid feeling and women are safer when we listen to those feelings  

And men are also ashamed to report sexual harassment and assault; while less likely to be victims, it still happens way too often.

https://rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

Edited March 17, 2021 by Calm

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Oh yes it did! But you didn't comment on my looks and I sort of knew you, lol! But it was the nicest thing someone has done for me for a while.

I guess you'd have to be a woman to understand. I worked in downtown Salt Lake for several years, and walking from the parking lot to the bank it was a ways and a lot of construction downtown, I worked at 3 different banks through the years, I'd get the catcalls, and I had one guy approach me that wanted to help me get into modeling and could I go with him for a photo shoot. Even when I worked as being a teller in one of the banks, a guy I knew approached my window and said,  "You look good in bed, I mean red". I was wearing red. That disturbed me. It runs the gambit. When I commuted by bus I was hit on as well. So even a polite compliment on looks, may feel icky because of all of the icky comments, perhaps. 

Yes, exactly.  For women, being complimented by a strange man has a lot of baggage with it, some of it that she's been carrying around since she was probably 10-11 and began to have strange grown men complimenting her (that's when I began having grown men yelling and following me around, talking about my appearance). 

If you don't have that baggage, you can't understand what it's like to carry it.

[bluebell]

30 minutes ago, Calm said:

 Very well explained, Tacenda. 
 

When you grow up in a culture that teaches you it is important that people like how you look, smiling may be an automatic response based on that rather than a touching of the heart. 

When you know that if you don't respond appropriately some men may try to hurt you (and that some men have hurt women in the past for not being accepting of compliments), smiling can be a defensive move as much as anything else.

[Amulek]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I didn't feel comfortable, maybe I was too sensitive, and he's not the first superior that has made me feel uncomfortable. I wonder why that is, because I wouldn't have felt that way with a woman superior.

Because when you subtract out the sexual component from social-sexual behavior, you end up with just plain old social behavior. 

A heterosexual woman might have any number of reasons for commenting on your eyeliner (e.g., genuine compliment, backhanded compliment, etc.), but none of those reasons involve even the potential for sexual advancement.

If your superior had been an openly gay male, would you have felt the same level of discomfort?

 

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, bluebell said:

When you know that if you don't respond appropriately some men may try to hurt you (and that some men have hurt women in the past for not being accepting of compliments), smiling can be a defensive move as much as anything else.

There are always the fun times where not smiling has led to getting push and harassed until you do.  Some people may do it in the mistaken belief that they are helping you feel better, that the act of smiling means you are loosening up and relaxing, thinking more positive  thoughts (and that is probably true in many cases),  but there are those who think they have a right to dictate how you respond to them and they won’t stop until you please them...and maybe not then since now they get off on controlling you. 
 

For me, one of the last things I want to do when not feeling good is to pretend that doesn’t matter. I want to deal with why that is happening even if it is only thinking about it, not push those feelings aside as if they are not important.  And I certainly don’t want to add to my list of hard things to deal with on a bad day “is this guy hitting on me and is he dangerous?”

Edited March 16, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, Amulek said:

If your superior had been an openly gay male, would you have felt the same level of discomfort?

Thank you for asking her rather than assuming you can tell her how she feels.