I was raised in the very feminist 1960s and 1970s. Joining the church as a teenager caused me to spend a great deal of time rethinking the meaning of womanhood. My mother was a very traditional woman, but had raised me to be a “feminist,” thinking it would better help me fit into the world she saw emerging. Now, I found myself encouraged to model my life after my mother’s instead. This was quite a leap for me, but over time, I came to value what the church taught me about womanhood and what my own mother had shown me by the way she lived her life.
I realized that thinking of the traditional woman’s role as less important than that of the man’s meant I was demeaning the importance of family, and of the children I would someday have. Over time, as I came to value taking care of my children, I came to see it as more important than any other task I could have. It gave me a way to make a difference in the world greater than any I could have had from a more traditional career, even greater than the difference I try to make now as a professional writer. It’s more personal and intense.
I soon learned that the church gave me the opportunities to develop the kinds of skills I might have developed in the outside world. I was always shy and quiet, but I was regularly given leadership opportunities, and while I had always considered myself a follower, I learned to lead. I learned to do this in a safer, more supportive environment than the world would have provided, if anyone had ever even thought to give a shy, quiet woman a position of authority. I received training as a teacher, which had been my chosen career from the start, and have taught almost consistently since I was seventeen years old and even trained others to be teachers.
I improved my public speaking skills as I taught and as I gave talks at church. When my children grew up and I returned to my writing career, I put this training to good use when I was invited to speak or give radio interviews. The skills I’ve learned at church have often been solid job skills I could put to use in a career should I have needed one.
But the most important training I received by learning to be a Latter-day Saint woman was to value my place in the home. Raising children was the most important thing I did. When I count what I loved most, it isn’t having a book published; it was teaching my children to read a book written by someone else. It wasn’t speaking at a conference; it was talking to my children about things that mattered to me. I remember best the picnics, the silly games, the hours of playing dolls, the thousands of stories read and told. I can’t think of anything else I could have done with my life that would have given me more satisfaction than this.
Long before I had children I understood the woman’s role to be important. My children are grown now, but I am still working to fulfill my role as a Latter-day Saint woman. The role might have changed, and includes some income-producing work now, but it is still as a woman that I do these things, still trying to put my home and family first. At church, I happily fill those assignments given to the women, some of which are open only to women. The calling (volunteer church job) I currently have is one I love, and a man can’t be called to do it. If I weren’t a woman, I would never have the opportunity to be the ward (congregation) literacy leader, because it’s a job done through the women’s organization, the Relief Society.
In a talk given at Brigham Young University, M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said,
“Elder James E. Talmage (1862–1933) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stated that “the world’s greatest champion of woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ” (Jesus the Christ, 3rd ed. [1916], 475). I believe that. The first time the Lord acknowledged Himself to be the Christ, it was to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He taught her about living water and proclaimed, simply, “I … am he” (John 4:26). And it was Martha to whom He proclaimed: “I am the resurrection, and the life. … And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26).
Then, during His greatest agony as He hung on the cross, the Savior reached out to one person—His mother—when in that terrible but glorious moment He asked John the Beloved to care for her as though she were his own (see John 19:26–27).
Of this you may be certain: The Lord especially loves righteous women—women who are not only faithful but filled with faith, women who are optimistic and cheerful because they know who they are and where they are going, women who are striving to live and serve as women of God.
There are those who suggest that males are favored of the Lord because they are ordained to hold the priesthood. Anyone who believes this does not understand the great plan of happiness. The premortal and mortal natures of men and women were specified by God Himself, and it is simply not within His character to diminish the roles and responsibilities of any of His children.
As President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained, “The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift and blessing that can be obtained by his sons” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1970, 59; or “Magnifying Our Callings in the Priesthood,” Improvement Era, June 1970, 66). All of us, men and women alike, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and are entitled to personal revelation. We may all take upon us the Lord’s name, become sons and daughters of Christ, partake of the ordinances of the temple from which we emerge endowed with power, receive the fulness of the gospel, and achieve exaltation in the celestial kingdom. These spiritual blessings are available to men and women alike, according to their faithfulness and their effort to receive them.”– M. Russell Ballard, “Women of Righteousness,” Ensign, Apr 2002, 66–73
The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.
