I think that Monson just inadvertently created a new Mormon feminism. They will never come out and grant women equal rights in the church, but they may have given women two tools to grab it in the next decades.

1) Lowering the age for women to serve will bring more women into the mission field. This was intentional, as the number of guys serving is falling. The church needs to fill its shrinking missionary ranks, so do like Uncle Sam and put Rosie the missionary in his place. I'll wager that they lower it to 18 if they get more women going to replace the men who aren't going.

This will create a lot more female RMs, putting them on more even footing with the men who have served missions. It also reduces the "Sister Missionary" stigma of only going if you can't get married, since no one expects 19 yo to be married any more.

2) I think that sending young men out straight from HS, instead of giving them a year of college first, will reduce the number of RMs who graduate from college. It will be harder for them to get into college after 2 years of no schooling, and then harder for them to adjust to college with a 2 year lapse from HS. Since women already earn 57% of BAs, this puts another impediment for men to getting degrees, lowering their earning potential and making them more reliant on women to finance the family.

With more female RMs and a growing proportion of women graduating from college relative to men, the future leaders of the LDS Church are the women. Not the nice little housewives who cook, sew and change diapers, future LDS women will be the professionals fluent in a 2nd language who can talk in RS about "what I did on my mission" without people thinking she was just an old maid when she went.

I absolutely see your points

wow
I think I like it!!!

I think more women leaving their Mormon Corridor nests will have the opposite effect.

They'll be talking to people they never would have met by staying at YBU chasing their Mrs. Degrees, and a significant number of those people will say things to them like: "why are you choosing to sit in the back of the bus?"

As soon as they get a whiff of what life is like outside of their shuttered little Wasatch Mountain backwaters and see what women outside of Mormonism do for themseves, those formerly TBM women will start leaving that stupid cult in droves.

More may leave, but the ones that stay will have more clout and more chutzpah than previous Sisters. The LDS Church just cut into the men's ability to graduate from college, and gave more women RM credentials, accelerating the already advancing tide of feminism in the Moridor.

Wasn't there a recent thread about how the female RMs didn't get that some sort of adoration and hero-worship as their male counterparts? All the girls fell all over themselves to snag a guy who'd just returned from his mission, but the men are not nearly as interested in a woman who has had to take care of herself, think and solve problems for herself, for two years. She doesn't need him to help her with stuff. Therefore, (self) righteous TBM men aren't interested in non-doormat, independent, autonomous women. There's even been a social stigma against women who go on missions in the first place, i.e., they couldn't find a husband so they did the next best thing and went on missions.

The whole thing is nauseating to me, but bottom line, I really don't think moving the age down will make one whit of difference one way or the other.

That too!

I think the fall out will be broad(s)

:P



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2012 09:28AM by mindlight.

Hahaha

I'm pretty much with OP. It will create a whole new institutional dynamic between Mormon women and men.

I can't actually imagine a more faith-demoting experience than attending a non-church college; take critical thinking, anthropology with focus on native Americans... Perhaps they are just delaying the inevitable, scooping as many converts as they can before these kids leave themselves.

I would have considered it at age 18. Definitely not at 19. Of course, I'm female. Maybe boys are stronger :-)

While I agree with you on the empowerment of women in the church, I disagree with you about young men not attending college. Missions are full of studying. Many men don't decide they want to study at college until after serving a mission.

In 1970, 9% of Bachelor's degrees went to women. In 2001, it was 50%. In 2011, it was 57%. While feminism can explain men going from 91% to 50%, what explains falling to 43%?

There is not that much studying going on during a mission. You may learn a language. You memorize a few lessons and read the same books over and over again: the scriptures and the 5 books they allow you to read. If you are state-side, you really don't have to study much at all after you learn the lessons.

Take guys out of school for 2 years, with no college under their belts, and you will have a lot more RMs not going to school. They will have a harder time getting in with their HS references so far removed. With no college credits, they will be treated as new students and not transfers, so they will face stiffer competition. They will have a harder time studying with HS being a distant memory. Most college dropouts quit their first year because they cannot cope with college level work, and being 2 years from HS makes that even worse.

The statistics you are citing are for Americans in general - not Mormons. I'd venture to say that nowhere near 57 percent, or even 50 percent, of the college degrees obtained by Mormons are obtained by women.

I think what you'll see is this - males with no college prospects will be encouraged to serve at 18, while males with college prospects/schollies, etc. will be encouraged to go to school for a semester or a year, then serve. To me, this is about getting missionary service out of kids who don't have college prospects out of high school.

Just like Mormons used to brag about their low divorce rates, they eventually got to 50% like everyone else.

The number of men graduating from college is falling while the number of women is rising. In my own family, neither of my sisters married men with college degrees, and only one of my brothers graduated from college.

In which missions would that have been? My experience was nothing like studying, unless you equate studying with unquestioning servitude.

I think this will keep more women and men from getting their degrees. More poverty for young couples.

? How will women going younger increase the number of them graduating from college... While it decreases the number of men graduating?

Did I miss something?

The trend in colleges is exogenous to Mormons. The number of women graduating outpaced men in 2001 and is now at 57:43 in favor of women.

I am postulating that men going straight on missions with no college will hurt male RMs trying to get into college and trying to succeed once admitted two college. They will be new freshmen with no college background and 2 years removed from HS.

I think the female missionary age change will have no impact on female graduation rates outside the aforementioned national trend.

I don't really think sister missionaries are going to be any more respected by more juvenile elders, or more respected by the church when they return. LDS young women lead very sheltered lives as it is, the age change will mean fewer live outside the home before serving missions. I do believe there will be problems with younger sister missionaries exposed to sexual exploitation and violence in the mission field. With more young people sent out into the world with less experience to deal with being away from home, I think you are going to see a lot more poor decisions, depression, and problems. I do wish there was a way to provide a scholarship fund for 18 year olds that would like to start college but whose families are going to demand missionary service as soon as they graduate High School. I would imagine there is a large pool of very depressed high school senior boys out there now. I wish there was some way to throw them a life ring and let them avoid the whole forced conscription plot.

Changing the age of missionaries going on missions will not change how the young women are viewed or their place in the LDS Church as far as their ability to serve.

There will never be any equality in the LDS Church re: men and women serving in callings, except in some few cases. They recognize that women are the mothers and give that some lip service.


This long standing concept follows the traditional churches throughout the ages: men rule, women and children follow. It's ancient with only a few known differences when women rule and men and children follow. The patriarchal order is historically the order of things both in religion, government, politics, etc.

But, ultimately, they need women in many areas of the church,one is as teachers in their LDS schools and colleges/universities. Education is one area that probably has a little more balance in women and men.

Missions will always be the training ground for the young men in the LDS Church as part of their education to be productive future leaders. It is not necessary for women, in their view, to do the same thing, but they afford them the opportunity.

I come from a long line of Christian religious missionaries that served in Europe and in South America in the 20's to 50's. They were married serving predominately to promote education, build schools, etc.

As long as proselytizing is a recognized element of many Christian/Mormon churches, it will continue with it's various policies.

At one time, LDS missions could be served in other areas (work missions, music missions, etc ) -- non proselytizing as such.
It's possible that maybe a policy they want to adopt in the future.
I'll just wait and see.

Hopefully Monson restarted something like the feminism movement he was involved in battling against during the 70's with Sonia Johnson and the women's ERA

I just recently read her statement to the American Psychological Association she gave way back then and thought that it is still true and valid today with how women are treated as second class in Mormonism. She made some great statements about the conditioning of women to look to the men and be under their authority. It's sad how nothing much has changed for Mormon women since she made that statement over 30 years ago.

Even if the women can go at 19, why? Why the change from 21 to 19 and still different than for the boys who can go earlier? It just leads to more questions with the ultimate end resulting question being why is the Mormon church so Sexist?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2012 06:14PM by smithscars.

Here's a link to a thread Steve Benson did a few years ago about Sonia

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon415.htm

I won't live to see much of the outcome, but your projections make sense. Money is power, without exception. Mormon women are poised to out earn their husbands in the future. The labor jobs preferred by many men are paying wages that are lower than ever. Health care and paralegal service jobs are paying more and more.

I hope the women of the future treat their spouses better than the lot the ladies got in the past.