Maybe Utah no more could expound on this please???
I had a bishop who sneered and said 'who'd ever call you to be homemaking counselor?" after I told him I'd been a homemaking counselor in a former ward.
How did it shape me? I finally realized something I'd been suspicious of for years. The men were lying about their priesthood powers of inspiration. The BP could not believe my former BP might have been 'inspired' to call me to be homemaking counselor. Only women who had husbands in good standing got asked to do anything; prayers, talks, classes etc. The only exception was one single woman who paid a lot of tithing and simpered endlessly about how 'superior' the 'priesthood' was anytime she opened her mouth.
You know the type; in Sunday School they start to voice their insight to the lesson with a preamble of "of course every priesthood holder knows so much more than me"
Years later a man who'd spent most of his adult life outside the church got religion a couple years before I moved into the ward. They needed some warm bodies to fill the seats in the investigators gospel principles class and invited me. I made an insightful comment based on scriptural knowledge and he turned to me saying "You know the scriptures better than I do!" I took a deep breath, looked him in the eye and replied. "That is not my fault."
I guess I was out of the church for a long time before I knew it.
So as Utah no more asked:::::::: How did you handle it? Who are you today? from the snubbing of women in the church.
I had a bishop say the same thing to me about being in Relief Society and then again when I was getting divorced from my ex TBM. By then it had changed to, "there is no worthy man alive who would ever want someone like you."
By the time I got that comment from him, I really didn't care what he thought. I had already made the decision to leave the worthy, priesthood, abuser, and with that came my choice to leave the church. And by then I knew that I probably didn't have many church friends. But I had my five children to raise. And I never looked back.
I like to think that they helped give me spunk and backbone to be the woman I have become today. And this bishop helped my children to become the free thinkers they are today. They saw how these people who proclaimed to be from Gods one true church talked to those in need and "helped" those in crisis, and my kids wanted nothing to do with it.
...DW is in the stake RS presidency even though I resigned my membership, and DS is stake RS president in her stake, even though her husband, though active, is an ardent unbeliever and won't pay tithing or hold callings. (BIL feels like he has to support DS in everything, though, and goes with her to church and to all her meetings. He is critical of me, in fact, for resigning from the church and "publicly embarrassing" DW.) I think it's a true generalization that women aren't called to do more important positions if they don't have an active or important husband, but it's not true across the board.
Regarding your comment on inspiration, I think IS true across the board that bishops and stake presidents are no more "inspired" than the next guy and make exceedingly poor decisions. They are mostly just full of themselves. Many are nice, though, even when they're knuckleheads, making poor choices as leaders merely because they are idiots and don't know better. Poor choices and belief in "inspiration" are perpetuated by more senior leaders who must support the knuckleheads below them, no matter how poor their underlings' decisions, in order to even have someone to do the job at all. This is what "supporting your leaders" is all about and why it's so damn important to Mormon leadership.
EXACTLY what my ex said to me as she kicked me out the door.. Talk about trying to shoot my self esteem in the foot (or any other place she could)
It seems that those who throw you out have a self inflated opinion of themselves. They try to make you believe that they are God's gift to you and that all you are good for is the garbage. It is a designated ploy in their guerilla warefare to undermine yor confidence.
However just look at their lives after you left and compare her life with the peace of mind you now have
What makes you think my self worth is determined by a fallible man "wanting" me? If I'm good enough for God then that should be enough, right?
Of course I don't believe in God, but that's a whole 'nother issue. ;)
Honestly, it breaks my heart that so many women of ALL religious faiths buy into the lie that their worth is determined by how someone with a penis views them. Human beings are human beings and one gender is not superior to the other.