{"id":69652,"date":"2019-01-26T10:40:15","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T17:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=69652"},"modified":"2019-01-26T15:29:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T22:29:05","slug":"women-and-apologetics-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/01\/women-and-apologetics-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Women and Apologetics (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>
A view of the Austrian town of Sankt Gilgen, where Nannerl spent several years of her late and rather short married life, having been convinced by her father to turn down a proposal from the man she really loved. \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Friday night, my wife and I attended a performance at Brigham Young University of the one-woman play The Other Mozart<\/a><\/em>, which was created, written, and performed by Sylvia Milo<\/a>. \u00a0My wife had seen it with a friend on Thursday, and thought that I would like it. \u00a0(I did.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Other Mozart<\/em> is about Maria Anna (aka \u201cMarianne\u201d or \u201cNannerl\u201d), \u00a0the elder sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), a rather well-known eighteenth-century Austrian composer, and is based to a large degree on actual surviving Mozart family letters. \u00a0It\u2019s the story of a woman who began her life as a child prodigy and performer as celebrated as her little brother. \u00a0With the passage of time, however, the constraints of the traditional woman\u2019s sphere as it was then understood restricted her more and more, frustrated her, limited the development and expression of her amazing talent, and, in the end, left her virtually unknown and forgotten. \u00a0Could she, under other circumstances, have become a . . . \u00a0well, another\u00a0Mozart<\/em>? \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0We\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sad story, in many ways \u2014 although perhaps the play overstates her sadness; I simply don\u2019t know \u2014 and one that makes the idea of redemptive compensation in a next world, a world where talents can be fully developed, poignantly attractive. \u00a0(Compare, on this point, my 19 July 2012 Deseret News<\/em> column \u201cBeethoven is a study in hope, healing.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I write, I\u2019m sitting at a conference sponsored by the Brigham Young University New Testament Commentary project. \u00a0It\u2019s a good day for that project: \u00a0Its newest volume, a commentary on the gospel of Mark<\/a>, has just appeared. \u00a0It was written by Julie M. Smith<\/a>, who spoke this morning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

These two items bring me to the theme of this blog entry:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the time that I served as chairman of the board of the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), the Foundation was sometimes criticized \u2014 and I, personally, was sometimes criticized \u2014 because that board was entirely male. \u00a0The implication or assumption, I suppose, was that, as a result either of conscious and deliberate policy or of subconscious gender bias, we excluded women from leadership positions in the organization.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, it was true, on one level, that I was strongly disinclined to put a woman onto the board simply as a token or in order to achieve better \u201coptics.\u201d \u00a0Any candidate for the board, in my view, needed to be someone of already-demonstrated commitment to the goals and efforts of the Foundation. \u00a0And the pool of such candidates who were women was relatively small: Although things may be changing, there are still today significantly fewer female Latter-day Saint academics \u2014 and significantly fewer female members of the faculty at BYU, for example \u2014 than there are male.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there were several women who fit the bill and, as chairman of the FARMS board, I invited them to join our board. \u00a0But they turned me down. \u00a0And they turned me down for a reason that had not previously occurred to me: \u00a0For a generation or two, at least, every committee at BYU (and, I\u2019m sure, everywhere else) has sought to include women. \u00a0Given the relatively small number of available women, though, the practical upshot of this is that, while a male faculty member might serve on one or two committees, a woman might be serving on three to six of them. \u00a0The women to whom I spoke were simply overextended. \u00a0They were unwilling to take on more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I resigned myself to being condemned in certain circles, at least, as presiding over a restrictive \u201cboys-only\u201d club.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(To be continued.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 On Friday night, my wife and I attended a performance at Brigham Young University of the one-woman play The Other Mozart, which was created, written, and performed by Sylvia Milo. \u00a0My wife had seen it with a friend on Thursday, and thought that I would like it. \u00a0(I did.) \u00a0 The Other Mozart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,1809,939,2863,2475,975,114,55,2860,2201],"class_list":["post-69652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apologetics","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-farms","tag-foundation-for-ancient-research-and-mormon-studies","tag-gender","tag-interpreter","tag-interpreter-foundation","tag-mormonism","tag-patriarchy","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen and Apologetics (1)<\/title>\n<meta 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