The recent European Women’s conference has got people talking about E. Ballard’s admonishment (or joke) that women should not speak too much in councils but should defer to male authorities. If you haven’t read it, Cynthia L.’s excellent post on BCC bears a quick reading. Women can now try to walk that razor’s edge to determine, in Goldilocks fashion, which amount of talking is just right. For today’s poll, what’s your perspective? How much female input is just right?
[poll id=”432″]
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
What a beautiful illustration!
All your choices are unsatisfactory. I guess I feel like we need to work with what we have right now, and help and train the women represented to speak strongly and representatively for the responsibilities they have, AND HAVE THE OTHER PARTIES LISTEN TO AND RESPECT THEM, and when we have exhausted the things we can do inside of the framework we have, then appealing for change through prayer starts to feel more appropriate, IMO. Also we should be remembering that we are helping women of the world find their voices and autonomy, NOT just women of northern European heritage who happen to live in high income countries.
“All your choices are unsatisfactory.” Ain’t that the truth?
r, why all this talk about training women to speak up? You think they haven’t been speaking this whole time? What about training men to listen to women? How about fostering an environment where women are respected and appreciated for their contributions (not just given lip service)?
Was gospel doctrine teacher for a long time in all Wards have been it there was about a 1:5 ratio of women to men who spoke up in class. RS had plenty of feedback. When I was an auxiliary pres. I was so frustrated about how much the women did not say. So YES, in my experience both sides need to happen. And my wards have been fairly progressive, educated wards. Would still have women tell me they felt intimidated by speaking up in a combined Sunday School class.
I picked ‘because women only have one mouth but two ears, but men…’ not because seemed the most absurd, I selected it because I have heard this justification (or the something with the same flavor) more than once.
By about choice three I was wondering if this really was a poll, or someone being very clever. I vote for clever.
r: “women tell me they felt intimidated by speaking up in a combined Sunday School class” I suspect this is why the mission age for girls was lowered to 19. Lowered, but of course, still kept just a little unequal.
forgetting: clever it is!
I want to echo what r in #5 said: My wife and I have lived in 5 states, 8 stakes, and 9 different wards (none in Utah). Except for 6 stints (about 2 years each) as Primary and YW President or counselor, my wife has attended/taught in/been Pres or counselor in Relief Society for over 20 years. She has commented several times, especially when she was teaching, that (frustratingly) very few women speak up and make comments in class. In my many years attending Ward Council and Welfare meetings I have observed that women speak up very little. IMO, for any number of cultural (both American and Mormon) reasons, most women are not willing and/or comfortable making comments or giving their opinions (especially in disagreement) in that leadership meeting environment. That “culture” needs to be changed.
So, I am in favor of erring on the side of taking overt steps to encourage these sisters, especially in leadership meetings, to speak up, even/most especially in disagreement. The bishop needs to be taught to specifically draw out comments and opinions from the RS, Primary, and YW Presidents in those meetings. AND he must be taught to be aware of his or other mens’ domineering or intimidating behavior–often done unconsciously.
I don’t understand the thing about mouths and ears.
What is the antecedent for “they”? Proportionately to what? Men have as many mouths as are in their household? Huh?
I suspect women don’t speak up in councils because they know their input doesn’t matter that much anyway. Most decisions have already been made by the men before ward council, and all of the decisions ultimately will be. The women don’t need training, they need structural roadblocks to participation removed. The experience in leadership contexts, which sets men up as the last word, also translates into deference in discussion settings in classes.
Left field: suppressing women’s voices has often been justified under the guise that a man represents a whole family, not an individual. It was also said that women didn’t need the vote because their husband represented their household in voting, and any woman who couldn’t persuade her husband how to vote didn’t deserve to vote. This thinking is also similar to the idea that church leadership callings somehow extend to the wives who are not called but essentially have the ear of a leader and therefore somehow influence policy without actually being in a leadership role.
The enemy to women’s fruitful participation in ward councils is not “the men” — “the men” haven’t already decided everything — if anything, “the man” has already decided, meaning the presiding official. The other men in the council have very little input, and “the man” might actually be more open to input from the women than from the other men. I am certain, from my experience, that a ward Relief Society President has far more influence on outcomes than a high priests group leader.
Men have been taught for a very long time to sustain the leader in council meetings. As women are joining those meetings, they shouldn’t expect more influence than the other men — but still, they can add a valuable perspective and then they can sustain the leader like the men do.
I think the whole council system needs to be re-visited, where all members can be equals with the leader as first among equals.
My perspective will differ from others.
“where all members can be equals with the leader as first among equals.” Well that sounds like an improvement!
#14: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” ?
Social science research confirms that in nearly any group with both males and females, the males will speak up more often than the females. It will take major cultural training to shift this situation. So, until equality happens, I think the responsibility lies with the leader of any meeting (council, SS class, sacrament meeting, etc.). We all need to learn to ask open-ended questions (not just, “Does anyone have something else to add?” or “Can anyone share an example of …”) and then really listen.
With social media heading the current direction, I have little hope of this situation actually changing in a significant way. It can change, but only if the leader has a reason to behave differently than what he/she has usually seen.
I found it interesting to note some years ago that in an Old Testament commentary, regarding the story of Jacob and his wives (the two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and their respectives handmaidens), that when Jacob dediced that he’d had enough of his father-in-law’s devious ways and wanted to move on, that he CONSULTED with his wives first (going against dear old Dad wasn’t necessarily something they took lightly). Just shows that even the era of the Patriarchs that women had their say in the so-called “Patriarchy”
Thanks, Hawkgrrrl. I can understand that. I just couldn’t figure out whether I agreed with it or not because I was a little confused working my way through the mathematical calculations of ears and mouths and the proper proportions of body parts for someone to be able to speak.
In SoCal, Elder Saban trained ward councils to have the Exec Secretaries conduct the ward council meeting and that council members should express their ideas and opinions before the bishop, and that preferably the bishop wouldn’t speak unless necessary. I’ve been participating in these ward councils, and I think it’s been a huge improvement. The sisters don’t seem too hesitant to speak, and that fact that the sister missionaries attend makes the male/female ratio feel less disparate.
fbisti. Not only do they rarely speak up when they do speak up they preface the statement with something like “you priesthood holders can correct me if I am wrong…..”
Most men put very little thought into their SS comments why should you defer?
“you priesthood holders can correct me if I am wrong…..” I can assure you that this is not the case in my ward. I suspect this level of low self-esteem goes hand in hand with lower levels of education and non-domestic world experience.
Jon, SS often evokes an academic atmosphere, and girls culturally have learned to defer to boys in academic subjects. Guys can often shake off giving an answer that’s different from what the teacher is looking for, where girls tend to take it more personally if they don’t answer “right.”
I’ve noticed girls will comment more in my SS class if I ask a question about application of doctrine to daily life. If I’m asking any sort of question about scripture knowledge (can someone explain what we just read? Or can someone summarize this story?), I’ll rarely get a female volunteer.
As an aberration (a girl who thrived in academia and loves to make comments in SS), I have often received comments regarding how unusual my participation is in regard to both my age and gender. Sometimes it’s a little hard to know how to take something like, “I love that you’re a girl and you’re smart!”