Supporting or Subverting the System?
I would have loved this talk as a young woman. My dad had four daughters, no sons, and he was pretty inclusive because of it. He had no sons with Eagle projects and Court of Honors, but he gave us the same kind of celebration when we received our YW recognition/medallion. He took fatherless boys on the father-son campouts but also arranged a ward daddy-daughter campout each year.
This talk is a good one and I appreciate Bonnie Oscarson pulling so much from Handbook #2 and calling Bishops out over their lack of attention to the YW program. The only thing that concerned me is the emphasis on usefulness by doing things. Is this something we need to rethink in Mormon culture?
People depended on me to be there, and I loved feeling useful. That experience helped build my testimony of Jesus Christ, and just as it did for Bishop Caussé, it anchored my life in gospel service.
Each member should know how much he or she is needed. Each person has something important to contribute and has unique talents and abilities that help move this important work along.
What do we consider useful and useless in our culture? Are we creating ways to make people feel useful instead of just breaking down the concept and overvaluing of usefulness? Are we judging certain personality traits as important and others as less so?
I used to be a big believer in the need for incremental change. Heck, I even marched on temple square with Ordain Women in April 2014.
These days, I’m more of a burn-it-all-down type. Why change the system when the system is based on false premises anyway? Why lobby for women to have more useful roles in the Church instead of dismantling the system that says one thing is more valuable than the other?
As I was writing that, I realized that essentially that’s what some of the apostles try to do with talks like LDS Women are Incredible! They are trying to tell people that the value of women is equal to that of men, even if the contributions are different.
But to me, it’s lip service. If if it doesn’t matter that women aren’t ordained, then why should it matter if they are? To me, the value system needs to be broken down and laid bare — only then would I trust talks like Women are Incredible!
Our young men have Aaronic Priesthood duties described in the Doctrine and Covenants that are rather visible.
For many years now, our presidency has been asking the question “Which of these areas mentioned should our young women not be involved in?”
I appreciate her mentioning this. One thing I’d recommend is going *back* to the Doctrine and Covenants and see what is specifically outlined there. The D&C doesn’t say that Deacons are to pass the sacrament. That came later. So why can’t Beehives pass the sacrament as well? There’s nothing prohibiting women from officiating in some of the duties given to Young Men, even ones that we currently associate with Priesthood now.
their preparation to be missionaries, gospel scholars, leaders in the Church auxiliaries, temple workers, wives, mothers, mentors, examples, and friends.
I am only quoting this because I appreciated that wives and mothers came in the middle of the list, not at the beginning. It’s much more akin to a list that we’d see in Aaronic Priesthood meeting.
We have noticed that many more of you are struggling with issues of self-worth, anxiety, high levels of stress, and perhaps even depression. Turning your thoughts outward, instead of dwelling on your own problems, may not resolve all of these issues, but service can often lighten your burdens and make your challenges seem less hard.
I have a theory that our brains are exactly what we need them to be when we are young. As such, I don’t think that we should work to get teenagers out of their self-centrism. I think we should teach them how to use the gift of selfishness to learn how to do inner work, set good boundaries, identifying what they want, etc. If their brains are focusing on themselves, we should be playing into that, not getting them out of that mentality.
