Quoted at the Pulpit: Male Rhetoric and Female Authority in Fifty Years of General Conference

In her 2020 address to the worldwide membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Primary general president Joy Jones declared, “President Russell M. Nelson taught, ‘It would be impossible to measure the influence that . . . women have, not only on families but also on the Lord’s Church, as wives, mothers, and grandmothers; as sisters and aunts; as teachers and leaders; and especially as exemplars and devout defenders of the faith.’” Though it certainly may be impossible to measure women’s influence on families, it is to some extent possible to measure the influence that leaders like Jones and Nelson believe women have on the Church. Jones’s speech, delivered at the Church’s semiannual general conference, exemplifies a long tradition of Latterday Saint rhetoric, particularly in her use of quotation. In her eleven minutes at the pulpit, Jones quoted