Abbie Clark discusses how members rationalize women not having the priesthood in the Mormon church.

How Members Rationalize Women's Exclusion from the Priesthood: A Look at Popular Mormon Arguments

For decades, the question of why women don't hold the priesthood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has generated intense discussion both inside and outside the faith. Yet beyond official statements and theological positions lies a quieter phenomenon: the informal, everyday reasoning that members use to make sense of, and often defend, this distinctive doctrine. Understanding these rationalizations reveals something important about how religious communities process teachings that conflict with modern values, and how believers navigate the gap between doctrine and lived experience.

Religious scholar Abbie Clark has examined precisely this phenomenon, exploring the psychological and social mechanisms by which Latter-day Saints explain and justify the male-only priesthood structure. In conversations documented on the Mormon Stories Podcast, Clark identified patterns in how members frame this doctrine, patterns that tell us much about the church's evolving relationship with gender roles and institutional change.

The "Natural Service" Rationalization

One of the most commonly cited justifications Clark encountered centers on a peculiar inversion of gender stereotypes. The reasoning goes: women naturally possess an inclination toward service and caregiving, so they don't need the priesthood to motivate them to help others. Men, by contrast, require the formal structure and responsibility of the priesthood to inspire them toward the same charitable impulse.

This rationalization is striking for several reasons. It simultaneously celebrates women's nurturing nature while using that very celebration to justify their institutional exclusion. The logic suggests that because women are already naturally service-oriented, granting them formal religious authority becomes unnecessary, even redundant. Men need the carrot of priesthood responsibility to achieve what women accomplish innately.