Exponent II's Blog, page 206

Dear Sister Sassy: Guest Editor

[image error]Due to her many social engagements, Sister Sassy has invited a guest editor to answer some of her many letters pleading for guidance.  Guest editors W. Dean Belnap and Glen C. Griffin wrote  About life and love: Facts of life for LDS teens published in 1968.  Their answers to these questions (as drawn from the above text) are denoted by quotation marks. In some places Sister Sassy inferred from the text what Belnap and Griffin would have to say and answered on their behalf — no quotation marks in those places.

Church leaders always tell us we shouldn’t date just one person, but that is the cultural norm now and if I try to date around then it makes me look bad.  Should I have a boyfriend?

 “If you go steady, you are tied to one person.  There is no uncertainty, no suspense, no worry about a date, but there is no variety . . . just the same dull ‘creep’ with the same jokes, the same hair dressing, the same date pattern”

  Okay, but what about after you’re married? Will my husband seem like a boring creep?

“ These consistent qualities will be great and the same faults tolerable when you find that very special person and become married.”

A good friend of mine lost her life in an car accident.  Can you offer me some comfort?

 “We talk about the death rate due to the automobile in this nation, how we kill on the highways during the year more than we have killed during many major wars in the United States, and yet these dead people will ultimately live again – they will be resurrected.  Have you ever thought of the spiritual death rate in an automobile? Sexual intimacies that can lead to tragedy and unchastity? These are the real tragedies in the automobile.  This type of death is not as easily taken care of as mortal death.”

So you’re saying the real question is whether she was a virgin or not?

Yes.

She was a virgin, but I am still really upset that she died.

Again, the real tragedy is parking.  Mortal death is easily taken care of.

I recently got married and I love to imagine myself and my wife being middle aged and established in the world.  What do you think that will be like?

“What happens to your dream girl in 20 or 30 years when she gets wrinkles around her eyea ns her flesh has lost that yougthful charming beauty and her hair gets stringy, perhaps from leaning over a hot stove, or her body gets a little slack from child-bearing? Forget the dream.  Alight yourselves with reality or you’re liable to be disappointed.”

My preschooler is defiant, hits and calls me names.  His teacher assured me it is developmentally normal and encouraged me to read some parenting books or join a support group to talk with other parents in the same situation and get strategies for appropriate response.  Do you have any advice?

 “When you needed spanking as a child, your parents should have spanked you instead of giving you a few pats on the behind – stopping when you blurted out a loud cry.  A crying child does hurt parents.  Yet, children must be properly disciplined.  If a youngster deserves punishment, the parents hurt or sympathy should not be cause to let the crime go because this only leads to a lack of respect for law and authority.  We’re sure you see this now, and hope it isn’t too late.”

The research I’ve read suggests that hitting children is, in the long run, a bad thing.

Your child will grow up to be a criminal and you are a bad parent who stops hitting your child just because he or she is screaming in fear and pain.

I’m new to my town and would like to help my kids make friends.  Any advice?

“A boy’s best friend is a boy.  This association is very important because it gives him an idea of what it means to be masculine.  This includes pre-teen boys thinking that they have to be tough and that they have to prove that they aren’t sissies by rough-housing, wrestling with their friends and even punch one another for no reason.  This is nothing more than an expression of growing awareness of masculinity. The interests of girls at this time are totally different from the interests of boys.  Girls change from tom-boy ways and rough activities and become more delicate.”

That seems toxic and is an unnecessarily broad generalization about gender roles.

“Natural childhood activity is for boys to act like boys and girls to act like girls.”

I have two kids and am happy with my family size, even though in the past Latter Day Saint families were often quite large.  Is that okay?

 “All too often the decision is made by young (and older) married couples to wait awhile to have children or to limit the family to a certain few.  President David O. McKay says that most often this is based on selfishly motivated reasons. President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “When a man and woman agree or covenant to limit their offspring to two or three, and practice devices to accomplish this purpose, they are guilty of iniquity which eventually must be punished.”

So my IUD…?

Is a one-way ticket to Hell. Say hi to Satan.

 

That’s all for today! Feel free to leave a question for Sister Sassy in the comments and she’ll try to get to it in the next edition!

 

*** Note: I did not ask the authors of the book any of these questions.  This is meant as a satirical look at outdated advice peddled by LDS authors.

The Family is Under Attack

The family is under attack. This is a refrain that we have heard for many years in General Conference and pamphlets and lessons.  As a historian, I have a hard time taking these alarmist statements particularly seriously.  My own area of specialization is the history of marriage/family/sex, and claims that the family is disintegrating are nothing new.  

In 23 B.C.E. the Roman poet Horace rebuked his fellow citizens for having forsaken the stern moral code of the preceding centuries in favor of self-indulgence and decadence:

“The times, fertile in wickedness, have in the first place polluted the marriage state, and [thence] the issue and families.  From this fountain perdition being derived, has overwhelmed the nation and people.”

Horace, Third Book of Odes, VI

He gloomily concluded that the disintegration of the morality of Roman families would lead to military feebleness and destruction.  

Horace was neither the first nor the last to see the family as an institution nearing destruction, nor was he alone in tying the moral health of families to the strength of a nation. Jacques Bertillon, a demographer in nineteenth-century France, realized that the population of his country was growing much less rapidly than that of Germany.  He blamed voluntary contraception, which he called “Malthusianism” (after Thomas Malthus) for the imminent demise of his people.  

“The decadence of France is due, as we’ve said, to the rarity of birth in our country. . . it is the result of malthusianism long and obstinately practiced.  But there is this difference between violent causes of devastation and Malthusianism, that this latter calamity, while slowly destroying the country, has not caused suffering to any of its inhabitants.  Thus it is true that the interests of individuals can be entirely opposed to those of the collective.  This means that few people are terrified as they ought to be of the depopulation of France, and that our country is disappearing slowly from the world such that none of the interested parties protest.  It is death by chloroform.  It isn’t painful but it is death all the same.”

Jacques Bertillion, Le problème de la dépopulation (Paris: Colin, 1897). Translation mine.

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These two examples are intended only as a sample of the many politicians, religious leaders, philosophers and demagogues who have, in their own eras, expressed a sense of panic about how the family is under attack and, if we could only turn back time, all would be well.  Of course having arrived in the halcyon past, these wistful time travelers would perhaps be upset to learn that the family was also in danger of destruction in the golden years as well.  Thus, I have a difficult time taking terribly seriously the position that now, suddenly, there is a totally new and fresh crisis of the family.

I also struggle with the phrase “the family is under attack” because it commits one of the cardinal errors I am always trying to root out of my students’ writing.  I refer, of course, to passive sentence construction. Who is attacking the family? While the call to action is certainly alarming, the phrase obscures agency and allows each hearer to imagine their own bogeyman into existence.  Is it gay marriage? Divorce? iPhones? Your child marrying outside the church? Woe!

Yet for all my skepticism, I have to agree that the warnings of the prophets that “the family will come under attack” were absolutely correct.  Only, as usual, we were looking the wrong direction.  Comfortable middle-class Euro-American Saints assumed that ourfamilies would be victims, and the aggressor would be some nebulous foe from whom we must defend our kin. Only now do I see that the families under attack come from the Global South, and I and my peers are the attackers. I am the agent of destruction, ripping children from parents’ arms, isolating them, abusing them, traumatizing each one and causing irreparable psychological damage.

I am a citizen of the United States. My state does not share a border with Mexico.  I do not work for ICE.  I don’t run a for-profit child prison.  But I am a citizen, and my country is attacking families in my name. To me it seems that this is the moment when American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints must decide if they will listen to the council of prophets, or if they will worship at the altar of the GOP, because in this moment the two are not compatible with one another.  The message from Christ and from modern revelation is clear – families must be preserved. The attacker is real, and the attacker is us.

What Kind of Inactive Mormon are You?

So you’re thinking of taking a church break or just slow down a bit. Or leave altogether. But HOW?! Which kind of semi/non-attending Mormon do you want to be?

[image error]Gone, by nrg_crisis. Used in accordance to the (CC BY-NC 2.0) license



Christmas and Easter Mormon

This one is classic. Catholics have been doing this one for centuries. Show up at Christmas and Easter and celebrate the major Christian holidays. You might go to a baby blessing or two from time to time as well. Great for marking and keeping traditions, but you don’t want a calling or other obligations.

Sunday-only

This one is easy. Just come on Sunday! Don’t bother with the midweek youth activities, but maybe you’ll go to the occasional ward talent show (or not). Great for people who have busy weeknights: late work hours, children in evening activities, professional meet ups, or just like to go to bed early. You might have a Sunday-only calling, but that’s manageable for you.

Ghosting

Wait, were you in the ward? What happened to you? Did you change your number and your email? Also maybe your address? No callings, no obligations, no nothing except maybe random texts from the missionaries asking if you’d like them to come by and share a message.

The Sabbatical

For when you want a break, or just a “breather”. Jana Reiss wrote about her own year off of Mormonism. Maybe it’s 3 months for the summer. 6 months to finish up your thesis or go travel the world. But you aren’t ready to stop leaving altogether. Maybe a break is all you need.

Trickle Away

It might have been a while since we’ve seen you at Church, but not long of a while. The ward might think you just leave right away after church and that’s why they haven’t seen you. And you might be there this Sunday. I saw you sign up to bring that family food during that long hospital stay. You’re there. You might be active for all we know- I don’t remember.

The Calling-and-Go

You show up for your calling, but that’s it. This is a lot like Sunday-only, but you happen to be the organist, so once sacrament is over, you’re done. Or you have a Relief Society calling so you only need to be there every other week. Or maybe you have a weekday calling and so you help out with the youth activities, but you’re not there on Sundays.

The Passive Actor, Open Embracer

You aren’t going to throw yourself out there and go, but if your ministering sisters check-in or the missionaries drop by, you welcome them in with open arms. You’ll come out to the Primary Program Sunday because you got that cute invitation in the mail.

The Name on the Email List

People might not be able to pick you out in the crowd, but they know your name and your email signature. You’re that person on the list sharing that you’re giving away a dining room table and would someone in the ward like it? Anyone have a recommendation for a dentist?

Are you looking to take a break, or have you in the past? Which inactive Mormon have you been? Do you know of another category I didn’t include?

Summer 2019 Letter from the Editor

[image error]The following is the Summer 2019 Letter from the Editor by Pandora. To receive this issue in print, subscribe here by July 15. Cover art is by Exponent blog founding mother Brooke Jones.

I am sitting at my desk. My office building is empty, my coworkers went home hours ago. But my keyboard clicks and my screen glows and I continue long after what is needed. At one point I look at the window that divides my office from the hallway and notice that it is dirty. My mind drifts and I see myself with a squeegee, across one way, turn, across the other, turn, never down. I know how to wash windows. My grandfather was a janitor and window washer, my dad worked with him as a young man, and I was taught from an early age to perform what my father considered a critical skill. I grew up knowing that whatever happened – I could clean, I could work with my hands, I could take care of myself. 

My father grew up in poverty. His large family lived in rough, compromised conditions and struggled with many of the accompanying issues – truancy, addiction, violence, early marriage. As with many families in this situation, they also maintained close relationships and both his parents, in their own way, communicated strong values rooted in fierce pride and resiliency.   

I came into my father’s life when he was 19, a boy now old with experience. He had survived the impact of many bad decisions, his own and those he loved. He carried his past with a mix of haunted caution, a young man’s swagger, and the optimism of Horatio Alger. He would rise above. I watched and took it all in.  

I heard all the stories over and over and over. Going to school in clothes handed down ten kids too big or too small and being teased; the summer he worked for new clothes and then gave it all to his mother for rent; the precious leather jacket he stole only to have it stolen from him; his mother reading Rudyard Kipling after a meal of fried potatoes; dropping out of high school; a broken heart, hitchhiking across the country with a guitar and a knapsack. There were stories with a moral, stories of courage, stories in the cracks of the stories, spoken and unspoken. I felt the aching hunger and pain and neglect and wanting. Wanting never fully resolved. 

I tracked the cost. I have watched my father push himself, reinventing, working beyond any expectation to exceed, the drive for perfection mixed with deep, ancient self doubt. I have seen him pursue money, wrestle with it, and finally come to an uneasy peace. I have seen the damage and strength in his relentless belief in the future. I have seen him refusing to eat fried potatoes and oatmeal ever again. Choice as a symbol of change. 

I grew up in my father’s shadow, working. Working is what kept the distance, put food on the table. I worked in crop fields and gas stations and machine shops and stores. Not because I had to but because I might have to. I always knew that the difference between my life and the life of a person who did not have a home or the next meal was a hand of cards, a step in one direction or another. A lost job, an injury, a shift that may or may not be in your control but almost never in your line of sight. I grew up with respect. I grew up with fear. I grew up in comparative privilege. I grew up not taking anything for granted. 

I don’t claim to understand or to have fully experienced need. But I am grateful to have listened to my father with a generational perspective, to have incorporated this history into my own call to pay attention, to help, to walk alongside the stories. But I know in my inherited heart that it is grace that keeps me fed. I never assume I earned it or that I am entitled. I grew up next to a survivor and know that we can work and work and work but that does not guarantee anything. The stories of my own family and my global family keep me from judgement. We are in this together, we are responsible for one another, we are all one moment from hunger.

Reclaiming my body from the Patriarchy

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On November 12, 2000 then-President Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk to the youth and the single adults at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. This talk is more commonly known as the 6 Bs talk. In the section “Be Clean,” President Hinckley cautioned the young women against having more than one piercing in each ear. He said:

As for the young women, you do not need to drape rings up and down your ears. One modest pair of earrings is sufficient.

When this talk was given I was already a married adult with a baby on the way. I was also not particularly active in the church. My husband and I were not married in the temple at this point (we were later sealed with our two oldest children). I grew up at the tail-end of generation X, just a skosh older than the oldest Millennials. I was in high school when grunge and flannel ruled and every girl I knew had several ear piercings, and piercings in other parts of the body were becoming popular. More than one piercing in each ear was never my thing. I did have a brief flirtation with the idea of an eyebrow piercing. Forty-year-old me is thanking 20-year-old me for never going through with that idea. I did, however, pierce my navel. By the time President Hinckley cautioned against multiple piercings though, my navel ring was long gone.

After this talk was given there was a definite shift in LDS culture. Many women I knew were taking out their multiple ear piercings as a show of obedience to the prophet. This cultural test was even used in a talk given by Elder Bednar just five years later at a BYU devotional about a young man who ended a relationship with a young woman he loved because she had multiple ear piercings and he couldn’t marry someone who refused to obey the prophet. There is no mention in this talk if this young man actually discussed this with the young woman first, or just made assumptions about her and her character before casting her aside. Regardless, cultural lines were drawn and it has been one of our cultural markers in the last 19 years to assess a woman’s worthiness and obedience by the number of holes in her ears.

I worked for the church for over six years. I wrote about a particularly troubling incident while I worked there. After that many years of having my worthiness judged based on my outward appearance I felt compelled to reclaim my body as my own. Even though a double ear pierce has never really been my thing, on April 12, 2014 I took myself down to the piercing studio and put another hole in each ear. Every time I put a stud in the second hole in each ear it’s a reminder to myself that my body is mine, and what I do with it is not based on the tastes and preferences of older men.

[image error]Right after the second ear piercing

I have many friends who have multiple tattoos and piercings who ask me why it is bad that they are altering their temple that way, but in Utah many women have plastic surgery or tattoo their makeup on their faces and that is never mentioned as a sin or disrespectful of their “temples.” The only conclusion that I’ve come to is that the alterations made to our bodies that make us more attractive to the men in charge (the patriarchy) are good and righteous, but the alterations to our bodies that make us less attractive are bad and unholy. I’m not judging those who have had plastic surgery. I’ve done it myself. It’s just an interesting cultural perspective on what is and what is not deemed as culturally acceptable in the church.

In the 6 Bs talk, President Hinckley went on to say this about tattoos:

I promise you that the time will come, if you have tattoos, that you will regret your actions. They cannot be washed off. They are permanent. Only by an expensive and painful process can they be removed. If you are tattooed, then probably for the remainder of your life you will carry it with you. I believe the time will come when it will be an embarrassment to you. Avoid it. We, as your Brethren who love you, plead with you not to become so disrespectful of the body which the Lord has given you.

I think of this quote and contrast it against a sermon the pastor of the nondenominational church I’ve been attending for the last couple of years gave the second to last Sunday in May. He was giving a sermon about what things are and are not okay to engage in as Christians. He specifically brought up tattoos and shared a few funny pictures of tattoos “fails.” He then went on to share a beautiful story of a woman in the congregation who had been battling breast cancer the last few years. Her small group has rallied around her and her family during this trying time. (A small group is a group of people who study scriptures together and minister to each other). The one word this woman is constantly uttering is “joy” – finding joy in the journey and joy through Him. The female members of this woman’s small group each got a tattoo of the word “joy” in her handwriting. I don’t think there is going to be a day where they regret that tattoo. The message of this tattoo is not disrespectful to their bodies or the Lord in the least. It’s a celebration of their friend’s love of Christ even in her darkest moments.

My oldest must have taken this message to heart because two days later on her 18th birthday she spent the day at the tattoo parlor. A few years ago she found my mother’s signature in a Harry Potter book that belonged to her. My mother wrote her name in every book she ever owned. She loved books. My mother died when my oldest was just six and the pain and the grief at the loss has been difficult for her. They were very close. When she found the signature she told me she was going to have it tattooed on her body when she was 18. And she did. There was a part of me that wanted to be upset that my child had permanently altered her body. I also realized I had no more claim over her body than the patriarchy does. Besides, this way her grandma will always be with her.

I was 35 years old when I reclaimed my body from the
patriarchy. My daughter was 18. I don’t think either one of us is going to
regret it.

Reflections on 10 Years of the Mormon Women Project

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By Meredith Marshall Nelson

A decade after Neylan McBaine founded the Mormon Women Project, we have collected 265 long form interviews of Latter-day Saint women from 47 different countries around the globe. These along with four years of Gospel commentaries written by women, and hundreds of personal stories submitted to our collections, reveal an incredible diversity of thought, faith, and experience among women who consider themselves to be active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I joined the project five years ago, drawn to the idea that storytelling can shift our hearts and minds as members more effectively than any other means. I did not expect how much I would be challenged and changed by the women whose stories we have told. As I have learned about my sisters around the globe, I’ve grown to accept people I had previously misunderstood. I gained compassion for our general Church leaders trying to steer and steady a ship whose crew is as diverse as all the earth’s people. I drew strength from the struggles of other women; I felt less alone. I was filled with love.

I draw from ten years of MWP stories in this meditation on 2 Nephi 26:25-30.

Doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.

Not the woman fighting an eating disorder.

Not the divorced twenty-year old.

Not the young mother in forced labor, permanently separated from her home.

Not the professor. Not the homemaker who never got a college degree.

Not the woman who faces social stigma for her faith.

Not the wife or sister of an addict.

Not the practicing lawyer, who is also the mother of young children.

Not the primary president struggling with infertility.

Hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold I say unto you, Nay.

Not the daughter of two mothers.

Not the refugee.

Not the woman who doubts.

Not the gay jazz artist.

Not the immigrant or the convert.

Not the single mother or unmarried professional.

Not the woman married outside the temple. Not the women whose husbands left the faith.

Hath he commmanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay.

Not the sisters or the wife who survived abuse. Not the survivor turned activist.

Not the adopting mother or the relinquishing mother.

Not the bishop’s wife betrayed by her husband.

Not the survivor of genocide, or the woman trapped in a conflict zone.

Not the woman who lost her husband to mental illness.

Not the women who had no children, who had few children, who had many children.

Hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay.

Not the betrayed and widowed mother of five.

Not the opera singer or performer’s wife who balance fame with family.

Not the woman whose body doesn’t fit the mold.

Not the athlete who escaped poverty and abuse.

Not the scholar fighting cancer.

Not the podiatrist who put her career on hold to raise her children, or the pediatrician whose husband stayed at home.

Not the grieving mother who broke down racial barriers in her industry.

Not the mother of four who took twenty years to finish her graduate degree.

Not the woman with a physical disability, or with special needs children.

He inviteth all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; He denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

The Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing.

_____________________

The Mormon Women Project invites you to join us at our 10th Anniversary Celebration on July 20, 2019! The evening will be hosted at Neylan McBaine’s home in Holladay UT, and will include live interviews of remarkable women, and a celebratory program of MWP stories from across the last decade.

Meredith Marshall Nelson lives in Charlottesville, VA with her husband and two children. She is co-editor of the Mormon Women Project, and believes that stories are our greatest teachers, that women’s lives and voices should be presented in true balance as half our history, and that every woman’s story is meaningful as both a measure and a guide for our progress as a people. She is a lifelong violinist with an MA in Middle East Studies/Hebrew. Professionally Meredith supports women through pregnancy, childbirth, loss, and parenthood as a consultant, doula, and alignment/movement specialist.

 

Coping with Contradiction with Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye

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Melissa Inouye

In this episode of the Religious Feminism interview series, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, a senior lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Auckland, discusses her experiences living in a variety of countries where she was a religious minority, being a racial minority within her own religion, and integrating the contradicting values and messages she has collected from her cultures, faith and scholarship. She also discusses how her battle with cancer motivated to publish her thoughts and experiences in her new book, Crossings: A bald Asian American Latter-day Saint woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, cancer, and motherhood (not necessarily in that order). You can find episode notes for the Religious Feminism Podcast here at the Exponent website: http://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

Links to Connect and Learn More:

[image error] Crossings: A bald Asian American Latter-day Saint woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, cancer, and motherhood (not necessarily in that order) by Melissa Wei-Tsung Inouye

Audiobook of Crossings (Mormon feminists in particular might enjoy this book on audio because it includes a poetry reading reminiscent of women’s blessings.)

Listen and subscribe for free below:

#hearLDSwomen: I Wrote a Theater Piece Featuring the Lives of Prominent LDS Women for a RS Activity, and My Bishop Made Me Cut Half of the Women and Censored the Rest Because They Didn’t Fit the Mold

[image error]I gave a stake Relief Society fireside here (mostly Mormon community of a church university) once, about Mormon women’s activities in the 19th century, wheat, silk production, suffrage activism, owning and running their own newspaper, building and owning RS Halls, giving healing blessings, etc. You know, all of the good stuff. I had a presentation with images and everything.

Stake presidency member got up right after me and took the opportunity to clarify or “remind” the whole audience that all of those things were done “under the direction of ‘the priesthood.”” And that church leadership had directed all of it.

It was humiliating. In a roomful of probably 300+ women.

Even my conservative visiting teacher noticed it. “That was odd,” she said. “It sounded like he was correcting you.”

Not sure if it’s related, but locally, I don’t get asked to do firesides or lessons or training on Mormon women’s history since then. And I’m reluctant to do it anyway.

– Anonymous

 

A couple years ago I was asked to put together a special program for the Relief Society Anniversary dinner. The counselor who asked me said they were thinking of something honoring remarkable LDS women through the ages. I was partnered with a recent convert who had some writing experience, but I was in charge. We met for two months several nights a week putting it together. I came up with the idea to do a Reader’s Theatre with the theme “A Patchwork of Mormon Women”, centered around Sister Chieko Okazaki’s talk about how there was no one right way to be a Mormon woman just like quilts have different pieces of patchwork. I then chose 8 women to portray, and the other sister and I researched them and wrote monologues about their lives. We’d given the scripts to all the sisters who would be portraying them several weeks in advance and had a rehearsal with everyone. It was going well, when I received a call to meet with the Relief Society presidency at one of their homes. It was one week before performance. I went, and was told that the bishop had gone over our script (no one had ever said he needed to review it or mentioned giving him a copy) and found problems. I was told to remove four of the women from the program. One was Jane Manning, because her desires to be endowed as a black woman in the early Church made her “too controversial”, another prominent woman because she was supposedly involved with Ordain Women (my research afterwards proved she wasn’t, and didn’t even support it), another because she “wasn’t that active”, and another because they said there wasn’t proof she’d been baptized (again I double-checked afterwards, and though no one had found her baptismal record—something not uncommon in early Utah) but had called herself Mormon throughout her life. They also required me to censor and change many paragraphs, phrases and even words from the script (we had deliberately already left out anything even slightly scandalous from the women’s lives). They had us leave out the word “obsessed” in reference to one woman’s dedication to the Suffrage movement, because it made it seem like she was more interested in that than in being a wife and mother, and many of the women’s professional accomplishments were required to be deleted or down-played. The censorship was detailed and ridiculous. They only wanted their domestic or church activities stressed. We had to rewrite the whole thing in less than a week, give it to the performers with only a few days to learn it, and only have one rehearsal of the new version, right before the performance.

– Nancy K.

 

I taught Primary a few years ago, and one kid kept talking about the Lamanites’ skin/curse of darkness, so I taught a mini-lesson on race and prejudice and dehumanization before moving on to whatever the main lesson was. I sent my outline to parents and the Primary presidency so wires wouldn’t be crossed.

The Primary president came to me a couple weeks later to relay a complaint from the bishopric. I honestly don’t remember what the specific complaint was (maybe the topic was too sensitive and should be handled by parents, maybe that it wasn’t in the manual), but it was basically “maybe don’t do that again.” The Primary president just shrugged her shoulders and said she thought the lesson was fabulous.

– Tessa

 

This reminds me of the time I worked on a piano/violin duet for six months with my piano teacher (also in my ward and the music chair). We were going to play in sacrament meeting. After six months of prep, we were told we couldn’t play it, because it wasn’t a hymn. I was 15.

– Anonymous

 

When I was 17, I planned an activity for the Young Women to go see the high school perform Grease. There were a few Young Women (including me) acting in the musical, and I thought it would be fun to support each other in this thing we had spent so much time on. The week before the play, the bishop called all the YW in the musical in with our YW president and told us that this was an inappropriate church activity. The church could not support us in spreading a bad message. I agree that Grease is kind of inane and problematic, but this made me feel terrible. At the time, I felt like God disapproved of my choice to pursue theater.

– Anonymous

 

Pro Tip: Women now and throughout history have often acted without being managed by men or priesthood leadership. There is no need to feel threatened by women’s history and stories, and there is great benefit in sharing these stories. Micromanaging is never a good look, whether it’s in a workplace, in a home, or in a church. Give women the space and autonomy to exercise creativity and to grow.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

Where the power and influence are.

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By LMA

June 2019

This coming November, it will be two years since I purposefully stopped attending church. While I know the way I relate to my faith and church activity seems to have permanently changed, there are still times I feel naked and insecure about the fact that I don’t go to church.

I think this comes in large part from the things I was taught about people who were raised in our faith and don’t go to church. It comes from the way people talk about our church as being the most true thing there is and that anything else is “counterfeit.” It comes from the way my parents actively chose not to go to my brother’s non-temple wedding and knowing the same thing will probably happen to me. Sorting through these feelings is messy and delicate and painful.

Even though I feel confidence and assertiveness in my decision-making, sometimes I still feel vulnerable making these choices. I don’t know if that will ever go away completely. Sometimes it feels like there will always be a small part of me that is the little girl version of myself on the inside feeling shameful that I’m not going to church anymore, even though I understand the reasons why I don’t feel comfortable being active and why it isn’t something I’m able to do anymore. Whatever your reasons are, those are valid. And just so it’s said, there are so many valid reasons not to be active, including simply not wanting to be.

I have thought a lot about the best way to use the resources I have in relation to our church and what things (if any) will bring about certain much-needed changes. I have heard people in our church say that the only way to have any power to make change is to stay active in the church. I have heard people say words to the effect of, “once you’re gone, you’re gone” and imply that once you no longer choose formal activity in our church, your ability to have power or influence is no longer there.

In a specific situation where I heard these types of statements, I immediately responded with assertiveness. I said that for many people, being or not being at church is a matter of safety, emotional well-being, and life and death. These things are not cut and dry, even if we want them to be. Even though I spoke assertively, inside, I felt frustrated and misunderstood and angry.

These were the things
I reminded myself of in that moment and afterward (and I will always work so
hard to say to myself):

Your power is not derived wholly or in part from a patriarchal power structure created wholly or in part by men, period.You carry your power with you wherever you go. It is delicate and powerful and subversive to make decisions from a place of self-knowledge, intuition, and experience. Your power comes from your worth as a human being, period. Making choices that are congruent with your beliefs, desires, and well-being is powerful and subversive. Heavenly Mother does not want us to make choices that ignore these important parts of our lives.

In the moment and for quite a while after, I kept thinking about what was said and what it means about my own power. As a trauma survivor, having the ability to make choices for myself and exert power in my environment are both necessary for the recovery process and basic safety and comfort in the day-to-day. What I want to say unequivocally is that while our social capital and status within a certain system may change, each of us always has power and influence, period. The idea that our power and influence come from the way we relate to a patriarchal power structure is wrong, and it distracts from the profound power and influence we independently have as human beings. It makes me sad and angry to think that people (especially women) ever feel the church is what makes them truly powerful. This is not true.

I recognize that when we make bold choices regarding our activity in and connection to the church that vary from the status quo, some people see and treat us differently, and this can affect our level of social capital within the specific system of the church. This is really painful and difficult and sad. However, as women and people, one of the gifts feminism affords us is the potential (and hopefully the ability) to make choices that are right for our safety, bodies, well-being, and situation. This can be incredibly empowering and powerful (see Mindy Gledhill’s lovely song “Rabbit Hole”). For me, those choices mean stepping away from formal church activity and church/temple attendance and exploring other avenues of faith and spirituality, such as engaging with my faith here through writing.

In a recent blog post, Courtney Kendrick really beautifully talked about how at certain points in her life when she was a practicing Mormon, she envisioned herself as being a person who would make changes in our church from the inside. She compared these efforts to throwing yourself at a brick wall over and over. She talked about how she realized over time that trying to make these changes only bloodied her, and stepping away from the brick wall and not fixing the cracks in it is what would allow the wall to eventually tumble so that something new and better and more effective could be rebuilt. I loved the way she talked about it. I am still actively trying to figure out what my faith situation will be long-term and I don’t have all of the answers. I know what she said felt right to me.

I understand how messy and delicate this is. My nieces and others that I love very much are very active in our faith and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Even if I am not able or would like to be active, I care so much about the faith environment they are in. I care about how it affects them, and I care about how it affects others who are still operating in that environment, whether that is by choice, necessity, or another important reason.

I have been reading a collection of essays written Audre Lorde. In “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” she powerfully describes the role of community and celebration of differences among women (Lorde, 2018, p. 18):

“As women, we have been taught to either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean the shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretence that these differences do not exist.”

Audre Lorde

What this means is that all of us need each other. We need to be able to talk about our pain and our vulnerabilities. We need to understand and support each other in our differences and in doing what is right and best for us, whatever that is. And we need to remember that our power is not centered from the structure of the church and our relation to it. To suggest our power and influence centers from the structure of the church and our relation to it is an extension of patriarchy. We need to remember we carry our power with us wherever we go. We need to remember that power doesn’t change.

Shield and Protection

I have heard stories all my life of how garments miraculously saved someone’s life. There are tales of people surviving fires or horrible accidents, and only suffering injury where garments did not cover them. It is even part of Church History. Willard Richards was the only one of the 4 church leaders at the Carthage Jail who was wearing his garments at the time the mob attacked them. He is the only one who was not injured. Many claim it is because the garments were a literal shield for him. It is rare that anyone refers to John Taylor saying that church leaders often would not wear garments when weather was hot. There seems to be little desire to offer precedent for those who choose not to wear garments when it is extremely hot. Yet, even though we bristle when others say we believe in wearing “magic underwear”, we seem to love repeating or embellishing accounts of miraculous physical protection provided by garments.

[image error]Alpine Visitor Center

Even though the garments are meant to be symbolic reminders of covenants; we, as humans, love to turn symbolic items into objects imbued with literal powers and inherent truth. 

Unfortunately, this habit seems to intensify the harmful shame or worthiness rhetoric we have concerning wearing garments. Women who experience uncomfortable, even painful rashes and infections when wearing garments, struggle with trying to endure it all to somehow prove their faith and dedication to covenants. Or if they look for individual ways of wearing them at regular times, but not so often that they are in constant pain, they are often shamed for not being willing to endure in order to prove their dedication to God. 

This disconnect from honoring the symbolic, and clinging to the literal, has helped create a harmful, often abusive practice of encouraging, enabling, allowing, or even expecting men who hold leadership positions to ask about and instruct women concerning their underwear. I have been appalled by the very inappropriate inquiries made by a past leaders, and suggestions that my worthiness was in question because I was not willingly sharing details about my underwear. I have often heard women say that they need to check with their bishop before they alter, even in the most minor way, anything about their garments in order to make them fit, or stop them from causing irritation. I assure them they don’t need to do so, and that their bishop has no need, and probably no desire to know about this issue. 

I am grateful for recent efforts from temple matrons to instruct and encourage women to create their own healthy connection to garments and what they symbolize. I hear more often that we are each to seek personal guidance as to how to make the garment become a symbolic shield and protection in ways that are more powerful than anything literal or physical. I see steps in emphasizing the importance of symbolic learning rather than adherence to literal meaning.

And…I feel deeply grateful for a recent experience that reminded me that there are times to recognize the blessing of literal, physical protection.

I was providing support for my husband as he was riding his road bike over the high passes of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. On this particular day, I was waiting at the Alpine Visitor Center at Fall River Pass in Rocky Mountain National Park. Even though it was a clear summer day, the altitude over 11,700 feet and the constant wind meant temperatures stayed low. There were crowds of people there, enjoying the stunning views, taking advantage of the restaurant and restrooms. I wandered from one view area to another, waiting for Mike to get there. 

Then, I noticed someone who did not blend into the crowds. It was an older man. He was tall, and I think he was probably muscular at one time. He could have been as old as 70. He had about a week’s growth of beard. His shoes were well worn, and his long hiking shorts were hanging loose on his hips. Unlike everyone else there at the cold windy pass, he was not wearing or even carrying a jacket. The only thing that covered his upper body was a worn, stained garment top. I could see several places where there was a hole or tear. It was worn thin, and was almost transparent in some spots. He looked hungry, but he was not asking anyone for anything. He walked calmly through the crowds. He was not shivering. 

His only shield and protection against the cold wind was this thin, stained garment. 

I felt blessed to be able to witness this literal manifestation of something that has powerful symbolic meaning for me. 

I whispered the familiar blessing and promises that are a part of this symbol, hoping it would imbue additional protective powers on this worn garment. In this moment, this man was the least of these. The god in me saw the god in him.

In this moment, the symbol was literal. And magical.