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Making Women more Visible


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I remember my mother during the ERA movement in the 80's setting me aside and saying the men need the PH because the women can give birth, so they need something, haha. I hadn't even brought it up to her, I couldn't care less about what was going on around me like the ERA. But it appears she did, very much and was trying to maintain allegiance to what the leaders wanted back then, which was to vote against the ERA.  

I need to make mention that I don't want to down men, I am fortunate that men have fought wars and who have been household providers, who have discovered amazing things, who have been in positions that require what not every woman could handle as far as physical. I'm grateful for my husband providing an income to allow me to stay home. I wanted to be where my children were, not saying every woman should, she should have a choice. And women today have the choices my mother didn't. 

I bet the church will make great strides for involving women's voices and giving them more say going forward, hopefully. And hope the lessons in Sunday School involve more women's stories and quotes from the past and present. 

Edited by Tacenda
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5 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Addressing the bolded about women in the scriptures. 

Because the board doesn't keep the quoted part here is the bold, "They are about the lack of examples for women or about about being able to relate to the few examples we have."

Wishing there were more examples that fit half the population and wishing we could relate better is not judging those in the past.  It is about not feeling a connection.  

 

Edited by Rain
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As we look at the old testament, I really doubt that any of the stories including Isaac and Rebekah happened in real life like they are told in the Bible.  The stories were passed down verbally for years and finally complied by men, likely priests, whose only interest was to keep Israel believing in what they felt were the correct beliefs.  There was no effort to convey the literal story.  It wasn't even in their mindset.  One of their strong beliefs was the patriarchal order were men are the mouthpiece of God.  The story of Sarah was told in a way to remind women that in order to serve God they had to serve men.  I just don't understand why you all take the story literally.  The ancient view of Israel of the role of women was almost universally shared by all the cultures around them.  Why try to sugarcoat or explain it as God's will?  To me it is clearly a story told by people with an imperfect and I believe mistaken understanding of the role of men and women.  Should we really be glorifying any women in the old testament whose stories are told in such a male slanted view.   If the story happened even close to the way it is told in the Bible, Sarah had no choice.  She had to do what the men told her.  If you are going to tell stories about women in the Bible, then you better study the culture they lived in.  Women were one step above slaves and almost every story that mentions a women in the Old Testament focuses on her obedience to men.  That was the principle and belief being taught.  If you want to tell stories of women in the Bible, tell the ones that actually happened not some modernized romanticized story that gives some meaning to women currently.

I think the most recent changes to the temple endowment, show that modern day prophets recognize that the stories of women as told in the Bible, are teaching the wrong doctrine of the role of women.

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8 hours ago, 2BizE said:

Perhaps another example of how women have been suppressed.  
https://religionnews.com/2022/02/25/in-mormonism-yesterdays-heresy-is-todays-orthodoxy/

 

Perhaps.

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8 hours ago, 2BizE said:

Perhaps another example of how women have been suppressed.  
https://religionnews.com/2022/02/25/in-mormonism-yesterdays-heresy-is-todays-orthodoxy/

 

Do you have examples of men at that time who went against political positions of the Church who were published in church magazines?

Not saying it wasn’t unfortunate, just don’t think men had any more freedom at that time to be activists for something the Church frowned on.

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10 hours ago, Rain said:

Because the board doesn't keep the quoted part here is the bold, "They are about the lack of examples for women or about about being able to relate to the few examples we have."

Wishing there were more examples that fit half the population and wishing we could relate better is not judging those in the past.  It is about not feeling a connection.  

 

Please explain what you mean by feeling a connection. 

This is what I was exploring: the brutal realities of tribal nomadic life.

Yes, we do need more women leaders and examples. Why don’t we have many? Let’s explore why we don’t?”

Edited by Bernard Gui
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14 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Please explain what you mean by feeling a connection. 

This is what I was exploring: the brutal realities of tribal nomadic life.

Yes, we do need more women leaders and examples. Why don’t we have many? Let’s explore why we don’t?”

The authority is the issue, women need to have the authority as well, they were stripped of being an authority in the RS organization with the power to have their own budgets, and power over the lessons I believe. That could be a start, as well as in the Young Women's organizations. 

I remember the times of being in the RS presidency when a food order needed to be signed off and the bishop was out of town for business often. It was frustrating for the RS president who needed to enable someone who needed to go to the bishop's storehouse. 

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1 hour ago, Calm said:

Do you have examples of men at that time who went against political positions of the Church who were published in church magazines?

Not saying it wasn’t unfortunate, just don’t think men had any more freedom at that time to be activists for something the Church frowned on.

Perhaps one such example was Ezra Taft Benson and his association with the John Birch Society and his influence to incorporate student spies at BYU.  

https://www.jstor.org/stable/45228582?seq=9#metadata_info_tab_contents
 

 

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1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

The authority is the issue, women need to have the authority as well, they were stripped of being an authority in the RS organization with the power to have their own budgets, and power over the lessons I believe. That could be a start, as well as in the Young Women's organizations. 

I remember the times of being in the RS presidency when a food order needed to be signed off and the bishop was out of town for business often. It was frustrating for the RS president who needed to enable someone who needed to go to the bishop's storehouse. 

Do you know how much input women have in writing the lessons? RS presidents have authority over their budgets. They set them and use them at their discretion. 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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17 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Do you know how much input women have in writing the lessons? RS presidents have authority over their budgets. They set them and use them at their discretion. 

We were given conference talks or the presidents books from what I'm remembering. And were given a budget from the bishop. We may have asked for what we thought we would need, but always had to be mindful of the other organizations and their needs. Usually we would keep it very low and I and probably others in the presidency or organization would pay out of pocket as to not go over.

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19 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

We were given conference talks or the presidents books from what I'm remembering. And were given a budget from the bishop. We may have asked for what we thought we would need, but always had to be mindful of the other organizations and their needs. Usually we would keep it very low and I and probably others in the presidency or organization would pay out of pocket as to not go over.

The question about lessons referred to the general level where the curriculum is organized and written.
 

The bishop is given the budget from the stake president. Most bishops listen to their ward councils and try to distribute resources equitably. No leader should foot the bills from personal stash. 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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On 2/25/2022 at 6:01 PM, 2BizE said:

 

Sonia Johnson was a great example of this. A woman who fought for women rights and was excommunicated.  Here is an interview with her from 1982.

 

I’m glad you posted that. This is actually the first time that I’ve ever taken the time to listen to an interview with her. I was pretty young when those events happened but I definitely remember the church (at least in my part of the SF Bay Area) being very politically active against the equal rights amendment. I only had one concern about the amendment and that was that I didn’t want to ever have to be drafted into the military. I felt strongly (and still do) that women with young children should not ever be forced into military service. Other than that I had no objection to it. Still, among church members in my area, Sonia Johnson was commonly thought to be an apostate and somewhat of a dangerous influence. At least that’s my recollection.

Watching the interview I was surprised to hear her voice. She did not sound angry or crazy or any of the things that people tended to brand her as. She sounds very well educated and I am having a hard time finding any argument against almost anything that she says in this video.

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9 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Until very recently none?

What does very recent mean? 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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14 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Until very recently none?

There is evidence that women may have participated earlier, but it seems that for whatever reason that stopped. 

"She (Chieko Okazaki) was very dedicated to serving the women of the church through her callings, but often felt at a loss to be able to do so because women simply weren’t invited or a part of the meetings where big decisions were being made, not even if you’re part of the General Relief Society Presidency. Because the role of the 1st counselor in the General RS Presidency is to oversee the education structure for the sisters, Sister Okazaki was looking for ways to help the lessons better help the current needs of the women in the church. She realized that the lesson manual was due to be updated soon so she prayerfully wrote a general outline to get the important process underway. After her outline was approved by the RS presidency, she brought it to the Curriculum Committee. She was promptly told that her lesson manual outline and suggestions were not needed because a new manual had already been written for them and was near completion.

“'I asked what [the new manual was about], and he said, “Well, it’s the manual on Harold B. Lee.” It was the first one in that series of teachings of the Church presidents. I asked, “Why are they writing a manual for us on Harold B. Lee?” He didn’t know. I told the presidency, so we went and asked the Curriculum Committee, “What is this all about?” They said, “Well, we’re already almost finished with the first book.” We said, “You’re almost finished with the first book, and you didn’t tell us that you were doing this? Why is this is the first time we have heard about it?” “So I asked, “Who is writing this manual?” It turned out to be five men, and the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Society would have the same lessons. I asked, “Why aren’t the women included in this?”'

https://rationalfaiths.com/why-arent-the-women-included/

But perhaps Sister Okazaki just assumed that the RSP were a part of it when she wrote the outline?

Edited by Rain
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2 hours ago, Rain said:

There is evidence that women may have participated earlier, but it seems that for whatever reason that stopped. 

"She (Chieko Okazaki) was very dedicated to serving the women of the church through her callings, but often felt at a loss to be able to do so because women simply weren’t invited or a part of the meetings where big decisions were being made, not even if you’re part of the General Relief Society Presidency. Because the role of the 1st counselor in the General RS Presidency is to oversee the education structure for the sisters, Sister Okazaki was looking for ways to help the lessons better help the current needs of the women in the church. She realized that the lesson manual was due to be updated soon so she prayerfully wrote a general outline to get the important process underway. After her outline was approved by the RS presidency, she brought it to the Curriculum Committee. She was promptly told that her lesson manual outline and suggestions were not needed because a new manual had already been written for them and was near completion.

“'I asked what [the new manual was about], and he said, “Well, it’s the manual on Harold B. Lee.” It was the first one in that series of teachings of the Church presidents. I asked, “Why are they writing a manual for us on Harold B. Lee?” He didn’t know. I told the presidency, so we went and asked the Curriculum Committee, “What is this all about?” They said, “Well, we’re already almost finished with the first book.” We said, “You’re almost finished with the first book, and you didn’t tell us that you were doing this? Why is this is the first time we have heard about it?” “So I asked, “Who is writing this manual?” It turned out to be five men, and the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Society would have the same lessons. I asked, “Why aren’t the women included in this?”'

https://rationalfaiths.com/why-arent-the-women-included/

But perhaps Sister Okazaki just assumed that the RSP were a part of it when she wrote the outline?

I remember the teachings of the presidents series. It was very unpopular in my extremely orthodox ward. 

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2 hours ago, katherine the great said:

I remember the teachings of the presidents series. It was very unpopular in my extremely orthodox ward. 

Do you remember why?  It seems odd to me that an orthodox ward would struggle with teachings of the prophets so I'd love to hear more about this.

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2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Do you remember why?  It seems odd to me that an orthodox ward would struggle with teachings of the prophets so I'd love to hear more about this.

I don't think they were struggling with the teachings of the prophets --- I think they were burned out. It was ca. 20 years of prophet manuals,and what George Albert Smith said about tithing was pretty much what Harold B. Lee did. Plus, two years for Gospel Principles,and two years for Joseph Smith. 

I think people just got tired of it after a couple of decades. Which will probably happen if we "rinse, repeat" with Come Follow Me next year (same manual starting over with Book of Mormon).

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When they first came out, I thought they would be nice as a reference set, which was the stated intent…but by the end of it, it truly was so correlated, I never was that interested as it was just repetitive Imo, rather than focusing on what made each prophet unique.  So the manuals got purged since no one was using them. 
 

I would have preferred a lot, lot more biography rather than one short story at the beginning of each lesson, stories of their families, including polygamous ones, stories of their church service and a handful of focused topics studied in depth (pulling in what others had said and the scriptures).  But I get biography is not something tailored for Sunday School. Would work better now with the personal home study part.  
 

I think it would have worked better to stick all the biography at the front in chronological order and then provide a reference at the end for the chapter it related to. I think the bio would have been read all at once and then feel less disjointed.

padded:  so grateful for the Saints volumes when studying church history and doctrine.

Edited by Calm
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51 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Do you remember why?  It seems odd to me that an orthodox ward would struggle with teachings of the prophets so I'd love to hear more about this.

No one struggled with the teachings of the prophets at all. It was the fact that we went from a curriculum that spent a lot of time discussing female issues to a curriculum that was completely male based in a class that was for women. It felt very much like two sessions of Sunday school in a row rather than Sunday school and then Relief Society. 

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6 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Take an educated guess. 

Thanks for the kind remark. 🙃 I know a few sisters who helped write curricula 10-15 years ago, but I do not know the makeup of all current and past writing teams.  I’m looking for information, not a fight.

 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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At the end of the podcast Olson is discussing the story where Rebekah tricks Isaac into giving the birthright blessing to Jacob instead of Esau.  They discuss how this story is hard for a lot of people because it seems deceptive and about a manipulative woman.  Olson talks about how if it had been Isaac manipulating Rebekah most people wouldn't really struggle as much with it but we are unused to seeing a woman manipulating a man (and the "prophet" too) into doing something good, so we don't really know what to do with that.

She then quotes Elder McConkie's take on it, which I thought was very interesting.  He said--

"Oh, that all more women could be more like Rebekah and engineer things. Create an environment where the right blessing could be given."

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