Contemplative Dexterity

A random thought occurred to me while at work regarding an individual's gender. Well, it wasn't quite so random, but without getting into TMI details, let's just say that I've often had the thought that I just hate being a girl. There are many reasons for this, and many of these reasons led me to have some semblance of an identity crisis from about 5th to 10th grade, so a large part of my childhood. Anyway, I'm off track a bit.  I have memories of people in past wards and my own mother even, explain why each person has the gender that they were born with. None of the explanation had anything to do with hormones in the womb or gestation in general, it all had to do with the Mormon concept of the Pre-Existence. They basically reiterated what exactly happened before we came to earth, but they put particular emphasis on the belief that we were the exact same people in heaven as we are now on earth. Translation: I was a girl in heaven, therefore I had to be a girl o...

A survey was circulated around Facebook, and I can only assume other sites as well, regarding a woman's role in the church. One can only assume that such a survey was spawned in response to the widely publicized Ordain Women movement. I was finally able to sit down and take the survey and had a few comments that I wanted to post in response. I do believe that women and men, girls and boys, are not treated equally in the church, with the benefits weighing heavily in favor of the male species. This has been a noticeable source of contention for me since I entered Achievement Days when I turned 8, but became more noticeable when I entered the Young Women's program at the age of 12. For the sake of time and space, I'm not going to post every question and my response to it, but I am going to post a handful. One of the first questions posed was: Differences between the roles of women and men in the LDS Church are... Cultural, A mix of culture and doctrine, or Doctrin...