BUT WHERE WERE ALL THE WOMEN? WE'RE STILL HERE

2018 has probably been my angriest year. 

Angry about the uncertainty and instability of the future. 
Angry about my own loneliness and feelings of abandonment. 
Angry about injustice, sexism, and inequality. 
Angry about dating and student loan debt. 

But mostly: angry at God. 

Angry at what I thought I'd been promised and didn't receive.
Angry about the last year I spent in grad school with no clear or discernible career path ahead.
Angry about His lack of communication, direction, or guidance.
Angry for feeling like He didn't care about me. 

I realize that this is all pretty personal, but more and more, I care less and less about what other people think, and in sharing my own story, I hope to help facilitate a more pervasive attitude of vulnerability and honesty, where other people feel safer and more inclined to share their own questions, doubts, and stories. 

I've always had my own favorite reasons to be upset/confused/annoyed at church policies and standards or to point out how the family-centric doctrine sometimes overlooks those of us who are single and how the hierarchy of authority tends to overlook those of us who are women. 

But after General Conference a couple months ago: I was on one. 
I was really angry at Him. 

Why was our prophet telling us women that we were important and that we mattered, but then gave only one woman the opportunity to speak?

Why were half of the speakers in the women's session male?

Why were men standing up at the pulpit and telling us how to be good women rather than having actual women share those words? 

And then more irksome quandaries rose to the surface:
How could this be God's church when I feel so minimized by it? 
When I'm given the impression that my voice matters less because I'm a woman? 
When I am expected to defer to men to speak for me, either my male church leaders or my (non-existent) husband who is to serve as an intermediary between me and God in leading our family? 

I sent what I wrote in my previous blog post to the First Presidency. I talked to my siblings about women in the church ad nauseam. I consulted with friends and coworkers, and I asked recent converts what had brought them to the church and why they chose to stay. I found solace in the women who approached me and agreed that they, too, struggled with understanding their roles in a church that constantly tells them how necessary and needed they are, but then seems to subjugate them with its patriarchal structure of organization and leadership. 

In all of this searching, I've had to accept that the church as an institution is imperfect and always will be. I am also of the opinion that this church is not the only avenue to truth, and aligning oneself with its teachings does not negate or impugn the veracity of others' religious beliefs. 

BUT:
After all of my bellyaching, perseverating on these unanswered questions and troubling concerns, continually vacillating between obstinacy and sullenness, I've been reminded that it is always my choice to stay. 

Then this weekend, after a *particularly* difficult temple experience, I once again found myself face-to-face with this decision: am I going to be in or out?
I needed to stop hemming and hawing, but just make a choice and (re)commit to it. 

I've considered leaving many, many, many times over the years. 
And yet, I don't. 

No, I don't think it's because I've been brainwashed. And no, I don't think it's because people expect me to stay and I feel a weird sense of obligation to them. 

I think I stay because...I don't want to leave. 

I have myriad qualms with what our current administration is doing in the government of our country, but that doesn't mean I'm going to leave America any time soon. 

So why should my religion be any different?

What better way to change an organization than from within? How else to draw awareness to latent sexism and tradition-laced inequality than by speaking out when I see it? How else to help women feel empowered, independent, and valuable than to listen to their stories, encourage them to lead, and to provide opportunities for their voices to be heard? How else to raise strong self-reliant daughters than to cultivate those attitudes and expectations in the home?

As much as I've been looking for grandiose new organizational structures to be implemented in a top-down model from Salt Lake City, I realized that, as cliche as it sounds, if I want to see change, I need to effect change--in my own sphere of influence. 

So yes, I can be bitter and annoyed that marriage and motherhood are so central to the female identity within the church when I cannot relate to either, OR I can look for ways to be an influence for good to the people in my own life and on the paths I tread. 

I can nurture and create without being a mother. 
I can be an example without holding the priesthood.
I can treat others with kindness without being a full-time missionary (and I don't want to be!). 

I can be a working professional, a cake decorator, a sewist, a harpist, and a feminist WHILE ALSO finding ways to be a good friend, a kind sister, a fun aunt, and a helpful member of my ward. 

Not being a mother, not being married, and not holding the priesthood in no way diminish my contributions, and maybe within the walls of the church isn't where I'm supposed to make the most difference. 

Maybe just being a good human in a garbage world is where the Lord needs me the most. 

And as much as all of these questions and doubts may continue to clamor at the back of my mind, what it comes down to is: do I trust God or don't I? 

So I will be bold. I will speak up. I will not be cowed or intimidated by men in positions of authority. And gender aside, I will not be afraid to make my voice heard.