What does it mean to be a millennial?

There's a problem with labels.  They make the world simpler, easier to parse and understand, but the problem is that all of the stereotypical associations with a label are rarely true for every application of it.

Take gender for instance.  It is absolutely correct to call me a woman, but what baggage does that term bring?  What extra information does it give you when I accept that label?  If you had to guess the length of my hair, it would likely be longer than if you were to guess the same for a man.  If you were to first meet me, what do you think you would assume my profession to be?  My hobbies?  My favorite movies?  Labels help us guess these things, and you might be right on several of them, but not on all of them.  These guesses also help us ask right questions so we can learn more about people and move beyond the labels.  If all you needed to know was my gender to know everything about me, it would be a tragically simple world.

I want to talk about the label applied to people of my generation: millennial.  There are some ways in which I am absolutely a millennial, and other ways in which I wish I could distance myself from the term as much as possible.

In particular, I identify strongly with the tech-savvy elements of the label.  My childhood was also associated with world events and media particular to my generation, both of which I feel neutral about.  What I wish to avoid is the label of being selfish and indulgent.  While everyone has their moments, this is not something I want to accept for myself.  This is to say, I may be more self-centered than those older than me, but I don't want to be and I'm anxious to work on it.  Also, maturity just comes with age.  It's hard to know what the final millennial legacy will be while we are still so young.

To work on changing the associations with this label, two things need to happen.  First and foremost, we just need to buck up and start thinking about others.  We need to ask: how can I be a better child, romantic partner, or employee?  How can I be a more polite stranger in stores, on the street, in my car, and online?  How can I contribute to the world?  And when we ask this final question, the emphasis should be on how the world can be improved, not on our role in improving it.  These are good ideas for anyone to think about, and many millennials are already asking these things, but it seems like the cultural expectations for us are lower than for previous generations, which brings me to my second point.

Older generations need to expect more from us.  Don't coddle me: I want to be told when I'm not up to snuff.  And while you don't need to be mean, I need you to be honest.  My feelings will inevitably be hurt, just because change is inherently painful, but it is worth the effort on both our parts.  I need to be told when to put away my electronics, when I need to work harder, and when I'm being rude.  I need to be told not because I'm sluffing the responsibility off on you, but because sometimes I just need to know my behavior is wrong in order to change it.

Also: keep your praise mild.  I'd rather feel like there's room for improvement than like I'm the best thing ever.  The humility that comes from feeling like you're never good enough is far better than the arrogance that comes from feeling like everything you do is golden.  Err on the side of being hard on me: excellence comes from being pushed.

To tie the two points together: we (millennials...and everyone, really) also need to learn how to accept criticism.  This means we need to value results more than how we feel about our work to produce them.  This and basically all issues of selfishness come down to priorities. We just need to move ourselves lower down in the list.

It doesn't matter if you're a millennial or not, these ideas apply to everyone, including myself.  Everyone, no matter how selfless they are, should consider how to improve.  We can improve how we give and receive advice.  We can improve how we treat others.  We can improve our priorities.  And maybe a few rare people should decide that they need to prioritize themselves more, but chances are that those people aren't reading this (spending their time, instead, on others).  My only hope is that our generation will have its fair share of those individuals.  There is still time to write our legacy.  Let's make it a generous one.

LDS Public Affairs

This past Sunday, I received and accepted a new calling: Secretary to the (horrible acronym warning) NYMMPAC, which stands for New York Metro Multistake Public Affairs Council.  It covers 3 Coordinating Councils, or 13 Stakes and 131 units.

Generally speaking, the idea of church public affairs makes me a little queasy.  In an ideal world, the good works of the church should speak for themselves and we should have no need to influence public opinion of us.  That said, I think the public affairs groups aren't there solely to bring about good press—the director emphasized to me that "public affairs" is really an unfortunate name, since there's much more to it than that.  But, prior to this, my perception of Public Affairs was the folks who force members to wear yellow Helping Hands vests and do photographed service activities.  Or, more recently, PA was represented by the token woman that introduced the Apostles for the press release on religious freedom.

So why did I accept the calling?  Part of it was certainly ego.  But another big part of why I accepted is that I was recommended for the position because of my strong opinions.  This means that they knew what they were getting, and I had license to be myself.  I also warned them that I have a blog.

I have a friend at church who is on the NYMMPAC, and she and I have had regular hallway discussions on church issues (in lieu of attending Sunday School).  She acknowledges that some aspects of Public Affairs and popular LDS culture need to be improved, and has been working to make things better.  The idealistic optimist in me says: now I can be a part of that effort!

While I do need to keep some things confidential, I hope to keep a record of some of my public affairs experiences, to improve transparency, define the role of public affairs a little more concretely, and to prevent me from drinking too much cultural kool-aid.

Update: Since writing this post, lots of people have told me about great PA experiences, like:

• Partnering with Feed Ohio
• LGBT outreach
• interfaith events, including a ongoing blood-drive that alternates between churches
• partnering with other local nonprofits through JustServe

Folks have also pointed out that PA is one of the few areas in the church hierarchy where women have impactful roles.  Now I'm feeling pumped.

on lady tech events

I recently had a colleague ask me about women in tech events, and I wanted to adapt my response into a blog post.

Women in tech events and long-term mentoring can be very fulfilling, especially when the audience is narrow enough. That said, I'm always hesitant about female tech mentoring because it seems like there is so very much of it, both soliciting mentors and mentees, so it's easy to commit to more than you actually want to do.

It's important that every individual takes a step back asks themselves: How much time do I want to dedicate to networking and mentorship? What kinds of interactions are most valuable to me? (What have I enjoyed about other events I attended?) Plan the big picture first, and then use that as a roadmap to make the smaller choices.

In the end, these are personal choices about you and your career. For me, going to WiML every year is enough. But other people might want more support or networking. Still others might not care at all about things like this—again, this is totally personal. It also varies depending on where you are in your career, because our needs and preferences evolve with time.

As a one-off, these kind of things won't make or break you, but it's the aggregate of multiple events over your career. If you're not certain about a particular event, it might be worth going, just to see how fulfilling these kinds of events are to you, so you can make informed choices going forward.

WiML 2014 workshop

Yesterday was the culmination of many months of planning for the annual Women in Machine Learning workshop.  I think it will easily be my favorite part of being up in Montreal for the duration of NIPS 2014.

We had an amazing program; our invited speakers were Carla Brodley, Tina Eliassi-Rad, Diane Hu, and Claudia Perlich with Finale Doshi-Velez giving our opening remarks.  Our student oral presentations were thought provoking, and the breadth of our poster session was immense.  Corporate sponsors sent great representatives, and the round table mentoring session enabled some amazing discussions.  I feel like I can through positive adjectives at basically any aspect of the event, from our volunteers to the food.

I loved working with my fellow organizers Marzyeh Ghassemi, Sarah Brown, and Jessica Thompson.  It was an amazing experience and I'm very glad to have had this opportunity.

Thanks to @kmkinnaird for her photography!

the danger of open mindedness

Being open minded is generally a good thing.  It is, in essence, being willing to accept new ideas.  Having an open mind allows us to learn about the world, to enjoy new experiences, and to connect with people outside our usual sphere.  All of these improve our lives or the world as a whole.

It can, however, be a cop-out.  Sometimes people fail to stand up for themselves and their beliefs in the name of open mindedness.   If we believe in morality, or in some kind of goodness (divine or otherwise), then we believe that there are lines to be drawn.

The extreme example that we often use in discussing morality is murder.  Just to push these extremes: if a group of people is killing others without justification beyond enjoyment, and someone has the ability to stop them without great cost, would it be okay for that person to shrug it off and say, I'm just trying to have an open mind?  I hope not.

So if we accept that open mindedness is dangerous in the extreme, what about the more nuanced occurrences in our daily lives?  If you suspect your friend is cheating on an exam, is accepting that behavior okay?  It seems like the right first step would be to confront your friend, find out the truth, and if thy are cheating then tell them that their behavior is unacceptable—taking action in this way is the exact opposite of open-mindedness.

In the religious world, this is often called righteousness, or adherence to a moral code.  If morality is important, then so is standing up for morality when others violate it.  This gets a little tricky, however, as certain aspects of morality are highly personal.

I believe that we should each have our own moral code—rules that govern our personal behavior—and that we should righteously adhere to it.  This doesn't mean that we need to proselytize our morality, but it does mean that when friends ask for advice, that we should actually give it to them according to our own morals, instead of saying what we think they want to hear.

It also means that we should kindly stand up against behavior that makes us feel uncomfortable.  In doing so, we have the opportunity to learn—if our morality can be improved, then this gives the other people involved a chance to respond.  In fact, open mindedness is essential to this paradigm: as we consult with friends, we improve our morality.  The crux of the problem is: when do we know that we are actually improving our morality, as opposed to degrading it?


2014/12/1 update  Vaguely related: a NYT opinions piece entitled The Trick to Being More Virtuous.

meaningful service

Within my church community, we frequently emphasize service as a good thing that we should seek perform for others.  As such, we often organize service activities, in which we come together as a community to perform larger scale service that we might not otherwise be able to do as individuals. While I think this is a great idea, I think that there's one major aspect that can often be improved.  More on that soon.

There are roughly four objectives in performing service:

• Help  This is the most important objective: to fill the needs of others.  Needs can range from the physical, like hunger, to social needs, like loneliness.
• Feed the Fire  Individuals need to feel compassion for others; part of the goal of service is to kindle that desire in individuals so that they will be better people in their daily lives.
• Community building  Whether individuals are working side by side in an activity or one person is helping another, service forges connections within a community.
• Be an example  Here, the goal is to inspire people outside our community, either by welcoming them to join us or reminding them to do good independently.

The last objective is difficult in many contexts because it often gets conflated with getting good press, which is not the goal.  If we want to take pictures for our own memories, that's fine, but taking picture for the explicit purpose of handing them to a reporter seems disingenuous.  When we're trying to be an example, we should always be inclusive, which is to say, we should never isolate the people we are talking to. We should try to make them feel like they were there with us so that next time maybe they will be.

What I really want to talk about is the first objective: actually helping people.  We have a responsibility to be effective in our choices of service.  We need to ask ourselves: what are real needs? and not what is easy to do in the hour we have on Wednesday night with the youth?  Certainly we aren't always ready to ask these questions—there are weeks when easy is all I can handle.  When we have extra time and energy, however, this is where we should put the effort.

What are common service projects?

• tie the ends of felt quilts
• local disaster relief (e.g. hurricane cleanup)
• writing letters to missionaries
• yard work / housecleaning for members
• visiting with seniors or disabled individuals
• baking things for people
• making sanitation or relief kits

Take an honest look at the list.  Which of these have you done?  What has been your mindset for each one?  What mindset has the activity encouraged?  The winners for impact are local disaster relief and visiting with seniors or disabled individuals; not coincidentally, they almost always are accompanied with a sincere charitable mindset.  Other tasks are more about the secondary objectives.  When writing generic one-time letters to missionaries that you don't really know, who is really benefiting?  What about tying the ends of piece of felt that's just as effective as a blanket without your effort? Often it's more about performing the service than the actual impact of the service itself.

What else can we do that's effective?

• We can  develop long lasting relationships with lonely or outlier individuals. These are not just one-time visits.  My brother used to go play chess with a retired man in our neighborhood; I don't think either of them even thought of it as service, but it brought effortless joy to both sides.  This could be a simple as going to watch a fun TV show with someone.
• Fundraising  I think we shrink away from fundraising too much; there are a lot of fun, creative ways to fundraise, especially if we reach outside the church community.  Dessert auctions, hunger banquets, craft bazaars, yard sales, by-donation dancing lessons—the possibilities are endless.  If the proceeds go to an effective charity, this seems like a great option.
• Tutoring or reading to underprivileged kids.  I was a reading buddy at an old workplace which was walking distance from an elementary school with lots of low-income ESL students. A group of us would go over and read to the kids and play word games like hangman.  It was fun, easy, and effective.  Some kids just aren't getting enough individual attention to learn as best they can, and you can help.

What's the take home message?  We need to think about the people we're trying to serve first: what are real needs that exist in the world?  Maybe we need to do more research, or maybe we just need to think outside of our usual sphere of influence.  Regardless, we need to stop worrying as much about the secondary objectives.  You should know that something is wrong when you have the idea for a service project and then ask: so who could we give this quilt to?  All of the objectives I've listed are good; it's just a question of good vs. better.  

In favor of "BigLaw"

Last Friday, my amazing little brother published an article in the Harvard Law Record entitled Want to Save the World? Do BigLaw! which has had mixed reception, including a rebuttal that was published in conjunction with it.

My brother has an intentionally inflammatory style for humor (see also: our childhood), but his point was this: if you can withstand the indulgent aspects of corporate culture, then you can do more good by making lots of money and donating it to effective charities than you can by donating your career to particular causes.

While I think that there always individual exceptions, I agree with his analysis.  The market has greater capacity for corporate lawyers than for public interest or government positions.  Additionally, the scope of influence for the latter two is usually limited to the nation in which the individual practices.  In the case of American public interest lawyers, the people benefiting from their services are usually American citizens or residents (legal or otherwise).

In all countries there are marginalized populations; these people deserve advocacy and legal protection.  However, if citizens of a nation wait until all of their fellow residents are happy and healthy before they look outside their own country to do good, then they will likely be waiting indefinitely.

The US is incredibly privileged.  We still have problems, but citizens of many, many other countries have it much, much worse off than even the poorest among us here.  We can choose to pay $3 for someone's lunch in America, or spend that same money on a Malaria net that saves a child's life [1].  It simply comes down to the most effective allotment of resources.  (And requires thinking globally instead of nationally.)

In the case of law, I think the numbers work out in favor of practicing corporate law and donating a percentage of your income.  Everyone must make their own choices, but I think if more people took this path, it wouldn't only be good for the recipients: lawyers practicing this lifestyle might begin to change corporate society, steering it away from consumerism and self-indulgence.


Press for his original article:
Above the Law: What Harvard Law Students Tell Themselves When The Demon Come

[1] Probabilistically, it actually takes more than that to save a life, since not everyone is guaranteed to get malaria; the AMF puts the figure at about $2,500/life.  In the US, that could be used for a fancy computer or a vacation.  It's also less than four month's net income for the average US food stamp recipient household.  The average food stamp recipient is gets $133.85/month, or less than $1.50/person/meal.  So the real comparison is helping to feed a family of four (in the US) for a little over a year vs. saving a life.  It's not so cut and dry, but I think the life still wins.

having it all

What is "having it all"?  This is typically understood to mean being a women with children and a happy family life while also having a successful career.

Not only does this phrasing focus the life-balance discussion on privileged women (ignoring those struggling with multiple jobs, etc.), it also isolates women as distinct from men.  There are sacrifices no matter who you are and what choices you make, but we don't talk about men having it all or not.  As far as I can tell, no man or woman is perfect at everything.

We want each individual or family to be able to choose to balance their life or lives as they see fit.  We want them to be able to choose their family structure, domestic responsibilities, social obligations, career paths, and hobbies.  Just like we budget money between housing, food, clothing, and any number of things, each individual budgets their time and efforts.

Having it all is a useless metric, not to mention that it's incredibly ambiguous.  No matter your choice, using this terminology can appear as a judgement to those who allocate their time and efforts differently, which is basically everyone else.

looking outward

There's been a lot of discussion in the wake of potential Mormon activist excommunications. There are those that defend Kate Kelly and John Dehlin, and there are those that defend the LDS church.  And then there are the few that abstain from defending, advocating both love and faith without judgement.  In my eagerness to have a well-crafted opinion on everything, sometimes I forget that it's not my place.  As my cousin pointed out, we can't possibly know the nuances of the situation.  We should not forget that this is a story about individuals, albeit in the context of various causes.  It makes me wonder if a variant of the Ring Theory of Kvetching needs to be applied here.

Complaint, judgement, discussion, and action all have their places, but it's hard to define their boundaries.  In the church context, they help us work toward things like gender equality and finding a place for alternative families.  But, I must remind myself: these are not the biggest issues in the world, nor in the church.  In some ways they're indulgent. They're centered around my feelings and experiences.  It's easy to see what's wrong and suggest changes: I'm proposing changes to my world to make life better for me and people like me.

We need to work on the things close to home in order to be more functional people.  If I'm struggling with mental health issues, I may not be able to focus on my family's needs.  If my family is having problems, I'm probably not going to prioritize my community.  If I don't have a strong support network, I may not be able to think about global issues. That's normal.  Certainly we must take time to heal and strengthen ourselves, our families, and our communities at each stage before we can look outward, but that should be our goal; we should try to move our thoughts and actions to be as far out on the ring of influence as possible.

I'm lucky enough to feel that there are people out there that need the time and attention much more than I do. That doesn't mean that the gender and social issues that impact me aren't important—they certainly are—but it does mean that I should probably spend proportionally less time and effort on them.  For instance, instead of talking about gender policies in the church, we could discuss how to make sure that all the children of the church are well-nourished.  Or we could move past the church to talk about how many people need to be dewormed.

It's harder to fuel discussion about these things because it's further from home.  What can I possibly say that's helpful?  Many people have the perspective that they can just give money as they feel motivated and then go back to talking about their own hot issues.  (Or they waste money on inefficient service projects to feel good.)  But what if we put as much time and effort into these issues as we have to ordaining women?  What is the church going to say?  No, we can't.  We need to build malls and support legislation on traditional marriage.  Probably not; I think they would actually listen, and it'd be really nice for the Relief Society to live up to its name more fully.

I'm blessed right now with a phase of life where I can look outward.  I don't expect everyone to be there, and I certainly won't be able to stay there continually, but I think everyone should want to be there.  I gave a talk at church recently that ended with the following idea.

Es fácil pasarse el tiempo trabajando en las cosas pequeñas, pero eso es como recoger granos de arena una a una para despejar el camino. Les recomiendo que en vez de eso, encuentren el obstáculo más grande [...] y deshágase de él.

Roughly translated: It's easy to spend our time working on the little things, but that's like picking up grains of sand one by one to clear the road. I recommend that instead, we find the biggest obstacle and dispose of it.  There, I was talking about becoming a better person, but it applies to activism as well.  This means thinking beyond ourselves, and thinking beyond the church.

So, what's the biggest obstacle on the road to a better world?

Excommunication of Mormon Activists

Two prominent Mormons are facing the possibility of excommunication.

I'm saddened, but not terribly surprised.  Kate Kelly, one of the members facing church discipline, is the founder of Ordain Women.  While I'd love to see women get ordained, either to the traditional patriarchal priesthood or to a separate matriarchal one, there's a huge problem with Ordain Women: it seeks female ordination regardless of God's will.

I'm happy advocating for the Prophet to seek answers on questions and for the Apostles to consider these issues, but at the end of the day, they lead the church.  No matter how I feel about the issue personally, I cannot receive revelation for the entire church. Promoting a substantial change unconditionally, like ordaining women, is not respecting the authority of the Prophet to speak for God.  We can suggest, discuss, and critique, but we must respect that authority, or else the entire premise of the church collapses.

The irony is that it's exactly this Priesthood authority that the Ordain Women movement seeks.  I think the request is reasonable, and worth, say, a church-wide fast.  It's a really important issue, and deserving of attention, but it cannot be demanded.  We need to have faith in our leaders, not just in the religious sense, but also in a human sense.  We need to hope that they're trying their best and want to guide us to the more perfect world we seek.

The biggest problem is that even the name of Ordain Women is a demand, or could be framed as such.  The start of their mission statement:

The fundamental tenets of Mormonism support gender equality: God is male and female, father and mother, and all of us can progress to be like them someday. Priesthood, we are taught, is essential to this process. Ordain Women believes women must be ordained in order for our faith to reflect the equity and expansiveness of these teachings.

Perhaps I am too docile, but I think a softer approach would be more impactful. I believe that the earthly ordination of women could be very good, but I do not believe it is the only way to work towards gender equality, nor do I believe that it is unquestionably God's will.

Having worked in the temple and performed priesthood ordinances (the only place where in our church women do), I can say that those experiences are certainly special.  I can say that we need more female leadership and that there are some cultural practices that should be changed.  But while I can say what I think and feel, I must acknowledge that in my limited scope of experience, I cannot say what is right for the whole church.

So, I'm not surprised that Kate Kelly is facing excommunication; even from my sympathetic perspective, I feel that the Ordain Women movement is too sure of its initiatives, as any movement needs to be.  I'm saddened that the church didn't use this as an opportunity to discuss the issues, and took a more cowardly approach, but I hope that those involved on all sides can take the time to be introspective rather than defensive so that they can take advantage of the true purpose of church disciplinary counsels: to help us acknowledge our failings and become better people.

I've focused on Kate Kelly and Ordain Women, because I know less about John Dehlin and his Mormon Stories Podcasts.  I'm imagining that the "cause for concern" in his case is LGBT rights, but I haven't researched it thoroughly.

I am hoping that this results in a fruitful exchange between the church and its more liberal members about how to express concerns and suggest ideas.  Currently, our only recourse is to either limit ourselves to local impact or go incredibly public online.  There needs to be a way to faithfully express concerns in a way that it doesn't get stuck either at a local level or in a traffic jam to the top.

forgiving vs. condoning

Elder Holland's General Conference talk in April struck me with the following passage.

At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” [John 15:12] To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” [John 14:15] and “whosoever … shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be … the least in the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 5:19]  Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.  Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

I have often supported or encouraged in others things that I would not accept for myself. Sometimes I feel like this is okay, and sometimes it falls into "condoning sin."

Let's start with a softball example: pierced ears. Paul taught that the body is a temple (among lots of other crazy stuff), and the LDS church has discouraged piercings and tattoos, with the exception that it's okay for women to have one earring in each ear.  I don't have any piercings, nor do I want any, but I have no problem buying earrings for people, or complimenting earrings.  Honestly, I think non-traditional piercings and tattoos can also be very tasteful.  Simply put, I'm condoning things that I wouldn't accept for myself.  But the things I'm condoning aren't really a sin, I just have a weird thing against body modification for myself.  It's one of the thing I'm compulsive about: I can't even draw on myself with pen and not be scrubbing it off within a few minutes.

Alright, so the easy stuff is over; let's move right on over to the difficult and sensitive issues: gay marriage and sex outside of marriage.  I'm supportive of gay marriage rights. I'm also supportive of my friends who have sex outside of marriage.  But should I be?  I have no idea.  I don't really know what is sinful and what isn't—this is the crux of the problem.  On some level I just don't care about the details of personal choices my friends are making.  Mostly, I don't want them to feel judged constantly whenever they talk about their partner and I want to keep being their friends.  If I don't say anything supportive, they might very well presume I'm stewing in religious judgement, which I'm not.  For me, it really is as simple as the pierced ears example: I'm not going to do it myself, but I think other people can be happy with different choices.

For less complicated issues, I might think that people could be happier with alternative choices.  If they asked my advice, I'd probably guide them according to my personal morals.  But on socially charged topics, it's really hard to disentangle the "sin" from the "sinner."  If a dear friend is gay, how can you possibly tell them in love that you disapprove of them having any kind of romantic relationship?  Are you just supposed to let it sit there awkwardly?

I can't forgive friends for certain things (like being gay) because there is nothing to forgive.  They haven't wronged me in any way and it's not my place to pass judgement. For this same reason I cannot condone or condemn their actions.  I trust people to choose the best path for themselves.  I will give advice when asked and will try to be supportive of them as individuals.  If I am guilty of condoning sin, it is because I think everyone should have the choice to determine for themselves what qualifies as sin.  I'm certainly still figuring it out for myself.

While I seem to be dismissing Elder Holland's remarks, I still am rolling them around in my mind and heart.  In particular, there are certainly times that I fake approval of other people's choices (trivial or otherwise) because I'm a people-pleaser.  The real thing that I've internalized from his comments is to stop that behavior; I should just be honest about my reactions to things.  If I don't like the way that skirt looks, I shouldn't say I do and encourage my friend to buy it because she likes it.  If I don't think a particular couple should move in together, I shouldn't fake my support because I'm worried that they'll think I'm being judgmental otherwise.  I should have confidence in my opinions and stop trying to say what other people want to hear.

needing a mother and a father

While it feels like gay marriage is well accepted by most American society, official LDS doctrine does not tolerate it.  A common argument against gay marriage is that having both a mother and a father is best for children; they "need" one parent of each gender.  If that's true, then mothers and fathers play truly different parts, and that gender roles are a real and important aspect to the parenting triangle.

Obviously, the LDS church is pro-gender roles, advocating them in teaching children and in the general structure of the family.  But the roles are not well defined: in the eight-thousand-plus word chapter on teaching gender roles, roles are defined as mother/wife and father/husband, and then implied elsewhere along the lines of "each child is learning how to be male or female and about what being male or female means about their relationships with others."  Nur?

In the family proclamation, we're given a sliver of insight as to what they actually mean: men are responsible for providing and presiding and women are primarily to nurture, but that men and women should be equal partners as parents.  This has been picked apart from every perspective, but it's still pretty opaque.

The message I'm getting is that gender identity is important, even if we really have no idea what accompanies gender.  And this brings me back to my original point: if gender defines very little about a person's personality and parenting style, then why is having both genders represented in parents important?

Admittedly, it would be harder for a girl to have two male parents, or vice versa, because there would be social and biological questions that may be more difficult for an opposite-gender parent to answer. Harder, but certainly not impossible.

The irony here is that in the LDS church, we only really have father figures, or male spiritual role models: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  There are stories about more men and women, but we're supposed to become like these two figures.  We're not supposed to be like Mary the mother of Christ.  I mean, we are, but only in as much as she is like Christ.  And we're not supposed to try to be like the only-whispered-about Heavenly Mother, since we have no idea what to emulate.

You can't have it both ways.  Either you need both parents, especially for spiritual guidance, or else gender in parents doesn't matter.  Either we have a Heavenly Mother and Her role is clearly defined (preferably with an accompanying Matriarchal Priesthood), or gay marriage is okay.  Which one is it?

An addendum: I didn't talk about single parenting, which is another situation that the LDS church doesn't handle as well as it could.  No matter the doctrine of the church, alternative family structures need to be more welcome, which is a job for the members and not the hierarchy.

switching places

As a thought experiment, consider a world in which the roles of religion and science are switched.  One would ascribe to a particular branch of science the way we currently connect ourselves with religious sects, often with a binary attitude:
"I used to be a laser physicist, but now I'm a non-denominational physicist."
"I'm a hydrologist, but I grew up as an astronomer and converted in college."

"I know that Mathematics is True."
"Everything Neuroscience taught me was a lie."

Similarly, we would explore religion in the context of all the other religions:
"I really want to major in Christianity, but I know that I need to study Judaism first."
"I'm a Buddhist, but I geek out about Hinduism."
"I'm really struggling with this Lutheran problem.  Do you know any books on Protestantism that could help?"

Some newly established or more social-science-y disciplines might be regarded as cults. We already see things like psychology being dismissed as not a "real science."  As an aside, did you know that Genetics is younger than Mormonism?  Take a look at this Google N-gram: (The scientology/neuroscience and Unitarianism/Zoology ones are interesting too.)

So what can religion learn from science?  That each approach is a different perspective of the divine to be respected and explored, and understanding other disciplines or denominations only improve the comprehension of your more narrow path.  And what about the other way around?  Science can learn that no matter what the topic, there are emotional biases in humans based on what is familiar to them. Ironically, folks get very passionate about logic. This human side needs to be remembered as not all knowledge comes from books.

Answering the Temple Recommend Interview Questions, Part 2

Originally posted at Zelophehad’s Daughters.

This is a post in a series in which I give my personal, longwinded and rambling answers to each LDS temple question, since the actual interviews do not allow for elaborate discussion. The first post is here. 

It's taken me a while to get to this second post, in part because I didn't like part of my answer to the last one.  I wrote that I was most comfortable praying to a male or joint-gender god due to my upbringing, and I'm happy to report that I am now equally comfortable praying to Heavenly Mother as I am to Heavenly Father.  I've even had one of my Teyve-style (out loud, casual) prayers to/with her in the celestial room, which, by the way, is my all-time favorite part of serving in the temple—getting the room completely to yourself.

The other reason I've been putting this off is because I wrote an answer to the second question a while ago, and was thoroughly unsatisfied with it.  It wasn't that I was inarticulate (nothing can help me there, save an editor), but that I didn't like what I had to say.  I've been so focused on God in general and also with particular issues with the LDS Church that I had neglected the more middle-ground of Christianity.  Thus, I did some soul-searching, found some peace, and am now ready to answer #2.

Question 2: Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?

When I was a little girl, at some point my dad mentioned how to cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, and that really stuck with me.  I used it to dispel the scary monsters of my imagination: skeletons reaching out from under the bed, creatures in the mirror, and the like.  (One of the Poltergeist films played a role in some of this.) To this day I still think of Christ's name as something I can use in a practical, physical way.

I also attempt to use the ordinance of the Sacrament in a practical way; I have never prayed directly about the Atonement, but I have prayed to use the Atonement.  I try to identify the things I might have done hurt people accidentally—these are the things that you can't really apologize for because too much time has passed, it's too trivial, or they might not have been offended at all, in which case you certainly don't want to point out how what you said could have been offensive.  I mull these over, apologize to God, and think of how I could be better.  I also meditate during the Sacrament, trying to focus on God's love for us.  When I'm being good, that is.  Sometimes I just make faces at kids from the back row.

One thing that I know I can do, but don't engage as often as I should, is using the Atonement to help with negative emotions not necessarily associated with sin.  Guilt and anger can be caused by something you've done wrong, but they can also be associated with other things.  One might feel guilty for not doing something good because they chose to do something better.  One might feel angry because they were wronged.  Fear, sorrow, stress, doubt, and jealousy are other emotions we might want to rid from ourselves.  I view praying for relief from any of these as engaging Christ's Atonement to lift our burdens.  The few times I've prayed in this way, I felt gentle, subtle comfort.

The problem with using the Atonement like this is that we have to be very self-aware, and when we are sufficiently self-aware to use the Atonement, we're also usually aware enough to use other mechanisms, like talking with friends or therapists, or simply doing something about our emotion, like working to relive stress.

I am by no means perfect, and I don't really know how I would behave in the presence of God.  I might fall to the floor, cover my head, and cry for mercy.  I might try to argue the reasons for my decisions, claiming I did the best I could.  I might arrogantly assume that I've passed whatever test and I should be rewarded without any more thought.  I might stand tall, but bow my head, take responsibility for my misdeeds, and submit to God's will.

All of these possible scenarios reveal different attitudes I have toward the Atonement. Sometimes I know I've messed up and I know that I would need some kind of saving grace to return to God. Sometimes I think my imperfect actions are justified. Sometimes I think that imperfection is just part of mortality and that as long is we make it to a certain point we should be fine. Sometimes I feel like I want to take the full responsibility for my actions.

For I while I wondered if the Atonement of Christ is strictly necessary in order to repent from sins. The definition of sin isn't always clear to me either—I usually define actions as sinful or not retroactively based on the guilt, etc. I feel about taking them.  For things I haven't done yet, I imagine how I would feel.  With this in mind, I've come to define sin as something that keeps me away from God such that I need the Atonement in order to be worthy to re-enter God's presence.  It's kind of tautological, I know, but the point is that there are some actions that are sinful in this sense, making the Atonement necessary.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a good man and with inspiring teachings. I believe it is possible that he acted as a Christ in performed some kind of atoning sacrifice for each individual who has ever and will ever live.  I believe it is possible that I personally need to use an atonement of this kind in order to be with God, therefore saving and redeeming me. I believe that the concept of Christ is powerful; it is humbling to think that I must depend on another in order to become better or even perfected.

I am comfortable sharing my experiences and feelings with others, but again, I prefer to share with those who are anxious to hear.  The only real knowledge I have is that utilizing the concept of Christ's Atonement has made me a better person, and that I have felt peace in doing so.

So is that a yes to the original question?  I think so.  Do I still have a hard time being dependent on a third party for my salvation?  Yes; I want to be able to do it myself, but I'm becoming more okay with it, since it restores much needed mercy while maintaining justice.  I take comfort in the fact that Christ will teach us to be perfect, to eventually be able to stand on our own, but that we can't get there instantaneously and we can't get there alone.  Even still, I can't help but think: perhaps the goal isn't to stand alone, but to stand among the Gods, all leaning on each other.  If that's the case, my independent self would just have to get over it.

gender identity in young children

After nwc watched this documentary on Josie, a transgender child, we started talking about transgenderism in young kids.  I have no problem with people transitioning to the opposite gender, but with children it is a bit more complicated.  Certainly some children really do feel like they are in the wrong body, but there are others for whom it might be a phase or influenced unduly by environment. How are parents to know?  How can the children even understand their own wants and needs and the long-term implications?

Parents have a responsibility to provide a structured environment in which to teach their children.  It's their responsibility to say no often.  But on transgenderism, how are they to know if they are just being indulgent or if they're helping their child embrace their true identity?  There are no easy answers.

For me, the essence of this problem is restrictive gender roles.  Heterosexual boys can like pink.  But, even in modern western society, boys who like pink are usually expected to be gay or transexual, which makes very little sense.  Girls have it a little easier, as tomboyishness is more socially appropriate, but get too macho and middler schoolers will start calling you a lesbian, even if your behavior has nothing to do with your sexuality.  Children are making decisions based on the signals of gender, instead of the more hidden implications of sex, which are different.

Regardless of a child's gender identity, I think it's important to protect children from gender stereotypes as much as possible.  This means choosing media with the right gender messages, talking about gender, and providing plenty of gender-neutral toys (e.g., puzzles, model animals, blocks).  We need to stop emphasizing things like how pretty girls are and how emotionally removed boys are.  Even for cis-gender children, these expectations can be damaging.

If we stop swallowing gender stereotypes hook-line-and-sinker, transgenderism in children becomes less of an issue, because it would carry less baggage.  A kid could say something like: I like dinosaurs, ballet, and chocolate muffins; I have long hair, and I'm a boy.  Gah, that's starting to sound eerily like the I'm a Mormon campaign.

magnificent people

I don't often remember dreams, but when I do, they're either bizarre, or they're about random people I know or have known in real life.  The acquaintances that I remember from my dreams are usually people I think about in a certain way.

They are the people that I wish I had known better, the ones that stood out in some way.  Perhaps they were (and hopefully still are) particularly articulate, accomplished, or self-aware.  Often they seemed to possess some kind of wisdom.  They are magnificent specimens of the human race.

I don't usually like to talk about my admiration for these people because it could easily be taken the wrong way, but I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that I do love them in the agape sense of the word.  I've recently realized, however, that the problem isn't in feeling this divine-type love for people.  Rather, it's in not feeling it for everyone else.

It's easy to love beauty, be it physical or intellectual.  It is much harder to cultivate love for people that are boring in some sense.  It's also easy to love from afar; when you interact more closely with people, you see the dirt under their fingernails.  From there, it's easy to put them in a box with everyone else who has dirt under their fingernails.

I have no solution for now, but I think this realization it helpful in itself.  At the very least, this awareness can be used to help transfer some of my respect from the magnificent people to the mundane.

Zeitoun

The world is neither as good nor as just as I would like it to be.

This week, I decided that I could not finish the excellent nonfiction book Zeitoun by Dave Eggers because it was too depressing.  Warning: spoilers ahead, though that feels like a wrong term for nonfiction.

This book described a Muslim man and his family's experience with Hurricane Katrina, and while I don't like to insulate myself from the world, everyone has their limits.  At some point Zeitoun is imprisoned because he was still in New Orleans after the mandatory evacuation.  There is sickening injustice in how he is treated, and nobody is held accountable.

I can often stomach terrible stories if I know the ending in advance--it's the suspense that grates on me, but this book has no real resolution.  The book "ends" with the family together and healing, but midway through reading, I searched for a summary of the history (in order to get through the terrible prison moments), and I discovered that the couple are divorced and she accused him of attacking her.  It's real life and there will be no true end until everyone involved is dead.

Again, I don't like to keep myself in a bubble, but some things are too much for me to manage.  The narrative format of the book makes empathy very natural, to the point of my feeling a nauseating distrust of the government when I read it.  And I just can't handle it.  I need and want to trust the government in order to function as a citizen. Every institution will make mistakes and will even be fundamentally broken in some ways.  Every individual will also make mistakes, either acting on their own or on behalf on an institution.

But there's a powerlessness that I felt when reading this book.  In disastrous situations, it seems as though the government agencies have unlimited discretionary power and then proceed to make substantially flawed decisions.  In the end, the only real lesson I learned was to obey mandatory evacuations.  Keep your head down and follow the rules.

The other thing that was hard is that the emotional strength of the story comes from the family love and unity; this unravelled when I learned about the couple's sad history beyond the book.  It makes me hope that all victims of disasters of this magnitude are getting the support they need.  It's a little ridiculous to talk about how I had a hard time reading a story, when so many people are forced to live similar stories and worse.

the lady doth protest too much: a response

My mom sent me a snippet of this article, which was quoted in the WSJ last week. She was all, "I don't agree, but I thought you might want to see this..."  Right she was...it got my blood boiling.

The “women in tech” experiment has been a disaster. [...] It all comes down to one, dirty little secret. Whisper it. The tech industry is not sexist.

Tech isn't sexist?  Most individuals I've met in tech aren't sexist, but some are, just like in any industry. It's harder to see when you're not the recipient of the bias, but it certainly exists.  Additionally, I have my own sexist moments, so how could others who have not thought as long and hard about women in tech not have sexists moments?

Okay, so assume tech doesn't have any more sexist individuals than any other industry.  There is still an huge issue that Yiannopoulos doesn't even consider: that the culture is sexist.

That's right.  A culture that encourages starting work at 10am, taking long lunch breaks, and playing pinball mid-day means that you basically spend all day at the office.  Why is that sexist?  Because there's pressure from (some of) the rest of society for women to have kids, clean house, and be home to make dinner.  I'm not saying women should feel pressure to do those things, and so our general society's culture can be fixed too.  But it should be a lot easier to change the beneficent tech industry to be more flexible rather than the other way around.

For each of the four industry jobs I've had, my daily start and end times have been earlier than the average employee.  I was usually one of the few who cooked their own dinner, let alone packed the occasional lunch.  The stereotypical mother and wife norms clash with the norms of tech employees.  A lot of women want jobs where they can do homework with their kids, go out to a bar to meet someone after work, or hang out with friends not related to work.

So when our Mr. Yiannopoulos might actually be right when he says things like the following.

Of course, the number of women in tech will never be the same as the number of men, because most women simply don’t want to do these sorts of jobs.

He might be right not because women aren't good at tech, but because the culture is insular and demanding, and many women (via nurture or nature) want to do stuff outside of work.  But, even if he is right, I want him to prove it, because it's ludicrous for anyone to pull a statement like that out of nowhere.  I'm doing my best not to degrade into a fit of profanity.

There are a lot of reasons for fewer women in tech, and the answer to many of them is to break the stereotypes that perpetuate the issues, which isn't just about fixing the numbers in schools and watching it propagate, as Yiannopoulos naïvely suggests. Women need role models and other women at the top to both show that it can be done and to help make the policies so that it can be done with greater ease.

The article isn't all bad; in fact the most interesting point is that underrepresented racial minorities and socio-economic groups deserve more air time, which is very true.  That doesn't mean that women deserve less, though.  If anything, women are even more underrepresented in those groups.  By evening out the playing field for all women, it also helps other minority groups, not to mention roughly half of the population.

In addition, the minorities that are most underrepresented, in my opinion, share many stereotypes in common with those for women: being family-focused is an easy example. By making the tech industry more appealing for one category of minority, we're widening the door for everyone.

Answering the Temple Recommend Interview Questions, Part 1

Originally posted at Zelophehad’s Daughters.

The LDS temple interview is an interesting process to me. We’re expected to give relatively short answers to fifteen questions, but I feel like some of them require more elaborate answers. For the sake of the interviewers, I spare them the ten-hour monologue that would be required to give them the full picture of my faith. While I’ve thought through each of the fifteen questions, I’ve wanted to record a written answer to each of them. This is the first post in a series in which I will answer each with varying degrees of verbosity.

Question 1: Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

I have faith in God; my most honest prayers are Teyve-style. I do not know if God is male, female, both, or neither, but I’ve prayed to each one. Because of my upbringing, praying to a male or joint-gender god (Heavenly Mother and Father) is most comfortable for me. More fundamentally, I do not know that God exists, but I have had experiences that feel like they come from a divine source. I have prayed particularly about the existence and nature of deity, and received ambiguous (but comforting) experiences that allow my otherwise hyper-rational self to have faith in God, without firm knowledge of his/her/its existence or nature. I don’t know if God is embodied, but I find that perfectly reasonable, given that I hope for an embodied afterlife. I am comfortable talking about my faith in God and its complexities (as made obvious by this post), and consider that to qualify as a testimony.

My faith in Jesus Christ is inherently tied to my understanding of the Atonement, so I’ll leave most of my discussion of that for the next post. I believe that Jesus lived as a real person, and taught the principles, if not the same parables, that are recorded in the gospels. I believe that it’s possible that he is the son of God as we are all children of God, but that he played the role of Savior, advocating on our behalves and acting in some sort of pre- and post-mortal leadership role. While my faith in God is stronger than my faith in a divine Jesus Christ (the former is intrinsically more general), I would be comfortable explaining the gospel of Christ and testifying of the role it has played in my life.

While the Holy Ghost is arguably the member of the Godhead with whom we are in most direct contact, I feel that I know the least about him/her/it. The Holy Ghost could have some connection to Heavenly Mother, but my hunch is that she is too important to play spiritual courier and instead conveys her love and messages to us through the Holy Ghost, as does Heavenly Father. I’ve never prayed about the Holy Ghost–I think of it more as a medium for spiritual communication than something I need to ask God about. It’s a little like calling your folks up and asking, “Can you tell me that this phone is working?” after you’ve asked “Are you there?” Thus, my faith in and testimony of the Holy Ghost is very much wrapped up in my faith in God, as I think it’s supposed to be.

For doctrine relating to the Godhead or anything else, I strongly prefer to keep any of my now rare proclamations of spiritual witness or testimony (of this or any doctrine) to audiences eager to hear such affirmations. On the other hand, I am much more comfortable talking about my pragmatic involvement in the LDS church.

In the end, my simple answer to this question is “Yes,” sparing the poor interviewers my long-windedness every two years–they probably would rather be home with their kids.

white male boards and white male commenters

Just read this article on the breakdown of the boards of directors in tech. The article is great, but some of the comments are really distressing.

Not having women on the board is an issue of innovation? Since when did women innovate? People need to get used to hearing non-PC but completely accurate assessments. Companies don't perform based on 'wishful thinking'.

Wow.  Since when do women innovate?  Uh...since men started innovating?  Perhaps they don't have as long of a history in industry, but that doesn't mean they don't innovate.  The problems are that 1) far fewer women have the training necessary and 2) being on a board requires being pushy enough to move up the chain, which most women aren't comfortable doing, either because it's not culturally acceptable or because they care more about their personal lives.  And we shouldn't get used to non-PC statements of this variety because these are all cultural issues that have solutions. Addressing them starts with identifying a problem. Well, problem identified.  (Hint: part of it's you, bucko.)

Another doozy:

Let's hire based on race and gender instead of qualifications because people who can't get hired on qualification are moaning! Great idea for those who are moaning but horrible idea for people actually running the business.

Nobody said we should hire more women that aren't qualified.  Nor are we saying the the problem needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW.  It's a matter of understanding the causes and then addressing the cultural factors that impact this imbalance.  Until we do address the underlying issue, it's important to take just a little time to consider candidates outside the usual mold, but still qualified.  They exist, but it's harder to find them, so it takes effort.

The reason why this is important?  Because you care about equal opportunity, not for those that are qualified, but for future generations.  People need role models, and if there are no women on your board, what does that say to your female employees?  What does that say about your company to women students?  It says: don't bother trying to climb the ranks because you won't get there.  We need to say please try, so that we have a better candidate pool.

We have the opportunity to craft our society for the future.  We can either say: well, that's the way its; suck it up.  Or we can say: that's not the way I'd like it to be; here's how we can change it.  Saying that this is just the way to world works is equivalent to stating that women and other minorities deserve these inequalities, not for cultural reasons, but because of their inherent lack of ability.  Or that you're okay with the inequalities (often because they benefit you).

Next steps to fix these issues: trying a little harder to find qualified minority higher-ups, creating or improving family friendly initiatives for both genders, and developing mentorship programs for students and lower ranked employees to increase retention.  We know these things already, it's just about taking the time to help them play out in order to reap the rewards.

P.S. I like white male people!  My husband is and most of my wonderful mentors are/have been white males. You are instrumental in making these changes happen, so thank you!  ♥