What Kind of Women Do We Need?

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday morning session of the October 2000 conference.

In less than two months our daughter will graduate (debt free) with a Masters degree in Creative Writing. It's been a delight to have her live with us for the past four years. We regularly discuss books and writing and such. Learning from her as she learns has been tremendous fun. She also teaches a section of "Freshman English" each semester, so we hear about the current state of students too.

A phenomenon in recent years has been the rise of the "strong woman" protagonist in stories, books and films. This strong woman doesn't need a man to rescue her, she is doing the rescuing, battling males with aplomb and leading armies to victory, etc., etc. 

Our daughter grew up with four brothers so she is not entirely drawn in by the myth of the strong woman. She understands that a woman's strength is more in the emotional and spiritual realms rather than the physical. (Although I will say that she and I regularly move furniture and heavy boxes, open jars and doors, and fix things around the house in the absence of any males.)

In this session of conference Sister Margaret D. Nadauld, Young Women General President, spoke of The Joy of Womanhood. She said so many profound things! The best of all was this:

Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.

 

Our daughter, who I call Noble on my blogs, served in the USAF for four years, and has now gone to college for seven. She stills lives up to her name, Noble, because she is the kind of woman Sister Nadauld describes. We need more like her!