The Mormon feminist...

The Mormon feminist argument...what does it come down to?

I have been reading some discussions from Mormon feminists about Ordaining women to the Priesthood and women being able to wear pants to church and other things like that...I'm no expert but these are my thoughts. I feel like I am a pretty Orthodox member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints yet I have trained my mind to be open and subjective through my studies in anthropology. The root argument behind these things and others is for gender equality. I spent 3 months last summer in Ghana, West Africa studying gender roles and to these women who believe they are entitled to the priesthood, arguing that they want to exercise equal authority as worthy men, I say that without separate gender roles, our social structure would cease to exist (in the world, but also in the church). This issue is not about men and women being unequal, its about your role as a woman and his role as a man. We are separate but equal, and being separate, we must be willing to fulfill separate roles. Argue what you may but our role as women is beautiful and important yet ultimately so different from the role of a man, women are beautiful and strong and kind and nurturing and gentle, we can enjoy the blessings of the priesthood as men do but we must seek them out through worthy priesthood holders in our lives, having faith that we can receive. The Lord does not withhold blessings because we do not directly hold the priesthood authority. We receive the same promises that men receive when we are faithful, maybe I don't understand their argument clearly so I apologize for my ignorance in that regard, but I am a mouthpiece for the Lord just as men are and I am just as important to the Lord as they are, I can administer and teach just as they can. My faith is just as strong and I am just as important within the structure and the administration of the church. I know this because I know that the Lord keeps his promises. The Family: A Proclamation to the World clearly defines the roles of a man and woman saying:

 "The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

 The greatest gift of all is eternal life D &C 14:7 and if I endure to the end I will be exalted on High with my husband and I can enjoy the blessings of his priesthood now and when we become like our Father, creating our own worlds. When you get married you become one with your spouse and one with God, by extension you are enjoying the priesthood just as readily as your husband is, or even outside of a marriage you can enjoy the priesthood through brothers, friends, fathers, grandfathers, bishops, home teachers...it all has a purpose. Christ's church is perfect. The people might not be, but the doctrine is. It is founded on principles and teachings that came straight from the Father, principles that have been the same since the beginning of time, principles that have been restored to us in the latter day through a prophet, Joseph Smith... principles that are sent to help us to return to live with Him again. He has a divine plan. We may not understand that plan now and we certainly won't understand it in a few days or even years, but He does have a plan and that plan is perfect. He made man and woman separate for a reason and He gave them separate responsibilities so as to provide the necessary balance needed for harmony in His kingdom. 

I agree that women have been marginalized for ages, and in many places around the world, they still are, even here in the United States. As we have been steadily fighting for rights throughout history we have often gotten them. Yes there is a ways to go, but true feelings of equality come in your own beliefs, in your own views of the divinity of women and our role here on earth. Men and women act as equal partners, but that does not mean that they hold the same responsibilities, they cannot if there is to be a balance in all things. To me it comes down to the doctrine and the principles of the Gospel. I believe that Jesus Christ is the head of this church and that Thomas S. Monson, his counselors, and the 12 Apostles are His special witnesses and they speak to us through Him. If there came a time when He wanted women to hold the priesthood keys so they could exercise the same authority that worthy men could, don't you think He would tell us through our prophet? I believe in modern day revelation, and I believe in our prophet. And if I am to believe those things, I believe that change in fundamental doctrines of the church will not come from lobbying. They will come directly from the mouthpiece of the Lord. 

At the end of the day I believe that our mission is greater than our roles, we all must work together to preach the Gospel to all nations and peoples, but we can't let things such as taking offense to things people say, or to the restrictions one may feel they are constrained by, get in the way of that mission. We must be advocates for truth. We must act in a way that will allow others to know Jesus Christ through us, we must believe in His church and in His leaders, we must KNOW Him, I mean really know Him so that we can better understand the roles He would have us play on this earth in order to further His kingdom on the earth and in heaven. He loves us, every single one of us, regardless of race, religion or gender. Believe in Him. That is all you need to do. If you do I promise you will one day know the reasons for the special organization of His church and I promise that you will find peace in your testimony because He will not leave you comfortless.

Journal #20: Inquiry Conference

The Inquiry Conference was very informational and I enjoyed learning about the methods and procedures others have used who performed projects similar to my own. Daniel Hansen and Katie McDiarmond both introduced different aspects which had not been brought to my attention earlier and which will be very beneficial to my own research and the success of what I take from this cultural experience. The following are my notes and the things I learned and will take into account from their presentations:

New Paradigms of Westernized Medicine and Traditional Healing

Daniel Hansen: Modern vs. Traditional Medicine in Tonga

• Health care is influenced by the modernization/westernization of Tonga
• Government health care is free, they can seek health care there whenever they would like.
• Traditional healers in Tonga are usually women who have been trained by their mothers. 
• Their treatments and procedures have been passed down from generation to generation. 
• They believe that the power to heal is Divine and comes from God.
• As such, they do not accept payment for these treatments
• Methods (limited by time. language and cultural barriers make it difficult to get a representative sample)
• Observations 
• volunteer/shadow in Hospital
• observe healers 
• Semi-structured Interviews
• professionally trained doctors and nurses (~10)
• traditional, natural healers (~10)
• average community members (~25)
• Results: 
• in general, most people preferred western medicine (First) because the doctors "always knew the right thing: and "has qualifications" and "know about more than just one sickness"
• equipment
• they thought the healers were "simply guessing"
• A healer would be visited second to receive a supplementary treatment just to cover all their bases. (if anyone went to the healer first they would still go to the hospital second)
• doctors were rarely at the hospital from 12-6. They go in the morning and take the afternoon off and then return in the evening so traditional healers were the only thing available at that time. 
• Kahi could not be treated at the hospital, you must go to a traditional healer
• Mahaki Faka Tevolo cannot be treated by western medicine. It is a spiritual sickness contracted from offending their ancestors. 
• Implications: 
• the people like traditional healers because it was a tradition in Tonga and preserving that culture was important
• transportation and doctor availability 
• Education and Outreach programs 

Katie McDiarmond: The Patient-Practitioner Relationship in Rural Communities of Ashanti, Ghana

• Seventh Day Adventist Memorial Hospital
• Expectations, Communication, Education, and What they mean for Future Outreach
• the Relationship defined: dependent of interactions between patient and practitioner
• Information-Giving
• Information-Seeking (each parties value of the others information determines success)
• Social Conversation 
• Partnership Buillding (the most influential in the interactions--goal setting, allowing patient to participate in diagnosis and treatment, also patients compliance to practitioners treatment)
• Methods:
• Interview: semi-structured- patients were more comfortable in sharing stories which gave insight into their true feelings about things 
• Observation: observe and participate in treatments at the hospital in Asamang. observe patient visits and physicians rounds in the morning (saw malaria, diabetes, gangreen)
• participant observation: able to act as the practitioner and perform certain exercises as well as being admitted for malaria and pneumonia
• Findings:
• Expectations and Satisfaction
• influenced by:
• culture
• gender
• occupation
• age
• education etc...
• their perceptions of the world change what they will expect from these visits. 
• their unique backgrounds and experiences influence this a lot
• individual background influence what people will allow
• Barriers in Communication
• diction
• grammar
• syntax
• language
• thought
• vocabulary
• Ghanaians speak a different English which made communication so difficult
• being aware of comprehension and intent of communication is essential
• The Education Gap 
• mistrust and fear
• religious interference (don't accept medical care)
• discrepancies, misunderstandings, and socioeconomic differences (journalism is not regulated so stories get out into the media that scare people and traditional healers advertise remedies that have not been tested)
• patients who are uneducated may not understand what it is that the doctors are saying and the patients did not know the words to say that would describe their syndrome which scared them thus they were scared to go to the hospital
• many of the people interviewed had never been to a hospital
• Polychronic vs. Monochronic 
• P-Time 
• no appointments, people just came and went as they would
• relationship-oriented
• you just see whoever is there
• M-Time
• task oriented
• structured
• appointments
• because of her ethnicity, they saw her as an authority in all things Westernized. Doctors felt like there were things she could teach them. 
• Ghanaians exceeded here expectations: they are doing so much and are able to do a lot with what they have. treatment she received for malaria was just as good as anything she would have received here.

Journal #9: a stand still

Sometimes you just get caught in those ruts. this is one of them. the main reason is, I think, because of STATISTICS. Almost everyone at BYU has to take this class. Now, lets be honest, no matter how much it might be useful to a statistician, I can almost guarantee you I will not be using standard deviations and z-scores later on in life. Analyzing data and coming up with those statistics is, I imagine, much more basic than all these equations I am learning but will most likely forget because of lack of application after this class. I very well may be wrong about that and I know statistics is very useful and it is wonderful to expand my sphere of knowledge to more than just anthropology but it is a real pain. I have signed up for this class every semester since freshman year and every semester i have dropped it. My brain simply does not work with math, especially word problems and such. BUT, I was determined to prove myself wrong and do well on the first exam so I studied for 10 hours straight. literally. That is probably more hours than I have ever put into studying for an exam in one day (pre-finals) because I usually have to work on 10 other assignments and readings as well. When I walked out of that testing center and saw my score drum roll please.......86% I was so unbelievably happy!!! I would have felt even better had my older brother not just gotten a 99% on the test but his mind works different than mine. As a matter of fact, one thing I have noticed through all this gender study is that men and women naturally think very differently. Not just on the day to day but in my experience, men are more mathematically and scientifically minded while women are more english and humanities kind of thing (just a side note). Indeed that is a large generalization but I am supposed to be learning how to make observations and analyze them right? So why am I at a stand still...preparations for Ghana have indeed consumed my life for the past few years, even more so now that the departure date is looming ahead (still undecided mom but it will be between April 28 and May 2). But with all this focus on statistics and trying to get a good grade I realized something that could add an interesting element to the way I think about my study. So why did I study so hard and focus all my energy on statistics for the latter half of the weekend and all day yesterday? Why was I so determined to prove myself wrong and show that I could get a good grade on my statistics exam (86 was pretty awesome to me seeing as many people I've talked to just scraped by with a D+ or C-)? One motivating factor is surely the fact that good grades = scholarships, scholarships= more money to do fun things, buy good food, buy the occasional clothing item, pay utilities and rent without worry of overdrafting, etc...all the things that I take as a luxury in college because I did not realize how much it costs even just to live the day to day. I feel for my parents who had 7 kids to take care of and not just themselves.

        But anyways, the reason I was thinking about all this was because I thought about what factors influence the way men and women act and function in the day to day in Ghana that could affect these doctor-patient relationships that I will be observing throughout my study. Excuse the statistical term but there could be many lurking variables which will affect the outcome of my study and so I was getting worried about how I am actually going to account for everything and come out with a valid, useful study. THEN, as my thoughts turned from anticipation to panic and back to anticipation for the answers, granted this is no multiple choice test, I came to my conclusion. One of the things that I love so much about Anthropology (yes, I also love the store), is the free element of thought. There aren't really set rules that are right or wrong, there are theories yes, and everyone has their own opinion about what is "politically correct" (what does that term MEAN anyway, I am not sure that anyone really knows) or about which school of thought your ideas should be thrown towards but really, this field is open to new ideas. My ideas. There is no formula that has already been discovered which I can either do correctly or incorrectly and if I do it incorrectly I suffer the consequences of a lower grade. I am fully aware that I do not have all the answers nor will I ever. I know that I even tend to make statements that might seem ignorant or insensitive to some because I have not fully grasped the whole cross-cultural life abroad concept yet but can you blame me? I have never experienced anything outside of my comfortable California life outside of spending a few hours at an orphanage in Mexico with a youth group in high school. The point of all this is, gender aside, human beings and the individual human experiences we have, are all so different. Yes, there are certainly similarities but not one person is the same as another on this earth. Statistics may try to group people together in groups and analyze their behaviors with an observational study and yes, I will too. But I am not constrained to these constructs which keep my school of thought inside the box and inside the realm of what others have already come up with and decided is correct. I can come up with my own theories and my own ideas about human beings and the Ghanaian people and why it is the way it is. I of course know that there is some structure to follow and there is a certain line of thought that I should focus attention to but the bottom line is that I can focus on gender in whatever way I want. The thing that I find works for me in the field is going to be what I choose to focus on in my research and my project will be carried out however I see fit to be successful in the field. Nothing new in the sense of project development here...my mind was a little bit consumed by statistics the past few days, but these schools of thought which are developing in my mind are certainly something worth exploring as I continue to tweak and revise my project question.

Journal #8: "treatment"

As I think about my question lately I have been focusing on the word "treatment". At first it just meant the physical treatment that was administered to patients but upon discussing on Friday, the words came out of my mouth before I even realized it and I thought about the word on a different level. The treatments administered to patients are physical as well as emotional. The way doctors treat an individual according to their sex is the construct i am looking at and the whole time I have been developing this project for my senior thesis I have been thinking about the dire situation that so many people in this world experience. The lack of proper healthcare is more rampant than we know. Even in the United States. Politicians all claim to have the answers to this worldwide issue but when is the problem really going to be fixed? It seems like this extends to an even larger sphere in my mind because it is not only about people being able to get physical healthcare (i.e procedures, antibiotics, etc...) but it is about people being "treated" in both senses of the word as human beings, as equals among everyone. In my experience growing up, I have been taught to treat everyone with respect and love but I did not think about how differently I treat boys vs. girls, or even male professors vs. female professors. I don't know what the extent of my personal treatment toward different genders is but I know that it is there. I am going to make it a goal this week to pay attention to how I treat males vs. females in different situations to try to get a feel for this concept. Treatment in both ways, physical and emotional will affect this study so understanding my own concept of it is important.

Journal #6: History of healthcare in Ghana

                                                    
 A nation which has forgotten the quality of COURAGE, which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten. -JFK 

           I am not one to be huge on politics but I do believe that he speaks the truth... I feel like leaders today have lost sight of who founded this nation and what we stood for. Of course the founding fathers were not perfect and every human has their faults but it seems that we have lost a sense of courage in our politics. Our government is a huge part of who we are as a nation and has greatly affected the way our country functions and why we are the way we are. We talked more extensively about the history of Ghana today in class and how its government and politics have affected the country. Being a white American, growing up in the middle class suburbs, I have lived a life that seems to be 100% different from that of most Ghanaians. While I know that is not completely true, I do know that there are things I will need to understand and be aware of if I am to try to understand this culture and this people. The country they grew up in and call home is so different from mine. Upon discussing these things in class, I really started to ponder on how extensively each country is defined by their past and by the things which they have seen in their lives. Be it because of the government they have lived under (or lack of), or through the events that have greatly shaped the identity of their nation. Reflecting back, I realize how immense this impact has been on my own life and how much the history of my country has influenced who I am and what I believe in. My project will give me a particular understanding of healthcare and how it has been influenced by Ghanaian history. Thus, I did some research about the history of Ghana's healthcare systems since that will likely influence my project on a large scale:

      As is highlighted in the 2010 Half Yearly Report by Ghana Health Service, one of the main healthcare providers, a large concern within the healthcare system is gender. They want the assurance of equity in healthcare programs and Dr. Linda Vanatoo laid it out plainly when she said, "In all our activities in the region, gender issues were critically taken into consideration. During the year under review, staffs from the regional training unit of the regional health directorate undertook some training in gender mainstreaming. It is hoped that orientation would be given to key staff in the period ahead so that gender issues would be inculcated into health service planning and provision in the municipal." (pg.23) [i] Gender issues will no doubt be seen among doctor-patient interactions and thus i will be discovering the extent of it's influence among Ghanaian people further. I have chosen to do this through the lens of malaria. One reason being that malaria and HIV/AIDS both have a significant impact on the Ghanaian population thus, I have chosen to combine these two elements (gender and malaria) in the scope of my project. A large reason why I want to focus narrowly on those patients who have malaria is because of the large number of people who are infected or who have been infected with the disease...malaria is a huge threat to the population so researching within its scope can benefit medical discourse.

      Healthcare in Ghana is provided by the government and is mainly administered by the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Services. Within those there are 5 levels: health posts (first level primary care for rural areas), health centers and clinics, district hospitals, and last, regional hospitals and tertiary hospitals. 35% of the hospitals are run by religious groups and healthcare is varied throughout the country. Rural areas are often left without modern healthcare so these patients rely mostly on traditional African medicine or must travel long distances to obtain care. Historically, village priests (fetish priests--name for witch doctors in Ghana) were the primary care givers. Herbal remedies and spiritual healing encompassed the extent of treatment. Western medicine was introduced to Cape Coast by Christian missionaries in the 19th century and it wasn't until after World War II that outside organizations like WHO (World Health Organization) and the United Nations Children's Fund jumped into provide additional care. Unlike the yesteryears, Ghana has established the National Health Insurance Scheme which was put into place when John Kufour, former President, wanted to get rid of the cash and carry system where money would have to be paid at each step of treatment. This system came into play in 1992 with the return of democratic rule to the country but wasn't passed into law until 2003. The Ghanaian healthcare system is constantly improving and has much potential and success as it continues to (hopefully) meet the specific needs of its citizens. 
     Because of the scope of the Ghanaian healthcare system and the history of the country that has influenced it, I anticipate that I will be seeing effects of their culture and background in the clinics and hospitals, even among the witch doctors that I come into contact with. Governmental policies and instruments will play a large role in the functionality of these places and the attitude that is found within the walls. I have not had much experience with the American medical system because I have lived a relatively healthy life but I have experienced urgent care and quick doctors visits and such so it will be interesting to reflect back on my own visits upon observing the experiences people have within the Ghanaian healthcare system. Since my project focuses on the doctor-patient relationship and how the patients gender affects the way doctors administer treatment to those who have malaria, it will be important that I understand the cultural context and historical background that is a basis for why things are the way they are within that which I observe. 

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[i] Vanotoo, Dr Linda. "Half Year Review Report: Ghana Health Service." Your Health,OurConcern.Web.4Oct.2011..