Exponent II's Blog, page 248

ADDENDUM 7.24.18: Stake President Denies Temple Recommend to Nursing Mother

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ADDENDUM 7.24.18

Due to the overwhelming response to this post, several questions have been raised. They are addressed below. 

“Who is this woman, who is her stake president, where does she live and did this story really even happen? Fake news!”
“This site is Anti-Mormon. Don’t read or share!”
“Why is this post so one-sided? Did you contact the Stake President and get his side of the story?”
“How much of her breast was showing? I heard she wasn’t discreet. That changes the story A LOT. I nursed my babies in public, but I was discreet. If she’s discreet, it should be fine, if not, she should cover up or go to the mother’s room.”
“The church building is private property and they don’t have to allow uncovered nursing if they don’t want to. Are you advocating that the global church should issue a statement a woman should be able to nurse in any room of any church building, in any meeting, at any time? This isn’t just an LDS issue. It’s a culture/society issue.”
“But what about the poor men who have to see this and can’t look away?”

 

The woman and her family reside in Northern Utah. She spoke with the author of this post and agreed to the anonymous sharing of her story. The story is posted here as a way to bring attention to the way nursing mothers continue to experience discrimination at church in an effort to prevent things like this from happening to others.  She prefers not to name her Bishop or Stake President as a way to mitigate the tension and exclusion she already feels in her local ward.  The story is real and she has not had follow-up with any church leaders since. She has spoken anonymously with reporters who are also covering the story. Standing up for her own basic rights is not “causing contention” or stirring up controversy.
The Exponent blog and magazine have been a place for Mormon women to speak, write and share their voices for decades. Identifying ways for the church to improve and clarify is not “Anti-Mormon.” The author’s suggestions for how to make the church policies more welcoming and healthy for women are aimed at making our wards more welcoming places to worship and fellowship. Both the author and woman involved in the story are active, participating members of their local LDS wards.  We are all members of the same body of Christ.
This piece is an opinion/analysis essay on a blog that amplifies the voices and stories of women. The thesis of the post is to advocate for the woman in the story and all women currently facing discrimination for breastfeeding at church. It is not a police investigation, nor is it investigative journalism.  As an advocacy piece, comments that blame the victim for the ecclesiastical abuse and scrutiny she endured are not appropriate and will be moderated. The Exponent blog holds this as a safe place where she will not be re-traumatized.
The premise of this type of question needs further examination. Is breastfeeding inherently pornographic exhibitionism, or is it inherently holy?  It is inherently good, holy, nurturing and righteous, and has been since the dawn of creation.  Since it is inherently holy and not inherently titillating, scrutiny directed at the mother for how many inches of breast flesh are showing for how long reveals the prejudice of the person asking. To judge a nursing mother for showing too much flesh for too long is another example of sexualizing the act of breastfeeding and objectifying the woman in harmful ways.  The inherent holiness of breastfeeding does not change according to her “discreetness.” It is impossible and unfair for an uninvolved bystander to judge where the holy work of feeding a child ends and where intentional exhibitionism begins.  Despite it being holy work, is it possible that some men, women, or youth would observe a nursing mother and have a sexual response, discomfort or arousal? Sure, it’s possible.  People are attracted, aroused, or made uncomfortable by all sorts of things, including feet.  The responses of the uninvolved bystanders do not change the inherently good intention on part of the mother to feed her child. Their responses do not change her holy work into pornography. Conflating breastfeeding with modesty is rape culture language and shows a thought error on part of the accuser.
The act of breastfeeding is a protected right of women in all public places in all 50 US states, Canada, and beyond. A woman may legally breastfeed her child covered or uncovered in the public eye without being asked to cover or relocate. Any business or public entity that asks a woman to cover or relocate violates the law. The public knowledge of these protections is slowly catching on. (for example: in 2011 when a clerk at Target asked a customer to relocate, the company received tremendous backlash. Afterward, they instituted very clear protections and accommodations for nursing women in their stores.)  As a law-abiding entity, the LDS church should not impose stricter guidelines or punishments on nursing women than reasonably exist in the state or country where she lives. At the very least, those more-strict guidelines should not be sporadically enforced at the whims of local leaders with some wards enforcing harsher penalties or restrictions  than others. One solution for avoiding future occurrences of breastfeeding discrimination would be for the Church News Room to issue a statement which clarifies a nursing mother’s rights while on church property.  If a ward building has stricter guidelines than the local area where a woman lives, it should be publicly stated on the building before she enters. Without such a guideline in place, a woman will assume that the same protections which follow her everywhere else in society will reasonably extend to her in LDS meetinghouses. The Church Handbook of Instruction has  guidelines for not carrying firearms into church buildings. No such statement about breastfeeding currently exists.  A statement of clarity from the Church News Room would help local leaders, members and nursing mothers all have the same knowledge and expectation of what is allowed on church property.  We call on the Church News Room to issue such a statement.
It’s not about them or their comfort. See Article of Faith #2 and Matthew 5:27-29

In the Absence of the Village, Mothers Struggle Most

“Dear Mothers,

I’m writing you today because I can no longer contain the ache in my gut and fire in my heart over an injustice that you and I are bearing the brunt of…”

In the Absence of the Village, Mothers Struggle Most

Stake President Denies Temple Recommend to Nursing Mother

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A young Mormon mother has been denied a temple recommend by her Stake President for breastfeeding her child in public without a cover.

The Bishop of her ward called her in and gently explained that members of the ward had complained to him about her breastfeeding at church without a cover. The ward members assumed that seeing her exposed breast was making it difficult for the young men and the recovering porn addicts to avoid impure thoughts.  The Bishop asked the woman to either cover up or nurse in the mother’s room.  When she informed her Bishop that she wouldn’t be changing her views or behaviors about nursing on-demand and uncovered, she thought the issue was over.

The woman, her nursing baby, her three older children and her husband all participate in Sacrament meeting services from the foyer. The breastfeeding takes place while seated in chairs in the foyer. This sister is most comfortable in the foyer because she can still hear the meeting and participate in the ordinance of the sacrament while staying outside with her active children to avoid disrupting the meeting. The mother’s room in her ward building is accessed through the women’s bathroom, making it difficult for her husband to accompany her, and is too small to accommodate her other children who follow her there, nor are the sacrament trays brought in to any mothers while there.

Three weeks later she and her husband were called into her Stake President’s office and they both took along their Temple recommend paperwork to be signed.  As part of the interview, the SP brought up her public breastfeeding. He quoted from the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet, told her “It’s a modesty issue” and blamed her for the men and boys having impure thoughts. When she pressed him for specifics about breastfeeding being included in the FTSOY pamphlet, which it is not, he maintained his position that she should be covered or in the mother’s room.  When the sister insisted that “this isn’t my problem,” he rebutted, “It is your problem. And if you do it again, we’re going to kick you out of the building.”

When she again resisted his biased opinion and disagreed with the way he was sexualizing breastfeeding, he firmly said that by not sustaining her leaders and following his direction to cover while nursing, she was not eligible to have a temple recommend. When she told the Stake President that she’d be doing what she could to find out from a higher authority about the uncovered nursing, the SP taunted, “Go ahead. I’ve already called Salt Lake. They agree it’s a modesty issue.”

The woman excused herself from the room, at which time the Stake President informed her husband that if he supported his wife, he too would be denied a recommend, but that if he supported his religion, he could receive his recommend. The Stake President further advised him to  “Control your wife. You are the patriarch of the family. You tell her how she is allowed to breastfeed.”

The woman’s husband defended his wife, stood by her choices and stated, “She’s her own person. I don’t control her.”

The family hasn’t been to church for the past several weeks because of feeling unwelcome.  The woman grieves the loss of her temple recommend, and believes that without a recommend, her “spiritual well-being is at stake.”  She struggles with feelings of depression and has lingering health issues.  She wishes for a resolution with the ward members, bishop and stake president that is a peaceful reconciliation where she may continue to nurse uncovered in the foyer, as she has been doing.

Part of her story has also been posted here.

Among nursing Mormon women, this issue is not new.  Laws in most US states permit women to breastfeed, covered or uncovered, in any place where they are legally allowed to be, and cannot be asked to leave or cover. There is some confusion as to whether this same right is extended to private church property. If a Mormon church is allowed to discriminate against a nursing mother for breastfeeding without a cover, (on private church property), is it the local leader who may enforce such discrimination? Mormon women from all over the world report that they nurse uncovered in plain view in their ward buildings without issue.  Without a direct policy from church HQ, a mandate not to nurse in plain view would be at the discretion of a local leader.

As stated in the above 2013 SLTribune article, the LDS church has not articulated a church-wide policy or statement about breastfeeding while on church property. Without a policy given at the general level, these types of stories will continue to occur.   Imagine an investigator, new convert, or visitor attends a ward where openly breastfeeding is forbidden. How would they communicate that the rules of the ward building are different from the laws of that state without the woman feeling unwelcome?

While some mothers and babies can easily nurse under a cover and prefer to do so, there are a number of reasons why this doesn’t work for some mothers, including a baby who thrashes around wildly if their face is covered or the blanket cover makes mom and baby overheated and uncomfortable. Regardless, the choice for a mother to cover or not cover should not be made by an unrelated man.

By contrast, Pope Francis has stated publicly that mothers may nurse openly during services at the Sistine Chapel, which would logically extend to other Catholic congregations worldwide.

Inherent in this story are several harmful dynamics at play simultaneously:

Hyper-sexualization of female breasts. In this story, the Stake president, Bishop and ward members all participated in the sexualization of breastfeeding and the objectifying of this sister’s breasts. While breasts can be part of the sexual experience of men and women, reducing their purpose to titillation or arousal obscures their primary purpose of providing milk to babies. A woman who uses her breasts to feed a child is literally filling the measure of their creation. Countless works of art hanging in church buildings around the world depict women breastfeeding.  If the members of the ward are sensitive to the young men and recovering porn addicts, what better way for them to observe what breasts are best at doing than by noticing a mother nurse her baby?
Perpetuation of rape culture. Telling a woman that she is responsible for the sexual responses of men is an example of rape culture. Telling a lactating adult woman that she is not abiding by the clothing and dress standards set for teenage girls is an example of rape culture. The 2ndarticle of faith clearly states that “men are responsible for their own sins.”  Blaming women for the inappropriate sexual responses of men is not only unfair, it’s not doctrinal.
Prioritizing the male sexual gaze and comfort over the comfort and convenience of mother and baby. Perhaps the ward should provide blankets for the young men and recovering porn addicts to put over their heads so they can avoid looking at the nursing mothers in their wards? If a woman attends church and wishes to participate in the ordinances and classes, and is most comfortable to nurse where she is, every accommodation should be made so she can be included without stigma. 
Perpetuation of Polygamy Culture – Possession Fallacy and Women as Reward Fallacy . Seeing a woman as a sexual object to be possessed or controlled is a by-product of the lingering polygamy culture in the church today.
Promoting disunity in marriage partnerships. By pressuring the husband to choose between supporting his wife or acquiescing to the stake president’s demands, the Stake President positions the husband as the one who can control his wife, bring her back in line with what male priesthood authorities are requiring of her, or risk his own standing in the church.
Unrighteous Dominion. Both the Bishop and Stake President overstepped their stewardships in dictating to this woman the acceptable way for her to mother her children. Beyond that, the Stake President exercised unrighteous dominion by conflating the couple’s temple worthiness with their obedience to his biased and non-doctrinal opinion. This is an example of ecclesiastical abuse.

One cure to this misguided impression of public breastfeeding is found in the words of Isaiah, where Jesus himself is likened unto a nursing mother: “But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.  For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”

If all members of the church could see breastfeeding mothers as a type of Christ, women could comfortably nurse anywhere they are without fear of judgment. Church leaders often remark that the calling of motherhood is holy, akin to men exercising the priesthood. It’s hypocrisy for a male church leader to condemn a righteous mother for mothering in the best way for her and the baby. By their own logic, if women have motherhood and men have priesthood, shouldn’t those domains be separate and individual? Would a woman ever be allowed to dictate to a man how to use his priesthood?

In order to prevent future overreaches of institutional power that negatively affect mothers and babies, we need a church-wide statement of support for nursing mothers. We need to remove the barriers and difficulties placed upon women for how they mother their children and we need to make it easier to be a woman in this church. We need our women-leaders in the General Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary to advocate for the nursing mothers of the church and encourage an official statement of support from the church spokespeople.

Please write to the female General authorities and ask for their active support for the nursing mothers of the church. Many mothers already nurse publicly in church without repercussion. Without an official statement, women will remain at risk for judgment and exclusion if their chosen way of nurturing their babies doesn’t align with the preferences of a local priesthood authority.

You may send your letter of support and encouragement for such a statement to the female general authorities:  President Jean Bingham, Sister Sharon Eubank, Sister Reyna Aburto, President Bonnie Cordon, Sister Michelle Craig, Sister Becky Craven, President Joy Jones, Sister Lisa Harkness or Sister Cristina Franco

to this address

Their Name

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

50 East North Temple

Salt Lake City, UT 84150

ETA: Address for the RS building where the women’s offices are held is 76 North Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150.

On Proxemics, Boundaries and Agency

Jamesetta Newland became fascinated with proxemics while observing others on her morning commute. When people were able to be apart and claim some space, even when it meant standing instead of sitting, they did. When there was no hope of doing so due to overcrowding, the commuters would close off. They would look anywhere but the eyes right in front of them. They would plug in their music or pull a book over their faces.

The father of proxemics, Edward Twitchell Hall, found that there were four ‘interpersonal zones,’ namely: intimate, personal, social, and public. There are social and cultural rules, and biological comfort, to the point that when one of these zones is breached we will understand that breach as rude and unacceptable. In Newlands work, she reminded nurses that they too were to abide by these rules. When they had to enter personal space, which you can imagine would be often, they were encouraged by Newland to do this delicately and let the patient know exactly what was happening. Asking permission to enter that space was noted as important.

When one thinks about cults or any kind of abusive relationship, the science of proxemics seems to fall by the wayside. Personal spaces are constantly broached and if complaints are heard, it is the complainer who has something wrong with them. Yet, the manipulative abuser is the one digressing from acceptable social rules.

I was sitting with my psychologist the first time I heard the word “boundaries.” I had been trying to set them my whole life while feeling like I was bad for doing so. I had no idea that this was a psychologically healthy and necessary concept. The irony was, those trying to broach mine had never been taught properly how to remain in theirs. So, it seemed boundaries were twofold: we needed to set them for ourselves and for others.

It is important to realise and state at this point that not everyone has the privilege I do and aren’t so easily able to enforce their set boundaries. When you CAN enforce them, I wholeheartedly beg you to feel empowered to do so. I also think we need to be advocating for the boundaries of others to be kept, all the way from cultural and institutional rudeness, right through to human rights violations.

Boundaries aren’t just physical. They are mental, emotional, sexual and even spiritual. I asked some fellow Mormon members to share stories and thoughts about boundaries in the LDS church, and for the rest of this post I will share the replies with you. While some may argue these are “simply” cultural ills, culture is powerful. *All names are changed.

Many had experienced people only asking them questions when they were inappropriate to ask, ie. “when are you having a baby?” or “when are you finally going to get married?” rather than asking what their personal boundaries and needs were. Some didn’t want to be visited, while others really wanted that intimate emotional support of a visit. Others felt they were never taught it was okay to set those boundaries: that it would be okay to say no to a calling or someone entering their home. Others felt assumptions were made about them and inappropriate probing resulted. One of my friends even recently had someone ask them why they weren’t wearing their garments. For the record, asking about underwear is creepy.

From Sarah*: “This past March I went to Florida for spring break with my boyfriend. We stayed in an Airbnb. We tried to find one with separate rooms/beds, but we couldn’t, and they were all way too expensive, so we got one with BUNK BEDS. When my dad found out he obviously wasn’t happy, but I kinda just told him it’s my decision.

We come back on a Thursday and so we go to church that Sunday. After church, my branch president says he wants to talk with me. He asks me about my life. He asked how school was. I told him it’s been a stressful semester for me. He asked how me and David* are. I was like “um we’re good. Never better” like I didn’t know what to say because I had a feeling I knew where he was going with his questions. Next question he asks: how was your vacation? Followed by “what were your sleeping arrangements?”

I wanted to reply with “none of your freaking business!” But I told him bunk beds.”

Sarah was then told to be careful and she then tried to explain that she’s just not like that and felt comfortable in her choices. She felt she was released from her calling because of this experience.

(A note about this: gossip seems to be a particularly potent fuel when it comes to breaching boundaries…)

From *Jack: “After the mission age change, my ward got *extremely* nosy with literally everyone around my age. It faded away for a while after my bishop had to literally ask the congregation from the pulpit to stop, but it made its way back. After a lot of praying, I decided to take a year of college before leaving on my mission so I’d be in a better state physically, mentally, and financially.

My process of coming to that revelation was a very personally spiritual one. Without thinking, I brought it up in Fast and Testimony meeting, sort of as a brief mention that I’d be staying a year. After the meeting and throughout the block, I literally had four people ask me if it was a worthiness issue. That’s obviously not okay. At all. I felt so violated and like my whole life was on public display, even though it wasn’t a worthiness thing at all.

My sister’s been married for a year and three months now. They live in a ward with a *lot* of very rich, very social-elite power couples (like the president of BYU and 50 professors, two CEOs, etc.). They keep getting asked when they’re going to have children. Over and over and over again, despite her frequently saying that it wasn’t a plan of theirs.

She got pregnant in December, and word slipped out to the ward. Suddenly, she had everyone touching her belly *all the time* without her consent. People would literally walk up to her and put their hands on her stomach and ask how she was doing. It was incredibly hard, however, when she miscarried last month. Suddenly, it was everyone’s business to know exactly when, why, and how the miscarriage happened, what she’s doing to “prevent it from happening again,” and when they’re going to try again. I was with her in her ward the week after. Even with her leaving immediately after Sacrament meeting, it was incredibly physically painful to watch her have to deal with a barrage of questions. I don’t know how she held it together in there. I seriously almost lost it and shoved people out of the way.”

*Amanda said: “Although I grew up in the church, I only learned about boundaries in therapy a few years ago and setting them with church leaders has been a major opportunity for personal growth.

My experiences with people not accepting ‘no’ range from innocuous, like:

bishop: “Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?”

me: “No, thank you.”

bishop: “Why not?”

me: “I’m on a special training diet.”

bishop: “We’re on a special diet too!”

me: “It’s not the same, probably. And I’ve got my food prepped.”

bishop: suspicious noises

To problematic:

home teacher: comes by my house unannounced

me (socially anxious): hides in the back

home teacher: *sits on my porch for an hour waiting for me to come home*

To advanced problematic:

me: *unlists phone number from ward directory*

relief society president: passes it out to everyone anyway without my permission

To actually dangerous:

me: “I would like to not have my contact information published in the ward directory, because I have a stalker who’s threatened me with harm”

ward clerk: *publishes my info anyway*

me: *moves*

ward clerk: “We’d like your new info”

me: “I’m sorry, I can’t trust you with that information”

relief society president: “I have a present I’d like to give you. What’s your address?”

me: “I’m not home much, but you’re welcome to come by my work on campus, where you also work”

rs president: never brings it up again. Because she seems to have been trying to TRICK ME with presents into giving me up my data

In every instance, people refused to respect or overrode my desire for privacy. They treated me like a child, and ignored my clear, firm refusals in many instances. It’s particularly infuriating because I have PTSD and several co-morbid disorders now, but I’m not interested in disclosing that to the average ward member, so I have to do SO MUCH FIBBING when people don’t respect my social boundaries, and it makes me feel like a liar and a weirdo, and now I’m literally in therapy for anxiety & church. Woo!”

*Karen also experienced inappropriate behaviour from a bishop:

“I dated a guy back in high school and subsequently became friends with his friends. My boyfriend was very close to his bishop and told him everything about our relationship. He hung out with his bishop all the time so this was all in a casual setting. Well, my boyfriend and I broke up and after a while I ended up casually dating (kissing) a few of his other friends. At one point I attended my ex-boyfriend’s ward for a mission farewell and, after the meeting, my ex-boyfriend’s bishop asked me to step into his BISHOP’S OFFICE to talk to me. I nervously agreed and then received a stern lecture about how I was making out with too many boys and being too promiscuous, etc. and wasn’t living the way I should be. I had met this guy maybe twice before. All the information he received was from my ex. First of all, none of his damn business because he doesn’t know me. Second of all, he had absolutely no right to call me into his office, having no authority over me, to tell me that I need to repent and shape up. I may have a bit of a grudge still.

So anyway, that guy didn’t understand boundaries in his calling as a ward bishop and basic social boundaries because what weirdo dude would ask a young girl he’s met twice to sit and talk with him, alone in his office, about her physical relationship with other dudes?! I should have said no and walked away.”

The thing is, hindsight says what we should have done in certain situations, but while you’re in the thick of it like Karen was, it can be hard and scary to know what to do. Power dynamics can make this particularly hard.

Considering church is a place where personal information and vulnerability is shared often, we need to be careful what we do when that information falls into our laps. It was not part of Gods plan for us to conform, nor was it part of the plan to be compelled to be so. We are complex beings with nuanced needs and agency. While my relationship with Mormonism is complicated, I still believe agency is an important doctrine, and ignoring boundaries very much means that we are also trying to rob someone of this gift. We may cause them great psychological distress. As the wife of a psychologist and a studying psychologist myself, I affirm that boundaries are important for health and social cohesion: both things needed to build “Zion.” (Let’s talk about what that means to me sometime…)

Your Body is Not Your Own

The chocolate was already mangled by the time it got to her. Unwrapped and increasingly melted as it passed from hand to hand. The message, taught by her Sunday school teacher, quickly sunk in as a new, unwrapped chocolate bar was brought out. “No one wants a handled piece of chocolate. Be pure and save yourself for marriage.”

For Breanna*, a survivor of rape, it was also the moment when feelings of worthlessness entrenched in her soul.

I never got the melted chocolate or chewed gum examples. I do remember the licked cupcake object lesson, but more than anything I remember being told to save myself for marriage. My virginity was commodified.

Fortunately, I think we have mostly moved beyond object lessons that compare women to damaged goods. Yet as I reflect on what I was taught (and not taught) about sexuality growing up and what I want to teach my own children, I notice the more subtle ways that women are objectified and myths perpetuated that women belong to men. Does how we currently speak of saving oneself for marriage or the importance of “virtue” (a term often used to mean sexual purity or virginity) relate to ancient ideas of women as property and losing their value if they weren’t a virgin?

Someone’s value can never change, and if we believe in an infinite Atonement, sins of scarlet can truly become white as snow. But by talking about virginity the focus becomes desirability not value. Do our messages reflect the law of chastity or controlling women’s bodies? If a woman’s sexuality is only measured in relation to a man’s, can it ever truly be her own? If the way we speak about women measures their value by their relationship status, can they truly internalize their divine nature?

I believe there are many benefits to the law of chastity, but keeping oneself worthy of a future spouse isn’t one of them. In the case that my daughters don’t have the chance or choose not to get married, I will definitely not tell them to abstain from sex for life so they can be rewarded as some man’s virgin in the next life.[1]

Last week, Exponent blogger Violadiva outlined the fallacies of polygamy culture, including the idea that women are subordinate possessions of men. The idea of men owning women recently hit me hard when my friend (one of twelve kids) revealed that her mom never wanted to have that many kids, but never felt she could say no. She believed she belonged to her husband and it was part of her duty as a wife to submit. Consent in marriage was not talked about in her generation.

There is also the problem of claiming authority from God to dictate how a woman should procreate, dress, speak, behave and use her body, without examining the influence of culture on those claims. This is not to say I think God doesn’t care how we act. But like journalist Heidi Stevens, I hope, “We can, with some good faith effort, figure out how to give women unconditional, unassailable agency over their bodies and therefore, their humanity. We can examine the biases that have kept that from happening thus far, and we can ask, honestly, why we’re so reluctant to dislodge them.”[2]

Female autonomy is not just about the body and I hope to also see a shift in the way we talk about education and employment as part of the development and fulfillment of a human being, rather than an “in case you never get married or something happens to your husband.” I hope to see a continued shift in how marginalized groups are treated and an expanded dialogue that promotes the freedom of all people. I believe in a God who cares about our bodies, our minds and about our agency.

 

*name has been changed. This is a true story and the Sunday school teacher happened to be her father and aware of her history of assault. He was not aware of how this affected her. It is likely that we are often unaware of abuse victims among us and unintentionally re-traumatize victims by the way we speak.

[1] See D&C 132:64
[2] Stevens, Heidi. “Why do women get all attractive if they don’t want to be harassed? Glad you asked.” Chicago Tribune, Nov 2, 2017. http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...

A Name from Cradle to Grave

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Lucy Stone holding Alice Stone Blackwell, 1858

“A proper self-respect demands that every woman may have some name by which she may be known from the cradle to the grave,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote to Lucy Stone in 1855, when she heard that Lucy had decided not to change her name after her marriage to Henry Blackwell. Lucy was the first known American woman to break that American custom.

As I have studied and written about our first American feminist forebears, I’ve become more aware than ever of how women’s ever-changing names have obscured their place in history. For example, at the age of 29, while living in Canada to evade the Fugitive Slave Act, Miss Shadd became the first black American woman to own and edit a newspaper. At the age of 45, Mrs. Cary, a resident of Washington DC, became the first black American woman accepted to law school. At a glance, it’s too easy to overlook the important contributions of someone like Mary Ann Shadd Cary over her long and accomplished life because her name changed midway.

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Mary Ann Shadd, 1845-1855 (undated)

I have been writing a book about what modern feminists can learn from these early pioneers. One of the first choices I had to make was how I would deal with the naming problem. Many history books respectfully refer to people by their last names. However, many history books focus on the male experience. In my book, with its focus on women, using last names quickly proved to be confusing because most of the women I am writing about had more than one last name over the course of their lives.

I decided that I would primarily use first names in my book and I am happy with that choice. Not only does it save me from continually writing parentheticals to remind people that Shadd and Cary are the same person, but I like the casual tone using first names gives my book. Mary Ann feels like a friend to me, and I hope that my readers will see her the same way.

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Sojourner Truth, 1870.

Writing about women who were enslaved, like Sojourner Truth, presents other challenges. Sojourner named herself when she was about 50 years old. Her new name was a public symbol of her newfound empowerment after a lifetime of being assigned names by people who claimed to own her. Today, Truth is famous for dictating her memoir, the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, but that wasn’t the first book she helped author. Fifteen years before the Narrative, she was the primary source for another book, Fanaticism; Its Source and Influence, Illustrated by the Simple Narrative of Isabella. At that time, Sojourner was known by the first name of Isabella and the last name of whoever had most recently enslaved her. During the decades before she chose her name, Sojourner had already lived an exciting and noteworthy life, fighting injustice by taking white people who had wronged her to court—and winning. At one point, as described in the pages of that first narrative, she escaped a dangerous cult. Out of respect for Sojourner, I have decided that my book will refer to her by the name she chose for herself, even as I talk about events that transpired while she was still called by her slave name.

All of this studying and thinking about names has naturally led me to review my own life choices with regards to my own name. Unlike Lucy Stone, I took my husband’s last name when I married at the age of 26. At the time, I thought that someday when I had children, it would be confusing if our whole family did not have the same last name. I had just finished grad school and was about to start the first job of my postgraduate career. I didn’t like that my new name would differ from the one on my diplomas but at that point, I didn’t have any public name recognition to justify going against such an established tradition within my culture.  It would be best, I reasoned with myself, to change my name now, before starting this first job, and when I finally did make a name for myself, it would be this new name.

I still remember how sad I felt as I waited in the long line of the Social Security office, one of many obnoxious errands I had to perform in the process of changing my name, thinking about all the work I was doing to erase an identity that I was not ashamed of in any way. I tried to console myself by keeping my maiden name as my middle name. It was the best I could do to preserve my name while changing it.

Now I am a mother and I know that it would not be a problem to say, “I’m April Young, So-And-So Bennett’s mom.” But at this point, I have made a name for myself, and that name is April Young Bennett. I could change the signature on my blog posts to April Young with just a few key strokes, but archived newspaper articles would still quote me by the name of Bennett and references to my peer-reviewed work would still say “AY Bennett.” Like so many women from history, my legacy would be obscured by my inconsistent name.

At times, I’ve feared that someday I could lose my name again through divorce, a problem that American men never confront. I eased this hypothetical concern by deciding that if I ever do divorce, I will not change my name again. It is too late for me to have the same name from cradle to grave, but the proper self-respect I have now demands that my marital status will not affect my name ever again.

Masculine and Feminine Verbiage in the Children’s Songbook

A friend of mine has feminist leanings, but when it comes to gender issues in the church, she can have a bit of a blind spot. I remember discussing some items she’d read on an “LDS feminist agenda” several years ago, and she got a bit scoffy at a couple things on the wishlist.

“They want equal mentions of men and women in stories and equal numbers of men and women in pictures in manuals and promotional materials,” she said incredulously. “I mean, how nit-picky can you get? It just seems so petty to go through and count like that.”

My friend has a point: if all things are more or less equal, going through and counting every boy vs. girl mentioned in a story or shown in a picture seems extremely trivial. My friend imagined LDS feminists getting up in arms about 134 men versus 115 women mentioned in stories in one manual and demanding exactly equal representation. As an LDS feminist, I agree with her that this would, indeed, be silly.

But what if it’s not just that one manual? What if every manual has 8% more men’s stories than women’s stories? Or 8% more men quoted than women? Or 8% more named men than named women? What if the disparity never goes the other way, and it’s always women who are less represented than men?

And what if it’s not 8% at all, but more like 80% across the board? Suddenly, fighting for an approximately equal representation of male vs. female names, stories, and quotes doesn’t seem quite as trivial.

The church recently announced that they are going to be compiling new music for the Hymnbook and Children’s Songbook, and they’ve asked for input in an unprecedented way. I am excited for the changes they’ve promised (particularly hymns from other cultures and languages–yay!), and I’m desperately hoping for more female representation in the pronouns, names, and words of our new songbooks.

I’ve gone through the entire current Children’s Songbook and tallied up how many named men vs. named women there are, as well as made note of other gendered language and how the song lyrics gender God. If we want our daughters to see that there’s a place for them in the church and, more importantly, to know that God loves and values them, we need the language we use, the songs we sing, the stories we tell, and the lessons we teach to reflect that and include them.

Men and Women Mentioned by Name

Songs in the Children’s Songbook mention 42 men and only three women by name.

Several of the people are in named in more than one song. Including duplicates, men are named 55 times; women are named nine times.

Gendered Language

In addition to the names of men and women mentioned in song, I also looked for gendered language (indicated by pronouns, words that refer to men/women (with the exception of father/mother), or nouns paired with masculine/feminine pronouns) in the lyrics. Forty four songs contain male specific words; ten songs contain female specific words.

Representation of Parents

To see how mothers and fathers were represented in the Songbook, I only counted songs that mentioned mother OR father (excluding “Heavenly Father” references); songs that mentioned both were not counted. Mother was mentioned in 9 songs; father/daddy was mentioned in 7.

The disparity here is pretty negligible, and in our culture we tend to emphasize motherhood at the expense of fatherhood. Motherhood (and parenthood) is important, but it’s incredibly concerning that the only area where men and women are even close to equally represented is when it comes to motherhood. This props up the narrative that women’s only important/valued role is motherhood, and our girls deserve better than that.

Gendering God

If gender is eternal, as the church teaches, it is impossible for girls to become like their Heavenly Father. It is important for girls to see God as both masculine and feminine if they are to visualize themselves in heaven and aspire to be like God.

References to a male God:

God with he/him pronouns: 15

Heavenly King: 2

Lord: 16

Heavenly Father: 57

Total: 90

Gender neutral references to God:

God (with no pronouns): 22

There were no mentions at all of Heavenly Mother, God as female, or God as partnership of Man + Woman (e.g. Heavenly Parents or God with “they” pronouns).

It is true that there are significantly more men than women mentioned by name in scripture and that the collection of church leaders past and present is almost exclusively male, but we have the opportunity and the responsibility to rectify the oppressive errors of the past. In some cases, including women’s names and stories in song may require a little more creativity, but as of now, there are dozens of unutilized heroes kids could learn about in song: Sariah, Ruth, Hagar, Elizabeth, Abish, Anna, Deborah, Esther, Abigail, Eve, Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, Jane Manning James, Chieko Okazaki, and that’s just a start. There are also the powerful stories of unnamed women, like the woman at the well or the woman with an issue of blood or King Lamoni’s wife. A song could be written to teach Primary children the names of the General Primary Presidents or the history of Primary. We could have songs about Heavenly Mother or at least Heavenly Parents.

My goal in writing this post is not to criticize, but to bring attention to this issue and call for change. The church has asked for input on which songs should be included in the forthcoming songbook, and we have the chance to influence what songs are included. Please submit feedback about the kinds of songs you’d like to see, suggest specific songs, or submit your own lyrics and/or music! Feel free to link in the comments any songs that include women heroes, Heavenly Mother, or feminine pronouns so that we can signal boost them to the songbook compilers and use them in our own Primaries and families. While we wait for several years for the new Children’s Songbook, we can include women and Heavenly Mother in songs now by swapping pronouns and writing additional verses to current songs (read this article for some great suggestions).  

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Some notes about how I came up with these numbers:

This data doesn’t account for the representation of people/women of color or other marginalized groups. I absolutely believe we need to have songs that represent these groups as well.
I did not include the male or female names of the books of the scriptures (songbook pages 114, 116, 119) or “Mormon” when used as part of “Book of Mormon”
I included Thomas S. Monson and Russell M. Nelson because even though their names aren’t printed in my book, they are added when the song “Latter-day Prophets” is taught to children in Primary.
If a song uses several names for God, I only recorded the most masculine one and didn’t record each usage. I only counted one instance of each name/item per song (so a song that mentions “mother” three times or “Nephi” twice is only counted one time in the data).
I did not count references to Jesus in the name data (other than counting his name once), and I didn’t count words referring specifically to him (savior, redeemer, etc.).
I did not generally count instances of priesthood offices or words (prophet, bishop, priesthood, etc.) as male unless male pronouns were used in conjunction with the title.
If you’d like to see the data, here is a link to my spreadsheet.

The City of God is Like This

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The Descent of the New Jerusalem, Trinity College Cambridge, MS R 16.2 f. 25 v.

The kingdom (queendom? commonwealth? city?) of God is like

A mustard seed

Small

Easily missed.

Potent.

The city of God is like

An olive tree

An orchard

A seed

A wedding guest

An ordinary thing

Mistaken for its commonness

Plain and under appreciated

Void of power or privilege

Full of promise

An unseen harvest

Waiting on people and patience.

The city of God is like

A bunch of dead-looking habanero plants

My husband brought home from the nursery

For free

He said

Insisted

I plant them

I resisted

He insisted.

Fine.

Weeds in the garden got away from me.

I pulled tall tangled ones with gloved hands

At the end of the season

To make ready for spring

Try again.

I revealed thriving shrubs with

Unexpected ripe fruit

Red, orange, yellow

A bumper crop

A lifetime’s supply

For using fresh

Freezing

Canning

Devouring

Savoring.

The city of God is like this.

The city of God is like

A modest hope, a goal

Quietly worked toward

Triumphant in its realization.

The city of God is like

A woman

A bunch of women

With God-given gifts and power

Talents and experience

Knowledge and wisdom

Overlooked

Underutilized

Dismissed

By men who cannot see them

Who do not understand

They way things happen

In city of God.

The Toxic Language of Polygamy Culture

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The parallels between societal rape culture and Mormonism’s polygamy culture are alarming.

“Rape Culture” is a term used to show the ways society blames victims of sexual assault and normalizes male sexual violence.

When people and societies normalize sexual violence, they accept and create rape culture. Rape culture includes jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, political speeches, words, and imagery that make sexual violence and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe rape is inevitable. Rather than viewing the culture of rape as a problem to change, people in a rape culture think about the persistence of rape as “just the way things are.” In a rape culture, men and women assume sexual violence to be a fact of life.

Here’s an example of rape culture infiltrating our language:“Wow…..she was drinking at the party dressed like that? Yeah, no wonder she got raped. She was pretty much asking for it. Walking pornography.”

Mormonism experiences a similar phenomenon with Polygamy Culture.

“Polygamy Culture” is a term recently coined by Mormon Feminists. It invokes the way Mormon culture normalizes the idea that women are subordinate possessions of men.  When women are plurally collected to add to the man’s kingdom or glory, and subjected to his sexual attention or deprivation, Mormonism normalizes the doctrine and perpetuates Polygamy Culture by saying, “that’s just the way God wants it.”  Polygamy culture includes jokes, Sunday school comments, even remarks made in General Conference, and is laced throughout our dialogue concerning exaltation and eternal families. In a Polygamy culture, men and women assume plural marriage in the highest degree of heaven to be irrefutable scripture. It’s an inevitable fact of Mormon life and afterlife.

Rape culture and Polygamy culture inherently undermine the individual worth of women. These dissonances tear at our sensibilities for good reason! They are irreconcilable with the nature of a loving God.

Polygyny is patriarchy taken to the extreme. Plain ol’ patriarchy oppresses women. Benevolent patriarchy pedestalizes women as it oppresses them. Toxic patriarchy turned polygyny oppresses and possesses women.

The sources of this culture/doctrine are found in Doctrine and Covenants section 132 and in the language of the temple ordinances.  (The day-to-day practice of polygamy ended (mostly) in 1890 with this official declaration.)

D&C 132:64 uses this possessive language, “and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified.”

By contrast, the language of Jacob 2: 24-35 teaches just the opposite: “For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.”

 In the temple today, women are anointed to become Priestesses unto their husbands, covenant to hearken to his counsel and give themselves to him in marriage.  The men’s ordinances and blessings have none of this possessive language reciprocated.

Since all are alike unto God, the asymmetry of this possessive language is endlessly harmful to women.  If God is no respecter of persons, it doesn’t seem possible that He would value the eternal weight of women at a mere fraction of the value of a man. In this regard, Mormon doctrine is at odds with itself.

Gordon B. Hinckley made the following statement on Larry King Live on September 8, 1998 with regard to the practice of polygamy: “I condemn it [polygamy], yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.”

Despite a sitting prophet describing the practice of polygamy as “not doctrinal,” current LDS sealing practices allow a man to be sealed to more than one woman during his lifetime, while legally married to one woman at a time.  Divorced or widowed men retain the sealing to their first wives, even when adding a second or third.  By contrast, LDS women are sealed to one man at a time during their lifetimes. Divorced women are not automatically un-sealed from an ex-husband and must go through a “sealing cancellation” process from the prior spouse before being newly sealed to a future spouse, or simply to be relieved of the burden of being sealed to a disagreeable ex. Widowed women can be sealed to a second or third spouse posthumously.  Widowed women may request a sealing cancellation from a deceased spouse if they wish to be sealed to another living man in their lifetime, or if they wish to be untethered from a disagreeable spouse after he passes.  All of these written requests are subject to First Presidency approval.

*A note about polyamory: many people within the church (men and women) marry more than one person during their lifetimes. Some women agonize over choosing which husband they’ll be with in the next life, because they loved both so deeply. Men are given more leeway to imagine a heaven with all of their beloved wives. The more recent temple sealing policy to seal a deceased woman to all of the men she was married to in life is a step in the right direction. Whether that means she will choose which husband to stay partnered to, or whether that indicates a broader interpretation of how consensual celestial relationships will play out, we have no idea.  

We must reject section 132 as an outdated relic of its time, no longer relevant or doctrinal now (if it ever was) and embrace the teachings found in Jacob, which decry polygamy as virtuous.  With the language of the temple, we must erase the diverse ways women are subjugated to their husbands in every ordinance. And we must stop using the language of polygamy culture in our daily conversations.

Here are categorized examples of fallacies that perpetuate the toxic language of polygamy culture:

Possession Fallacy– the fallacy that women are not agents or stewards to themselves, but are possessed as property by their husbands or future husbands.

“my first wife died in childbirth, then I was sealed to my second wife. She helped me raise our family. As long as I’m faithful, I’ve been promised that I’ll have both of them in the next life.”  – Stalwart Mormon Grandpa

“I’ve been a single woman my whole life. I can’t count how many times someone from church has told me not to worry about my afterlife, that I’m sure to be ‘given’ to a faithful man as a plural wife so that I can experience all the blessings of marriage and family life.” – Single Sister

“Why do women give themselves to the husband but not the other way around? Because it allows for him to be sealed to more than one woman without giving himself to any one woman exclusively.” – one temple sealer’s interpretation of sealing language

 “I keep living as righteously as I can, even though my husband is inactive, but I’m worried he won’t make it to the celestial kingdom and that I’ll either be given to another man or that I’ll be a ministering servant for the rest of eternity.” – someone’s mom

#sogladhechoseme

Women as Reward Fallacy–the fallacy that uses women and their attractiveness as a reward given to a man for his good or righteous behavior, or that women, (as objects and the gatekeepers to men’s sexuality), sex, and posterity are a wealthy, privileged, virtuous man’s entitlement.

“boys, the way to get an attractive wife is to serve a mission” – General YM presidency member to recent fireside of teenagers.

 “the more times you pray, the hotter your wife will be!” – a missionary to his companion

“the more doors you knock, the more wives you’ll have. If you knock in the rain, they’ll be more attractive.” – another missionary to his companion

“David’s concubines weren’t sex slaves, they were just second-class wives.” – someone in a Gospel Doctrine Sunday school class

a young man going on a date with 2-3 sisters of the same family at the same time.

 

Historical distortion fallacy – citing false representations of historical data

“but polygamy was just used as a way to care for the widows!”

(the average age for plural wives at the time of their marriages was late teens to early twenties, the majority of whom had never been married. Even as the age of the man increased, the new wives he accommodated were almost always of this same age range.)

“but early church leaders only married single women who wouldn’t have had a chance to marry otherwise!”

 (except for when they married women who were already married to someone else.)

 

Flawed Mathematics fallacy– citing false mathematical data

“in the next life, there will be many more righteous women than men. Would you deprive your sister of her blessings?

 (It’s raining men.)(and by the same logic, if all the young, fertile women are taken up in polygamous marriages, doesn’t it leave a lot of young, fertile {generally poor and lower-status} men without his blessings, too?)

“but polygamy was for raising up a righteous generation of children! Look how many members came from these large polygamous families!”

 (the average number of children born to plural wives was statistically lower than the number of children born to monogamous women.)

  “it was a way for the more wealthy men in the community to provide more children with life advantages like schooling, enough food and adequate housing since they could afford it.

 (except for the men who kept their plural wives and children in poverty and starvation.)

“if same-sex marriage becomes legal, the church will bring back polygamy.”

 

Dismissal – the fallacy that dismisses a person’s concerns about Polygamy as unimportant or irrelevant.

“you don’t have to worry about that. It’s not going to come back.”

 “when you get to the other side, you’ll change your mind.”

  “Nobody will have to be sealed to a person they don’t want to be with”

“not that many people did it. It wasn’t widespread.”

 “God would never force anyone to be a polygamist”  (tell that to Emma.)

 

Manipulation–weaponizing sealings, sometimes as a way to punish or control someone

“you’re still sealed to me, even though we’re divorced, which means you’ll still be bound to me in the next life, whether you want to be or not.” – Creepy ex-husband

“if you’re not nice to me, I’ll marry someone else after you die and you’ll have to be a plural wife in the next life.”  – Creepy current husband

men who choose not to date young widows because the woman is already sealed to someone else.

children born to a woman and her second husband are sealed to her deceased first husband.

 

Heavenly Mother fallacy – fallacy that claims plural Heavenly Mothers

“that’s why we don’t know much about her, because there are so many and we don’t know which one we came from.”

  “God must be a polygamist because he would never ask us to do something He himself couldn’t do.”

 Upon meeting a kindred spirit, “we must have the same Heavenly Mother!”

 

Gender essentialism fallacy– fallacy that polygamy only works as polygyny, and not as polyandry

“well, a man can get lots of women pregnant at a time, but a woman can only be pregnant with one man’s child at a time.”

  “well, a man usually has a stronger sex drive than a woman, so he could have sex with more than one partner at a time, whereas a woman couldn’t really satisfy multiple male partners. Polygyny is a solution for forbidden masturbation.”

  “the poor men! Having to deal with so many wives!”

 Those who express dismay at learning that Joseph Smith married “other men’s wives” but have no problem with him being “another woman’s husband.”

 

Humor

“will you be my sister wife? I need someone to help me take care of my kids and house.”

 “want to go on a Brigham Young date? I’ll bring 2 girls!” – teenage boy

“I can only handle one wife!” – someone’s husband

“who knows, maybe someday!” – a single sister joking about being married to her friend’s husband as the ‘kitchen wife.’

“did they bring back polygamy?!” – a wife asks her husband upon returning from Priesthood meeting.

Law of Sarah Fallacy– the fallacy that invokes a person’s ability to accept or practice polygamy as the will of God as dictated to them by the prophet, as a litmus test for faithfulness.

“if the prophet came to me and asked my husband to take another wife, I would do it, no questions asked.”

  “my husband and I already have the second wife picked out for when they bring polygamy back.”

 “whatever God requires is correct.”  (nevermind the ethical hoop jumping of how to justify God commanding murder and infidelity.)

 

Indifference

  “it’s just never bothered me because we don’t live it and we won’t have to if we don’t want to.

  “But I don’t feel oppressed! I don’t feel possessed!”

 

 Favoritism – the fallacy that first wives are granted higher tiered status than any subsequent wives.

“we believe marriage to be between a man and a woman, except in the eternities, but you have nothing to worry about because you’ll always be his first and favorite wife.” – temple sealer to new convert wife at their family sealing

temple sealer tells a new bride that she’s “lucky” to be “the first among many.”

A woman is okay with her husband taking additional wives because she’ll always outrank them (wives 2+ receive exaltation through subjugation)

—-

On one hand, polygamy is an outdated “practice” that can be boxed up and put away as “not doctrinal” despite the cultural relics that remain. On the other hand, it’s built into the very foundations of the church structures, into the temple, into our core beliefs and teachings. It’s as fundamental as the Book of Mormon, the First Vision and the Restoration, but it’s a whisper doctrine, not included as a chapter in Preach my Gospel.

We have to burn it out, right down to the core of the church if we want to get rid of the poison, especially as we reflect with our greater understanding about the worth and autonomous value of women. The language of the temple must change, as should the words we use with each other. We must all stand up against the toxic language of polygamy culture.

Book Review: It Takes Courage

[image error]Every now and again, all of the things I love, fight for, and feel strongly about meld into one place—that magical thing happened for me a few weekends ago at a book launch. But it wasn’t just any book launch—it was a cookbook launch. And—it was organized by a women’s health centre. And the recipes in this book were primarily provided by women who were, at one stage, refugees.

 

The book itself began as a project by Women’s Heath Grampians, which is an organization that “aims to improve women’s equality, health and wellbeing in the Grampians region and beyond.” The project was intended as a means to preserve elements of culture through recipes shared by indigenous, or migrant, or marginalised, or just regular women. Many of the recipes were handed down through generations by watching, then copying the instinctive pinches, dashes and handfuls of ingredients used in the contributors’ family kitchens. These recipes were meticulously measured into cups, teaspoons and weights which were then adapted into western, first-world, English lingo to make it easy for folks like me to make in my own home. Things like Kolac Sa Makom (Serbian Poppyseed cake), Trei Cha Knei (Chinese-Cambodian Ginger Fish), and Baingan Peh Raita (Pakistani Eggplant Dish). And what’s even more delightful is that the majority of the recipes have not previously existed on paper. They are favourite (secret) keepsake family recipes, making the collection all the more personal.

 

The preservation of culture is an important aspect of this book, as each recipe in this book is preceded by an essay written by the woman who is sharing a part of her life, and her culinary life. Often the stories are of how they were finally about the leave the refugee camps. At the book launch, one well-spoken woman moved me to tears when she read Warsan Shire’s poem, Home (available in full at the Global Citizen website ) and spoke of her own journey as a refugee seeking a permanent place to call home.

 

To be clear, the book launch was a celebration– not just of the book’s publication, but a celebration of community, sisterhood and survival– because It Takes Courage to seek for a better way of life, and to adjust and do what is necessary to survive. And then to thrive afterwards, is a courageous miracle, thus inspiring the title of the book.

 

In addition, a photographer donated her time to teach the women how to photograph their own work, and each other—making the cookbook a collection of images of the cooks, their food, their essay and flavours that the women constructed themselves. The book is well and truly all heart and soul.

 

[image error]And the recipes? As my husband said, “Our children now like white bread, chocolate,  Happy Meals, and Sudanese-Ethiopian food. Who knew?” Indeed, the food selections — although I have not tasted all– the ones I have are divinely delicious for the whole family. Not only that, they are beautiful such as Vietnamese Coconut Fruit Jelly (pictured), heartily filling, such as Shuly (Persian Soup) (with my favourite— lentils!) , and  sacred, because it reminds us of how lucky we are. Such as Ceylonese Fish Curry, wherein the contributor tells us:

“This is my favourite dish. We would buy fish from the seaside. We weren’t allowed to fish ourselves because of the caste problem. I don’t like the caste system, it’s not fair…”

 

The feminist underpinnings, the love of food and family, and the heart and soul of this book make it a item that fills your soul and your belly. In the end, this is a local cookbook—because it is made by a group of women who all met and share within a new home, and yet, the essay contributions and flavours reflect a miraculous global collection that only God’s hands could shape. It is a visually, emotionally and socially stunning cookbook that you will not regret owing. It can be purchased through the It Takes Courage book website.