I served as a Beehive advisor for about four years. This past January, although I hadn’t been scheduled to teach one of the weeks, I found out shortly before church that I would need to teach all three classes: Beehives, Mia Maids, and Laurels. I rushed to print the lesson materials so I could outline a lesson during church, and in the rush, reverted to my old style of lesson preparation.
Before the Church came out with the Come, Follow Me teaching program in 2013, I used the Young Women Resource Guide to plan lessons, and would print out and read the suggested materials as I considered the needs of the girls in the class. When printing out the recommended general conference talks, I always tried to print at least one by a woman.
As I glanced through the Come, Follow Me lesson in January, I was surprised that there was not a woman’s talk to choose from, so I scrolled through additional lessons and became more and more puzzled as I only saw a handful of women’s talks.
It was a surprising change in lesson content, so after church I brought up a copy of the Resource Guide for 2012, and saw that yes, there had been women’s talks for most lesson topics. When I looked at actual numbers I found that the percentage of women’s talks dropped from 22.5% in 2012 to 16.5% in 2014, and although they had been spread throughout all the lesson topics in 2012, in 2014 they clustered into two specific topics later in the year. [1]
Is this change important?
The most important stated purpose of the program is to help the youth become converted to the gospel.
Helping youth learn the gospel and become converted to it is something that can be done regardless of gender; it depends more on teaching with love and respect and testimony and humility and the influence of the Holy Ghost, as well as understanding the developmental stages and circumstances of the youth.
However, as part of the learning process, the Young Women need to learn how to appropriately share their thoughts and testimonies in class and church settings, and learn that their opinions and concerns and expressions of faith are heard and respected.
Having faithful women model this process can be a valuable part of their training and conversion and help prepare them to serve missions, learn to teach in the Church and in their current and future homes, serve in callings, and participate in ward councils throughout their lives.
Crunching the numbers
The following table shows the 2012 Young Women Resource Guide and 2014 Young Women’s Come, Follow Me. Then for purposes of comparison, it shows the numbers of talks used in the Young Men and Sunday School lesson materials. [2]
With the dramatic rise in numbers of young women serving missions, would it be helpful for the young men of the Church to learn to consider and respect women’s voices? Do they have this opportunity in Young Men? Do they have the opportunity in the mixed-gender setting of Sunday School?
The following bar chart shows the same numbers in a graphical form. From left to right, showing women’s voices in red and men’s in blue: the 2012 Young Women Resource Guide, the 2014 Young Women lessons, the 2014 Young Men lessons, and the 2014 Sunday School lessons.
Notes
[1] In 2012, although the talks were clustered somewhat in topics relating to women’s roles in the Church and home, they were spread throughout all the subjects. For example, “Attitudes about Our Divine Roles” suggests four articles by men and four by women; “Scripture Study” suggests four articles by men and one by a woman.
In 2014, 41% of the women’s talks are clustered in “August: Marriage and Family” and “September: Commandments.” Eight of the months have between 0–2 women’s talks.
So not only was there a drop from 22.5% (51 out of 226) to 16.5% (29 out of 176), there was also a change in the topics women addressed. The lesson materials went from featuring women’s voices on a wide range of gospel and practical subjects to having them speak mostly on the topics of marriage, family, and obedience.
[2] These numbers are from early this year and include conference talks or articles from the Ensign or Liahona. They do not include scriptures or suggested videos or other linked resources in the lessons.
[3] The four women’s talks used in the Young Men’s lessons were March #2 (The Atonement), July #4 (Baptism), August #1 and #4 (Family).
[4] There was one woman’s talk in the Sunday School lessons, September #4 (Commandments) and one article co-authored by a husband-wife team, February #1 (Learning).
Thanks, Amy. This is an important observation.
I completely concur! As a current Young Women president with a small group of YW, I teach the entire group about once a month, as do each of my counselors. We’re also having one YW teach each month.
In our teacher training I’ve asked both the leaders and the YW to specifically look for women’s voices to share on the topic at hand. The old search engine at LDS.org allowed you to filter results by calling, so it was easier to pick out the women’s talks. It’s a little more time intensive now, but they can usually still be found. I think it’s worth the extra effort to make sure the YW have examples of women testifying and preaching.
And it’s not just for the YW. I also wish my 12-year-old son in Young Men heard more often from women speaking authoritatively on a wide range of gospel topics.
It is beyond frustrating, just like all the examples in the Equality is Not a Feeling series at Doves & Serpents. I agree women’s voices should be heard and respected as much as men’s. But it’s absolutely disheartening that so much extra effort is required by members to incorporate women’s voices into their lessons on their own.
I agree with emig that finding women’s voices for church lessons can be done and is worthwhile. I just wish it were clearer that the higher-ups felt the same.
One last thing because this post hit such a nerve with me. Lip service about respecting women is one of the main things that make me really question how I can raise my kids in the gospel without all the unhealthy baggage in our church (Sharon Eubank’s excellent FAIR talk notwithstanding).
“I also wish my 12-year-old son in Young Men heard more often from women speaking authoritatively on a wide range of gospel topics.”
That can’t happen until women start speaking authoritatively on a wide range of topics. Many talks given in conference by women just focus on home and family. I hope that starts changing.
Sally, I’ve heard that criticism many times, but when you look at the topics that women have spoken on in conferences, the criticism is simply not true.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to be snippy there, but blaming the women isn’t going to help anything, particularly when they are already speaking on a variety of topics, just perhaps not with the same cadence or framing as we’re used to hearing from men in conference.
You have made an excellent point. And we can’t just ignore the gender of those speaking until the distribution stops being so skewed.
I noticed something interesting during the broadcast of the Ogden temple dedication. The meeting, held in the Celestial Room of the temple, had a woman serving as usher/director. Those who were still filing in once they switched the cameras on all seemed to check with her to make sure they were sitting in the right place. I couldn’t decide if this was a radical departure, to have a woman directing the seating, or if it was very stereotypical, because it was a kindergarten teacher kind of thing. I have not reached any conclusions.
I was pleased to note that two women spoke at the Ogden Temple dedication (at least that was true of the 4 pm session). I don’t know if that has been true of previous temple dedications. I thought it was a good sign that the church has started practicing what it preaches about listening to women’s voices. However, I think one of the reasons we don’t think women talk on deep doctrinal topics at conference is the WAY so many of them talk, with what I have heard many people call their “primary” voice. No one likes to be talked to as if they were little children. I would like to see more really strong, powerful women, such as Sheri Dew, called to lead the female auxiliaries.
That bar chart is a hard thing to look at.
Two women also spoke in the 1PM session.
And I guess I also have a Primary voice–or rather, at the moment, a nursery voice. I use it on small children and anyone who is about to cheerful do something incredibly life-threatening. That encompasses a fair bit.
Kudos to Bonnie Oscarson, who speaks as if she is addressing responsible adults. Fancy that.
I think hearing women’s voices more is absolutely essential, especially in YW. Interestingly, my stake leaders have just informed the bishops that the high council speakers have been asked to bring speaking companions with them from the stake auxiliary presidencies. Women make up 3/4 of those, so I think this is an attempt for women’s voices to be heard. I think it’s fantastic, as these women really are some of the most experienced and spiritually mature people in our stake.
Amy, it seems like the past couple of years the women’s talks do seem more doctrinal. But looking at some past talks, I think what happened is that many of the examples they use are about yw or children (which is where their focus is due to their callings) and my husband and sons feel like the talk is not directed at them and use it for bathroom break. Frustrating that they can’t seem to relate very well if the stories are not about men, which they are accustomed to.
Do these woman leaders know that they are speaking in “Primary Voice” and that it turns people off so that they don’t listen to them? It’s like they have been trained to speak that way. I agree that if these women stepped up to the pulpit and gave a strong doctrinal talk with a firm, strong voice, it would make us sit up and listen.
This seems to be a common anecdote in discussions on this topic, and if it’s as widespread as it seems to be, it’s really not an insignificant problem.
If people are used to writing off women’s voices at conference and church for whatever reason — they feel the women aren’t “doctrinal” enough, they don’t need to be listened to because they’re not in a direct line of authority over the priesthood quorums, the women use the wrong cadence (“primary voice”), the women are perceived to use stories of children and youth and family relationships at a higher rate than men (except President Monson!) — there’s a good chance the same thing will happen in ward and mission councils: woman opens mouth, people tune out.
So, if there’s any chance that engaging with and understanding women’s voices is a learned skill, wouldn’t it be a valuable one to acquire?
And would it help if, as Maurine notes, the women turned off the “primary voice” and scaled down the stereotypical female content? Do they do that for valid reasons or does it contribute to the problem?
Excellent work, Amy T.
Excellent post, Amy, thank you.
I’d love to see the much -missed Chieko Okazaki ‘s words used much more, not only in women’s lessons but also in YM/Priesthood.
As for the Primary voice, I think the problem is more widespread than that- I call it “Conference voice”. I refuse to believe the speakers in Conference talk like that in their every day lives, or in their talks in their home wards. Not living in Utah, I’m only acquainted with one of the GA’s, and I know that his way of speaking and giving talks outside the Conference Centre is very different from within. Don’t they get coaching, or a shot at the podium/autocue prior to Conference? I think someone “gets” to them then, with “advice” about delivery. Or the autocue is too slow. A conspiracy theory too far? Maybe. Whatever the reason, it’s painful.