Mormonism and gender issues/Women

FAIR Answers Wiki Table of Contents

Mormonism and women's issues

Jump to Subtopic:

• The role of women in Mormonism
• Mormonism, women and the priesthood
• Mormon cultural issues related to women

The role of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormons")

Jump to Subtopic:

• Mormonism, women and the priesthood
• Mormon cultural issues related to women
• Mormon women and childbearing

Mormon cultural issues related to women

Jump to Subtopic:

• Question: Does Mormonism devalue those who are not married or who do not have children?
• Question: Do Latter-day Saint teachings about childbearing put an improper burden on women?
• Question: Are Mormon women taught to be “gratefully subservient to Mormon males” and that women must “not aspire…to independent thought”?
• Question: Is there some rule in Mormonism that states that women cannot open Church meetings with prayer?
• Question: Are Latter-day Saint (Mormon) women placed under covenant in temples to subordinate themselves to their husbands?

Neylan McBaine, "To Do the Business of the Church: A Cooperative Paradigm for Examining Gendered Participation Within Church Organizational Structure"

Neylan McBaine,  Proceedings of the 2012 FAIR Conference, (August 2012)

I will be talking today about how women fit into the functional structure of LDS church governance; but, unlike many of the others speaking today, I do not have advanced degrees in my subject nor consider myself an academic. My credentials as someone qualified to talk about this subject come from: first, a lifetime of personal experience as a woman in the Church and now the mother of three daughters; second, my role as founder, in 2010, of a non-profit organization, The Mormon Women Project, which publishes stories of faithful Latter-day Saint women from around the world; and third, a twelve-year career in marketing and brand strategy including my current role as associate creative director Church-owned Bonneville Communications, the agency partnered with the Church on Mormon.org and the “I’m A Mormon” campaign.