(Transcript) Episode 47: For the Men in the Room

Episode Transcript

S: Hello, I'm Susan Hinckley and I'm here with Cynthia Winward, and this is At Last She Said It. Hi, Cynthia.

C: Hey Susan, how are you today? I'm great. How are you?

S: Fine, thank you. Glad to be here with you again, we're kicking off season three. Yay! And it occurs to me that it's just about a year since we released the first episode of this podcast. And it's amazing how many butterflies I still get, three seasons into this thing. When you hit record, it's a little intimidating to me today—just the title of this!—the title of today's episode is, For the Men in the Room. And so my first question about that is, what do we mean by that, Cynthia? Are we explaining the issues to the men, either trying to help them understand what the issues are or to make them less afraid of talking about them? Or are we asking the men to change their thinking and maybe their behavior? What do we mean by, “for the men in the room?”

C: Well, hopefully both. Hopefully we can accomplish maybe both of those goals, but I just have to point out Susan, one year ago when we started this podcast on our very first episode, we said, "We are not interested in explaining ourselves to men."

S: So I believe I remember that coming right out of my mouth! And so here we are a year later saying, “Hey men, we're going to explain to you.” Yeah. So never say never, gosh, darn it. Well, you know, it's a journey and here's another thing we didn't expect—that we would have as many male listeners as we seem to have. So, we have male listeners and it's not a bad idea to take one opportunity out of all of our episodes to speak to them for a minute. And whether they actually listen to this or not, or whether it's mostly our female listeners who listen and maybe take a few notes and say, Hey, I think this could be applicable in my situation to talk with whoever, whatever men in their lives they want to help understand women's issues more in the Church. Anyway, helping facilitate conversations between men and women about these topics is really the point of it. And so that's kind of what we hope to plant some seeds for today. That's the goal. Why don't you kick us off?

C: Well, what got us thinking about this topic is we had several women contact us, and we're going to probably read some of their direct comments that they asked us to speak to [on] this topic. But what got me really thinking about it was a couple of months ago, I was watching a Zoom fireside with Patrick Mason. And some of our listeners may be familiar with Patrick Mason. He wrote Planted, such a fabulous book, I think, for explaining many issues in the church. And in this fireside he said that the church was made for people like him. He said, you know, “I'm white male, straight, American…” and right away my ears perked up because I don't usually hear very many, let me say mainstream men in the church, speak to their privilege. I think I hear a lot of men who are kind of edgy be like, Oh yeah, I'm a white guy, you know, the Church is fine for me, but to have someone like brother Mason speak to this, really perked me up. And I appreciated that he would kind of put this disclaimer out there at the beginning of this fireside saying, look, I get the Church is probably easier for me than for many. And sometimes I think, honestly, Susan, that's kind of half our problem is that men don't realize they're privileged in this church.

And I'm really sorry within, you know, five minutes of this podcast to be using the word privilege. I know it's like the word right now, that's on the tip of everyone's tongue, but I couldn't think of a better word to describe it other than it really is privilege. And I realized that the men in my life, and we're talking everyday men, I don't have any general authorities or apostle friends or family. Like these are just...I just hang out with regular dudes, right?

S: Like they can't change anything structurally in the church, but their seats are only slightly less cheap than ours, Cynthia, just like regular people—regular men—regular people like us.

C: But their understanding of my situation really would go a long way. I feel like you and I, to a certain extent, understand that as we get women who write [to] us and we can't solve any of their problems, but somehow just being in solidarity, kind of in harmony or consensus with others really kind of helps everyone in the room, I think, feel less alone.

And so that's what I hope men realize. Like, I want them to know what it would be like to walk into a church, to see all women on the stand—conducting a meeting, to see women make all the announcements. Women, we're the ones issuing all the new callings. If they only ever saw young women bless the sacrament, pass the sacrament. You know, if the high counselors were all women, they were the ones traveling to different wards and sustaining, you know, new stake callings, and then to see women in our sacrament meetings, bless the babies and confirm the children who've been baptized. I mean, and that's just one meeting.

That's just one meeting where all these things are taking place, where men are in the majority, in the leadership there. And so that's kind of what I would like men to think about is how would that make you feel, as a man, if you only ever saw women do all of these things that I just listed, would you be less likely to see men as leaders if you never really saw men lead?

S: It's a pretty arresting visual as I listened to you laying it all out like that. And I'm a woman, so I should be used to seeing it like that. But even as you spell it out that way, I can't quite believe it. You know, I can't quite believe that I've been showing up for—we're getting dangerously close to six decades—that I've been showing up for six decades now, and seeing this, having this, [be] the reality of the meetings that I'm participating in. And I just don't even think about it.

And if I don't think about it, then I am 99.9% sure that the men—that it's not sticking out to them, they're not thinking about it. And so, yeah, it's pretty great to be reminded of what the other half of the room is confronted with when we step into the chapel on Sunday. And this is why the insistence that we hear at church all the time that men and women are valued equally feels, you know, just the tiniest bit gaslighty, doesn't it?

Because, you know, would men believe that if the tables were turned, would they feel equal? And maybe men can't even really get their heads in that place to imagine that, you know, I don't know if they can, but I remember—and it was maybe a year, two years ago—I remember turning to my husband during general conference when we were watching it and saying, "If it were eight hours on a weekend of women speaking, if there were eight hours of women speaking to you...would you stay home all weekend and tune in to watch that?"

And he said, "Uh, no." And I appreciated his honesty because I knew the answer to the question when I asked it, but it had never occurred to me that what we're asking members to do is to tune in and listen to, I don't know what percentage it is. I mean, if I were really quick with math, I'd tell you immediately what the percentage is of having all those speakers and having two or, you know, on a good year, three of them, be women, but it's mostly men's voices that we're tuning in to listen to when we are listening to our leaders. It is mostly men. And why should that be a bigger ask for men than it is for women? This is the ask that women have always been subject to.

So it's worth pointing that out, I think.

C: I think so.

S:  You know, even more ludicrous than the idea that

women are valued equally (which seems like a ludicrous idea to me some days, but you know, we all hear it repeatedly and everyone will stand up and testify to that, even women, by the way—

C: Even Women.

S: Even women will testify to that), [is] the idea that women are somehow inherently more spiritual than men.

We've talked about that before on the podcast.

C: We have.

S: I know that you have also heard that, I'm not the only person who has internalized that thought as a result of spending my life in the church, but how could that possibly be true if you spend one second considering the implications of that? That would mean our church is being led by people who are slightly less in tune? Right?

C: That's what it means.

S: That God has entrusted his power on earth to people who aren't quite so naturally attuned to spiritual things. I know that we're fond of that, “God qualifies whom he calls,” and I know that there is some airtime given to the idea that men need the priesthood to be able to step up a little bit, and that it helps them in that way. And that's great, but why wouldn't God also use the people who are already qualified? I can't help but ask that question. So these things seem pretty obvious when we step back and look at them, but it's easy to not notice the way things have always been. We just don't notice the way things always are.

C: Well, Susan, when you first said that on the podcast, I don't know, in the last year, why wouldn't you want the more spiritual people in the room? If women are indeed more spiritual than men, why wouldn't you want them in the room to help make those decisions? I had never actually quite put those thoughts out there before, in words. So you know, even to me, it was like, Oh! That's actually a really, really good point. So maybe that's a new thought actually, for many, because it was new for me, but I haven't been able to get it out of my head since you made it. I was like, Oh yeah, we're, we're basically running things with, you know, if I'm right-handed, it's like me tying my right hand behind my back and doing everything in my life with my left hand. It's possible.

S: But is it the best way, right?

C: The best way.

S: And I think that these patriarchal roles that we are so, so used to, they're so ingrained, they're, they're literally the fabric of our society and that's not just within the church, you know, that's everywhere, but definitely within the church. But having it be so deeply woven into the fabric makes it really hard to start a conversation because it feels threatening to the very system upon which our church members have built their entire lives, basically. It's deeply, deeply threatening when you start to pull at those very foundational threads.

C: Susan, let's go to question kind of number one. We're going to address nine different questions today. And the first one is, How can women talk to men? And what's really interesting is we had several women contact us and ask us this question specifically. One listener said, “How can I effectively communicate with male leaders in a calling, especially when you don't agree?” And I'll be honest, I was a little bit dumbfounded. I'm like, what do you mean? How do you communicate with them? You just do! But it's a fair question, Susan. It's kind of a fair question. With different lived experiences, there may be different perspectives.

S: Well, and I'm sure that there are many women who are not comfortable starting these conversations with men, right? They're just less comfortable than when they are talking with women and especially on kind of touchy topics like this. And so I want to back up for just a minute then here, right at the beginning. I'm not sure that using the word patriarchy is the best way into this conversation, and I know that I already said it once, but that's why I'm going to go ahead right now and say, I'm not sure that it's the best way, especially if it's with someone who is not really familiar with that word or who is likely to have their mind go immediately to the negative connotations that can come with that word. I think it's a word that can feel like a weapon, kind of in the same way that feminist is a word that can feel like a threat for some people.

C: Good parallel.

S: Some of us are comfortable with that word, some of us aren't, but using those words, I think it may feel to some people like we want to come after their way of life, right?

Like we're criticizing the way they were raised by the fathers they love, or the way that they have raised their own sons. That's deeply threatening. Who isn't going to feel defensive about that, you know, even if the criticism is valid, it's pretty difficult to come to terms with that kind of reckoning.

C: As you're speaking, Susan, it reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother when I was talking about the patriarchy with him and his hackles got a little bit up and, and he, you know, he said, “Cynthia, hasn’t our dad been a good dad to you? Haven't I been a good brother”” Like he really thought I was attacking him. And I thought, you know, that's a fair point. If we don't really explain what we're talking about, people can feel like it's an attack on the individual—an attack on my dad, an attack on my brothers. And I want to make sure that's exactly what we don't do. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I love the men in my life. I love my son, my husband. We shouldn't have to say these things.

S: Right, but—

C: But I don't want this to be an attack on men.

S: Right, right. No, I mean, I think it is a fair point that he raised. And I think that it's a really instructive point for us to step back and consider at the beginning of this conversation.

That that is the natural reaction of people that we deeply love and respect and know well, right? They still are going to go straight to that place and so we're going to try to help build a little path that can sort of be a bypass to that place. Maybe take us to a better place, develop a little bit of neutral ground from which we can approach this topic.

You know, even the word gender, as I think about it, probably has all kinds of baggage associated with it for some church members. Don't you think? I mean, we have to meet people where they are in a conversation like this, Cynthia. So checking all of the hot button language at the door, and then instead asking people to think about their personal experiences, is probably the most productive way that we can come at this. In the way that we approach the conversation, we can try to create neutral ground, right at the beginning, the place that we can all start and agree. We don't have to use any of those words to illustrate the concepts they represent. Now, I'm still going to probably use some of those words, but you know, if you're uncomfortable with them, then try to set that aside. And I would ask you to think more personally about the situations that you've been in, the interactions that you've had. Because my guess is that we need to get to some empathy and self-reflection before we can ever expect anyone to take responsibility for any of the things that need to be changed or to actively work toward those changes.

C: So now that we've gotten that out of the way about loaded words, what is patriarchy?

S: Yeah, go ahead and drop some loaded words now!

C: Here’s a loaded word. Uh, we said this on a bonus episode at the end of season two, that we should be soft on people, and tough on systems. And so today we're, again, a little bit tough on the system of patriarchy and how we feel it's been very difficult as women to navigate being in a patriarchal structure in this church, but we are soft on the individual. So this isn't, please listeners, this isn't anti men.

S: Right. Not only that, you know, patriarchy does not exist only in men, right? Patriarchy is the water in which we all swim. It's just a word that describes a system where men make the rules, but then also the culture that results from existing within that system. And the LDS church is by definition, a patriarchy. There is really no argument to be had about that. So that really does deserve a place in the neutral ground that we're talking about when we approach this subject, that's just a fact. 

C: We're not picking on our church per se. We are trying to highlight how patriarchy functions within our church and how that has been difficult for us.

S: Yes. It's not even necessarily a negative word. It just is. It's just a word that describes what it is. You know, incidentally, when we moved to Florida, we lived in a really—first of all, Florida has many different cultures depending on where you are. It's kind of like, you know, five States in one state. So one part of the state can feel like a different world from another part. But the area that we moved to was very unique. And one of the things about it was that sexism was much more prevalent in the local culture than anywhere else that we had lived. My daughter could tell you a good story about writing a letter to the gym teacher, lobbying for the girls to have a right to touch the balls at recess, because, you know, only the boys were allowed to play ball. The girls were allowed to pretend they were cheerleaders, but they were not allowed to play with the balls. This is the kind of system that I'm talking about. Only the boys played ball in this area in Florida. So it was fascinating, but it was a huge, huge culture shock for us. So it made sense, even though it took my breath away for awhile at first, it made sense that, because the local church—our ward—was made up of people from this culture, those problems showed up at church. They were deeply ingrained in the structure of our stake and our ward, the way things functioned, the way that meetings ran, the things that men and women said to each other and the ways they behaved to each other. I'd never experienced that at church. I just hadn't, but it was really good to me because it was illustrative. What was going on in that ward was blatant, but it was also subtly different and like a whole lot ickier than plain old, structural patriarchy. This was something different. And so like seeing that difference has better helped me to identify what is misogynistic behavior, and what is structural patriarchy. And they're very different things. Sometimes people just behave badly, right? Sometimes people behave badly. And generally that has not been my experience with the men that I have dealt with in the church. But having the opportunity to experience that at church really helped me to more fully appreciate that there is a difference and that what we're talking about is not men behaving badly.

C: Right, right.

S: It's structural patriarchy, and that's another thing. That's another thing entirely and has nothing to do with good or bad behavior. It's not the people, it's just a thing.

C: All right. How about question two? Do most men and women—we have to say women because let's be honest, it's not just, you know, the men in our church—do most men and women even believe we operate under a patriarchal structure? And we kind of already talked about that. Like, I think it's just a fact when you look at how the church is organized.

S: I think if men and women don't believe that, it just means they're not really educated about what that term refers to.

C: Right. But Susan, even in our temple ceremonies, we use the word patriarchal in many of the ordinances. So I really don't think that there's any getting around this one, but some people really do believe that women and men have equal opportunities to lead in our church. So thus, we are not a patriarchy. So I can see how some people think that, if they believe, if their thoughts are that we have equal opportunities and therefore we're not in patriarchy, but I kind of have a different take on that, I guess.

S: I guess I struggle to understand how a woman could feel like we have equal opportunities to lead. I mean, maybe within, you know, a smaller stewardship of our local organizations. But even then, even then I still don't think that it would be an equal percentage of men and women in leadership roles. And also, you know, I have to think about—stepping aside from the organization for a minute—I have to think about things like the family proclamation, which specifies that the husband presides in the home. That is a very specific lens through which you're looking at a family structure. You know, in this case, they're taking a unit consisting of what they also call equal partners, right?

An equal partnership, but still setting the man above the woman. And that is inherently patriarchal.

C: Well, and speaking of the word, preside, I mean, now preside has even been added to the sealing ceremony. So now preside has been elevated to a covenant. And so it's not just advice anymore. Like I look at the family proclamation as advice and it even says in there, you know, individual adaptations can be made for families and I'm like, okay, that's good. But now that it's part of a covenant in our temples? Very difficult for me. Very, very difficult to have preside in there as part of a covenant.

S: So, Do men and women believe that this patriarchal structure is God-ordained and therefore unchanging? I think we have to ask that question.

C: I think we do. And as I talk to friends and family members who maybe don't feel as passionately as I do about this, kind of what I hear them say a lot is, well, that's how the world works. Because I, you know, I say things like, “My daughters have every opportunity in the world now to be the CEO of a company, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And yet people will say, but that's how the world works. And the world is changing, is their point. And we don't follow the world. To which I—it kind of leaves me dumbfounded. I'm like, do you realize what you're saying here? You're saying this is part of God's plan—to keep women not in leadership roles. Like it's working for society, but that's not going to work for God's church. And I'm not sure I so much buy into it that this is the way God wants things.

S: Well, so I think historically we do follow the world. I don't really see how any argument can be made against that because we're in the world, right? We’re an organization existing in the context of our present world. And so therefore we generally do follow it on most things. We just lag a little bit, we just lag. And I think that that's what's happening here.

C: Number four: Is some big revelation needed to change the organizational structure of the church, or are things just policy? I don't know. I don't know. This is a hard one. Recently on episode, I think it was episode 35—we called it, Where's the Priesthood in That?—we said something that's actually already outdated. Yay! Because we said on there, you know, why can't women be stake auditors? And now Susan, (yay!) women can be stake auditors! There's been a change to the handbook made. So I say, wouldn't it be great if all the things that are difficult for us that we talk about on this podcast end up becoming outdated within a few months.

I'm sure that's too much to hope for, but that would be kind of nice. And so to me, that goes to the issue of policy. Obviously, I'm assuming there was no huge revelation of like, yes, now women can oversee money at the stake level, not the ward level, but at the stake level, women can oversee money. I'm assuming there was no revelation about that. I'm assuming it was just a policy change.

S: And yet I feel that, for many members, even a policy change is tinged with revelation in our church, that our leaders somehow felt inspired, right? To change that policy. That these things are not done without—you know, you'll often hear that the Lord is at the head of the church and is directing everything in the church, and so I can see how some people have a hard time not blurring the lines between “just policy” and revelation or doctrine. I can see why that's a murky area, but, I agree, we have learned time and time again during our lifetimes that policies change. Things change. Sometimes even quite big things. And in this case, that thing changed. And isn't it remarkable that it changed right after we said it? Wow! It gives me a really fake feeling of power, Cynthia, because we had nothing to do with it!

C: Fake. Yes. It's fake.

S: It would be absolutely great if it were to happen that a lot of the things that we talk about were outdated in a number of months, but, you know, even if that were to happen, I think it would still be useful to talk about the things because so many of us have spent our whole lives within the structure of things the way they are. And there are continuing effects of—even policies and things that change—have continuing effects in the minds and lives of the women who have lived with them. And so my hope would be for a generation of women for whom all of these things are only history, right? They have no contemporary experience of it at all. But we are not in that generation, Cynthia. We're not that generation. So the conversation is still worth having, and I think it's worth pointing out when things like the stake auditor rule changes.

That's big.

C: That is big. I know we've made that point before, but I think it really is worth repeating that these policies—I don't know what we're going to call it—policies, doctrine, procedures, you know, all of the above, whatever, all of them, yeah, they have shaped our lives as women and especially for you and I being middle-aged women. I mean, they have influenced decades of our life and how we see ourselves.

And so even overnight changes don't really wipe the chalkboard clean. I still feel like there's a lot of processing that we need to do. Unpacking, learning new ways to do things. So it's deeply affected my life and your life. And most women.

S: You know, since I started kind of using my voice in this space and speaking up about things, I've talked a lot about coming to the place in my life where I needed to be able to show up whole at church. That was something that I felt like was

lacking in my spiritual life. And patriarchy is definitely not conducive to wholeness, in my opinion, right? Not for the men or for the women because, you know, patriarchy insists that men and women are expected to behave in certain ways. That's just kind of, uh,when you lay out a system like that, that's the assumption that's being made. But in reality, you can be an emotional or a nurturing man, right? You can be a woman who speaks up, or a woman who leads. Who has a natural talent for leadership. There are broad swaths of the usual gender stereotypes that we operate under that can be turned on their heads without ever touching any of our church doctrine, or shaking up our organizational structure.

And as men and women, I believe that we can begin to insist on wholeness at church. That's a change that I'd like to see happen, but it's going to require flexibility and some creativity in the ways that we do some other things, and it won't happen overnight. You know, giving ourselves permission to show up whole is going to require a lot of unlearning of old behaviors and thinking ruts and approaches to running this organization.

C: I think that's something we don't have time to go into, but yeah, there are so many ways patriarchy is hard on the men in our lives, too.

All right, number five: Is it wrong to want change until it is sanctioned from higher-ups? I know we've mentioned this before on the podcast, that we often don't talk about our desire to change until the church has actually made the change. And then, and then all of a sudden we see men and women come out of the woodwork and celebrate these changes. And it kind of bugs me when that happens, Susan. And I know I've said before that, why aren't we allowed to desire and vocally desire and talk about the things that we hope will change? We're just supposed to sit and wait until things are handed to us. I don't know, but what reminded me—I saw this once again happen—we made a social media post a few weeks ago about an article that Jana Riess had written where she spotlights the current Young Single Adult surveys that the church had been sending out over the last six months. It was an amazing article—we'll link to it, to that social media post. And on this post, excuse me, a friend of mine who follows us, she commented.S he's actually a designer I used to work for. She's an amazing woman. And she commented and said, “Amen!” You know, amen to the church asking for the input of young, single adults [about] what would make their life better in the church. And then 30 seconds later after she left that comment, another woman jumped in. I had no idea who this woman was. She's never commented on our social media. She doesn't follow us. And so doing a little sleuthing, I could see that she was friends with my friend that wrote “amen.” And so she—it probably showed up in her feed, you know how that works on Facebook, if someone else likes something, it shows up in your feed. And so this is what this woman wrote. She said, “This is Jesus Christ’s church. Not even President Nelson can change things until the Lord tells him to. Things will change when, and if, the Lord commands. The testimony we need to gain is that Jesus is at the head of this church.

I know he is, and I will wait patiently until he decides what to do.”

S: Aha! Isn't that what I was just saying? These lines get very blurred for people in our church.

C: Exactly. Yeah. Well, good for her if she wants to wait patiently, but I don't, and I think that's okay for those of us that don't want to wait patiently, that want to talk about these things before they happen. But there's nothing like a woman giving another woman a smack down. It's just so hard to watch when it happens. It's just—it's probably one of the hardest things for me to see. Because I think, as women come on, women! Let's support each other!

S: That's rough.

C: So going along with this, Is it okay to want change or is it not okay to want change until people higher up say, you know, here's the change? There was a big change kind of recently. Well, I don't know if it's a big change yet. I guess time will tell, but there was a recent announcement in the church—I don't know what that website is called, the church newsroom, you know, whatever, wherever they announce new things that are going on—that in Europe, women have been called as...they're calling them, “Area Organization Advisors.” And I don't know exactly what that means yet, but it kind of seems like they're these semi-area authorities going on in Europe. I want to give all the credit to Elder Uchtdorf. I don't know if we can, but since he's the one who's over Europe, I'm like, this just looks like it would have Elder Uchtdorf's fingerprints all over it. I don't know if that's true. I don't know, but it was such a welcome change!

S: Yeah, I'm happy to give Elder Uchtdorf the credit, but you know, for whatever reason, the decision has been made that the members in Europe at this time will benefit from increased influence of women in leadership. So it doesn't really matter why the change was made. What matters to me is that there could be a reason that would necessitate such a change, right? And when a reason arises then changes can be made. Sometimes even big changes. I think this is illustrative. I mean exactly what we were just saying, call it the Lord's timing, call it “this just needed to happen,” call it whatever you want—change happens. And when things in the world change and circumstances change, then we can respond as a result of that and we can make changes. And we do.

C: Yes! We do. What's interesting to me about these changes is there—as I mentioned, that article that was in the church newsroom making this announcement—there were a couple of quotes in there by women. And one was by Linda Burton, who was the former General Relief Society President. And here's what she said: “It is the link that has been missing.” Isn't that interesting? And then there was another quote, by Bonnie Corden, who is the current General Young Women President. And she said, “It truly feels like the missing piece of the puzzle.”

S: Well, and they probably have more understanding of what the women in these roles are going to work doing, right? And they both kind of had the same reaction to it. So that's really interesting to me.

C: It is, but what's difficult about their statements is that we never would have heard these women utter these statements prior to this change. I mean, she never would have been able to say, “What's missing is greater female leadership. And I hope that happens soon.” Like, that's just, that would never happen ahead of the change. It only comes after the fact. And I think that's why women [who] are so hungry for change feel so alone because no one, not even the women at the top, can talk about this. Like we're only allowed to celebrate change once the men make that change. You know, we're never allowed, I mean, at least without repercussions. Like, you know, women who are higher up—I'm assuming if they complained about the changes they want to see made, there could be repercussions to them to say it out loud. So I think that puts us in such a difficult bind, those of us who maybe have experienced pain in a patriarchal church and hoping for change, is that we're not really allowed to celebrate what changes could come until they actually happen. And then we're allowed to talk about it, even if we're the women at the very top. They're only allowed to say,” Oh, this was a missing piece to the puzzle.” It's like, ah! That would've been so nice to know how you felt about this years ago. It would make me feel less alone.

S: Exactly. When you've silenced the ideas and the hopes and the desires of half the population, basically, when you've taken away our ability to hope out loud or to throw out the ideas that we think might benefit the church membership as a whole or even just the women— Like who better to understand some of the changes, some of what we perceive the missing links to be, or to feel where there are puzzle pieces missing, you know? Women feel holes in places. We feel a lack in places. Who better to know those things than women? And yet not being able to articulate the improvements that we feel could happen—wow! That is really, really taking away, in my opinion, a huge avenue of potential upside in change for the way that we do things. Improvement for the way that we do things! Improvement for the experience of the women of the church. And these leaders are saying it right there. “Wow! There was a hole here!” Well, darn it! Why weren't you allowed to say, “You know, brethren, there's a hole here. There's a missing link here, and things would operate more smoothly for us if it were to go like this.” And yet we're really not allowed to make those suggestions at all. And maybe the women in those positions are allowed to make those suggestions.

I don't know, Cynthia, but as a lay member in my ward, I feel zero—zero—power to make those suggestions. Because by making them, you are immediately going to be perceived by some in the room, as a woman of a slightly less faith.

C: Well, and that leads me to number six. And this is just a quick point to make—Can the men in our lives mourn with us in the missed opportunity? So even if the men—and many women—believe that everything is going according to plan perfectly with the Lord's timing, can they at least mourn with us that for some of us, this is very difficult. And it kind of leads me to thinking about, in Relief Society, women, we have never chosen our own leaders. Like we say, Relief Society is a women's organization. Mm—but in reality, it's an organization for women, but organized by men. Like, they choose our leaders. And even if you agree with this, even if you agree that that's the way it should be—that bishops should always choose the Relief Society president, and that's how God wants it—you know, can you mourn with us by knowing that we don't even choose our own leaders to lead women? That every Relief Society president has been chosen because a man thought that she would make a good leader for women.

S: And I mean, I guess that someone would argue, well, he is entitled to that inspiration as part of his stewardship as a Bishop, but are women not also entitled to inspiration about who might lead us most effectively? Or you know, we might know things about different qualities that women have that men don't necessarily see or appreciate in the same ways that women do. Boy, it's shocking to even think about that. That we literally have no voice, even in choosing our own leaders.

C: Our friend, our common friend, Richard Ostler, I learned this phrase from him. He says, “It costs me nothing to [fill in the blank].” It costs me nothing to mourn with. It costs me nothing—you know, he often uses it with LGBTQ issues—it costs me nothing to use the pronouns they prefer. It costs me nothing to show them empathy, you know? And that's just something I've really tried to integrate into my life, is that, you know, it doesn't cost me anything to mourn with others. And so that's what I hope the men in the room can do is to mourn with us. It doesn't cost you anything to sit back and say, “I acknowledge this is really difficult for you. And I'm going to sit with that and mourn with you. And I'm sorry.”

S: And to maybe try and imagine, for just one second, imagine existing in a church where you have literally no voice in making those kinds of decisions. Just to imagine what that would be like. That's gotta be the first step in being able to— And it costs you nothing to imagine that, right? You don't have to do it out loud. No one has to know that you're doing it, but stepping back and taking a moment to imagine that can help you acknowledge, “Wow, this must be really kinda hard, to be a woman in the Church.”

C: Yeah. Before we move on Susan, I just, I don't know if most men—and I think most younger women actually— You're probably one of the last generation, Susan, that remembers that Relief Society used to be an autonomous organization, right? You said you remembered, like, bazaars, and all the different things that women would do to earn money, you know, for their organization. And so I just want to point that out. That in days gone by, before the days of correlation, women used to actually run the Relief Society—had our own bank account, we had our own buildings—all the different ways that we decided it needed to be run, we actually got to do that. And if we had time, we could read all these amazing stories that go along with all the different things that women would do.

S: Yeah. Maybe we'll share some of those things in a future episode. I think that would be great. But I will just say about that, yes, I am, as one of the older sisters in this particular room—um, I do have memories of those things. I live in a church now where my grandmothers literally had more power in the church, and in their church lives, than I do. I know that to be true. I witnessed it myself. It is the absolute truth, and it feels deeply, deeply suspect to me, right? I'm not going to go straight to ‘it feels wrong.’ It does feel sorta wrong, but it definitely feels suspect. I don't really understand why that would be the case. And, yeah, I mean, I just have to be able to just say that out loud. It doesn't sit right with me that my grandmothers had more power in their church lives than I have now. So yeah, that's a very real fact.

C: Yeah, again, mourn with us on that, that things used to be different. We used to be more autonomous. Hmm. All right, another question to discuss for a minute—and we just have a few minutes left, so we'll try to discuss these quickly—is, “Do men understand how exhausting it is to hustle, for girls and women in the church?” I don't know if they do. And I have an example of this. When I was in a Primary presidency a few years ago, I was the counselor who was over Activity Days. Thankfully I was not over Cub Scouts. I was not, thankfully, because I do not have a strong testimony of the scouting program. But for Activity Days, Oh, I wanted these girls to have a celebration night, just like the boys had, you know, when they do their blue and gold banquet. So I asked the Bishop, I asked him if we could have a little bit of a budget to host what I was going to call a pink and silver dinner. I know it sounds cheesy, you know, blue and gold. And then for girls, I wanted the pink and silver dinner, and he agreed. And so, you know, I didn't have any kind of Activity Days committee, like there is a Cub Scout committee, right? There's a Cub Scout committee chairman and all that stuff. And so I was the one who had to kind of organize this, as the counselor, and make it happen. You know, cooking 50 pounds of orange chicken, and assigning out to the others, you bring the rice, and we'll have parents bring desserts, you know, whatever, whatever. But that night was a huge success, and word actually got back to the General Primary presidency, you know, “There's this ward in Provo having the pink and silver dinner.” And we heard that they were happy about that, and were encouraging us, “Yes! Think outside the box, do more things!” But Susan, that takes a lot of effort. To hustle for these girls. It takes so much extra time when there isn't already a structure baked in where we have a whole committee, like we did with Scouts. It's really, really tiring. I'm tired.

S: Well, you know, and I found it exhausting being a mother, raising three daughters in the Church. The continual unpacking that had to happen after church, the trying to figure out something to say that would make some of the disparities seem okay for them. You know, my girls grew up keenly aware of the differences in the boys’ and girls’ budgets and what they were allowed to do, and the activities that were planned for them. I mean, even in the ward I'm in now, it was just a couple of years ago that the boys got helicoptered out of the Grand Canyon. This is just part of what they did for their high adventure. But the girls were at a ratty old Boy Scout camp! I mean, it's just not fair, Cynthia. It's not fair. And it's never been fair. But you know, we get notes from listeners all the time who say things like, “What do I say to my five-year-old when she says, ‘When can I start passing the sacrament, mommy?’”

C: All the time.

S: So we get that all the time. All the time. And so I am keenly aware of the deep exhaustion that comes with trying to make a place for a young woman in this church, as she's coming up through it and experiencing some of these disparities. It is tiring. It's impossible. And you can see where we obviously, you know, haven't succeeded that well, because as we've talked about before on the podcast, we're losing many of our young women. We haven't constructed a bridge that they want to cross. And I don't really know any nicer way to say that, like you I'm tired. I'm really tired.

C: Tired of trying to level the playing field.

S: Exactly, exactly. But we can't, we can't level it. And even when some things do get fixed, like, I know the budget problem in wards has been addressed, and I'm grateful for that, but healing would come from the acknowledgement that there was a problem to begin with. And I don't ever really hear anything about that. So it's difficult for a woman of my age, whose daughters have given up the church because they decided they didn't need that kind of frustration in their lives. I mean, there are many other reasons, but that's definitely one, that's definitely one. so yeah. Healing would come from an apology of some kind for things having been so deeply unbalanced for so long, in very concrete ways.

C: I feel like I just need to put my head down for a minute on that for a minute.

S: Yeah, a pause for a minute.

C: ‘Cause we are exhausted. Tired of hustling for girls.

S: And every other woman in the church. We're exhausted on some level, for trying to deal with this and make it okay. And sell it, right? Sell it to the next generation.

C: You have to sell it. Oh my gosh.

S: The continual tap dance of motherhood. Oh boy. Well, Cynthia, why don't you throw out our last question because it's a big one, and it's an important one.

C: Okay. What can the everyday men do, or male leaders—maybe some male leaders are listening to this—but for the most part, it's probably just everyday men, and what can they do? And we just have a few points we're going to run through. I think the first one is pay attention. And we've kind of been talking about [this] throughout this episode. You know, I have asked my husband to specifically, when he is in meetings and it's all men, look around and notice the lack of women and ask himself, “Where are the women?” Now he may or may not be comfortable saying anything to the person who's presiding or in charge, like why aren't there women here? But at the very least, I want him to notice there are no women in this room, and that's not right.

S: Noticing is the first step. It's a huge step. It's a huge step for, you know, every day men who are there, to begin to notice some of these things. Because honestly, like we said, at the beginning of the podcast, we don't notice the way things have always been. That's just not something that comes to our notice naturally. You know, I hope that more of the noticing will naturally begin to happen as men move into adulthood who are used to being on an even playing field with women, with girls. You know, educationally and professionally, our children are being raised in a different world than you and I grew up in. And at some point it's just going to start to feel really weird and wrong to them, I think, I hope. I hope that's where we're headed. I have added quite a few things to this list, so I'm just going to run through them really fast.

And the first one is: Consult the women in their lives and give space for us to call out possible improvements as we envision them. As we said before, there is no space where women can actively express the things that we hope for, need, long for—all of those things—and the problems that we see. But men in our lives could give space for us to do that—safe space. And then, you know, sometimes maybe take those suggestions into their area of stewardship.

I received an email when the stake auditor thing came out from a very old friend from high school who said, “I wanted to make sure that you saw this happen, and here's what I did about it.” And in his stake calling, he sent an email to his Stake President and said, “Here are specific suggestions for changes that I think we can make. And here are suggestions for who we can put in those callings, and let's release some of the brethren and put the women in. We have an opportunity to do something here.” And so he really stepped up and sent the email and I deeply, deeply appreciated that. I appreciated him doing it, and I appreciated him letting me know that he did it. So that was fantastic. Great guy.

How about: Develop your empathy and your emotional intelligence? Like we've said, you know, trying to see things from a woman's perspective, as often as you can think of to do that, would be deeply helpful, I think, to facilitating future conversations about this—and meaningful conversations. And just flipping the situation in your mind when you're sitting in a meeting, or when you're pondering how to implement a policy, if you are in a position of leadership. Creativity is a virtue, Cynthia, it is not a danger! It's not a danger, but I think a lot of people feel like it is a danger when we start to think a little creatively about how we could do things. But a little can go a long way when it comes to helping women feel greater representation and empowerment at church. It's a very low bar.

That is one thing I want to point out right now. It's a low bar, right? So we don’t have to make big changes in order to have a big impact felt by the sisters in the room.

C: Baby steps. Yeah, I know many bishops have read, uh, Neylan McBaine’s book. It's called, Women at Church. If you haven't, fabulous book, because in it there—it's been out for several years now, but there are specific— She has a chapter in there, or it might even be a whole section of the book, where she goes through specific things. Changes that [we] can make within the current structure of the church.

And one of them, I took to my Stake President, and it was having the Young Women help with ushering during Stake Conference. Why do we always have the Young Men do it? I know it's something small and yes, Susan, it's crumbs, but it happened! And my Stake President was like, yeah, why can't we have girls do some of the ushering at Stake Conference?

S: Yeah. And it sent a clear message to the girls in the room, you know, sent a different message.

C: That's my plug for that book.

S: That's a good plug, and we will definitely link to it in our show notes on our website.

Take the time to understand how patriarchy has impacted you. If you have an aversion to that word, then maybe you've never really gotten terribly close to investigating what it means or how it's affected you.

And you may have—what you would find when you do this might really surprise you, right? You may have some kind of ingrained expectation that men are always in charge, and are supposed to be in charge. you may have a mistrust of men around children.

C: Right. That's a big one.

S: It is a big one. Uh, you may have a hesitancy to be emotional around other men. You may feel like, you know, that's not okay. You may have an association of emotion with weakness. A very common thing in our society still. You may have a negative perception of strong women, and you and I talked about that before, you know, all these labels that get thrown at women when they step forward and show some leadership or strength. You know, pay attention to those kinds of emotions and things when they arise, because you might not even realize that you've internalized them.

And at this point, I would pause to say a lot of these things on this list—I mean, yes, we're making suggestions for the men in the room, but—I think they would also be very useful and instructive for women.

C: Absolutely.

S: The next one I thought of is, Listen to women. Listen to women. Default to believing women.

C: Like us!

S: Right, right. When women tell you about their experiences, listen to them. Don't try to minimize it. Don't try to immediately dismiss it. Don't try to put a silver lining, or throw some doctrinal explanation at it. That kind of—those things shut down conversation, so don’t do those things. Just acknowledge the problem that the woman is pointing out to you. Acknowledge it and, you know, let her know that she's heard.

The next one I would say is, Don't immediately deflect with the idea that you're one of the good ones.

C: Hm, like my brother did.

S: Yes, like so many people do. And guess what? They're right! They are the good ones, Cynthia! But it doesn't matter because we're talking about a system. We're not talking about individuals. And, you know, there are a whole lot of good ones, and then there are some who are not so good, and it doesn't matter because that's not even what this conversation is about. We all do good things. We all do unhelpful things, without even thinking about it. But it happens, especially when we haven't recognized that there's harm in a system that we're all existing in, and we just continue to let the system kind of play out and run itself.

Another one I thought of is, Boost female voices, which is what we're trying to do with this podcast. And we have actually had a couple of male podcast hosts who have allowed us on their program, to give us a microphone, and I've been deeply, deeply appreciative of that also. But be mindful in meetings and in conversations at church, and really careful about talking over women.

C: Yeah, that's a big one.

S: Boy, it's a really big one. I've had some choice experiences with that, and we'll just leave that right there.

And then the last one I would say is, Role model that women are not less than—not in life, and not at church. Boys experience girls as being equal peers in other places in their lives now. They just do. And so, you know, while none of us can fix the optics at church that are still kind of ingrained in our culture there—we can't fix that to look more equal, it's not going to be reflective of an equality that isn't inherent in the organization—we can try to allow women at church to be whole, rather than to be shallow stereotypes, right? Celebrate their individual accomplishments instead of exalting their predetermined gender role, which is what I feel like often happens with women in church.

C: Yes, we talk about that a lot.

S: We're not so much individuals as we are, you know, women—

C: The women—

S: The women, the sisters—and everything that comes with that.

C: Well, that's it, Susan? That's easy enough, right?

S: That's it. It's not a tall order, Cynthia. I'm sure this will fix it all.

C: It'll fix it all, yeah. If only we weren't in the nosebleed section, we could do something about this, but I'm grateful to have had this conversation with you today. These are the things that I have talked about for years with my girlfriends. Years! And I talk about them with you. And I just—just like we don't want the men to put all of us women, you know, in one stereotype of “women are this way and that way,” you know, we want to do that for each other as well. And we realize that for many women in the Church, they are completely happy with the structure, and the way it is. And can we make room for the women who are not? Can we make room for the women who are hurt and it's difficult? You don't have to believe it's wrong to believe that it's difficult, and I can mourn with them. It costs you nothing.

S: Thank you so much, Cynthia.

C: Thank you, Susan.