"In the World but not of the World"

 I want to begin by stating that the world has come a long way in regards to male and female equality. In a bourgeois modern society academia was not a women's place, women were not permitted to study at university and in particular regard to art (my area of study) women's art was consider lesser than men's. Such an idea is due to the fact that creativity, genius and the art academy's were strictly male territory.
Today this case is not so prevalent.  I am a women studying at university and in many cases I am part of a female majority of my classes. We have female politicians, female academics, female ceos, women are definitely becoming more involved in society and the work place, etc.

However in this case I want to highlight a theory I have spent the last month studied. Such a theory begins by illustrating feminism. Many think of such a word as women being angry and aggressive and wanting to have power over men. This is not the case. Griselda Pollock a scholar and advocate for feminism states that feminism is about women telling their story. Rather then stepping into what, in the past has permitted as the "other," women need to step out and forward, with a voice to their own experience. Pollock states that the ideas and treatment of women in any context goes much deeper than simply art, or economics, politics, business, religion etc. Such exclusion and differencing is a deeper hegemonic issue and if we are to change things we have to dig beneath the surface and change the fundamentals of social ideology.

My point is that as a church organization our treatment of women is not simply gospel religion based. Women are treated as inferior all throughout the world. In the church I hear it said that women are nurturers, mothers, carers and their purpose is to bear children, among other things. Although I do not wish to make this role an inferior one,  I wish to point out that for me such a role is not the only one. It is a risky business stating such things, in particular regard to the fact that some women don't have that ability, some can't have children. If our primary purpose is to bear children then what about the women that can't?

Being in the world but not of the world, a statement I've heard repeatedly over time, in this case is contradicted. We are in a world were women are not equal to men. A talk by Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook, clearly states that women are treated differently in the work place, in some cases they are paid less and in fact women "systematically underestimate their own abilities." Yes, by all means, lets be in the world but not of the world. However if this is the case then we need a fundamental shift from the world ideologies of women. We have to step back from the simple worldly hegemonic ideologies of women.

I wish to conclude with a comment on a talk given by David A. Bednar last year in a conference directed at the south pacific, which was a question and answer forum, mainly pointed at married couples. He began by talking about (not obviously) the ordained women's movement and stated: do women need the priesthood to enter the temple or to go to the celestial kingdom. No!  Thus his point was that women don't need the priesthood but men do. Ok, great it kind of makes sense, but if we don't need the priesthood then why can't we fulfill the roles that are male dominated? Why within the church do women only hold two significant callings, Primary and Relief Society? Some might answer, its because we don't have the priesthood, if thats the case then Bednar is contradicted, because women don't need the priesthood. People also state that women have access to the priesthood through marriage, I'm not married and there is no proof I ever will be.

I want to advocate for women to "lean in" as Sandberg states, we need to be allowed to "sit at the table" and to be working with men rather than beside or beneath them.