Topics you never hear at Church

[marsupial]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

This is done out of guilt. The Church is extremely patriarchal. In the Church, women are second class citizens and everyone knows it. We still cling to the notion of a woman's place being in the home, barefoot and pregnant. When leaders extol the virtues of women in the Church, they are throwing them the proverbial bone, trying to ease their own guilt.

I think you have point there. Sometimes those "encouraging" talks come across as a little condescending.

[ute4ever]

Several years ago, President Faust stated that woman was God's pinnacle creation, noting she was not placed on the earth until after all else was finished; thus the creation then became perfected.

The sisters in my ward soaked it up in a hurry. Over the next year, they made several references to that quote while in Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by marsupial

Women are pretty hard on themselves as it is. We're never pretty enough or skinny enough. It doesn't take much to make us feel like a crappy mother, wife, etc. We compare ourselves to other women and we never measure up. One of our greatest faults IS being too hard on ourselves and that is addressed in all of those encouraging talks we hear in conference.

It is true, many women could use a good talk on not nagging their husbands (my mom and sisters-in-law for example).

It will take a family therapist, psychologist or sociologist to determine who is harder on selves, but do you necessarily believe men are easier on themselves?

Life is encouraging but challenging, and it can tend to beat down either gender fairly severely.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

This is done out of guilt. The Church is extremely patriarchal. In the Church, women are second class citizens and everyone knows it. We still cling to the notion of a woman's place being in the home, barefoot and pregnant. When leaders extol the virtues of women in the Church, they are throwing them the proverbial bone, trying to ease their own guilt.

This is a very harsh way of expressing things, but there is some truth to the idea that there is a lesser expection for women. For example, since a man holds the priesthood he is more accountable that a woman for the same sin. I don't really think the source is necessarily doctrinal. I think it is cultural.

I mean this in no sort of critical way, but I believe that because of the age of church leadership that cultural progress in the church lags cultural progress in US society (where all of the leadership is from) by 15-20 years.

I have to believe that a man who is at least exposed to feminist ideas in college (are you at BYU? I would think not.) and who lives his whole adult life with a woman who is the product of feminism (most of the women the guys around here are married to fit this discription) will have a radically different take on the role of women and what is to be expected of them than GBH whose formative years were the 1920's and 30's. The women of that era were raised to submissive. The woman of today is not. Will the first prophet born after 1960 have much in common in his cultural thought process about woman as GBH? I would think only a little.

[marsupial]

Originally Posted by Archaea

It will take a family therapist, psychologist or sociologist to determine who is harder on selves, but do you necessarily believe men are easier on themselves?

Life is encouraging but challenging, and it can tend to beat down either gender fairly severely.

Since I am not a man, I don't really know. I am way harder on myself than danimal is on himself.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by marsupial

Since I am not a man, I don't really know. I am way harder on myself than danimal is on himself.

That would be an interesting quantitative study for a qualitative aspect.

Your perspective is valid and worth considering. Whether one gender is "harsher" is indeterminable. Men may internalize their shortcomings differently and manifest the internalization differently.

If I'm not mistaken, men are more prone to depression that women, if that means anything.

The answer is probably a combination of subconscious guilt, culture, and self-awareness. It is difficult to judge the failings, really, of a gender which one is not. So male leaders rather go on the gender least understood by them, go soft for guilt and PR.

Oh well, I better go study my porn, I mean conduct internet research.

[Sleeping in EQ]

A couple of points:

At times, women in the Church are being patronized.

At times, men in the Church are being bullied.

Porn addiction and prudishness can be mutually reinforcing. These problems are also embedded in what I would call a Mormon reification of gender roles, a habit some of us have picked up from the Victorians. As a man who has exactly zero interest in pornography, and who finds it not at all tempting or interesting, I find the frequency with which the subject is addressed rather tedious. I must be in the minority on this. I find women quite attractive; pictures or videos or whatever, not in the least. In my book, from a scriptural standpoint the starting place for dealing with these issues is 1 Cor. 7:3-5.

There is a generational component to how Church leadership is dealing with these things (and not). This has been and always will be the case when human beings are involved.

[Archaea]

An excellent find.

And lest anybody be confused by the poetic language, the NRSV shows it more clearly:

3The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by Archaea

That would be an interesting quantitative study for a qualitative aspect.

Where is Tireseus when you need him? He'd be able to help.

[hyrum]

Originally Posted by ute4ever

Several years ago, President Faust stated that woman was God's pinnacle creation, noting she was not placed on the earth until after all else was finished; thus the creation then became perfected.

As printed alongside your avatar I'm inclined to buy into that!!