The Priesthood.

I don't think I've ever really fully understood the priesthood. growing up I didn't have any brothers and my father was a convert. I never received a fathers blessing..besides being named as an infant. It wasn't until my first semester at BYU that I realized that I could ask worthy priesthood holders like my home teachers and bishop for blessings for guidance and comfort. I took an important opportunity to receive a blessing from a bishop I had for only a few months while I was working in Ogden Utah one summer. My bishop didn't know me very well, actually I'm almost certain he may have even been unsure of my name until then. He said things that only my heavenly father could have known I needed. I have been blessed in different ways many times by the priesthood. I know it is a real power. But, still I feel there are many things I do not understand...many of which are hard to even formulate into questions. And, any questions I present here... I do not do so in an unbelieving or doubting manner...I do not question God for what he does, or think him unfair. I know he is a just God. I'm just curious.

Recently in my Art Criticism class we have been studying feminist theories and feminist art. My teacher gave us this article published in BYU Studies called, "Feminism in the Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

It talked about a lot of things and it talked about the priesthood. Sometimes I would think about the priesthood and how women don't have it and think to myself...well we have different roles. Women bear children and men don't... in the article it pointed out something interesting... "The notion that for mortal women motherhood is the parallel to priesthood is equally spurious (to the previous thing they were mentioning in the article), since all women are not mothers; fatherhood, not priesthood, is the male counterpart to motherhood. Furthermore, motherhood and fatherhood are bestowed on the righteous and the wicked alike."

So then what is the priesthood, and what is it about it that makes it so women don't have it? And, what do we have then?

k, so it blesses people's lives, women also bless others lives, and as it says in Alma 32:23 Women also are imparted his word. And I've had experiences where I know words were given to me that I know were not my own...

k, so priesthood is also for the administering of saving ordinances. In True to the Faith it says it is the power in which Heavenly Father redeems and exalts his children, and "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."(Moses 1:39)...
as a set apart Provo temple worker I have participated in saving ordinances for the dead...yet I do not have the priesthood? Why? What do I have? Authority? Stewardship (in other callings)? What is the priesthood? How does it relate to women?

these are my questions...