Here’s another installment in my series, Equality is not a Feeling–in which I am trying to illustrate, visually, numerous ways in which (in)equality in the Mormon church can be measured. This one is similar to the first one (Equality is not a Feeling 1.0), but I’ve used a different visual.
Here is the male-female breakdown of the top leaders of the Mormon church. For those who are familiar with the organizational structure of the Mormon church, the male leaders include the following:
- the First Presidency (n=3)
- the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (n=12)
- the Presidency of the Seventy (n=7)
- the 1st Quorum of the Seventy (n=62, currently)
- the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy (n=20, currently)
- the Presiding Bishopric (n=3)
- the Sunday School Presidency (n=3)
- the Young Men’s Presidency (n=3)
Total: n=113
The female leaders (who are referred to–along with the Sunday School Presidency and the Young Men’s Presidency–as “Auxiliaries” and who work under the direction of the men listed above) include:
- the Relief Society presidency (n=3)
- the Young Women’s presidency (n=3)
- the Primary General presidency (n=3)
Total: n=9
Here’s what that looks like visually–in two different chart types, because I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best:
[For more Equality is not a Feeling posts, see the archive here.]
;
To be fair, I think you should also include the general boards of the auxiliaries as well. They are generally seated on the stand at General conferences (even though the camera almost never pans over to that side of the stand)
Relief Society: 9 women: https://www.lds.org/callings/relief-society/leader-resources/relief-society-general-board?lang=eng#1
Young Women: 11 women: https://www.lds.org/callings/young-women/leader-resources/biographies/board-members?lang=eng
Primary: 9 women: https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/leader-resources/biographies/primary-general-board?lang=eng
Young Men: 5 Men: https://www.lds.org/callings/aaronic-priesthood/leader-resources/biographies/young-men-general-board?lang=eng#1
Sunday School: 4 men, 2 women: https://www.lds.org/callings/sunday-school/messages-from-leaders/sunday-school-general-board?lang=eng
Yes–I have some data on the boards!
So you are right that they are there, but we have no idea who they are. We never hear from them. We don’t know their names. So they’re not at all the same as the general authorities and the auxiliary presidencies, IMO.
And we don’t sustain them by name, nor do we hear their names read when they are called or released. When the Relief Society magazine existed, the names of the General RS Board members were listed there where every RS sister could see the names. With regional, stake and general training meetings, board members from many auxiliaries were much more likely to be known to members of those auxiliaries, but that’s rarely the case these days.
Auxiliary board members are invisible to the general population of the church, and even if they are seated on the stand occasionally, it is rare that they are visible on camera at all, much less visible AND identified as board members (and not wives of GAs or other anonymous people). This means that the only folks likely to see the board members and know who they are are the few thousand sitting in the conference center for the meeting.
Heather, I agree with not including the boards. They are invisible.
I like the points LRC makes about them not being sustained etc.
I like the circle graph with the women represented by the part outside the circle. We are auxiliary. Not not required. I think that graphic hints at that.
Great point, Sue. I agree. I really like this post and series, Heather. You would think it wouldn’t be necessary to actually point out all the ways women are treated unequally in the Church, but there’s lots of incentive for people to pretend it isn’t there, so I really appreciate you documenting it in straightforward ways.
The graphs are even more striking if you look at the cumulative years of experience (which might be a reasonable proxy for how influential on church culture these groups have been in aggregate). As far as I know, no woman can hold a life-time calling of any sort at any level in the church.
Not anymore. RS President used to be lifetime or until the woman asked to be released, but that got changed with correlation in the 70’s.