I Am One Of "Those" Women

"What was one of your favorite parts of General Conference?" the Gospel Doctrine teacher asked.

"I liked President Packer's poem," sweet neighborhood sister said.

We all nodded.

"I liked Elder Holland's talk." another neighborhood friend offered.

This time our nods were more emphatic.

"I loved the fact that two women gave prayers for the first time." I said.

Chirp, chirp.

Next, a class member cracked a joke, and many in the class giggled. "Oh, brother, she is one of "those" women," it felt to me they all thought, as, in my mind, they all did their own internal eye roll. I was not terribly shocked, but admittedly, very disappointed.

I've been one of "those" women ever since I was a child. My brothers can attest that I used to sit at the kitchen table and complain about the inequalities of boys and girls in the world. For the child I was, I used to limit my complaints to things I thought my brothers got, and then compare them to the things I felt like I didn't get. For example, the boys "got" to participate in Scouts. Ok, I didn't know then that that could be a reward or a punishment depending on the boy, and/or the activity or merit badge on which they were working. Additionally, the boys in my ward got to go to Lake Powell every year for a week as an activity. They stayed on a houseboat, water-skied, cliff jumped off of ridiculously high cliffs (ok, that didn't sound fun, it sounded terrifying), and slept and ate to their hearts’ content. The young women in our ward went to wilderness camp. I kid you not.

Also, I was raised in a very traditional home. My dad spent his days (and most nights) at work or at church. My mom spent her days working, taking care of all seven of us kids, cleaning the house, and preparing all meals. I'll never forget one particular night. Mom was bustling around trying to get dinner on the table with help from some of the kids. Dad was sitting at the table reading the paper and waiting for dinner to be served. After we had said the prayer and started passing the food, my dad picked up his glass, pretended to drink the empty liquid from his cup, and loudly said, "This water is delicious" or something to that effect. Mom, jumped up, giggled and quickly set about to fix her "mistake" of not putting something to drink on the table. I was mortified. "Get it yourself, Dad!" I angrily retorted -- in my head. Not only that, but, since there were four boys and three girls in our home, it was easy to see if the jobs in the home were gender specific. Some were not: cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, dishes. Some, most definitely were: mowing the lawn, weeding, cleaning the kitchen, dishes when guests were present. I'm sure you can guess which gender did which chore.

As I got older, I started to recognize these things as male privilege vs. female privilege. That is a whole other post which I will not venture into now. But, suffice it to say, I have been keenly aware of gender differences for a very long time. I started to feel bad about how attentively I focused on these differences until Dave and I started to discuss all of the other "those" women in church history. Biblically, Rebekah had to trick Isaac into giving the birthright to the "right" son, Jacob. Emma Smith was a wonderful support to Joseph and yet there were several times she disagreed with him, on some very big doctrinal issues. She also was a very powerful woman as the first Relief Society President. Then there was Eliza R. Snow and Mary Fielding Smith, just to name a few, and my favorite, Eve. The Lord needed an Adam, a person of obedience, in the Garden of Eden, and, he needed an Eve, a person who questioned. God needed both of them to further His plan. If not for Eve, they would still be in the Garden. They were equal partners with different responsibilities; a perfect balance between obedience and question.

I so believe that men and women are equal in importance in God's plan. I believe their differences are like two pieces in a puzzle, they fit together to form a perfect whole. I also believe church doctrine supports this philosophy. We are told again and again, in talk after talk, that women are equal to men, wives are equal to husbands. Unfortunately, many of our traditions, and church culture in general, seem to contradict this teaching, or at least they don't support it. For example, there are still stakes and wards where women are not invited to give the opening prayer in their sacrament meetings, even though it specifically states in the Church Handbook, given to every ward leader, men AND women should be invited to give both opening and closing prayers in any and all meetings. Yet, for 182 sessions of General Conference, there has never been a woman who has been invited to give either the invocation or the benediction. It's my understanding that there were letters written by several women to the Brethren pleading with them to invite a woman to offer a prayer in that very public setting. Many women felt that if women were invited to give prayers in General Conference, it would send a strong message. In a beautiful, meaningful, and quiet way, that request was granted. Saturday morning during the 183rd session of General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a woman offered the closing prayer. Then, on Sunday afternoon, a woman gave the opening prayer! Either the Brethren caved to the pressure of "those" women, or they decided that there had been an incorrect tradition that needed to change, or it was a revelation that the time had come to recognize women in a small, but important way. I have never known the Brethren to "cave" on anything. So, an historic decision was made.

When, they announced that a woman was giving the closing prayer, I cheered. Then, when she prayed (who is she? I don't even remember. It doesn't matter, really), I held Casey's hand and cried. History.

What was one of my favorite parts of General Conference? Without sarcasm, and without guile, one of my favorite parts was the historic invitation to a woman to offer up a prayer on behalf of us all, men and women, during a general conference of the church.

As a beautiful postscript, our Stake Conference was just held last weekend. Who gave the opening prayers at both the adult session on Saturday night, and the general session on Sunday morning? Women! Luckily, I have a wonderful Stake President who supports and loves "those" women.