People frequently point out that Mormon women don’t want the priesthood, as evidenced by studies like this one or this one.  I have a theory about that. For Mormons, “wanting” a calling you haven’t been offered is a no-no, and “wanting” the priesthood, if female, is particularly taboo.  See this post or this one or this one or this one or this one.

I think this says more about our preference for top-down designation of priesthood duties than it does about how we would react as a people if the priesthood actually were expanded to all worthy members.  I wager that most women who do not “want” the priesthood would nevertheless react positively if the First Presidency offered it to women.

 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDdFZjNQIRQ

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During our newlywed years, contraception was a trial for us. We intended to start a family sometime within a few years of our marriage, so permanent or long-term options were out. However, we were determined not to accidentally start a family a moment too soon. Like many other couples, we wanted to build a strong foundation for our marriage before we added the important but stressful component of child-rearing. Unlike many other couples, we also needed to make some difficult choices before we began our family. My husband has genetic diseases that could be passed on to our children. How would we handle that? Risk it? Adopt? Medically intervene? At that point, we were still considering our options.

I took hormonal birth control while my husband used a condom. According to the textbook, this should have been an ideal solution for our situation. Both methods are temporary and quite effective; combining the two methods made the system even more effective.

But my body rebelled. During my second or third month on any birth control pill or shot, uncontrollable vaginal bleeding would begin. Sure, the hormones were still preventing pregnancy, but mostly by making me feel too gross to even consider having sex.

The only way to stop the bleeding was to stop taking birth control, wait for the side effects to go away, and then go back to the doctor for a different kind of prescription—all of which yielded the same results.  During the interim, our two-part pregnancy prevention system would be reduced to one part—the condom.

And one night, that condom broke.

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A few days ago, I wrote a post proposing that all missions should make sisters eligible for mission leadership positions.  I put the post into queue to post later this month.  Today, the church announced new leadership positions for sister missionaries.  Yikes!  My post became obsolete before I could post it!  However, the church’s plan does differ from my suggestion that women be incorporated into the existing leadership structure.  Instead:

Each mission in the Church will organize a Mission Leadership Council that will include both elder (males) and sister (females) missionary leaders. The new mission leadership council will consist of the mission president and his wife, assistants to the president, zone leaders, and sister training leaders — a newly created role…Sister training leaders will continue to proselytise and will also spend time each week training and evaluating the needs of female missionaries. They will report directly to the mission president on the needs of sister missionaries. Additionally, the wives of mission presidents are now being asked to play an enhanced role in training and caring for sister missionaries, subject to their individual and family circumstances.

Here is the post I wrote before the announcement, plus new commentary in red about how the actual change differs from the change I would have proposed.

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