Today marks both the founding of the Relief Society on March 17, 1842, and the launch 10 years ago of the Ordain Women website. Once again, we’d like to think our 19th-century foremothers would have appreciated our nod to their efforts and joined us in giving Ordain Women a congratulatory thumbs up. As Ordain Women enters its second decade, we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism.
Such notable anniversaries also give us a moment to pause and ask: Have we made a difference? What have we learned? What is our vision going forward?
Have We Made a Difference?
We think we have. Ordain Women celebrates several changes in church policy and discourse over the last 10 years that, while falling far short of ordaining women, indicate our leaders are responding—glacially, but responding nonetheless—to our efforts and the prayers and petitions of other LDS women for a more equitable church, including:
- Recognizing women as official witnesses for LDS church and temple rituals, such as baptisms and marriages
- Lowering the age requirement, lifting the no-pants policy and increasing leadership opportunities for female missionaries
- Giving women the opportunity to offer prayers in general conference
- Combining the Priesthood Session and the General Women’s Meeting into a session for all members, after some experimentation that included live streaming the Priesthood Session and elevating the General Women’s Meeting to a session of general conference
- A greater emphasis on gender-inclusive local councils
- Significant, more gender equitable changes to LDS temple rituals
- Efforts to separate priesthood from maleness by encouraging members not to use the term “the priesthood” when referring to men
- A greater emphasis on gender-inclusive language
- Ending discriminatory policies targeting female Seminary and Institute teachers
- Adding photos of members of the general Relief Society presidency to the photos of male general church leaders on the semi-annual leadership chart in the Ensign and on the walls of the LDS Conference Center
- Giving women employed by the LDS Church benefits packages that include paid maternity leave
- Changing the dress code for female employees of the church to allow women to wear dress slacks and pantsuits
Equitably distributing funds for both the Young Women’s and Young Men’s programs - Admitting that crucial questions about women and priesthood are being asked, with many church leaders openly acknowledging they don’t know why women are presently barred from priesthood ordination
- Parsing the terms priesthood power and authority in ways that attempt to be more inclusive of women, such as asserting, in the words of President Dallin Oaks, that both women and men are recognized as having “the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings”
What Have We Learned?
- A long-term movement must find a sustainable pace. During OW’s first few years, “we communicated daily. … It was exciting and exhausting and completely unsustainable. No one can volunteer full-time indefinitely for a cause while maintaining their full-time day job and personal life. Movements need to find a sustainable pace to stay alive when the initial adrenaline rush comes to an end.”
- A big ask makes incremental change more palatable. “In an organization so conservative that a rebranding of the home teaching program is seen as historic, even the smallest request for progressive change shocks the system. Asking for the real, global change we actually wanted put those baby steps into perspective. Since Ordain Women launched, the Church has changed several long-standing, seemingly permanent policies.”
- Diversity requires effort. “Without an intentional and sustained effort,” movements often remain homogenous, particularly among “white, middle class, multi-generation Mormons living in Mormon-dense areas of the Intermountain West. To build a more global movement, informed by more diverse perspectives, we [have] to reach out and adapt to accommodate diversity.”
- Public Advocacy is often the only way for women to communicate with the Church. Because Mormon women lack institutional authority and access to those leaders who have the ability to affect change in the Church, public advocacy is one of the few options open to those of us who actively seek ordination. Sadly, reactions in the form of institutional reprisals from Church leaders are impossible to predict or control. Some local leaders have been loving and supportive. Others have not.
- There is a lot of support for the Ordain Women movement, inside and outside of the Church. “But it’s harder to see within the walls of our own churches, where oppressive church discipline policies force many people to hide their opinions. … Sexism doesn’t only affect members of our church. People working to combat sexism in the wider community need the help of religious feminists because one of their greatest barriers is the sexism people learn to tolerate at their places of worship.”
- Recruitment isn’t necessary. Church leaders seem to believe that feminist ideals spread like a contagion from one woman to another and can be blotted out by silencing or casting out the original vector. … Instead, the need for equality is innate … We found that supporters of women’s ordination existed throughout the LDS Church. Any publicity at all, whether good or bad, led to influxes of new people supporting the cause, not because we persuaded them, but simply because they had found other people who believed what they already believed.
(Excerpted, in part, from an OW panel presentation/post by former executive board member April Young Bennett.)
Going Forward
As a movement, we believe Ordain Women’s organizational structure should reflect an activism that is both globally and locally innovative. It should also continue to inspire, not followers, but people with shared values to act upon common principles in a variety of ways.
We believe it wouldn’t be possible for a movement like ours to arise and resonate with so many, if they didn’t already share similar values and concerns. In this sense, Ordain Women never has recruited members, but brings together co-activists to work toward a common goal, namely, gender equality and the ordination of women.
As a board, what we propose going forward is the ability of co-activists throughout our community to access our resources and, within general guidelines, to propose and organize direct actions—large or small, local or global, individual or collective—under the Ordain Women banner. According to Ordain Women board chair Bryndis Roberts, “We believe this new structure will help propel us into being a truly worldwide movement and allow more space for local autonomy and creativity.“ OW-affiliated proposals should be legal, 501(c)(3) compliant and reflect the values we strive to embody—intersectional, thoughtful, authentic, focused, spiritually affirmative and motivationally self-reflective.
This year we’re also offering our supporters the opportunity to update their Ordain Women profiles. Times change. We change. After a decade of OW activism, we’d love to catch up with you. Your profile update, like new submissions, should capture your current thoughts on women’s ordination, but be concise—approximately 500 words. As before, we are not soliciting, nor do we support, diatribes against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ten years ago, in anticipation of the launch of our website, a handful of us called, emailed, begged and prodded friends and family members to consider going public on their hopes for the ordination of women. We decided we needed at least 20 profiles in order to go forward. We launched with 24. Since then, hundreds have submitted OW profiles and committed to public action, nearly 2,000 have signed the All Are Alike unto God petition calling on church leaders to “thoughtfully consider and earnestly pray” about the question of women’s ordination, and discussions of women and priesthood are increasingly commonplace. It’s clear the question of women’s ordination isn’t going away. Neither are we. Happy 10th Anniversary!