WOMEN ON THE STAND

Amy Watkins Jensen lives in a California stake with a practice of having women leaders sit on the stand in ward and stake meetings to increase the visibility of women and partnership among all leaders. In 2023, the Area President instructed the California stakes to end women leaders sitting on the stand. Amy began the Instagram account “Women on the Stand” in response.

Tell me about yourself and your background.

I was born in Chicago and lived there my entire life until I went to college. My parents are both converts to the Church. My mom was from small-town Indiana and when she left home, she moved to Chicago and started going to churches every Sunday. She had a roommate who she called a “jack Mormon” – baptized but didn’t live the standards. The roommate said, “You should go to the Mormon church, here’s where it is.” She didn’t go with my mom, just sent her on her way. My mom started meeting with the missionaries and had a clear answer to prayer that she should join the Church.

Meanwhile, when my dad was 16, he was a high school dropout and was not going anywhere good very fast, and the missionaries tracted him. My grandmother was already a member of the Church, but didn’t practice because she was baptized when she was much younger in Arkansas and there was no ward or branch in the area. When the missionaries knocked on their door in Chicago, she said, “I’m already a member of your church.” My dad and some of his siblings got baptized. My dad served a mission, and when he came back, my mom had joined the ward and they met.

They both found a spiritual home in the Church and in their own ways were saved by the Church. I grew up as a really happy member – there weren’t many members so it was very much a ward family. We hung out on the weekends, went to ward dances, participated in road shows, went to Girls’ Camp … It’s just what we did.

Where are you now and what do you do with your time?

I live in the Bay Area in California, and my husband Andy and I have three daughters. Two are in college, the youngest is home and a junior in high school. I teach Humanities at an all-boys middle school. It’s a day school for a professional boys’ choir – an art school. The academics are from 8:30 to 1:30, and then they have music until 4:30. They tour the world and sing with the opera. It’s a great, interesting place to work. I also have an amazing and supportive husband and an adorable mini goldendoodle who I love adventuring with. In my spare time I’m a writer. I have always loved to write about my faith, the Church, and how those things form and inform me as a human. It’s been great to do that a little more publicly and consistently lately on Substack and Instagram.

What has been your experience around women in Church leadership and sitting on the stand?

In 2016, I was the Young Women President in my ward. The stake presidency created a list of practices to be more inclusive of women, such as calling women leaders by their title of President, inviting women to speak on spiritual topics rather than just home and family, remembering to say “Heavenly Parents” in public settings, having women speak last in sacrament meeting, and invite women leaders to sit on the stand during sacrament meeting and stake meetings. At the next stake conference, women leaders were sitting on the stand. The wards handled it in different ways – usually just one, not all three leaders, sometimes the president, sometimes the counselor in a sort of rotation.

Three stakes in the Bay Area of California within about an hour of each other started having women leaders sit on the stand around the same time but it was not coordinated at all. There was obviously some kind of spiritual movement happening.

I did not love the idea of sitting on the stand. My husband had been a branch president for a singles branch when we had little babies and him being on the stand was a burden. I didn’t have a great feeling about the stand itself and in our ward council conversations, none of the other women wanted to sit on the stand either.

But then I had a conversation with my teenage daughter: “Can you believe they want me to sit on the stand?” She said, “Why wouldn’t you sit on the stand? You do a lot of work that’s really important and it would be cool to see you sitting on the stand.” I stepped back to rethink things, and talked to the Young Women group about it: would that be important to them? The answer was a resounding YES, and please do it. I asked why it mattered and learned something I had not understood about this generation of girls – they are looking for evidence that they are important. They need to see it. They were my stewardship and this was what they needed.

I started talking about it in ward council but the other two women were so against sitting on the stand, I could get no movement. I was released shortly after that because my husband was called to the bishopric, and he and the bishop tried to get women on the stand in our ward. We knew it was important to the young women, and it was women who were stopping it. We couldn’t get any buy-in. To be fair, they’re good women and I don’t blame them – I also didn’t want to do it, and I knew they weren’t having the same conversations with the Young Women.

We got a new bishopric in 2021, coming out of the quarantine, and we were trying to re-form community. The new bishop called me to be the Young Women President again – the Spirit moved me that I should accept the call, and make it a priority for the Young Women to have women visible on the stand every week. This needed to happen for them.

The three women in the President positions felt that it would be best for our ward to always have at least one woman from the ward council on the stand. It could be any of the three of us, and we rotated by month so it didn’t feel like a burden. We still sat with our families most of the time, and our counselors could fill in as needed. We also read the upcoming announcements. It worked beautifully and the young women responded so positively. They noticed, they remarked on it, it was powerful to them.

Almost exactly a year later, I was released because of a ward restructuring. And shortly after that, the news was handed down that women were not allowed to sit on the stand anymore in their leadership capacity.

In the gap between that original stake list and when your ward started having women on the stand, did you hear from other wards about it?

No one talked about it too much – it didn’t feel like some crazy, controversial thing. Some wards had women on the stand, some didn’t. I noticed the women on the stand at stake conference and I looked forward to it there. It felt right. Just an easy and empowering message that women are important. Women are essential. Women are leaders. We have united leadership. Equal partnership is incredibly powerful and important to building Zion. It was a message we received without people standing at a microphone to tell us we are important.

That’s wonderful that it was empowering to young women to see women leaders on the stand. What about the other side to experience BEING on the stand?

There are a lot of practical reasons to be on the stand, not just spiritual, and they’re all important and powerful. Looking out on the congregation was so beautiful. The view from the pews is so different from the view from the stand, because you can see the breadth of experience of those we serve. I could notice things. Questions would pop into my mind like, “I wonder if this family needs this thing? I wonder if there’s something we don’t know about going on in that pew?” I’d talk to the bishop – sometimes he would know about a situation, other times he didn’t and we should follow-up. Inspiration can be so much more readily received when you’re looking at the faces of the people that you love and serve.

It was also an answer to my own prayers – knowing that our Heavenly Parents care about the young women as individuals and as a group. Sitting up there was something I could do for them that they needed spiritually – it’s a beautiful testimony to me of how much our Heavenly Parents care about the little things, and want to give us the things we need for our spiritual growth.

For historical record, and for anyone who missed it, what happened with women leaders being told they could NOT sit on the stand anymore?

It took some time to piece it all together, even from people who went through it in real time. In one stake, a statement was read over the pulpit that said, “This is the end of that practice and here’s why.” In my stake, nothing was spoken over the pulpit. I showed up to stake conference and noticed no women leaders on the stand, which was unusual because it had been such a long practice. But I was distracted because I was being sustained to a stake calling that day, and just made a mental note to ask the stake Relief Society president later. I wondered if the visiting general authority chose to have other people there and it was a one-off. It turned out that the visiting authority had communicated to our stake leaders that women leaders should not be on the stand at all at any time, only women participating in the meeting.

I never did talk to the Relief Society president and I forgot about it. But a few weeks later, my bishop texted me, “Hey, I have some kind of heartbreaking news, wondering if I can come by the house.” He had to come as soon as possible, there was no way I was sitting on that. He told Andy and me personally, because he knew it would be devastating to me. We had worked so closely together in collaboration to get women on the stand in our ward. We had both felt spiritual confirmations that it was the right thing for our young women. So when someone in authority who we have never met or talked to, and he’s never talked to our young women, but he told us it was not a good practice for our ward…There are very few times in my life when I’ve experienced an almost audible heartbreak, so hard you can feel it and hear it. I don’t have words to tell you how devastated I was. The bishop had no answers. He didn’t know if it was from Salt Lake or some other area authority. He asked the stake presidency and they didn’t know either. They were trying to manage it and make sure this was really a thing – they didn’t understand. It was hard.

Who was going to tell the young women? More “I don’t know.” I asked specifically about one particular family. The bishop had already talked to them because their oldest daughter was at the Stanford YSA Ward, and they announced it over the pulpit. She called her family, crying and devastated. Her 13-year-old sister in my Young Women group said, “What do you mean? Why?” It had been so important to her. Her reaction was to right away get to her computer and start typing a letter.

Okay, well, then that’s what we have to do. A 13-year-old wrote the first letter. Where do we send those letters? Who do we address them to? I started to ask women and young women to write letters. I didn’t ask young men to write letters, but if they talked to me, I told them where to write the letters. I collected letters from women in the three stakes that were affected by this.

We eventually learned it was the Area President who made the decision to remove women from the stand. My stake president collected and printed them all and sent them by mail to the Area President. Honestly, the whole stake presidency and bishopric have been so supportive, trying to understand, and trying to help us in any way they could think of. They did push back a lot, maybe not in the way that you and I imagine just telling the Area President, “No, are you kidding me?” It’s not as easy as dropping the mic and walking away. I have only positive things to say about the leadership of our stakes and wards.

We sent all those letters and there was no response. Eventually, Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote an article in the Salt Lake Tribune – I spoke to her for the article and I felt like there was no other way to get transparency to understand why the Area President did this. We did all the things we were supposed to do: talk to the bishop, talk to the stake president, write letters to the Area President. Then Peggy’s article, and it turns out we’re not the first area to have women taken off the stand. We’re just the first to be loud about it.

Was this before or after you started the Instagram account?

This is all before the Instagram account. Before the Tribune article was published, I thought that would be it. I’d done my part of getting transparency; people would know what happened. I think that happens often – issues stay in the dark because we get looped back into “talk to your bishop or stake president,” and it never goes anywhere. The article came out Thanksgiving weekend and I was visiting my sister. She asked how I felt, and I said, “I feel like I have to figure out what the next step is.” I knew it wasn’t the end, I had to do something else.

I wrote an open letter to the women leaders of the Church – the general presidents of Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary. I wanted to speak to the women who do sit on the stand regularly, who are in charge, who are leaders and have a special understanding about sitting on the stand and could advocate for the women of the Church. I wrote the letter hoping to get a few hundred people to sign on, and that’s where the account started. How would other people know about the letter if I didn’t put it on social media? I was floored by the response. Thousands of people from all fifty states and 33 countries have signed the letter, and people still sign it.

The account purpose has expanded since the first open letter. I post the voices of other women and men on the account – their experiences with the stand, in the Church, and their thoughts about the power of equal partnership and visibility. I post about being more united in our service, how we can build the body of Christ to be as strong as possible, that we can all bring our full selves to the body of Christ as women and men of the Church, as saints. Calling us all “saints” is better because our language genders everything. I try to overcome the language barrier by calling all Church members “saints.”

We have a lot of gendered, “Men do this and women do that.” How about – we’re all Latter-day Saints, and every single one of us is important to the body of Christ with talents and gifts. Why are we telling people with beautiful talents and gifts to build Zion – no, that gift shouldn’t be yours because you’re a woman, so don’t bring it. And that gift is not supposed to be yours because you’re a man, so don’t give it to us, we don’t want that part of you in the body of Christ.

I appreciate that your focus is not just about where women sit. It’s the deeper issue of equal partnership and all people bringing all their gifts to our community. So where are we and what’s next?

The same Area President came again to our next stake conference, and I liked him. I want to make that very clear, I found him to be really open, really personable. I did not have a personal meeting with him, or any other higher leaders. That has been the path that other women and men have taken. That doesn’t feel fruitful to me, but we all have to do our part, it’s all the same work and we have different strengths.
He did address the question of women on the stand. I appreciated that. He said that he felt there were too many people on the stand, that only those participating in the meeting should be on the stand. This whole thing is about how people are interpreting the general handbook. My stake president looked at the handbook and said, “There’s nothing in here that says that women can’t be on the stand and it will be good for our stake.” He felt that the Spirit told him to do what his people needed. The Area President has stewardship too and looked at it a different way. He also said his instruction for no women being on the stand was specifically for our area. In the Tribune article, the Church did not take any ownership of the decision as a whole, which is why women sit on the stand in other parts of the world. He told us that the issue is being looked at in the Priesthood and Family Council.

It struck me earlier that it was women who opposed women leaders being on the stand, and I see opposition from women on Instagram. Not that every woman has to have the same perspective, but how do you respond to that?

I want to differentiate this. The women in my ward who didn’t want to be on the stand – it wasn’t out of meanness, it was out of discomfort.
When you put your voice out publicly, some people are awful. It’s both men and women – they’re dismissive and outright reject people’s thoughts, they question people’s testimonies and say it’s all about ego to want women leaders on the stand. It can be soul crushing that fellow saints say horrible things. My personal mission statement is to treat people with respect, regardless of how they treat me. I’m real fast with the block button, but I still try to be respectful and react in kindness. Questioning is not only important, it’s critical in our building and seeking.

The outright horrible ones with gross and demeaning language are easy to ignore. The thing that is the most damaging and harmful is a dismissive and patronizing attitude. “Oh, she just doesn’t have a testimony. She’s struggling, bless her heart.” The attitude is, “We don’t want your efforts at building Zion so we’re going to push you aside. You can stay in the club but we don’t really want to hear your voice.” Those are the people I worry about more than mean people who call you names. We’ve developed a culture of dismissal and it is so damaging. It does not belong in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What is your intention with the Instagram account going forward?

The Instagram account – regardless of what happens with women sitting on the stand in church meetings – has been a beautiful place and empowering for me personally, understanding that many women of all stripes are asking the same kind of questions. It’s not just Church members in the Bay area or Utah or Connecticut or whatever. It’s a worldwide conversation. It’s important to share the stories of saints who feel this movement of the Spirit to ask questions about equal partnership, how we can be more united in our service and leadership, and how we can become stronger by including voices that are often marginalized. It feels like a calling to me to be part of this work.

Being a middle school teacher prepared me for this kind of thing. Conflict is a daily thing in a middle school, but not all conflict is bad. Friction moves things forward and we need it. We need it in society. We need it in the Church. It’s not about avoiding questions and conflict or revealing something painful. Silencing is different. That’s not the work of peacemakers. Conflict can build our community because we can use it to better understand each other. People use the word “conflict” when they mean “contention,” but they’re different. You can have conflicts without contention. You can disagree with somebody and love them more in your disagreement, because you understand them more. It’s all the work of peacemaking and discipleship, because the work of discipleship is peacemaking. It’s by small things and an Instagram account is a really small thing.

I’m not inventing this kind of work. It has been done in different ways and different times throughout the history of the Church. I don’t know why I suddenly feel called to take part, but I do. In my own way, I’m trying to connect people who feel lonely in their questioning and give a space to be in conversation and be heard. It’s beautiful work. It’s hard work. It’s sometimes heartbreaking work. Until I don’t feel called to do it anymore, I’m going to keep going. Social media can be a powerful access point to people. It has been beautiful to use my gifts to build Zion and get into different spaces in a way I never did before. It’s been a blessing to use that part of who I am and what I care about.

AT A GLANCE

Name: Amy Watkins Jensen
Age: 51
Location: California
Marital history: Married
Children: 3
Convert to Church? (date): born in.
Education: BA in Spanish and MA in Spanish Literature from the University of Utah
Occupation: Teacher and writer
Languages spoken at home: English and Spanish
Favorite hymn: In our hymnal: Lead Kindly Light (not in our hymnal: Simple Gifts)
Website(s) and/or social media: Instagram @womenonthestand

At A Glance