In a recent BYU devotional Elaine Dalton, the Young Women’s General President said this when speaking directly to women in the church:

“Young women you will be the ones who will provide the example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous lovely praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones to provide an example of family life in a time when families are under attack, being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights.” (full video here)

In context of the talk I think it is pretty clear that what Sister Dalton was talking about was the need to lobby for rights within the structure of the church, not within the broader society. The talk itself was broad ranging and popped from one subject to another with a very loose theme of praising those in the room for being of a “marked generation” with “special responsibilities”. It included a lot of “us” versus “the world” rhetoric which has tended to go with these choice generation talks since as long as I can remember. So the quote above is really all the context relevant to try and fairly interpret what the speaker meant. The rights line seems to come out of nowhere and the next sentence switch audiences to talk directly to the “young men”.

It is hard not to think that this was in direct response to some of the recent collective efforts toward raising the profile of women’s issues in the church, the two most noticeable being Wear Pants to Church Day and now the Let Women Pray letter writing campaign.

How do you interpret what Sister Dalton meant? What in the roles and responsibilities of women would preclude women for lobbying for rights? Was she only talking about “new” rights? Or also lobbying for the rights women already hold?

If your daughter asked you what to make of this part of the talk, what do you tell them?