Exponent II's Blog, page 170

I am not free while any woman is unfree.

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June 1, 2020

By LMA

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour remains chained. Nor is any one of you.”

-Audre Lorde, “Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”

One week ago today, on May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Many people in the United States and around the world are responding to the systemic racism, trauma, and injustice in his death, and the deaths and pain of so many other Black and Brown people.

It is so important to us to speak about what is happening, and to attend to it with care, directiveness, and intention. We are also fully aware of the complexities and long, traumatic history related to racism and the faith many of us belong to, are adjacent to, used to belong to, and/or have a complex relationship with. While a statement has now been made (and we are grateful for this), church leadership are still unwilling and unable to acknowledge their role in continued systemic racism. It is very important to us we speak about this and communicate our priorities, love, and commitment to our siblings of color, but especially Black and Brown siblings.

We are sending so much love, comfort, and care to you. You deserve to be comforted, ministered to, helped, supported, amplified, and protected, as you always have. Your lives, resources, comfort and safety are so, so precious.

We are so sorry and feel anger and rage and sadness for the suffering, trauma, wrongs, and injustice done to people of color, especially Black people, in the name of whiteness. We are so sorry and feel anger and rage and sadness for the suffering, trauma, wrongs, and injustice done to people of color, especially Black people, in the name of faith and Mormonism.

These are the things we want to say to our white siblings that read this:

As a white woman raised in a deeply conservative home, I think often about the messages I was given and the things I was taught about vital issues related to intersectional feminism, such as race, sexuality, and body autonomy. So many were raised in both covert and overt racist environments and institutions and faiths like this. We were not taught about racism or how to talk about race; we were benefiting profoundly from racism and white privilege.

Now that we’re adults, we have to be doing the vital work of critically recognizing our privilege, actively working to dismantle it, and leveraging it on behalf of others. This effort is profoundly delicate and we may feel very uncomfortable recognizing our immense privilege, but the time is past for us to do this work. Audre Lorde was right:

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour remains chained. Nor is any one of you.” 

Audre Lorde, “Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”

Here is a place to start with that work:

This comprehensive link from Black Lives Matter outlines specific, concrete ways to help, including signing petitions, contacting organizations/representatives, and various sources of donation (e.g., victims, protesters, Black-owned businesses) or donating without spending money.

This piece from The Cut outlines additional places/organizations where you can donate funds if you’re able.

This piece from Medium outlines 75 concrete ways to actively assist in racial justice as a white person.

This Instagram post outlines reflection questions to consider your thoughts and experiences with race and what you have been taught about race. They are written by therapist Lisa Olivera.

Read Kid Melodie’s plan to organize resources and help share the experiences of Black Mormons to Latter-day Saint general authorities via a letter-writing campaign.

Read more on the Exponent Blog about racism and Mormonism.

This presentation given by Audre Lorde (referenced above) powerfully discusses the connection between Black women and other women of color and white women.

Read more from The Body Is Not an Apology about intersections of race and other dimensions of identity.

More content regarding these events will be forthcoming. We urge white people, in all of the varied intersections of privilege they experience, to do all they can to consider what they personally can and will do to show support for our siblings of color now and into the future.

Call For Submissions: Fall 2020

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The Fall 2020 issue of Exponent II is open to any topic and we encourage everyone in the Exponent community to submit something. We often hear: “I am not sure what to write about or how to even begin a personal essay.”

The best essays start as everyday stories. Something happens to us that we did not expect, or we react to something in an unexpected way. We had a script in our mind as to how a scene would play out; then the story changed and we found ourselves in a completely different narrative. Notice these moments as you move through life; think about moments like these in your past life. These moments are the stories that spark interesting essays.

With one of these ideas in mind, ask yourself a few questions and jot down the answers.

What was I expecting? How was I living in the world before?What happened that I did not expect?What were the details of the moments–what led up to this point, what was going on with the main players; what was the setting; what were the reactions of the bystanders; what did I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel?How was the world different afterward? How as I different? How is it now?

Take these notes and organize them into a simple draft. Stay focused on your story and keep in mind a few things not to do–they can be distracting to you and reader:

Don’t add lots of quotations. We want to hear your voice and how you frame your experience.Unless submitting to Sabbath Pastorals or Women’s Theology, we want to hear your experiences and insights about those experiences in narrative form and not as a doctrinal talk.Don’t feel compelled to tidy things up with a moral to the story. The best essays describe what happened, what it means to the writer, and then invites the reader to make their own connections to their life.

In addition to personal essays, we publish a broad range of features. Women’s Theology looks at Mormon feminist theology. Global Zion publishes the experiences of Mormons around the world and how faith and culture intersect. Sabbath Pastorals shares sermons given by Mormon women over the pulpit. Flannel Board gives practical ideas for how to make church work better. We also have poetry and short fictional stories. If you’re interested in contributing to any of these, please contact us.

Drafts are meant to invite discussion and revision; they are never perfect. Send the best draft to us and let us look it over. Don’t be intimidated if you are a new writer. If your story is a fit for the magazine, we have staff members who can work one-on-one with you to prepare your essay for publication.

We are dedicated to sharing a broad range of Mormon women’s voices and the voices of marginalized genders through writing and art. If you have something you would like to submit, please send it to exponentiieditor@gmail.com by July 1. Submissions should be 700-2400 words and in Google Doc or Word format.

Book Review: A Girl’s Guide to Heavenly Mother

[image error]By  Dani Addante

I was very excited when I heard about this book. This is a book solely about Heavenly Mother! It’s written by McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding, the writers of the Girls Who Choose God series and Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families.

This book has amazing artwork on every page, showing women of all different races and nationalities. Even though this book is written for girls, I learned new things about Heavenly Mother as I read. This book even offers ideas on recognizing Heavenly Mother more in our lives.

There are many wonderful quotes throughout this book, about Heavenly Mother and what women have inherited from Her. One of my favorite quotes in this book is about our Heavenly Parents being equals and also about Heavenly Mother being involved in our everyday lives. That’s something I hadn’t really thought much about, but it definitely makes sense.

The book mentions that Heavenly Mother “co-designed the Plan of Salvation” (15). Another page talks about taking care of the Earth and refers to Heavenly Mother as a “creator” (17). I loved these quotes because, though we talk a lot about the Plan of Salvation at church, it seems that we rarely hear anything about Heavenly Mother’s involvement in the Plan. But it definitely makes sense that she would’ve been involved. She is our mother, after all.

One thing I found intriguing was this: “The Prophet Harold B. Lee once told a story about how Heavenly Mother stopped a man from smoking” (18). I had never heard of this before, so I’m curious to read the reference for it. I imagine that if this happened, then there must be many other examples of Heavenly Mother helping people in their lives.

One of my favorite pages in the book spoke about the matriarchal line. It suggests writing down your matriarchal line. This touched me because I’m so used to seeing in the Scriptures only the patriarchal line listed. It feels like a powerful thing to list the line of matriarchs. 

I love that the book talks about women’s eternal destiny as well. The book gives an amazing quote by a BYU professor: “Your destiny is not counselor-hood. Your destiny is Godhood” (30). 

Towards the end of the book, it talks about changes that we can make with these truths we know about Heavenly Mother and our divine destiny. Some of the suggestions involve mentioning Heavenly Mother during prayers, referring to her in hymns, recognizing her hand in our lives, and having an FHE lesson about Her. The book also suggests actions to improve equality, such as developing skills to help you have a future equal partnership and also dating boys who value women as equals. 

“In every gospel setting that is appropriate—talk about Heavenly Mother. Don’t leave Her out!” (41). While I do feel a little inhibited about talking about Her at church, since I worry that people would not appreciate talk of Her, I feel inspired to do my best to help others feel Her influence. 

This is a wonderful book for girls and women, and I believe men and boys should read it too! Heavenly Mother is a Goddess, the Mother of all of us, and whenever we talk of Heavenly Father, we should remember Her as well!

Guest Post: Mistaken Enemy #CopingWithCOVID19

[image error]By Brita

When I went on a mission to South America over 20 years ago, I knew that I would learn things there that would stay with me throughout my life. But I had no idea that one of the most important lessons I would learn would apply to a pandemic in 2020.

The city that my mission was based in had two missions headquartered there: the North Mission and the South Mission. Both mission offices were housed in the same office building, and the respective office Elders sometimes interacted with each other. My zone leaders told me that the two mission presidents had very different styles and approaches to missionary work, and as a result their missionaries reflected those differences. I didn’t think much about these rumors at the time. All of the areas I was assigned to serve in were far away from the city, and I would never even see missionaries from the other mission. Or so I thought.

But one day our mission was turned upside down. One of the two mission presidents was abruptly pulled out of the country and reassigned to a different mission. (“He was getting death threats!” the mission gossip said.) Now 300+ missionaries were combined for the foreseeable future under the leadership of the remaining mission president. He had only a month left of his three-year assignment, and he wanted to have us prepared to serve as one united mission under the new incoming president, so he made an executive decision: he reassigned every missionary to a new companionship with a missionary from the other mission. Perhaps he reasoned that we would quickly learn to work together in spite of our different backgrounds.

Sadly, that was not the case for many companionships. It turned out that there was more than just a difference in style. Many missionaries had a great disdain for missionaries from the other mission, and they quickly mobilized to try to make sure that the missionary from their “team” had the upper hand in all companionships. Those first weeks together were really rough. Arguments broke out in zone meetings. We heard of Elders who got in fist fights with their companions. P-day activities with other missionaries grew to be a source of tension instead of a time to relax, as missionaries from the other mission said and did things to provoke their “rivals.” A full six months after the missions combined, I watched missionaries arrive at the Christmas mission conference and abandon their companions so that they could run off and gossip about them with their old friends.

I was very fortunate with my companions and mostly avoided any conflict related to mission “team” loyalty. But it hurt a lot when I was transferred to a new area and immediately felt hostility from my new zone leader. We had never even met before, but I was from the other mission and was therefore the enemy. I just didn’t understand the rivalry. Weren’t we all supposed to be on the same team? Didn’t we all have the same goal as missionaries—to bring people to Christ? And yet here we were treating each other as enemies. The number of baptisms in our mission plummeted. I was sure it was because of the contention between missionaries. How could we teach by the Spirit when there was so much anger? I imagined Satan laughing at the situation. He didn’t have to work on our investigators; we had done a great job of sabotaging the missionary work on our own.

At the end of my mission I returned home a bit stunned by what had happened. Over the years as I reflected on my mission, I started to notice how similar things were happening all the time in my wards and in the Church as a whole. Sometimes we were quick to demonize other members simply because they didn’t believe exactly the same as we did, or because they had a different approach or style. Were we forgetting that we were all on the same team, with the goal of following Jesus? And what was all this talk about “The World,” turning people outside the Church into enemies? Isn’t one of our important doctrines the idea that we all—every single person on earth—chose to follow Jesus in the premortal existence? Shouldn’t we be trying to help others on their journey instead of labeling them as enemies? It was so easy to fall into the trap of vilifying others. Mosiah 3:19 says, “The natural man is an enemy to God.” Yes. “An enemy to God” . . . and to people, I thought. I had to work hard to resist the tendency to turn others into enemies, too.

I have always loved reading inspirational accounts of what happened during World War II, how regular people united and sacrificed together to defeat an evil man who sought to destroy lives, cultures, goodness and freedoms. When COVID-19 turned our lives upside down, I was so hopeful that it would be a time to finally set aside differences and unite against a common enemy—a dangerous virus that kills vulnerable people and causes suffering and long-term health problems for many more. At first I was very encouraged. People all around the world quickly made big changes in their lives in order to slow down the virus. But in the United States, where political polarization has been extreme for several years now, many people have already turned on each other instead of continuing the fight against the virus. Some people on the right have taken to calling mask-wearers “sheeple.” Others accuse the left of being happy about the virus and the high death count because they make President Trump look bad. There are accusations from the left, as well, with many accusing the right of caring more about money than about people’s lives.

The most troubling accusation I have heard is that we are overreacting, that the virus really isn’t that bad. With my background in infectious diseases, and from reading the news out of New York City, I can tell that the virus is bad, really bad. I worry that many people have given up the fight against the virus altogether, because they would rather fight other people. Does the virus laugh at this? Of course not. Viruses don’t laugh. But you’d better believe that SARS-CoV-2 is taking advantage of our fighting with each other to fulfill its own mission, which is to make as many copies of itself as possible.

To be sure, bad policies, bad leadership, unpreparedness, and lack of tests all contributed in a major way to the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. But the chaos and confusion caused by fighting in my country have without a doubt already contributed to many deaths, and the pandemic isn’t close to being over.

Maybe I am naïve, but I still hope that good things can come from the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Perhaps people will look at countries that did a remarkable job in their fight against the virus, like South Korea and New Zealand, and they will learn that unity is more important than partisan politics. Perhaps when we return to church, we won’t care so much about our differences. Perhaps we will be more aware of the vulnerabilities and suffering of others, more willing to help in hard times. You know, a little closer to Zion.

 

Brita spent five years of her career working on experimental new vaccines, and she is cheering on all of the people who are working so hard right now to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

[Image: Three Little Girls in a Room Arguing and Spitting by Lorenz Frølich]

Sacred Music Sunday: How Can I Keep from Singing? #CopingWithCOVID19

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I love to sing. I’ve been singing in choirs since childhood. I sing to the cats when nobody else is home. I sing along to the radio. Singing can express emotions in ways that mere words can’t. A whole book of scripture is dedicated to hymn texts.

I’ve written previously about how the cancellation of church has negatively impacted my life. But the cancellation of communal singing has also had a demoralizing effect. The singing of the hymns is the part of our worship that feels the most worshipful to me. Sermons can be inspiring or instructive, but there’s something about joining together in lifting up our voices together in praise that is transcendent.

I don’t know when we’ll be able to sing together again. How can I keep from singing?

When it’s Graduation Day and Your Senior isn’t Graduating

This week I have been watching my friends’ social media feeds as they celebrate graduation day with their 2020 seniors. Happy pictures of families celebrating their kids at their remote graduations. Our local high school had a drive through graduation with families decorating their cars. I am happy for them in their joy, and love seeing announcements of where the graduates are heading for college next year. Yet it is bittersweet because I am grieving. I wanted that experience of celebrating with my child. She didn’t tell us she wasn’t receiving her diploma until two days before. And she told us she would not be participating in the drive through ceremony so we shouldn’t come. This morning I saw pictures on social media of her and her boyfriend at the drive through graduation. It hurts that I could not be part of it. It hurts that she didn’t finish her requirements for graduation. It hurts that she abandoned home life months ago.

Last November she turned 18. I had been excited to celebrate her big day. Saturday she spent the whole day running here and there with friends and had a late party with a large group of teens at a friend’s community building. Sunday evening, on her actual birthday, we had a big family party with all the local relatives. We spent much of the day preparing food, and I thought it was a fun occasion for her. She seemed happy. She watched TV with me that night and I told her I loved her, was proud of her, and apologized for all my parenting mistakes over the years.

Monday she didn’t come home from school. I wasn’t initially shocked, since she frequently didn’t tell me when she had plans. But she messaged me an hour later and announced she didn’t live here anymore. My heart dropped and broke into a million pieces. Moments after her text, I opened the fridge, and saw half a giant rainbow birthday cake with happy lettering, spelling out her name. I folded the laundry and her clothes were mixed in among the others. I took her clothes down to her room and saw 40 library books lining her bookshelf. Who decided that turning 18 magically makes one an ‘adult’?

I had no desire to do anything. My house was messy, I didn’t want to make dinner. I didn’t want to read a book. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I just wanted to talk to my baby. I wanted something to make sense. It was hard to put on a smile when the other kids come home. I felt like I have maybe never been a good mother, that maybe they all hated me and couldn’t wait to leave me. I felt like nothing I had ever done was good.

It was hard to look at the other little faces without seeing hers. It was hard to coach them through math worksheets, reading practice, and bath time and not remember there is a body missing from the dinner table, a face I don’t get to wake for school in the morning or greet returning home.

My baby removed herself from our home secretly and still will not even talk to me about it. I was so blindsided. I felt completely devastated. I cried and cried for weeks. My eyes itchy and puffy, my face splotchy, my throat sore, my head ached, I felt empty inside. When I had time alone, I have never heard such inhuman moans coming from my own throat.

I wanted a strong independent daughter. But I still wanted to be part of her life.

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For over a year, I’ve been learning about thought work and trying to confront my own unhealthy thought patterns, especially surrounding relationships. As part of this I am trying to become aware of my own ‘scripts’, my thoughts about how people in my life are supposed to behave. For instance, my children are supposed to be clean, obedient, and affectionate, right? My parents should love me unconditionally, be supportive, and understanding, right? And my husband should be not only hardworking and loyal, but also romantic, handsome, and enchanted by me, right? It starts to sound pretty fantastical the more I let myself elaborate on how everyone else should behave. After admitting I have these fantasies running my thoughts, I try to question those emotional stories and let my rational mind take over. When I am in my rational mind, I can recognize that everyone else is their own person with their own motivations and preferences and that I am just not as big a player in their life as I’d like to think.

When I am successful at handing things off to my rational mind, I can see that my scripts are only harming my relationships. When I believe the script, on some level I believe something is wrong with my loved ones and I am trying to control them and make them fit the expectations of my story. So, I had this story about my daughter. I watched this beautiful, vibrant, intelligent child grow. I did my best as a mother and thought she was going to do all the things… like stay interested in school, make straight A’s, choose an exciting career path, get a scholarship, and head off to college to start her journey into adulthood. That wasn’t the right story for my child. Her story was that she lost interest in school and family life. She didn’t want to be told when to sleep or eat or study. She wanted to love on her friends and sing and play. She is fighting her own battles with her own demons. She is still figuring out where her story is going and who gets to be a part of it.

Part of the lie in my story was that I was entitled to anything. I thought as a mother I was entitled to a lot of things. I thought I was entitled to a lot of “thank you’s” for my contributions, that I was entitled to have some kind of input in her life plan, that I was entitled to know where she was and what she was doing. I thought I was entitled to be at graduation and in her pictures and participate in the proud picture sharing. She is teaching me that I am wrong about all of that. Turns out I am not entitled to anything. This has been a very hard lesson for me. It has caused me a lot of sleepless nights as I resisted and struggled to know and acquire the information I wasn’t going to get.

I am a slow learner, but I am hoping at some point the worry will fade away, and that sleep will come more easily.  I hope when I see her she will want to share more of her life with me. I hope at some point this will make me a better mother. I hope I will be able to see more clearly where the child begins and I end. I hope that I will be more comfortable with not knowing and let go completely of the “should be” stories. I hope I can be a better parent to the children still here. I hope I won’t make all the stories about me and about whether I am good enough. I hope I can completely let go of the judgement that comes from having stories about how other people should be; that I can love people wholly and see who they are and help them know they are seen and loved.

 

Affirming mantras about our bodies, body size, and food during a global pandemic. #CopingWithCOVID19

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May 2020

By LMA

These mantras are associated with a blog post on fat phobia and our changing bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are applicable other times, too. 

My body is one of the only things I will have with me throughout my entire life.

My body can be an important form of comfort during this pandemic (and other times). It can also protect me.

The way I feel in my body, present it to others, and have it responded to is important.

*My body is attractive and deserving of love and intimate partnership in whatever form feels good to me.

My body has value and meaning as it is, or what it is transitioning into, whichever is most helpful to me.

My body is deserving of nourishment and food that comforts me and tastes good.

It is natural and normal for bodies to change and evolve over time.

Food does not have moral value. The type and amount of food I eat has absolutely no correlation to my value as a person or the type of care my body should receive.

I will do my best to treat my body as I would the body of a little child: with gentleness, compassion, and softness.

It is okay if I have complex feelings about my body. This makes sense given what I might have been taught, my experiences in my body, and how others have responded to my body.

If I feed myself during this pandemic, that is enough. There is no one right way to eat during this time (or ever).

Whatever size clothes I need are okay and important. My clothes help me function in my body and are a form of comfort and protection.

No one has a right to make demeaning comments about my body.

No body is more or less valuable than another, even if others say this is so.

My body is deserving of protection and care.

There are people who affirm and love me and are interested in caring for my body, despite the actions or words of others.

Heavenly Mother wants me to feel safe and comfortable in my body. She affirms my body as it is, or what it is transitioning into, whichever is most helpful to me.

*There is disagreement among the body positivity and fat activism communities whether or not there is a role for attractiveness and beauty. We are multi-faceted human beings who clearly do not solely function to be attractive for ourselves or others. However, I believe there is a place for feeling attractive or beautiful for people that have been historically stigmatized, such as fat folks. I was not told I was attractive or beautiful in my family of origin, and it is part of my own therapeutic work to see my body as attractive on my own terms.

Fat phobia, our changing bodies, & the COVID-19 pandemic. #CopingWithCOVID19

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by LMA

May 2020

I am a fat woman. My fat body is a valuable body. She is a comfort to me. She is the only thing I’ve had with me throughout my whole life, and she’s one of the only things I ever will have with me. I’m so grateful for her. I’ve worked very hard to feel peaceful with her and about her. She deserves nourishment, care, and love. All of our bodies do.

In many respects, this pandemic has brought forward and exacerbated many problems that were already here to begin with, but brought them up in entirely different ways. The problem I would like to talk about is the way we refer to and talk about fat bodies.

I have seen a lot of folk, particularly in online spaces, make jokes and comments about their bodies and the amount of weight they will gain or have gained during the pandemic. At the beginning of quarantine, I saw over and over a clip of a famous politician talking about something getting bigger overlaid with people making reference to their bodies. I’ve seen multiple Tik-Tik videos, tweets, and Instagram posts include similar jokes about changing bodies, eating comfort food (heaven forbid our bodies be comforted during a global pandemic) and the “need” for a trainer because of increased weight from quarantine.

These have come from people I know and love and even from respected Mormon Twitter folk I would never assume would make these kinds of fat phobic jokes. Just a few days ago, I saw the highest ranking female political official in the country I live in make an extremely fat phobic comment about another political official’s response to COVID-19 in a way that was meant to clearly demean him and his body. Several days afterward, it was still a trending topic on Twitter and there are significant numbers of articles and fat phobic comments attached to them.

When people make these jokes and comments, they are joking-not-joking about these concerns. Many people do not fully realize what they are inferring or communicating. However, what is being communicated is very clear. What people are communicating is that the worst thing that could happen to their body is that it could become fat or larger than it currently is. They are communicating deep insecurity, fear, and hatred of fat on their own and others’ bodies.

The term for this is fat phobia.

It makes a lot of (tragic) sense why this is so:

We are taught from the time we are young that our bodies are not to be accepted in whatever form they are in, and that however they are, they are not right. This is especially the case for children and adults in fat bodies, and bodies of color, particularly women of color.

We live in a deeply fat phobic society where we are taught our value is in our body’s appearance, and the type of consumption our body can offer. We are taught that to be valuable is to be as thin as possible, and to never accept or be at peace with whatever type of body we have or are transitioning into. We are taught it is better to restrict and actively harm our bodies than to nourish and protect them.

We live in a fat phobic society that is founded on discrimination of fat bodies by the medical establishment and the deeply discriminatory and disgusting notion that the most “physically healthy” body is a thin body. This is manifest in the medical discrimination of fat bodies and the vastly different levels of and access to medical care and compassion people receive depending on body size. See this conference presentation that describes the tragic and shaming experiences of fat folk with medical professionals or practitioners and this article and this research about fat women’s experiences with doctors.

The garbage adages we have been taught our whole lives about how all fat bodies become and are physically unhealthy are also wrong and inaccurate. Fat activists such as Jes Baker have written about this. For example, given that fat folk are discriminated and responded to so negatively by doctors and other medical professionals, they are less likely to go to the doctor (research clearly bears this out). Potential medical concerns can be the result of poor medical care and lack of access to care, not that fat bodies are inherently unhealthy (see Jes Baker’s book, “Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls”).

We are also taught that fat bodies are not sexually desirable or worthy of partnership, or if they are, it will be because someone has a fetish for fat bodies. In our church, we teach that the only way to access sex is through heterosexual marriage and partnership (which is wrong), and worse yet, that appearance plays a prominent role in this process. In my family, this was communicated to me in the ways people talked to me about my future. I was consistently talked to in language about “if you get married” or “if you have a family” whereas it was assumed my thin or somewhat straight-size siblings would get married and be partnered and have families. This is disgusting. Every person is desirable and worthy of partnership, connection, and intimate relationships in whatever way they are desired and feel good to that person. See this lovely article from Scarleteen about our bodies and building confidence in our bodies and sexual selves.

If you have not watched the Hulu TV series “Shrill,” you need to! The series portrays the life and dating experiences of Annie, a fat woman, portrayed by Aidy Bryant. It was healing for my soul to watch it, especially my 5th grade self who was told she was a “fat pig” by a boy who was in her primary and Sunday school classes all throughout childhood and adolescence. Straight-size folk need to watch it and consider their own internalized fat phobia (see this piece for examples of what fat phobia could include).

Fat bodies are not a fetish. They are just regular and are bodies.  I wish someone had told me this before I was in my late 20s and early 30s working on these things fiercely in therapy. We need to be talking about these things and examining our internalized fat phobic biases openly so that we can be respectful, supportive, and nurturing towards ourselves and others.

Fat phobia is also deeply hurtful to folk in straight-size bodies. People spend hours and hours and years and years of their lives restricting food intake, dieting, over-exercising, and harming their bodies in various ways. Research clearly indicates dieting and other harmful behaviors do not translate to overall health or body weight lost, let alone the toll these behaviors take emotionally (see this discussion here for more information). Fat phobia is deeply harmful to everyone.

It makes sense then, why, in a global pandemic, people are so afraid of their bodies changing, and heaven forbid, becoming fat. But this doesn’t make it okay.

What are you saying to yourself and your fat (friend, family member, co-worker, child, intimate partner) when you make that joke about needing new jeans after this?

What are you saying to yourself and others when you make that joke about needing a trainer after this?

What are you saying to yourself and others when you joke about gaining weight because of the pandemic?

This is what is being said:

My (your) body isn’t okay; it is the worst thing that could happen right now (spoiler alert: it’s not). My (your) body is something to be joked about; it doesn’t deserve dignity and kindness. My (your) body isn’t attractive; anything other than a thing body is gross and unattractive, but especially a fat body.

Fat phobia is not a joke, and people aren’t joking when they say these things. All bodies deserve love and softness and comfort and nourishment, always. If you need a larger pair of jeans after this pandemic, you can get a larger pair of jeans. Do any of us honestly feel that a loving Heavenly Mother cares what size pants we wear? She would want us to nourish our bodies, period. In a pandemic and every other day, week, month, and year of our lives.

Later today, a list of affirming mantras about our bodies, body size, and food will be posted on the blog. Your body deserves softness, kindness, and comfort, as does mine.

As a missionary, I was so, so hungry.

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, Mormon) in a country where the local culture called for a siesta: a long lunch break, possibly including a nap. Accordingly, my strict missionary schedule provided us with a two-hour lunch break—which was delightful—and balanced that by disallowing a dinner break—which was unpleasant indeed. I never had a car on my mission, and many of the towns I served in did not even have paved roads, so we rode mountain bikes. All day. Every day.

I was hungry. So much exercise! So little food!

As a “greenie” (our term for new missionaries), I was baffled about how others in our mission survived for up to two years of service without starving. Eventually, I learned that most of the male missionaries indulged in a very late dinner after they finished up proselyting at 9:30 pm, just before the mandatory 10:00 bedtime.

My female companions did not attempt such a rushed, late-night meal. I couldn’t figure out how the men were managing to squeeze a meal into their bedtime routine. For women, at least, with long hair that needed to be washed with buckets of water (most of our apartments lacked showers with running water), there was no time for food within that rigid schedule.

I doubt that any women were involved in fashioning our mandated schedule.  All women were excluded from missionary leadership positions, even more so than today. This was before 2013, when the LDS church created a new middle management position for women. Now, Sister Training Leaders do meet with the men in leadership, although they are outranked by District Leaders, Zone Leaders, Assistants to the President and the Mission President, all of whom are required to be male. During my mission, women were not invited to any leadership meetings at all.

But honestly, if any male leader had bothered to ask, I believe most of the women in my mission would have supported a schedule with a daily fast from noon to bedtime. Another missionary rule, not at all unique to my mission, is that missionaries are assigned companions of the same sex that they live with and work with all day.  Missionaries may not do anything alone, not even run over to the corner store for fifteen minutes to buy a snack. If there is one thing I learned by being forced to spend all day every day in close proximity to another twenty-something year-old woman, it’s that women are good at counting calories and radically opposed to consuming them.

“Do you know how many calories are in that?” my companion would helpfully ask me if I dared to reach for second helping at lunch.  Sometimes, I would try to talk a diet-conscious missionary companion into taking a quick break to grab a snack on the run, which would lead to an informative lecture about how fat I was going to be when I got home from the mission if I kept this up. How I yearned for 20 minutes of personal time to eat a sandwich away from the watchful eyes of a live-in dietary consultant!

My companions’ fear of food was only enhanced by the male missionaries, who felt it necessary to tell us, quite often, that they would never marry a returned missionary because “sister missionaries get fat.” My companions who did gain weight told me that the mission president would instruct them to lose weight during their quarterly one-on-one interviews. They didn’t mind; after all, they agreed with him that they were too fat, and losing weight was a top priority for them, although it was hard to see what more they could do to accomplish that beyond the current regimen of never eating dinner plus several hours of daily exercise on a bike.

At one point, even the inanimate objects in our kitchen joined the universal effort to keep us skinny.

[image error]“We just haven’t had the best of luck this week,” I wrote to my parents. “Earlier in the week, our house flooded. A couple days later, our stove, which had allegedly been repaired, started shooting flames. For now, we’re on a sandwich-only diet until the elders at the office buy us another one.”

Those were veggie sandwiches, by the way. Pre-packaged lunchmeat did not exist in my mission area. If you wanted meat, you needed a stove to cook it.

When my parents read my next letter, dated 10 days later, they panicked and called the mission president.

“I have to push myself every day to keep an optimistic attitude. It’s difficult because not only am I discouraged, emotionally, I am physically hungry! Remember how I wrote a while back about how the stove exploded and the sink flooded the house? We’ve been without a stove and sink ever since! At first we went out to eat a lot, but I am sick of spending so much money on food and my comp is flat broke. We are now eating cold sandwiches every day. On Sunday, while I was studying, I ran across the scripture 2 Nephi 9:50-51. It applies so much to us that I copied it and stuck it on the wall accompanied by a drawing of a huge sandwich.”

2 Nephi 9:50-51 reads:

“He that hath no money, come buy and eat….Feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness.”

My concerned parents called the mission president only hours after the procrastinating office elders finally delivered a new stove to our apartment, so he was able to assure them that it had all been taken care of already.

The mission president brought up my parents’ phone call at our next one-on-one interview. Why had I tattled to my parents? What’s wrong with eating cold sandwiches? He ate sandwiches every day, he informed me.

Ashamed, I accepted the rebuke without pushing back.

It wasn’t until later, when I told another missionary about the conversation, that it even occurred to me that the scolding I received might not have been completely merited. She pointed out that even if the mission president always ate sandwiches for lunch, those were fancy sandwiches with meat on them. And for breakfast and dinner, he enjoyed hot, filling meals.

The mission president had a dinner break.

I’m just a girl?

[image error]Courtesy of Ben White Photography

I had an experience last summer that I have been pondering over for months trying to process my feelings around. My husband and I were invited to go to Las Vegas with a couple we’ve been friends with since college and one of the highlights of the trip was seeing Gwen Stefani’s residency show. If you’re not familiar with Gwen Stefani, she is the former lead singer of the ska band “No Doubt.” Their breakout hit — “I’m just a Girl” — put them on the popular music map back in the mid-90s. The song, co-written by Stefani, calls out the everyday sexism she’s sick and tired of – “I’ve had it up to here.”

When Stefani performed “I’m just a Girl” for her audience that night last summer I experienced something I have never experienced in my life. The audience was singing along with the song and Stefani stopped and had the audience repeat the chorus after her. When she sang, “I’m just a girl. I’m just a girl in the world,” we all followed. Then she asked for just the women in the audience to repeat the chorus after her and we gleefully obliged. Next she asked that just the men repeated after her singing, “I’m just a girl. I’m just a girl in the world.” During that moment I was, as my children say, shooketh.

This was the first time I had ever been in an audience anywhere where men were asked to identify as girls. Where men were able to call themselves girls without it demeaning their person or attacking their masculinity. It was only 10 seconds, but for me it was a powerful 10 seconds.

As women we are tasked on a daily basis to identify with the perspective of men. As women of the Church, all of our leaders with ecclesiastical authority are men. The scriptures we read were written by men about mostly men’s stories. Women’s roles in our scriptures are downplayed in their importance in our lesson manuals. Even on Easter the church put out a video about the experience of Christ’s resurrection from the perspective of Peter, even though it was a woman who was the first witness of the resurrected Christ. We were all told growing up that men means all people, that mankind means humankind, that brother means siblings, etc. “What I succumb to is making me numb.”

So I have to ask our male-identified readership if they have ever been asked to see themselves through the feminine lens. If they heard, “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Women,” would they think that included them because women means all people? And if not, why is mankind the default for all humans? If you only read scriptures about women or heard scriptures lessons taught about women, would you be able to apply those experiences to your life? Would you be able to stand in auditorium with thousands of others and sing that you were a girl and not be humiliated by it?