{"id":14619,"date":"2014-03-10T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/is-the-mormon-church-expanding-the-role-of-women\/"},"modified":"2024-11-14T09:53:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T14:53:55","slug":"is-the-mormon-church-expanding-the-role-of-women","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/03\/10\/is-the-mormon-church-expanding-the-role-of-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Mormon Church expanding the role of women?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The number of women signing up for Mormon missions has nearly tripled<\/a> since October 2012, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lowered its age requirement for female missionaries from 21 to 19. That change brought Mormon women closer to age parity with Mormon men, who can now be missionaries at age 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mormons<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The change is one sign of the \u201csmall but significant steps\u201d that church leaders have recently taken to facilitate an expanding role for women<\/a> inside the church, according to a New York Times article<\/a> that followed up on an earlier extensive piece by the newspaper on Mormon women<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest in women\u2019s equality issues within Mormonism has grown both inside<\/a> and outside LDS<\/a> circles in recent years, and the Times articles come on the heels of a number of developments indicating that gender issues are receiving more attention among the all-male church leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mormon men and women have been much more supportive of traditional gender roles than other Americans, according to a <\/span>2011 Pew Research Center survey<\/a>. Nearly six-in-ten Mormons (58%) \u2013 including 56% of LDS women \u2013 say that marriage is more satisfying when the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and children. Only 30% of the U.S. general public shares this view.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last October, about <\/span>130 Mormon women demonstrated<\/a> outside of a large meeting of the church\u2019s all-male priesthood in Salt Lake City, demanding that LDS authorities allow them to be ordained. LDS leaders did not let the women into the meeting, but one LDS leader spoke of past \u201cmistakes\u201d by Mormon leaders and called for greater inclusiveness. A group called <\/span>Ordain Women<\/a> said it will <\/span>try again to attend this year\u2019s meeting<\/a> on April 5.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Times\u2019 article points out that while church leaders have made some efforts at change \u2013 for example, \u201cinviting a woman to say a prayer<\/a>\u00a0at the church\u2019s general conference, [and] revising the Sunday school curriculum so that females and males learn the same lessons\u201d \u2013 ordaining women as priests would be altering doctrine, and is therefore unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That may be fine with most Mormons, who show little support for fundamental changes in LDS gender roles, according to our survey. We found that 87% of all Mormons oppose allowing women to be ordained to the priesthood, with only 11% in favor of changing eligibility rules to include females. Among Mormon women, opposition is even higher than among men (84%), with 90% opposed to female priests and only 8% in favor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pew Research Center surveys show that Mormons are more supportive of traditional gender roles for women, and against allowing women to be priests, but the Church is taking some steps to expand women’s roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[212,214,187,170],"bylines":[930],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14619","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-gender-leadership","category-gender-roles","category-latter-day-saint-mormon","category-religious-leaders-institutions","bylines-david-masci","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":405,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/03\/10\/is-the-mormon-church-expanding-the-role-of-women\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Is the Mormon Church expanding the role of women?","description":"Surveys show most Mormons prefer traditional gender roles for women and oppose letting them be priests, but the Church has taken some steps to expand their role.","og_title":"Is the Mormon Church expanding the role of women?","og_description":"Pew Research Center surveys show that Mormons are more supportive of traditional gender roles for women, and against allowing women to be priests, but the Church is taking some steps to expand women's roles.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":{"category":170,"formats":467,"regions-countries":515,"research-teams":517},"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"592903baae3129fd4d571d6a45101541","termId":930}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14619"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192595,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/14619\/revisions\/192595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=14619"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=14619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}