When I found out I was pregnant with my new daughter, Linda, I was in shock. I wasn’t planning on becoming pregnant so soon and I spent the first trimester in a depression that allowed me to only play video games.

Labor was hard and it’s difficult to bond with a newborn: they don’t smile; they don’t do much of anything. You can’t tell if they actually like you, even a little bit. When I was 3 weeks postpartum, my husband took our two oldest to Disneyland for a weekend so that I could get a break from having three kids underfoot. However, having a single colicky baby without a partner to pass her off to when you’re tired is difficult, too. It was in those three days of solitude with my daughter that I tried very hard to “bond.” I felt bad for not wanting to be pregnant 9 months earlier. I didn’t want her to feel unwanted.

When my husband came home from the Disneyland trip I told him, “I want to hold her for her baby blessing. I want to make up for not being happy about the pregnancy. It’d be like a public apology to her, a reconciliation.”

The culture around baby blessings is such that if you have the blessing at home, the family has a lot more freedom in how it is done, however, if you do it in a church, there are more restrictions. I was split: I wanted to have the freedom of a home blessing, but wanted to share it with our whole ward.

A week and a half ago, I attended my first ordination.  It was awesome.  It was a beautiful mix of music, sermons, and the act of ordination by the Unitarian Universalist congregation itself.  I couldn’t help but feel that the young woman I knew was answering her call to ministry.  I was particularly impressed how the congregation participated in the recitation of the act of ordination as well as the ceremonial laying on of hands.  As a minister pronounced a blessing, the new minister’s family and friends came forward, followed by all the ministers present, followed by the choirs, and anyone who wanted to participate.  It was rather beautiful to see the mass of people in front of the church extending down all the aisles connected by hands – supporting and blessing the new minister.

After the ceremony, a friend asked me what I thought of my first ordination.  Then she backed stepped a little, clarifying what did I think of the Unitarian ordination, saying I probably had attended other ordinations in the Mormon church.   I answered no – it wasn’t the same.  That I considered this indeed my first ordination.  That yes I had sat feeling like an imposter in the back of the Priesthood session where my brother was ordained an Elder and later when my step-dad was ordained a High Priest.  But that given all men were ordained to the Priesthood, it simply wasn’t the same.  She then asked me if going on a mission might be more comparable.  I answered that yes I was set apart with a small group of friends present, that I gave a talk to the ward expressing my enthusiasm for the calling when I left and when I returned, but again that it was simply not the same.  I expressed to her how I found it moving that the congregation participated and that it really was an event.  If anything, I would compare it to the temple in some ways.

Having visited churches with female ministers, when I attend Sacrament Meeting, the maleness of the leadership strikes me.  I hope for the day when there will be women leaders in front giving more than prayers and talks.  That women will someday be on the stand presiding and offering ordinances and counseling other women.  I believe that women should be ordained to the Priesthood.  But I am also struck by the differences in the ordination process between different faiths.  And while I enjoy discussions between faiths (there was a panel at Sunstone West this weekend about dialogue between Catholic and Mormon women who want ordination in their Patriarchal traditions), I can’t help but wonder about the fundamental difference between our religion and others.  The Priesthood being given to all men in our faith is fundamentally different than when someone feels called to the ministry and is ordained by their congregation.  It makes it hard for me to envision what the ordination of women would look like in the Mormon church.

The internet has been abuzz recently with discussion of a new form of feminism developed by Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg. In her new book, Lean In, and in a now famous TED talk, Sandberg argues that women need to do a better job advocating for themselves in the workplace, in taking opportunities even if they may conflict with a future reality, sitting at the table and expecting more from the men in their lives. As she says,

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives – the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve.

Sandberg has received criticism, including from other feminists, that she does not fully account for the systematic barriers in place that limit women’s equality in the workplace and in society. A lot of that criticism has been unfounded but regardless, in order for women to achieve true equality, there needs to be both systematic policy change and women leaning in and demanding their rightful place.

Much has been written about President Elaine S. Dalton’s now infamous talk where she argued that LDS women, understanding our roles and responsibilities, would see no need to lobby for rights. There is an understandable amount of confusion as to what she meant by this; was she referring to Mormon women lobbying within a Mormon context or women lobbying for rights in general?

Recently, Elder Dallin H. Oaks expounded on President Dalton’s words, saying

Of course we see the need to correct some longstanding deficiencies in legal protections and opportunities for women. But in our private behavior, as President Gordon B. Hinckley taught many years ago about the public sector, ‘We believe that any effort to create neuter gender of that which God created male and female will bring more problems than benefits.’

I find this problematic for a number of reasons but for the sake of this post I want to examine that last statement–that eschewing traditional gender roles in our private behavior leads to more problems than benefits. I would like to know what these problems are specifically.

We are pleased to announce that the Mormon Women Project guest edited issue of Exponent II is now available online and hard copies will be mailed this weekend for current subscribers and next weekend for people finishing up their Christmas shopping.

This issue had beautiful artwork and essays that speak to the mission that MWP and EXII share–the importance of Mormon women sharing their stories.

See founder and Editor-in-Chief, Neylan McBaine’s Letter from the Editor below and take a moment to listen to her interview on the podcast series, A Thoughtful Faith, to hear more about her work with MWP.

Why is it important to tell Mormon women’s stoires? This is the question that reverberates in my mind every time I hit “Publish” to share another awe-inspiring woman’s story on the Mormon Woman Project. After publishing over 150 interviews at www.mormonwomen.com since January 2010 with LDS women from around the world, I feel like I am still just starting to catch a glimpse of why it is foundatioal to our identities as Mromon women to read other’s stories and share our own.

My own desire to share my story blossomed in 2006 when I was home with small children for the first time after leaving a career in Silicon Valley, supporting my husband in a graduate program and finally having the cognitive space to explore who I wanted to be as an adult. As the only child of an opera singer, growing up Mormon in New York City and then attending Yale, my experiences were often intriguing to others ad I began to write them down. But it seems to me that any memoirist must grow tired of reliving her own life at some point, and when I reached that point myself, I turned to the lives of others.