Dangit! the thread was closed.

There doesn't seem to be any disagreement that the church abuses everybody. The question that still isn't resolved is who gets the worst of it, men or women?

My take on it is there are some general, all encompassing attitudes that come into play church wide. However, most of the really nasty abuse happens at the local level. Depending on what your SP and Bishop do will determine who gets abused more in any particular church unit.

Some bishops are total asshats.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 11:23AM by koriwhoremonger.

Men get it from above and from themselves. Women get it from their husbands, their "friends", neighbors, themselves and from above. I don't get why so many of them seem to be the hardliners. I think they have it the worst.

But, does it really make that much difference? I've known some men who use their mighty priesthood as an excuse to be jerks to their wives. But what percentage really do that? I know some women who use their husband's mighty priesthood as a club to beat said husband into submission. "As the priesthood holder in this home you need to do XXXXX!" The same thing can happen with women and church leaders. I knew of a woman in North Carolina who ran the local ward. Everybody was a afraid of her. She had a set of keys and wouldn't give them up. She was a bully, everybody found it easier to just let her have her way.

The point I'm trying to make is that the church is like a dogsled team. Unless you're the lead dog you will always have an asshole in front of you. Anybody who is in front of you can make your life miserable if you let them.

koriwhoremonger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But, does it really make that much difference?

Yes it does, because

> the church is like a dogsled team. Unless you're the lead dog
> you will always have an asshole in front of you.

And women will NEVER be the lead dog. This, in and of itself, is abusive.

I was going down the path of "so what?" but I'm thinking a little harder about it. It depends on where you draw the line on what constitutes a "lead dog" position. I was thinking only the top 15 qualify as lead dogs so the chance of the average male in the church getting there is so small that it doesn't really matter.

Then I started looking at each household in my ward boundaries. That guy was a bishop, that one was his counselor, that guy is employed by CES and is a stake president, that one was a stake president, that guy is the current bishop, that guy etc. These guys may not have had access to the money but there is some power and some automatic deference to their position whether current or past. Their wives? Nice women for the most part, but no hint of power or prestige that isn't just a reflection of the position their husbands held.

In a patriarchy,

Abused men have the hope of gaining enough power to change the abusive power.

Abused women know they will never have such power.

Exactly.

Even if both men and women are equally abused everywhere else, men clearly get rewarded more by being granted power. Being withheld from positions of power is one place where women are unquestionably abused way more than men.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 11:37AM by MJ.

I agree with this. Also, many social scientists believe that men abuse both women and other men, while women typically abuse women only. This may go back to the unequal access to power mentioned above by MJ.

That said, I do think that men get horribly pressured in the church, particularly single men. In the last stake I attended, priesthood leaders were very hard on single men, especially those who were gay and trying to come back to church. They flat-out told these men that not being married was a sin, and pressured them to date any TBM woman.

stbleaving Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree with this. Also, many social scientists
> believe that men abuse both women and other men,
> while women typically abuse women only. This may
> go back to the unequal access to power mentioned
> above by MJ.
>

If you look at the statistics for physical child abuse, the majority of abuse is done by women. I've also had many men tell me they were beaten by their mothers.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 10:12PM by robertb.

You're right, robertb. I thought about saying something about child abuse but that's another can of worms. Do women abuse children more often than men because (in general) they spend more time with children, or do you think women are more likely to be reported?

I think because they spend more time with the kids. I also think there is a human propensity, unfortunately, for us to pick on those weaker than us when we are abused. Men and women also have different ways of abusing each other. Women use shame as a weapon; men use their fists.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 10:44PM by robertb.

Mormonism = Patriarchy

Patriarchy = subjugation of girls and women beneath boys and men.
Patriarchy = female subordination.
Patriarchy = male access to power and authority; no female access to power and authority.

The sort of sexual discrimination mormonism subscribes to and practices is essentially *illegal* in the 'real world' (Western, industrialized countries) because of the damage it does to girls and women.

Boys and men are certainly harmed within a patriarchal system as well but to no where near to the extent that girls and women are harmed.

To not understand this is to not understand sexual discrimination.

There is no doubt that women are second class citizens in "God's Kingdom". Wait, let me change that. Women are 4th class citizens. The average male in the church is a 3rd class citizen.

The church feeds its members manure. Women, in general, get a slightly larger serving, but we're all still eating shit. Some men are given ketchup in the form of a lofty calling like Elder's Quorum President but they're still eating shit. What does the RSP get as a condiment?

Young men who have been under the thumb of a truly tyrannical Mission President might disagree that girls and women are treated worse than boys and men. But, once they pass through that hazing ritual things can change. I don't know that things ever really change for women.

I think the worst of the damage for women is that the patriarchy extends beyond the church structure. Here in Utah any woman who works outside the home is automatically suspect. How will the discrepancies in wages and hiring ever get addressed under this kind of BS?

I would have to say Men.
Women just have to suffer in child birth.
Men have to obey or go to hell.

Rather than argue which is worse here's a list of how I perceive each sex being abused:

Women:
1) Secondary in the church and in the home.

The temple still has a woman promise to obey her husband as he obeys the Lord, while the husband simply obeys the Lord.

There is no promise for the woman to obey the Lord, just her husband. At least the added the caveat about "as he obeys the Lord" in 1990.

2) Lower station in the church. There really is no question the LDS church is still a white man's club - both white & man being important. Women never truly have a say. Men are always above the women. At every level in the church.

3) Men often use priesthood blessings to bend women to do their wills. These priesthood blessings are supposedly coming from God, but often just express the man's viewpoint. So if the woman disagrees with a priesthood blessing she is disagreeing with God, not just her husband.

4) Demeaning/scripted role. Women are to marry young, pop out kids, be a stay at home mom, and be happy about it. They are also supposed to want lots and lots of kids.

5) Women are I believe especially screwed up sexually. The young women's program is replete with messages about avoiding sex. Furthermore when a woman marries she is under a lot of pressure to provide all the sex a husband wants lest she be a contributor of his participating in the vile sin of masturbation, or even worse porn.

6) Women get many messages, from many places, that they are inferior to men. Some are subtle, some are direct, but they are found throughout Mormon doctrine, policies, and culture. Things like little mention in the scriptures, covering faces with a veil in the temple, man knows womans new name but not vice versa, wording in the proclamation, and on and on and on.

7) Women still get the shaft with polygamy. Even with not practicing it now they have to deal with the significant discomfort that it will be practiced in the next life. Additionally men can remarry after a divorce willy nilly, but a woman needs special permission from the first presidency to remarry in the temple.

8) Women are often left to do an inordinate amount of work raising the kids and caring for the home. This often occurs even if both work. In general men have more time consuming callings in the church - so the guy goes and hands out in church meetings while the wife is left to do all the work.

----------------

Men

1) The pressure to be "worthy" to exercise the priesthood. This is especially apparent as teenagers do things like masturbate and are not allowed to take the sacrament (or lie about it and feel like they are going to hell). The public shaming vs. lying and feeling guilty is more extreme with guys because it comes up all the time with priesthood stuff.

2) They are more likely to be roped into callings that take an extreme amount of time. Scoutmaster, executive secretary & bishop are examples (granted relief society president can get pretty extreme as well.)

3) The Mormon church gives wives a lot of ammo for them to be down on their husbands and nag them. The culture engenders wives constantly being down on and nagging their husbands for not being peter priesthood enough. The joke that a husband is considered just another kid is very prevalent on Mormon culture - and it's more of a truism than a joke.

4) The young women program indoctrinates a fairly significant amount of man-hating, especially in the area of sexuality. Men, even husbands, are set up as the villain for wanting sex.

5) In some ways the women are given the power in the home (in some relationships not all). The man is out of the house for work & church while the woman is home and rules the roost. When the man is there he is secondary because the wife runs the show.

I like this discussion and feel like women have been and are the most abused.

That said, as I was leaving Mormonism, I would often wish I were a woman in the church. I never wanted callings like EQP, Bishopric, Stake Presidency, etc., but with ward sizes and activity rates, a man is almost guaranteed to have such callings multiple times throughout their life. Holding the priesthood didn't seem like a priviledge or that it gave me any special powers, but instead this part of the Oath and Covenant resonated with me: "whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come".

I now realize, that as a man I had a lot of opportunities like a good education and career that are encouraged by the culture that almost all the women I grew up with completely missed out on.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is where we are:

We've determined that the church is a patriarchy. Patriarchy is abusive to women therefore, the church by it's very nature is abusive to women. -thanks MJ and spaghetti-oh.

As BC, Chris and Exon46 have pointed out, the church is not an equal opportunity abuser. Women and Men are considered different in eternally significant ways. This allows the church to abuse each sex in unique ways. By default women are abused just for being born women, but is their treatment automatically worse just because they will never have the chance to heap abuse like some of the men get to?

Here is the question I asked myself:

If I had the choice between being a woman TBM and man TBM which would I prefer?

Chris hints that he'd choose to be a woman just to avoid the higher callings. I don't know that I'd make the same choice. As much as I detested being the EQP I knew it was temporary.

Long range questions:

Eternal polygamy?

Eternally pregnant with spirit babies?

Eternally yolked to a TBM man-god?


Short term concerns:

Always answering to men.

Being outranked by by 12 year old son.

No priesthood ever.

Attending RS every week....

No, I think I'd choose to be a man. I guess that kind of puts me in the "Women have it worse" camp.

Don't forget, women can't even get into heaven without a man, but if a man never marries? He's fine. Still got the keys to the kingdom.

The doctrine is that both sexes must be married to get into the top level of the celestial kingdom - according to BY it requires polygamy.

For the lower levels neither sex needs to be married.

Women need a man to get to heaven, but a man who never marries still goes, and he's given "wives" in the afterlife, so he still gets rewarded in the end.

Women are not able to pray in GC, and I've seen some Babycenter posters mention that when a woman speaks in GC, they take a break from watching because they would rather listen to a man. The organizer of the pants day for Mormon women received death threats, which doesn't usually happen for men. Women's garments are designed by men, with no input from the people who actually wear them.

This is an excellent point on garments. I have seen several women online talk about how devastating garments are for their psyche and body image - much less of an issue for men, at least from what I've seen.

I disagree that there is a difference between men & women in the CK. Both can be sealed by proxy after death and both are required to be married to be in the top CK level. For example my TBM wife fully anticipates that she'll get her a new husband that is worthy of the CK in the next life.

It's somewhat of a misconception that women's callings are less time-consuming or easier than men's callings. RS Pres (and sometimes being an RS counselor) is easily a 30-40 hour per week calling. You get midnight phone calls all the time, make hospital visits at least weekly, give numerous welfare interviews, conduct endless teacher training, follow up on everybody's visiting teaching, go to at least two or three leadership meetings every week, provide last minute childcare, help women find childcare, cook and bake for ward members or mishies several times a week, help people clean, help people move, deliver food orders...basically, you have tons of responsbility but very little authority.

YW and Primary pres and counselors are similar, minus the midnight phone calls, welfare interviews, and the heavy-duty cooking/baking (at least in my experience).

Why I put up with this s&*$@ for as long as I did is a mystery.

Also, when a man is a bishop or stake president, he gets more work, but he also gets more glory. The wives of these men get a bit of "bishop's wife" associated-glory but get a ton more work as they are left to raise the kids and take care of the house without the help of their husbands.

Both men and women get shafted by TheBrethren. Rank-and-file men do not get the perqs, but if they make enough money, they might just be able to get on the right side of the tracks. It's not even a possibility for a woman. TheBrethren like to blame women for most everything. I've seen a lot of stories of women whose husbands have had affairs being blamed by the bishop because the wife had to be doing something to make the priesthood holder stray. Women's immodesty is blamed for men's sexual misdeeds. Women wearing tank tops=sluts. Men with NO shirts running up and down the basketball court at the church gym="skins," as in shirts vs. skins. One sexual experience and a woman is a licked cupcake or chewed gum who has lost her value. One sexual experience and the dude is a stud who was tempted by that slut wearing an immodest outfit. He repents and is good as new. Guys get most of the masturbation BS, but that's only because TheBrethren aren't clued-in that girls and women do it, too. The list goes on-and-on.

Look to early church leaders for the real view of women's value in the church. Hebs thought no more of taking another wife than he did of buying another cow. Brigham told the women to accept their polygamous-wife lot-in-life or leave. He would have no problem replacing them.

Sure, only a small number of men can get to the top of Mormon mountain, but it is a possibility. The role of women is narrow--wife and mother. Men can be anything they want. YM and YW curricula and activities show that TheBrethren still see women in that limited capacity.

Men get treated badly, but it's telling that a 12-year old boy with the priesthood has more power than any woman in the church.

"For those of you keeping score at home, this is where we are:

We've determined that the church is a patriarchy. Patriarchy is abusive to women therefore, the church by it's very nature is abusive to women. -thanks MJ and spaghetti-oh."


You're welcome!

And as a free gift to celebrate your feminist Eureka moment, I will send you one of my bras to burn! ;-)

I think men are more abused because they are over worked in the church to the point of exhaustion. For instance, Bishopric members spend upwards to 20-30 hours per week in church (i.e.like a 2nd job). Young Men presidencies are the worst - endless meetings, overnight camping with boys who don't want to be in scouts, etc. Then they have all the shiz from the elites, who constantly criticize. If you take out the 2nd class status of women out of equation, it's the men who have more social/emotional pressure.

The counter argument is that the women have lots of babies and are overworked at home - the church takes the men away from what should be a tag team effort and leaves the primary burden on the men.

Furthermore, the men get praise and adoration for their big shot callings while the women have the thankless job. I've seen how priesthood work goes at church on Sundays. It's typically a lot of joking around at a relaxed pace while the woman is dealing with stressful screaming kids on her own.

The church hands out equal abuse, but in different forms...

For woman - the church teaches that they are not eligible for the priesthood, and therefore are spiritually subordinate to their 8 year old sons who have just been ordained a Deacon. The church teaches both men and woman (without really coming out and saying it directly) that the only place for a woman is in the home...it's the spiritual version of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcNGYRKBfHA

Further, the church extinguishes all sense of ambition in all but the strongest-minded women. I have met truly brilliant and talented women in LDS, Inc. Woman who really could change the world as teachers, musicians, lawyers, doctors, you name it - instead, they end up abandoning their career ambitions early in favor of having a litter of little morgbots. The world is a little less wealthy without their knowledge and talents in the workforce.

Men - While I don't think most active TBM men would ever admit it, the church is just one big panic attack. Not only does THEIR well-being depend on their obedience to the church's teachings, but the well-being of their family depends on their worthiness as well. For most of a young man's life, it's all about gearing up for a mission - it's never really a matter up for much negotiation. If you don't go, you and your family WON'T get blessings and you MAY even suffer the consequences for your lack of obedience.

After the mission is when I believe the real abuse starts. Since the wife is at home tending to a small army, the financial burden of a larger family rests squarely on the man's shoulders - and while most TBM men I know are extremely hard working, very few make a salary that can really support a larger family. Add in the tithing requirement (have to get those blessings, afterall!) and the added burden of church callings (especially sacrificing your one day off to go scrub the skid marks out of Jesus' bogs) and it's a wonder that more TBM men aren't dropping dead of heart attacks.

I would say that women are more oppressed in LDS, Inc., but men definitely get their fair share of abuse dished out.

There may be equal abuse; however, the for men there are greater rewards for their abuse. God status for men is by far superior.

I think it depends on the person... When my husband was TBM and married to his abusive ex, she used to lord the whole Priesthood thing over his head and would tell him she didn't have to listen to him if he wasn't "worthy". When she determined he wasn't falling into line fast enough, she declared that he wasn't "worthy" to baptize his daughter... She was pissed that the bishop didn't come down hard enough on him for what she called his "porn addiction"... which I have yet to notice in over ten years of marriage.

I think the church is probably worse for women on the whole because most women are not like my husband's ex wife (thank GOD!). But if you happen to be married to someone who is narcissistic and abusive and you're a guy, the whole priesthood thing can be used as a bludgeon to make you feel less worthy. It can work the other way if you really care and your wife happens to be crazy.

and most have concluded women are more abused.

I'd rather be a woman in the lds church than a man--any day.

But I did realize just a few days ago that the reason I was so fearful of men up until I was in my 20s (and was working with over 20 of them)--is because of mormon leadership. I never really connected the dots until recently.

BUT mormon women can be real bitches and control their men--and this business about porn . . . oh, and then there is the push to go on missions. The girls were discouraged from doing so when I was in my 20s. Going on a mission would have been one of my worst nightmares.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 11:18PM by cl2.