Since the beginning of the Women on the Stand account, I’ve thought a lot about the visibility of women. Why does that matter?
And, it struck me— the importance of visibility cannot be overstated.
The lack of visibility of our Mother in Heaven has been damaging. Her not being acknowledged, honored, and revered has created a completely unbalanced world.
As Mary Daly said, “If God is male, then male is god.”
Now, let’s be clear. I’m not blaming men. I’m not trying to have women and men (or any of the children of God) be oppositional… in fact, the opposite. What I’m pointing out is that women and men (and all children of God) working together is the divine model. The Gospel Topics Essay states that our “heavenly parents work together for the salvation of the human family.”
Northwestern University recently released a study of over six million projects. Those that are most effective are those teams that had equal or almost equal gender parity. Women and men working together WORKS.
Now you could say that working together does not mean both are visible. Sure. But, if we want our efforts to be the most efficacious — then what’s the most productive model?
If our youth don’t see how women and men work together as equals, they don’t know to model it. If we don’t see men and women work together as equals, we are not bringing our A team to the challenges we face. If we don’t see women and men work together as equals, we inadvertently propagate dangerous power structures… and disparity fosters abuse.
What kind of home, society and institution do we want?
It starts with the visibility of God. God is our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father working together. And we need to SEE that truth.
Credit : Art by Rose Datoc Dall
