#hearLDSwomen: When President Nelson Blew Off the Reporter’s Question About Women in a Press Conference, I Cried All Day

[image error]After President Nelson became prophet, he was asked at a Q and A Press Conference, “what about the women?” he said, “we love them.” He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he and President Eyring talked about how their wives raised wonderful sons who later became bishops. So basically, it’s our job to raise boys to be lifted up in status. I don’t think so.

– Sarah Bridges.

 

AND he publicly reduced the Cornell-award-winning journalist who asked it (the brilliant Peggy Fletcher Stack) to her “proper role” as daughter and mother of “good missionaries” and then FORGOT HER QUESTION because it was so unimportant to him, publicly laughed about forgetting her question, further reducing her to the role of a cute little girl who has asked the grown-ups something precocious but absurd, THEN when after a long non-answer about how they cannot have racial and nationally representative leadership because the church is big (hmmmmm, Catholicism seems to do fairly well at this?) and when Stack pushed back and again asked “What about women?” gave us this masterpiece of patriarchal erasure: “I love ’em. I have a special place in my heart about the women.”

THE women. The mass entity that are THE women, as opposed to THE church.

I cried harder that day than I had in a long time. And that, given the state of things these days, is saying something.

– OM

 

I cried all day too after that interview.

– MR

 

I had the same reaction.

– AG

 

Every time I read the Family: A Proclamation to the World, I feel marginalized. I feel restricted. I feel patronized. And I remember a crucial fact: no women were involved in the development, writing, and “revelation” of it. Gender roles and expectations defined by older men without ANY input from women of any age makes me feel so forgotten, so unimportant, so degraded. And the irony of it all is that they announced the Family Proclamation in General Women’s Session to show that women are a crucial part of the church. You know how that makes me feel? It makes me feel like we’re only important when it comes to pumping out kids and making sure that both men and children keep on the straight and narrow. The Proclamation makes me feel as if women are only the “other” compared to men, but are expected to hold the brunt of the load when it comes to spirituality and maturity. So, although it’s not one specific time or experience, that document that is now an integral part of CES lesson plans and BYU religious curriculum has made me feel smaller than I ever thought possible — just for being a woman.

– MB

 

Pro Tip: Male leaders in the church often talk about women by who they are in their relationships to men: wife, sister, daughter, mother. Even in the temple, women are treated as extensions of their husbands, not individuals in their own right. Be cognizant of this attitude in your dealings with women. Treat women like people.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)