Why is the LDS priesthood for males only?
 The following is a comment on the timesandseasons.org blog, in which a post raised the question of how to explain to one's children the fact that only males are ordained to the priesthood in the LDS Church:

Having spent 20 years in a real male-dominated power hierarchy (the military), I can affirm that the priesthood in the Church is not such a creature. When a Church leader is operating the way he has been taught to by the scriptures and by the prophets, he is a humble servant who places those he “leads” above his own self-realization and self-aggrandizement.

We should not confuse what it means to be a “priest” in a traditional Christian church with what it means in the LDS Church. A traditional Christian “priest” or pastor has a career, in which his (or her) income (including effective income with the perks that come with an office) depends on popularity with the congregants who donate in response to how pleased they are with the priest or pastor. As a career path and means of supporting one’s self and family, the arguments for equal employment opportunity argue for equality between men and women. But when priesthood is divorced from career, when it is predominantly sacrifice, the career model does not apply. Anyone who wants to serve and make sacrifices on behalf of others can do so with or without priesthood.

The scriptures denigrate “the natural man” as “an enemy to God.” The priesthood and the commitment and covenant to service and self-sacrifice it entails is a structure that helps to provide the discipline so that a “natural man” (AKA beer-drinking couch-potato man) can be transformed into a person with a broken heart and childlike in submitting to God. I am sure many men could achieve that behavior and attitude without the priesthood, but for many men it is an essential structure for making that transition from seeing themselves the way the world sees them, and seeing themselves the way the Lord sees them.

Anyone, man or woman, who wants a leadership position in the Church because it gives the leader power over others is not someone I want in that position. Theories about feminist power versus patriarchy seem to me to have the dominant goal of using power to get more wealth and other gratifications, and to satisfy the ego by dominating others. I don’t see any of those goals as being compatible with the Gospel.

What exactly does a priesthood leader get for himself? A chance to hear himself praised occasionally in public? Beyond basic affirmation that one is being effective, it is pride, which we must not let dominate our attitudes and motives. A chance to sit in the seat on the stand in front of everyone? A position that confers the burden of being a visual example (no nose-pickin’ on the sly). A chance to speak more often to the congregation? If done in turn, and with reliance on the Spirit, and in a spirit of service rather than pride, it is simply an opportunity accepted with gratitude.

In the meantime, there are endless hours of service out of the limelight, bearing the burdens of ward members intensely and with a constant consciousness of one’s own inadequacy.

So my hypothesis is that the conferral of the priesthood is the creation of exactly the situation that Moroni addresses in Ether Chapter 12: Having the priesthood, and callings in the priesthood, are times when we are called to “come unto the Lord” and see our weakness in light of the challenges that come with our callings, and realize the need for us to be humble so that we can be strengthened by God, and “magnify” that calling, making ourselves better in the process. In my own life experience, the process of introspection and self-assessment is more of a natural component of female temperament, but it needs to be enhanced in men through structures like priesthood callings. It is something men need here in a Telestial, fallen world. The example and implication of the Temples is that priesthood is a different creature, with a different character and structure in the Celestial worlds.