Girls in the Faith.

"Acknowledging the confusion and oft-resulting pain of being a woman in the Church is not something that is relegated to the extremist academics or feisty feminist bloggers. In 2011, a comprehensive survey of over 3000 people who had lost their belief in the gospel revealed that 47% of those respondents cited women’s issues as a “significant” reason for their loss of faith."

This has been a tough post to think about how to get into words. It is too easy to look whiny or ungrateful for all of those who labor for the sake of my children.  And this post is about that, my children, specifically: my daughters. But it is not a commentary on their wonderful leaders. I appreciate everything that has and will be done for them.

My situation is that my two oldest (a boy and a girl) are very close in age (18 months). Ella is always coming around the bend for every important milestone that Benjamin goes through. Going to school, No training wheels, being able to walk to friends, etc. 

Then we arrived at baptism age at church: The beauty of their baptisms were comparable and fantastic. Both had beautiful spiritual days. Then "activities" started.

Benjamin had cub scouts:
-Blue and Gold banquet - with numerous rounds of applause just for him.
-A uniform and a new book
-weekly meetings
-Regular courts of honor with all the pomp and circumstance and "Kiss the Mom" moments - with more and more rounds of applause.
-Twilight camp - hours spent making swap em's, days at camp filled with activities and crafts and eventually a sleepover with dad.
-11 yo. scouts - bigger better activities and four campouts in one year!
-12 years old - Aaronic Priesthood Ordination, Passing the sacrament
-Officially in Boy Scouts:
-Weekly activities
-Amazing week of camping and classes and swimming
-Big service projects
-And bigger Court of Honor celebrations with accolades galore.

versus:

Activity Day Girls for Ella:
-Twice a month activity nights - No activities in the Summer
-Once a Year Daddy Daughter Dance
-12 years old: Young Women


I have tried to spin this every way I can... but she notices and she asks. And she gets sad that "we go to Ben's things" but parents have never come to one of my AD girl nights'.

And then I wonder about the financial discrepancy between what we spend on our boys vs. our girls. One Scout store trip alone in preparation for a Court of Honor was approximately $700 for supplies.  

Again, lest there is confusion, this is not about women getting the Priesthood. At least not for me at this point. But there are some glaringly obvious examples of inequality in how we treat women in the church - especially our youth.

These issues and others will keep me wondering what my role is as a mother in building up my children whether in or out of the Church.

Why don't the Young Women do the ushering on Sundays - the Boys do the Sacrament.
Why can't a mother hold her baby during the Blessing ceremony?
Why did we abandon the more active roles sisters had in early church history? 
How about more female speakers at GC?
How about female auxiliary leaders having more of a presence on the stand at GC?
Do Relief Society Stake meetings really need to be presided over by a Priesthood holder?
Can we start spending the same amount of money and time on our young women as our young men?

I must not be the only one noticing this because here is a poll on babycenter about this issue:

How do you feel about Scouts vs. YW/AD

I think it is totally unfair and I have let my leaders know		9
I think it is totally unfair, but I keep my opinions to myself		29
It doesn't bother me		19
Other		2
Total Votes:		59

Here are two links that are good reads along this same vein:

To Do the Business of the Church: A Cooperative Paradigm for Examining Gendered Participation Within Church Organizational Structure - From the creator of the Mormon Women Project which you can find here

-Navel Gazing on Modesty