Feminist

"All human beings -male and female- are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual and premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."
The Family: A Proclamation To The World

Am I a feminist?

Well, I do believe that men and women should be held to an equal standard of responsibility. But I also maintain a number of unfashionable beliefs:

1. Women aren't (physically) as strong as men. Sure, there's an occasional Helga who serves as the exception, but I don't really mind not running as fast or lifting as much weight. We're different, no competition needed.

2. Men should open doors. Why? Because my dad opens my mom's door. Terrible epistemology? Sure. But it is personal, and this is my blog, so I reserve the right to tell the world as I see it. If a gentleman opens my door, I take it as a commentary about his goodness, and not about my own ability. He doesn't open the door because I am not able, but because he is truly that kind.

3. Men can have the Priesthood. God said so. I'm grateful, and not at all envious. I like wearing dresses. I don't want to pass the sacrament, and thanks be to heaven that I'll never have to be a Bishop.

4. Men and women should work for unity rather than divisiveness.

To the dear Mormon women who are picking a fight with the Priesthood, I applaud your zeal. But I'm not so sure of your cause. I would ask you to explain, but this is a blog. And so I must content myself with my own opinion.

For the last twelve months, I have been serving as a Sister Training Leader. This is a new position in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with priesthood leaders in wards and in our mission to bring about the work of salvation. We sit in on Mission Leadership Council. We minister to sisters. We strive to uplift the elders. We teach and train and go on exchanges. We are needed, and we like that.

People worried about the influx of so many sister missionaries. They arrived, just two transfers behind me, in great hoards. But there is so little flirting. There is not much bickering. Elders and Sisters are not romantic comrades, and they are not mortal enemies. We are partners. I might venture to say that a crucial element of the work of salvation is for men and women to learn to work together.

The priesthood is like an umbrella. God has asked men to hold the umbrella, and women and children take shelter underneath its expanse. As a woman, there is no power of the priesthood that I lack. I can minister and pray and heal as well as a man, I am sure. I can probably even recite the words and actions of ordinances and blessings. But God reserved the Priesthood as a divine means for teaching men how to be men. And women are all the better for it.

The Priesthood is the highest and most divine organization of female advocacy that exists in the world today. Why should we fight against it?

If we, as women, successfully wrested the Priesthood from men (and, but the way, we won't; it is the Eternal order of God), what would we accomplish? A serious gate-keeping issue, that's what. Already overworked women would simply be left alone (in pants) to bless the sacrament, oversee family spirituality, provide financially, and preside in meetings. No dresses allowed.

No thank you! I'll marry a man who open doors, and I'll wear a dress.

I've worked myself through a heated strand of thought, and I ask myself again, am I a feminist?

Well, yes. But only if I can be a Men-inist also. I insist upon the goodness of man and on the goodness of woman. The Family: A Proclamation To The World* is quite enough for me.

*https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation