Questions

This quote by President Ezra Taft Benson made me feel diminished and then pigeon-holed. But by the last sentence I was made to feel superior to men, to balance out the previous pigeon-holing.

"You were not created to be the same as men. Your natural attributes, affections, and personalities are entirely different from these of a man. They consist of faithfulness, benevolence, kindness, and charity. They also balance the more aggressive and competitive nature of man. The business world is competitive and sometimes ruthless. We do not doubt that women have both the brain power and the skills to compete with men. But by competing they must of necessity, become aggressive and competitive. Thus their godly attributes are diminished and they acquire a quality of sameness with man. The conventional wisdom of the day would have you be equal with men. We say, we would not have you descend to that level."


I asked myself one question. And then the questions wouldn't stop coming.


But what am I meant for?

Does my sex determine my destiny? Does sex determine every individual's destiny? An individual's Purpose? Even an individual's personality? How is it that my personality can be pre-determined and recited to me, simply because my genetic code lacks the Y chromosome? How is it that the nature of my spirit is decided for me? How can they tell me what my spirit is like? How can they tell me what my personal divine attributes are, when they have never heard of me? Just because I "am" what they call a woman? Do they know what a woman is? Or do they only know what they think a woman should be? How can they tell us not to descend to the level of a man's characteristics, when those are divine in nature as well? Must we only strive to become half of perfection? Must we avoid development in certain areas, and cling to it in others? Are "masculine" divine attributes detrimental to a woman's divinity? Are only decidedly feminine characteristics beneficial for my personal progression? Why would two individuals sharing an attribute weaken them, or weaken the the union between them? Can not I, and my brother as individuals work toward being nurturing as well as powerful? Must people artificially divide themselves in half so that the sexes need each other more? Can we not all be complete people? Can a union between a man and a woman not function with well-rounded individuals? Must I base my marriage on the fact that I am incomplete? Wouldn't it be more powerful for two people to be whole and use their agency to choose to unite themselves, rather than to compensate for the attributes that they have neglected, or that have been socialized out of them? Why did I feel uneasy when my three-year-old nephew carried around a doll in public? Why are we told it's not natural for males to be nurturing? And why, in turn, do we make that characteristic unacceptable from infancy, deterring any natural nurturing instincts? Would a man be un-manly if his culture had allowed him to cultivate a "feminine" characteristic? What benefit to society is there in discouraging gentleness in males, when they are considered the ones responsible for the majority of crime? Would a woman be un-feminine if her culture had approved of her being an "aggressive" participant in society? What benefit to society is there in encouraging passiveness among women, who then so often let themselves be taken advantage of? How can we attribute our own silly, human, mormon, modern american culture to the way the universe actually works? How can we assume that the traditions and dysfunctionalities of our time and place have anything to do with how divine people function? How can we think that the way we've learned to be women, mothers, and wives reflects in the slightest what it means to be a Goddess? How can we believe that the way masculinity is taught and implemented here is in any way similar for Gods?


Foolishness.