Women of God: A Manifesto

{My beautiful colored glasses now decorate the windowsill just above my kitchen sink....}

Earlier this week, I was exposed to two different online sources that both reminded me just how supremely confused the world's view of gender in general, and women in particular, is.

The first source was a brief article discussing a certain celebrity couple's choice to hide their child's gender for the first several years of his life, in the hopes that this (and other methods) would help him to feel comfortable pursuing the gender roles of his choosing. From an intellectual, purely academic standpoint, I can understand why they did this. I don't think there's any reason a little boy can't play with dolls and a little girl can't play with trucks; still, I think that you can teach your child to embrace all kinds of roles and tastes without completely eliminating gender as an integral part of who they are. As I read the article, this paragraph from The Family: A Proclamation to the World kept running through my head:

"ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

The second source was a compelling and thought-provoking video discussing the portrayal of women in the media, focusing on how negative and demeaning common images and ideas of women are. The video had a dizzying and disturbing collection of ads, television clips, and statements from public figures that all painted a deeply disheartening picture of our world's opinions about women. These opinions included the message that the only important thing about a woman is her body, that all a woman has to offer is sex appeal, that women have no value if they do not meet certain standards of beauty, that a woman who uses her mind is unnatural and even laughable.

I finished the video feeling unsettled and worried about both the difficulty of keeping a proper perspective in my own life while bombarded with such negativity, and also about the difficulty of raising children in such a society. But I wasn't hopeless.

Because the thought that had kept coming into my mind as I watched the video was this: The Church is different. 

As the video presented example after example of how the world values a woman for her physical appearance, I thought of the great emphasis that is placed in the Church on the supreme value of a woman's spirit, mind, and heart. From a very young age, LDS girls are taught about the divine role of women, and encouraged to be strong and courageous as they grow into women themselves. 

As the video shared statistics about how few great female role models are available in the U.S., I thought about some of my favorite female role models, women I think of often and look to for support and advice—women like Sheri Dew, Julie Beck, and Patricia Holland, who are all prominent public figures, all strong personalities, all terrific examples of powerful leadership. I thought, also, about all of the women closer to home, who have touched my life and influenced me for such good—my mother, my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my friends, the women who have served in leadership callings in my various wards. Far from feeling like there is a lack of strong female role models in my life, I feel as though my life is overflowing with rich examples of wonderful women. Each of these women are, in their own way, beautiful—but none of them looks anything like the women you see splayed across the magazine covers or TV commercials, and none of that matters at all. The true beauty in these women is spiritual, a strength and purity that glorifies their countenances.

I am grateful to be in, and to have grown up in, a Church that supports, strengthens, praises, encourages, and honors women as divine daughters of God. I am grateful to have been able to learn from an early age the truths contained in a Gospel that pairs men and women as equal partners, perfect complements in God's holy plan for His children. I am grateful to be part of a culture that is full of strong and beautiful women who teach and encourage both men and women alike to reach higher, to grow, to serve the Lord and to discover their true potential. I am grateful to be a member of a Church organization that is run by men who speak with respect and reverence of the divine role of women.

It's a tough world out there—and it's only getting worse. I shudder to think of what my children will be exposed to in a decade or two. What perversions, what lies, what distortions will bombard them? I have no idea, and I'm not sure I even want to know.

But what I do know is this.

No matter how bad things get—no matter how bleak the situation may look—I, and my children, will be fine. Because we are given the supreme blessing of belonging to a Church whose doctrine is pure and perfect, and whose messages are a strong and steady contradiction to the chaotic words and ideas presented by the world. And we are also given the blessing of choice—the ability to choose which voices we will listen to.

And so, despite the barrage of disgusting and disheartening ideas that come my way, I know that I can feel a deep and profound sense of peace in my heart, in my life. It's true that the women of our world are often demeaned, put down, valued only for the things that don't matter and not for the things that do. 

But I am not a woman of the world.

I am a woman of God.

And that, in the end, is what matters.