My reaction to the Mormon Gender Issues Survey

Okay, I wanted to vent about something, and get y'all's response.  I'm trying to figure out if I am finding problems because I am looking for them, or if you see/sense the same thing.

It is about a survey that I've seen posted by several friends on facebook over the past two days.  It is called the Mormon Gender Issues Survey.  You can read about it on their website, and you can also read one negative response to it here.  I also read this news article about it.

When I was first exposed to the survey, I didn't have a reason to feel negatively biased.  Most of my friends who shared it on their walls are intelligent, highly-educated, faithful women and they were promoting it as a good thing.  But I was immediately skeptical and cautious, likely due to the subject matter.  (I've tried to keep educated on the Ordain Women movement ever since it became prominent on social media and in the news, and have noticed their celebration of "agitating" and of using social media to, at times, misrepresent and even villainize the church and its leaders.  Because of what I have read, I have become wary of conversations involving the church and gender issues.  Which is really too bad.  Because I love being a member of the Church and I love being a proponent of women.  I should be excited about the intersection of those topics!)  Anyway, I was cautious and curious as I began to complete the survey.

Well, perhaps it was because I was looking for it, or perhaps it was just because it was there, but I found example after example of questions that felt biased and misleading.  Here are a few examples:

Example 1:

In this example, there is clear leading/biasing.  Before the question is asked, there is a sentence about disciplinary courts.  According to my understanding, there is no direct link between expressing support for something and church discipline.  It is as though the authors of the survey want to create an association between the two.  Such a narrative is inconsistent with how the church operates and feels manipulative.  And the responses seem more consistent with the bias toward establishing a correlation between church discipline and responding to others' views than what to me would seem like reasonable responses to the situation.  (I marked "other" and indicated that, if I had a relationship with the person, I may have a private conversation with them to better understand their views and to express my own.)

Example 2:

In this example, only two options are provided.  There is not a fill-in option or a "prefer not to respond" option.  The question itself doesn't seem biased, but in asking with "comes closer" to one's view, it does seem to suggest that these answer options should be part of the same bipolar continuum.  Or, in other words, one answer should be somewhere on one side of a scale, with the other somewhere on the opposite side.  And the question is asking which side you lean towards.

Here's the problem, these questions don't belong on the same scale.  One is asking about timing ("seek first"), while the other does not suggest a time table.  It seems that a whole process was divided in two, and then we are asked to choose between two incomplete things.  The complete pattern is to receive counsel (I'm not sure if this term refers to advice or revelation) from priesthood leaders, to seek personal revelation, and then to act in faith even if you don't end up learning 'the why'.    Other nit-picky complaints: I feel that "good Latter-day Saint" is ambiguous and subjective.  And, as previously mentioned, the term "counsel" could be interpreted a few ways.  Oh, and the use of "should" statements makes me think of psychological control, which I don't like to naturally associate myself or the church with.

My biggest concern about the construction of the items in this survey is the potential for responses being misrepresented.  Here's an example of what I mean.

Example 3:

In and of itself, this isn't a bad research question.  But, here is the thing, when I answer this question, I am intending to say, "In faith, I will accept God's word as it is revealed to and announced through the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles".  But I worry that the headline of the news article covering the research article will end up reading, "90% of Active Mormons Support Allowing Women to Hold the Priesthood".  And, if this were to happen, either on account of the researchers' bias or the media's, it would completely misrepresent my response.

And I know that there is bias.  I have seen how media coverage oversimplifies and sensationalizes research.  And I know that there is bias among at least some of the researchers responsible for this survey.  According the the news article I linked earlier, one of the researchers is the spokeswoman for Ordain Women.  And I have noticed occasions when their organization's news coverage has employed contentious rhetoric and distorted narratives that, at times, have misrepresented the church, its teachings and its leaders.

Now, maybe I'm being ridiculous and extreme and overly pessimistic.  It's possible.  Maybe it is just a survey.  Maybe it is well-intentioned.  And maybe it can and will provide a way for many who feel unrepresented to have a voice.  That would be great.  But...it seems to me that it is a deceptive and biased survey created by individuals with an agenda, and that the data could ultimately be presented in a way that misrepresents my voice and others' as these individuals try to forward an agenda that I do not support.