Exponent II's Blog, page 44

Our Bloggers Recommend: Katie Rich and Heather Sundahl on Breaking Down Patriarchy and Latter Day Struggles Podcasts!

Check out two awesome Exponent II bloggers – Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl – on two awesome podcasts recently!

Breaking Down Patriarchy with Amy McPhie Allebest:

Episode 39: 50 Years of Mormon Feminism – with Heather Sundahl & Katie Ludlow Rich – Breaking Down Patriarchy

Latter Day Struggles Podcast with Valerie Hamaker:

281: The Evolution of Strong W – Latter Day Struggles – Apple Podcasts

Sacred Music Sunday – But Thanks Be to God

 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” ~1 Thessalonians 5:18

This is a time of year when many people are thinking about gratitude. In the northern hemisphere, the harvest is coming in. Where I live, in the heart of the desert, the punishing heat has finally abated, and the first cool breeze is wafting by. Christmas is just a month away.

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve participated in performing Handel’s most famous oratorio, Messiah. For many years, I was in a choir that performed it every year. Life has gotten to the point that I can’t make that kind of commitment anymore, but I love to find an annual sing-along. The oratorio is lengthy if performed in its entirety, so some songs are often cut. One that the choir I was in as a teenager always sang but that I rarely get to do in a sing-along is But Thanks Be to God. It’s the second to last chorus, right before a small alto solo and then the grand finale of Worthy is the Lamb.

This week, as we think of gratitude, pause for a moment to think on the victory Jesus Christ won over sin, death, sorrow, and pain.

“Let’s just not talk about politics” is a ridiculously privileged thing to say.

Politics is personal.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you have never faced a moment where you had to make medical decisions based on what a non-medical professional had legislated. Perhaps you’ve never needed an abortion to save your life like Josseli Barnica wasn’t able to receive and ended up dying.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been a trans youth. Youth suicide attempt rates went up in the wake of anti-trans legislation.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you don’t ever worry that your child’s school is underfunded (or your neighbor kids’ school!). Perhaps you live in an area where property taxes are high enough and PTOs can easily raise enough money that the public school is safe and funding seems stable. But perhaps you’re ignoring the 60% of students across the country who are in districts that are deemed “chronically underfunded.”

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when a highly publicized rally of a prominent presidential candidate uses racist tropes and derogatory language to describe racial and ethnic groups, your racial or ethnic group wasn’t targeted.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when you hear about book bans that seek to eliminate books about LGBTQIA+ topics or that acknowledge racism, you just don’t care about this discrimination and don’t mind kids not being allowed to read about it.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never tried to juggle childcare expenses and work a job that won’t quite pay the bills.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when you hear about a shooting where an AR-15 rifle killed 19 children and two teachers, you don’t have the time to consider what type of legislation (or research funding) could prevent this from happening again.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never experienced sex discrimination in the workplace and needed to learn what the laws are that can protect you.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been a kid in foster care where political decisions and policies impact life on a day by day basis.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been incarcerated and had to deal with re-entering communities where you have few rights and little room for success.

Sure, we could eliminate political discussions from our workplaces, from friendships, from our families. But then we’re left with only superficial relationships where we don’t hold space and empathy for people who have experienced the issues at hand. We need to listen to people’s stories. We need to come to these conversations with empathy. We need to leave these conversations with impetus to make things better.

Politics is personal.

***

Author’s note: Are there people I don’t talk politics with? Yes! (Hi, Dad). But do I think that these relationships often choose superficiality over empathy and love? Yes! And do I think that by avoiding politics, we are choosing to ignore suffering (and working toward change) in favor of this superficiality? Yep. Do I have a solution? No.

Happy Family Caregivers Month!

Happy Family Caregivers Month! Did you know more than half of Americans over age 50 are now caregivers? November is a time to remember family caregivers, whose crucial and often unpaid and unrecognized labor keeps family members–especially older family members–alive, well, and supported. This work disproportionately falls to women everywhere in the world, and research shows race, gender, age, work, education, and income intersectional factors can increase mental and physical difficulties for caregivers.

We are all counseled to bear one another’s burdens in Galatians 6:2 and Mosiah 18:8-9. Inside and outside the Church, women take up most of the work of mourning and comforting and bearing caregiver burdens. Sometimes, this is a decision the whole family reaches by consensus. But more often than not, I’ve seen that when a family member is sick or aging and in need of care the assumption is that a daughter (likely the eldest daughter) or daughter-in-law will step into the caregiver role.

Depending on the intensity of support needed, this can be a monumental sacrifice for the caregiver, with costs for that person’s career, mental health, and ability to be present for other family members such as their own children. There is also a monetary cost to caregiving that may disrupt caregivers’ ability to save for their own retirement, creating a difficult cycle where each generation relies just as heavily on the next for financial support when aging. This can be even more pronounced in immigrant families, where the broader network of support in their new country is limited and cultural factors can place additional pressure on caregivers to keep caregiving in the family.

At the same time, family caregiving can be a wonderful opportunity to serve and love our family members. For adult children, caregiving for a parent or older family member can be a way to show love and respect for the sacrifices that person or generation made for them. Most older people prefer to age at home rather than in a senior living facility, and they can often experience greater comfort and peace either in their own home or the home of a family caregiver. Caregiving can provide an opportunity for a special closeness on both sides of the caregiving equation.

Although the majority of family caregiving cases are for older relatives, caregivers also support people who are sick, people who are disabled, or people who have been in accidents or are in treatment or recovery. Taking care of a sick or disabled spouse is an opportunity for many couples to live the values they professed in their wedding vows, and in the Church it can be an expression of their eternal commitment. Taking care of a sick or disabled child is more than just a responsibility for many parents and caregivers, but a sacred opportunity to show God’s love and their own love for their child by making sure that child’s needs are met and they can reach their full potential. Because people in need of care can be any age, some family caregivers participate in caregiving their whole lives.

In my opinion, caregiving is an expression of the pure love of Christ. It is rarely easy and comes with real sacrifices, but it can also be incredibly meaningful for our relationships and our understanding of God’s love for us. At the same time, there are broader things we should do differently to lessen the sacrifices made by any single person. When the books of Galatians and Mosiah tell us to bear one another’s burdens, they don’t just mean people in need of care directly. They mean the caregivers themselves.

If you are a family caregiver, I see you. Thank you for your service–without which our whole society and community would quite literally fall apart.

If you know a family caregiver, take an opportunity this month to help bear their burdens. Thank them for all they’ve done and are doing for the family. If you’re nearby, babysit if they have kids or do some of their chores or offer temporary caregiving services so they can get a break. Treat them to a nice meal or a massage or a concert or whatever makes them happy. Help them manage expectations with family members if that’s challenging in that family. If you’re far away, order groceries or a meal delivered or purchase them a house cleaning or a virtual personal assistant to help with day-to-day tasks. See if there are things you can do remotely, such as follow up on medical appointments for the family member in need of care. Reflect on how that person became the caregiver: were their needs considered? Is it time to re-evaluate and see if others can step in and take the lead, even if just for a season?

Many of us will one day be caregivers if we aren’t already, and family caregivers are all around us. Let’s all do our part to honor, recognize, and help them, this month and every month.

Our Bloggers Recommend: Christian Anderson (son of Lavina Fielding Anderson) in the Salt Lake Tribune

Exponent II friend (and guest blogger) Christian Anderson recently authored an excellent blog post showing the underrepresentation of women in our general conference meetings with pie charts and graphs. This week he also learned that his late mother (the well-loved Lavina Fielding Anderson) had her temple blessings restored to her by the first presidency without his knowledge. He submitted a request to do her temple work after the one-year anniversary of her death and was surprised to learn it had already been completed without anyone’s knowledge from the family only a few days before.

Pulitzer Prize winning Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote a story in the Salt Lake Tribune with all of the details. Check it out and share your love for Christian and his family!

This photo is Christian on his baptism day in Calf Creek Falls in Southern Utah. Lavina kept a copy of this next to her computer, then next to her bed for at least the last six years of her life.

Christian with his wife Marina and Lavina.

Guest Post: When Women Interview to Be BYU Professors

by Rachel Noorda

Seven years ago, I interviewed to be a professor at BYU. I’d recently finished my PhD and I was excited about the interview because it was in my very specific subfield and also because it would be teaching and researching at the place where I earned my bachelor’s degree many years before. My university education began at BYU and it seemed like completing the circle to end back at BYU to start my career.

Rachel graduating from BYU

When I was an undergrad at BYU, I didn’t have many professors who were women. But when I did, I inevitably gravitated toward them. Those women became some of my favorite people and best mentors, and they answered my questions about PhD work, wrote me letters of recommendations, and gave me research jobs on campus. I am forever grateful to them. That’s what I wanted to be for the female students at BYU.

But the interview process went very differently than I thought it would.

I was one of two final candidates for the position. My interview was a three-day process that consisted of two lunches and one dinner with faculty from the department; interviews with the department chair, dean, and a general authority; a research presentation to faculty; and a teaching demonstration to students. Intense interview processes like this are not uncommon in academia. 

Over the course of the process, I experienced a multitude of what Michael Baran and Tiffany Jana have called “subtle acts of exclusion” (SAEs). That is the term I will be using, although many other terms would also apply (microaggressions, sexism and ageism, etc). 

SAE #1: Weren’t you my student recently?

Since this was the same department where I had received my undergraduate degree at BYU, I had taken classes from many of the faculty who were now part of my interview process and my potential colleagues should I get the job. Many of the faculty took delight in the fact that I had my start in their department at BYU, and I enjoyed chatting with them. But others used this opportunity to subtly imply that I was too young to be a competent, knowledgeable colleague.

One particular faculty member went as far as to search through his old class lists, find my name and my picture from when I was a student of his, and then show it to everyone while we were chatting over lunch. I tried to laugh it off by saying, “Oh wow! I can’t believe you found that. That’s a blast from the past.”

To which he replied, “It was only a few years ago.” I didn’t know how to respond. A recent Women in the Workplace report showed that early-career women suffer from ageism more than any other group.

SAE #2: Minimizing accomplishments

I was very proud of the fact that I passed my PhD thesis defense with no corrections. This is a very rare thing, and I had put in a lot of hard work to my thesis writing and oral exam preparation to make this happen. 

However, when someone brought this up to praise me in one of our lunch discussions, another faculty member piped in to say, “Yes, but you got your PhD in the UK, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have passed with no corrections if you did your PhD in the US; it’s much more rigorous here.”

I wish I had been more confident in myself at the time to push back on what this colleague said. But at the time, I just wilted a little and changed the subject.

Rachel before her BYU interview

SAE #3: Faculty meetings are priesthood meetings.  

On the evening of the second day, I went to dinner with members of the department. It ended up being me and six male colleagues. It was good food and we chatted about a variety of things at first, like musical talents and church callings. Then one of the faculty members said, “You know, our department meetings can be kind of like priesthood meetings. You’re going to need to speak up so you can be heard.”

He may as well have said, “Our department has very few women and is sexist, so you’ll have to fight if you want any voice or representation as our colleague.” 

I stammered some weak response about being up to the challenge, but the comment shook me. On the one hand, at least they recognized how very unrepresented women were in their department, But they weren’t doing anything about it, other than to push the only women in the department to fight for whatever the powerful male department majority would give them. It made me very aware that I was different from them because I was a woman.

SAE #4: How will you uphold the patriarchy for students?

The worst part of the entire process was my interview with the general authority. He was a member of the quorum of the seventy, but no one that I had met before or was very familiar with. I was asked to have my husband come with me, so I brought him along. I was grateful to have him there because he is my #1 support, but I also wondered why he needed to be there when I was the one applying for the job, not him.

The general authority was nice enough, and he had a tidy office with lots of light. My husband and I sat down on a couch opposite the general authority’s desk. I felt guilt build inside me when he asked how often I read my scriptures, because I read them but I wasn’t always consistent about doing so daily. His reactions to my answers didn’t give anything away.

Toward the end of the interview, he asked me this: “If a female student comes to you with worries about how women do not have the priesthood, what will you say to her?”

Would he have asked me that if I had been a man? I understand that BYU is an LDS school, but asking one woman to justify to another woman why they both have so little power in the church is very frustrating.

In the end, they chose the other candidate (who was a man) for the position. I very fortunately found a tenure-track faculty job in my specialization, with amazing colleagues (including a high proportion of wonderful women). 

But if BYU wants to best support women, including their own female students, some of these issues need to be addressed. 

What have your experiences been with BYU? Or working for the church?

Rachel Noorda is an Associate Professor at Portland State University and director of a graduate program in book publishing there. She’s originally from Utah, but studied in Scotland and really enjoys currently living in the Pacific Northwest. She loves to bake, read, and spend time with her husband.

The ERA & Prop 8: Voting and Obedience

When the Church tells you how to vote, do you obey?

I’m currently writing my final paper for a Women’s History grad school class. Since we were encouraged to research a topic of our personal interest, I chose Mormon women and the Equal Rights Amendment. I’ve always known that the LDS church opposed the ERA in the 1970s, but the details of what I’m uncovering are frustrating, to say the least. I’ve wanted to scream into my pillow a few times.

After Congress passed the ERA in 1972, thirty-four states quickly ratified the amendment. In January 1975, many thought Utah would be the thirty-fifth state as much of it’s legislature supported it. But when it came to a vote just one month later, ratification overwhelmingly failed. What happened in that month?

The LDS Church stepped in.

When the church placed an editorial in their newspaper Deseret News decrying the amendment in the name of traditional gender roles, Mormons heard the call and rallied. The predominantly LDS legislature voted against the ERA and the majority LDS population support that anti-ERA stance.

Here’s a few of the actions the church took during the 1970s/80s to ensure that the Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified:

-In 1977, Ezra Taft Benson’s office called regional church leaders telling them to send at least ten women to Utah’s upcoming International Women’s Year conference. They sent out letters on the official Relief Society letterhead and made more calls to ensure that each stake was following through. Some wards asked for volunteers or sent the Relief Society presidency, while many others issued callings to attend the IWY. Although not “officially” told by the church how to vote, pre-conference workshops sanctioned by church leadership spread through Relief Society networks where women were instructed to be anti ERA and anti feminist resolutions. Fourteen-thousand Mormon women flooded the IWY and took over, defeating the ERA and all other resolutions.

-After seeing the success of Utah’s IWY conference, the church used similar tactics in Hawaii, Florida, New York, Mississippi, Washington, Alabama, Montana, and Kansas, sometimes even bussing anti-ERA women into the state to attend the conference.

-In Nevada, the ERA was most likely going to pass until the church pulled a last minute Hail Mary. Salt Lake organized anti-ERA firesides at local stake centers the weekend before the vote. 95% of all voting eligible Mormons showed up on election day and the amendment was soundly defeated.

-The Church disciplined or excommunicated women who openly advocated for the ERA. Most famous of these was Sonia Johnson, seen below locking herself the Seattle Temple gates in protest. Supporting the ERA meant not following the prophet, and so women lost callings, temple recommends, church standing, and more.

As of 2019, the church still opposes the ERA.

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In order to be considered righteous, gain access to the temple and salvific rites, and ultimately reach the Celestial Kingdom, we are taught we must follow the prophet. In 1978 General Conference, President Elaine Cannon said, “When the prophet speaks, sisters, the debate is over.” Her words were echoed directly by N. Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency in 1979. Children sing “Follow the Prophet” in primary and this lesson is repeated week after week in Come Follow Me.

When you’re told that your literal salvation is at stake by voting or not voting the way the prophet says, do you vote with the prophet?

In 2008, I was a 19-year-old college student trying desperately be righteous and worthy. In retrospect, I think I was struggling with some religious scrupulosity because I was so obsessive. In 2008, I lived in California.

That year, Proposition 8––defining marriage in the state as only between a man and a women––was on the ballot. I hadn’t even heard of it until the Sunday I sat in church and the Bishop read a letter from the First Presidency. We were told to do everything in our power to support Prop 8. I can still picture where I was in the chapel and how I felt. I was deeply uncomfortable. I knew and loved many gay individuals and I had no intention of voting against their rights. It seemed deeply inappropriate to me that the prophet would say such a thing.

But later that day, guilt set in. I convinced myself that if I wanted to be faithful, I had to obey. That I had to prove I believed in the prophet by supporting Prop 8. That I would only be worthy if I did this thing. And so, actively fighting my own conscience, I poured myself into following instructions.

I hated speaking to strangers, but I knocked doors and made phone calls. I put a sticker on my car. I convinced myself over and over that I was doing good, that I was righteous, and that there was no other option. My stomach churned every time I was asked to do one more thing, donate one more dollar, put up one more sign. In retrospect, I can see how much I gaslighted myself into completely turning upside down a fundamental belief I held—that all humans deserved rights and dignity.

I take responsibility for what I said and did during that campaign, even though it brings me such great shame now. I acknowledge the harm I did. I did what I thought I had to do because the church told me I had to do it. I thought I was saving myself, demonstrating to God and to other members that I was righteous. That I was a good Mormon girl, one worthy of finding a good Mormon boy to marry. One who obeyed without question because that’s what faithful Mormons did. I listened when they told me I was the one being persecuted because it made me feel better about how much deep down I hated myself.

Learning about Mormon women defeating the ERA in the 1970s is like a stab in the gut because I know that 19-year-old me would have been on those Relief Society busses going to the conventions. I would have fought openly against my own rights and my own best interests because a man we call a prophet told me so. I would have squished down the bright, feminist side of myself in order to do what I was instructed.

I’m not that woman anymore, thankfully. I do all I can to be a better ally and stand with the marginalized like Jesus did. I know now that I don’t have to vote or politically organize the way an old white dude in Salt Lake says I have to. I honestly doubt the church will ever want the public image crisis it had in 2008 and take that kind of political position again. But if it did, I wouldn’t hesitate to vote my conscious and for what is right, regardless of the church’s official stance.

When the church tells you how to vote, how to politically organize, how to use your privilege, time, and means, do you obey?

Nineteen year old me thought I had to obey, or else my entire world and future eternity would collapse. But thirty-five year old me knows the truth: God is not a God of oppression, strong-armed obedience, or hatred. God does not live and die by a white, wealthy, 1950s-ideal-that-never-truly-existed family structure. God does not want women to remain second-class citizens in nations or churches.

God is freedom, love, and diversity. They are not an old white, American man. And They will not condemn us for “disobeying” the prophet in these matters.

*Exponent II means so much to me as a safe community where I can express myself and not feel alone. Please consider donating this holiday or subscribing so we can keep this important work going for years to come!*

Come Follow Me: Ether 12-15 “By Faith All Things Are Fulfilled”

Table of ContentsConfirmed in faith, raised in hope, strengthened in charityFaith is things hoped forHope makes an anchor to the soulCharity is loveFaith, hope and charity are the fountain of all righteousness

Confirmed in faith, raised in hope, strengthened in charity

In Ether 12, Moroni recounts a sermon by the prophet Ether about faith and hope, and then adds his own witness of faith, hope and charity. Likewise, in 1996, the General Relief Society Presidency, led by then-president Elaine L. Jack, devoted the women’s session of General Conference to faith, hope and charity, with each member of the presidency focusing her remarks to one of these three virtues. Consider the titles of their three talks: Confirmed in Faith, Raised in Hope, Strengthened in Charity

What does faith confirm?How does hope raise us?How does charity strengthen us?Faith is things hoped for

6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

Ether 12:6

What is faith?What is a trial of faith? Have you experienced a trial of faith?

12 For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.

Ether 12:12

Why must faith precede a miracle?

We are promised, then, that we grow spiritually as we believe in the words of those who know, those whose faith has produced the capacity to endure and to move forward. Faith is power in us and gives us the ability to do.

…Many feel they are trying, too often in isolation, to survive an avalanche of pressing duties. Some lament their loss of kinship with others or their sense of direction to the future. These feelings, indeed all tribulations, are common to our humanity; but we find there are antidotes as we develop our personal and shared faith and demonstrate our faith by action.

— Aileen H. Clyde, Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, Confirmed in Faith, October 1996

How is faith power?How can we demonstrate faith by action?What is the difference between personal and shared faith?

Hope makes an anchor to the soulBoy with Anchor, Winslow Homer, 1873, Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art

3 For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed, saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled—

4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

Ether 12:3-4

What does faith lead us to hope for?How is hope like an anchor?

27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Ether 12:27

How can we find hope when we are feeling weak?How does this scripture give you hope?What do we need to do to receive the Savior’s promise to “make weak things become strong”? Does anyone have an experience overcoming a weakness with God’s help?

I think of hope as a modest but very tough everyday virtue, an ordinary but resilient virtue that is both gentle and beautiful. It is an unassuming but powerful force for good that will greatly increase our ability to do good and to be good.

…What is the opposite of hope? Despair, of course, but despair comes when we feel powerless to influence events and when the sources of meaning in our life disappear. Despair is a kind of disorientation so profound that we lose contact with the sources of life itself.

…Sisters, the sources of hope are the sources of life itself. That’s why hope persists, even when experience, reason, and knowledge all say there is no reason to hope. Hope does not calculate odds

…Hope is one of the three great Christian virtues because Christ Himself is the master of life and therefore the master of hope. We are free to choose because we were made free from the beginning, and He honors our agency and our right and ability to choose. The choice He offers is life, and life offers hope. Any other choice is a choice of spiritual death that will bring us into the power of the devil.

…But sisters, I testify that the forces of life are always stronger than the forces of death. If we choose, if we even desire to choose, if we even hope for the desire to choose, we set in motion powerful forces for life that are led by Jesus Christ himself. He responds to those tender tendrils of crippled life with the force and energy that will bring them to flowering. Listen to these promises of love and yearning desire for us. Feel the hope they bring that with Him we can overcome the world.

— Chieko N. Okazaki, Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, Raised in Hope, October 1996

How can we avoid despair?How can we choose hope?How can hope be a powerful force for good?Charity is love

34 And now I know that this love which thou hast had for the children of men is charity; wherefore, except men shall have charity they cannot inherit that place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father.

Ether 12:34

How does it change our perspective when we remember that charity is love?Why is charity necessary to return to our God?

The Savior said that “the great commandment in the law” is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt. 22:36–37). When we love the Lord with all our mind, soul, and heart, we love others. And charity abounds.

…From [Rebecca] we learn that charity, though often quantified as the action, is actually the state of the heart that prompts us to love one another. She offered water. It was in the offering that charity was manifest.

…The greatest acts of charity come from giving of yourself and receiving expressions of charity with humility as well.

…Nothing will bring the Spirit of the Lord into your meetings, your homes, and your personal associations more quickly than showing kindness. “Charity … is kind” (1 Cor. 13:4). Kindness should be right at the top of everyone’s list of things to do. Write it down every day: “Be kind.” Kindness comes in many different packages. Be thoughtful to your neighbors. Be patient in a crowd. Be considerate of your children and your husband. Be honest with your sisters. Trust them and they will trust you. Go out and bring them into this grand circle of sisters we call Relief Society. As we increase our kindness, we add charity to our storehouse and we are strengthened.

— Elaine L. Jack, Relief Society General President, Strengthened in Charity, October 1996

How is charity a state of the heart? How is charity manifestedWhy is it important to humbly receive charity?How does kindness “add charity to our storehouse”?

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Why is charity the greatest of the three virtues?Faith, hope and charity are the fountain of all righteousness

…Faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.

Ether 12:28

How are faith, hope and charity like a fountain?

In my earlier studies of the Book of Mormon, I usually considered these three principles to be like building blocks. Faith would come first, then hope, and then charity. It seemed a logical progression. As our faith grows, we increase our study and knowledge, and we begin to apply the principle of hope. Faith and hope together mold us and guide us in the paths that the Savior walked, and we start to embrace the qualities of charity.

However, in more recent studies, I have come to understand faith, hope, and charity in a different way. I now think of them more as interlacing virtues, each playing a critical part in developing and defining our testimonies.

…When combined, faith, hope, and charity are not like building blocks for me anymore; instead they are intertwined with one another. We don’t finish building faith, and then have hope, or after having hope, finally develop charity. They all work together. And as they become interlaced, they collectively help form our characters and testimonies.

— Chi Hong (Sam) Wong, Quorum of the Seventy, Faith, Hope, and Charity: Interlacing Virtues December 2016

How do you see the relationship between faith, hope and charity?Three Virtues window: Spes (Hope); Caritas (Charity); Fides (Faith, Portrait of Maria Zambaco) stained glass Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, 1870-1871

Guest Post: Women Preach In Whispers At General Conference

About the author:  Some are born heterodox, some achieve heterodoxy, some have heterodoxy thrust upon them. Christian N. K. Anderson comes by his interest in Mormon Studies honestly as the son of Paul L. Anderson (author of four LDS hymns, a curator at both the LDS Church History Museum and BYU Museum of Art, and past president of the Mormon History Association) and Lavina Fielding Anderson (editor of over 300 books about Mormonism, and one of the September 6 scholars who were excommunicated in 1993 when Christian was 13 years old). Despite everything, he also considers himself a child of God, though that is perhaps not a uniquely identifying characteristic. He holds a Master’s degree in marine biology and Ph.D. in theoretical physics. He lives in the ward where he was born, and has the church’s greatest calling: playing the piano in primary. 

In the four decades from 1984-2024, women have been allowed to preach in General Conference in contrast to all but a few exceptions in prior Church history. Has this resulted in genuine progress towards gender equity at the highest levels of power in the LDS hierarchy, or is this just an example of tokenizing in sensitive times? 

Speaking at all

Everyone knows that women speak less than men at General Conference, but have you ever seen just how much less graphically? The visuals are quite telling in a church that gives lip service to valuing women’s voices but doesn’t actually let them say very much! This devaluation has knock-on effects: women are unwilling to claim the authority of scripture and so citing fewer verses than men in what few talks they are allowed to give, sisters receiving far fewer mentions than men, and their talks are pillaged for ideas and catch phrases without proper attribution.

 

As little as women speak now, it has historically been much worse. After Lucy Mack Smith spoke in Oct. 1845 when the church was still headquartered in Nauvoo, it would be 84 years before the next woman would stand at the pulpit. Three times in 1929-30 the auxiliary presidents (Louise Robinson, Ruth May Fox, and May Anderson) were allowed to give brief testimonies, and non-member Ruth Pyrtle (National Education Association) also spoke in Apr ’30. This was followed by a 54 year hiatus, until Apr ’84 when outgoing auxiliary presidents Elaine Cannon and Barbara B Smith gave brief talks, as did their replacements Barbara W Winder and Ardeth G Kapp the next day. Starting four years later, from ’88-’93, one woman spoke per session, then two in most sessions until 2018, when the General Women’s Sessions were finally placed during General Conference weekend once a year, replacing the October Priesthood Session, until both were disbanded in 2023. The first women to offer prayers were Jean Stevens and Carole M. Stephens in Apr 2013.

 

There were, however, women’s meetings variously called “General Relief Society Conference”, “General Relief Society Meeting”, “General Women’s Meeting”, and “General Young Women Meeting”; these only began to be held on Saturday evenings during General Conference weekend in 2018. Even including the women’s meetings as part of General Conference (which they weren’t officially until 2014), the number of women speakers and number of words they shared was tiny compared to men, and has actually gone down since the late 1990s/early 2000s with the abolition of the women’s meetings.

The number of words women have said (or even used in footnotes) has also been a tiny fraction of that of men. At no point in LDS history, even including women’s conferences, have women ever uttered one word in 7.

Scripture Use

Quoting scripture is an implicit power move. Recognizing the power of a good exegesis goes all the way back to Jesus who “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” in Luke 24:27-45 and Paul, who we read in Acts 18:28 “mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.” Backing your point with a canonical verse says: “I read the scriptures, I understand the scriptures, and now I’m going to tell you what they mean. If you disagree, well you can just take it up with God.”

We therefore expect women at General Conference–in keeping with their subordinate role as non-priesthood holders and social conditioning to not appear too scholarly or strident– to quote scripture less often.

 

The first time women combined to cite more than 10 verses of scripture in a session was Oct 1980. While men broke the 1,000 verse barrier in Oct ’93, women didn’t even reach 100 until Apr ’06.  

With the advent of digital scriptures, verse citations have been steadily climbing and (as noted above) men speak far more often and (based on rank) longer than women, so average verses per talk may be a more useful metric. Women have only begun to consistently use scriptures more than men in just the last five years. In Apr ’89, the session’s only woman speaker Joy F. Evans used 37 verses, making the women’s “average” higher than the men’s but only because you were dividing the total by one speaker. With this one exception, in the 82 sessions spanning five decades from 1974 to 2014, the number of verses cited per talk drifted in a fairly straight line from 15 to 25 for men, and from 0 to 10 for women, preserving a 15 verse/talk spread between the sexes. Then Reyna Aburto burst on the scene and everything changed.

At the end of 2017, the most verses ever cited by a woman was 60 by Barbara Thompson in 2009, ranked behind-or-tied with 184 male talks. (Since 9.7% of speakers were women, one would expect the top woman to be in 9th or 10th place; a woman not being in the top 16 would be enough to conclude systematic bias was at work with 95% confidence). Then in Apr ’18 Sister Aburto gave a talk with 147 scripture verses, following this up with three more talks of over 100 verses between 2019 to 2022. In Oct ’23, Emily Belle Freeman put 206 verses into her short talk, pulling the women’s average over 100 for the session; men also set their record for most average verses per talk that session, but at a mere 45.

Does the choice of scripture cited reflect a bit more balance? I’m afraid not. I would like to refer everyone to Eliza Well’s excellent article “Quoted at the Pulpit” in Dialogue, Winter 2021. She looked at a sample of 9,200 quotations in General Conference and broke them into several categories (table 2). She divided scriptural quotations into those that were cited without naming an author in the text, those attributed to Jesus, another man (e.g. “Nephi wrote that…”), and those attributed to a woman. She found a total of 18 verses containing the words of women out of the 6,937 verses analyzed; 99.8% of the time when a speaker quoted words from the Standard Works, they were not women’s words.

Scriptures, of course, skew very male; in the Bible only 93 women speak and only 49 of them have names (Freeman, Lindsay Hardin (2014). Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter (3rd ed.). Forward Movement. ISBN 978-0880283915.) What about quotations from non-scriptural sources? Here women fare marginally better, with 175 quotes out of 2,245; this still means women are quoted just once for every 11.8 male quote. Worse, almost all of the quotes are from women outside the church or without a general board calling. Of the 1,122 quotes sampled from church leaders, 1,104 of them were from male church leaders. 

Mentioning Women vs Prophets

My own analysis of prophetic salience vs women paints an equally bleak picture. Note how many times the sitting prophet is mentioned, compared to how many times ALL WOMEN COMBINED are mentioned by name (excluding references to the couple, as in “We met with President and Sister Nelson, and he taught…”).

This ignoring of women’s input is perhaps most egregious in the hepeating of the phrase “covenant path[way]”. (Hepeating is the phenomenon where a woman in a group makes a point which is ignored, but a man later makes the same point and is praised and credited with the idea). Problematic as “Covenant Path” is, it unquestionably came from a woman. It had not occurred at all in the General Conference corpus back to the 1850s until Apr 2007 in Elaine S. Dalton’s talk “Stay on the Path”. It didn’t immediately catch on, appearing in just four talks over the next fourteen sessions (two of them also by women). But then in 2015, Russell M. Nelson used the phrase in “A Plea to My Sisters”, and again in 2017, and suddenly everyone was using the phrase. In 2018, Renlund, Oaks, Cook, Gong, and Dean M. Davies all used the phrase AND attributed it to Nelson (in the case of Oaks three times, all attributing it to Nelson in the text of his talk rather than just a footnote).

 

What we talk about when we talk about God

If prophets are mentioned more than sisters, then what about God? We nominally believe They consist of a Father and Mother, but who gets discussed more? Of course, Heavenly Father is mentioned more frequently, but again seeing just *how much more* frequently in a graphic tells a powerful story. Note that 10 of the 22 references to Heavenly Mother occur in just two talks (6 in Hinckley, Oct ‘91 and 4 in Renlund Apr ‘22), both of which ask people to discuss Her less (apparently 12 times in 102 sessions is alarmingly too much) and forbid praying to Her. This gag-order has been somewhat circumvented by 120 continued and slightly increasing references to “heavenly parents”, though LDS style guides since 2010 ask that this phrase not be capitalized. This is particularly galling, since it is preceded by a list of nearly 100 titles for God or Jesus that require capitalization, but as soon as a female deity is included in the godhead the capital is no longer needed. By contrast to the slight increase in “heavenly parents”, mentions of “Heavenly Father” have increased by about 2.1 per year from about 60 in the mid-1970s to about 165 in the mid-2020s. If current trends continue, it will take until 2035 for “heavenly parents” to have been mentioned in all General Conferences combined more often than the 209 times Heavenly Father was mentioned in just 2024 alone. 

It is difficult to quantify exactly what the effect of telling women the purpose of their existence is to become like God, then denying them their gender in the image of this ultimate goal. However, it seems hard to think this gendered discussion doesn’t support the patriarchal structure: “If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination.” (Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, p. 19) 

TakeawaysWith just a few exceptions, women did not get to speak at all in General Conference until the 1980s. They still say <1/7th of the words in Conference.Even in their own Women’s Meetings, women invoked the authority of scripture far less than men until the last seven years.Women are discussed by name far less often than even just one man. In the case of the popular phrase “covenant path”, it didn’t catch on until he-peated by a prophet who then got credit for the phrase.Though we pay lip-service to the idea of a Heavenly Mother, our Heavenly Father is mentioned more often by a 5,700 : 22 ratio in the talks available on the LDS Church website.

Women have had a voice in General Conference since 1984. However, the above evidence suggests women collectively speak in a stage whisper, meant to reassure the audience they agree with what the men are saying, who are exclusively the real characters in the unfolding drama of the restoration. Like stage-whispered asides, they are heard by the audience, but are inaudible to the actors, who–for the most part–carry on as if nothing has been said at all. It took about 30 years for women to begin preaching with the same scriptural intensity as men; it remains to be seen if it will take another 30 before their messages start influencing rhetoric and policy. So far, they have not.

Discovering The Great Oz of Benevolent Patriarchy

The realization that the true threat to women’s well-being doesn’t only come from blatant sexism and misogyny came to me gradually. My feminism came alive at obvious forms of hate and discrimination against women. But things became trickier when I started to question and voice concerns over more subtle, socially ingrained, and “humorous” types of sexism.

As I started to listen to my own intuition and speak up about the “little things,” the pushback felt disproportionate, but somewhat convincing. Was I simply taking things too seriously? Did I just ruin everything by thinking about it too much? Didn’t my overreaction actually prove some of the stereotypes about women?

Plus, my entire upbringing was steeped in defined, God-given gender roles. My beautiful, safe, loving childhood with happily married parents, modesty, security, and faith were all built on a foundation of patriarchy. Man’s ways are not God’s ways (or maybe it’s women’s ways aren’t Gods ways, really?) What looks or sounds (or even feels) like inequality, sexism, or discrimination is different when viewed through a spiritual lens. (Right?)

True to my passionate nature, I fought against my frustration with the inequalities and poor treatment of women, especially what could be perceived as so within the Mormon religion, by becoming a fervent advocate for benevolent patriarchy. How else could I preserve my faith and commit to it wholeheartedly?

I mastered all of the arguments until I convinced myself enough to articulate the merits of benevolent patriarchy: Women don’t hold less power or authority than men; they simply have different spheres of influence. Women are more naturally spiritual, so they don’t need the same spiritual experiences that much-more naturally flawed men require; thus men hold all positions of authority to gain that experience. Women can give birth and nurture children, a special, divine gift denied to men, so this must be protected and prioritized by men. (And childless women can be surrogate “mothers” to all. Plus, men do get to be fathers and hold the priesthood, but it’s not the same as motherhood.) Marriage means partnership, but with the man at the head, but not in front. He technically has authority over you, but it’s spiritual authority, so it’s okay. (I guess.)

Plus, you’re equal in the Priesthood in the temple, even though men still hold all of the titles, decision-making power, authority, and ultimate leadership. You’ll tell him your new name, but he’ll keep his for now. It’s equality, but not in the way “the world”-or the dictionary-define it.

You know how they say that bearing your testimony helps you to gain it? I’m pretty sure I did this with benevolent patriarchy until my voice strained with the bearing. Yet, even this spiritual trick of the trade could not prevent me from seeing the cracks, strains, and glaring rips in the seams of my arguments. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I’d been taught my worth and encouraged to seek wisdom. When I asked God if there was something better, if it was okay to seek and demand something beyond benevolent patriarchy, I heard a resounding “Yes!”

Once you begin to see the illusion of benevolent patriarchy, you can’t un-see it. It’s as if I became Dorothy glimpsing the little man behind the curtain, pretending to be The Great Oz of Benevolent Patriarchy. Once I glimpsed bits of him peeking out from behind those gilded curtains, the entire production revealed itself to be the same harmful system oppressing women to benefit men as plain old patriarchy and sexism. Perhaps it’s worse, in some ways, though; a betrayal of sorts, because benevolent patriarchy does this all while maintaining an outward veneer of protecting and honoring women.

So many things that I never noticed before are significant and even dangerous now. Yes, dangerous. Benevolent patriarchy is built on a system of small, constant, little things that draw you in and slowly woo you. Taken alone, they feel like no big deal. Critique them individually and you’ll likely seem petty. Mention them to someone who regularly practices them and they will probably shrug in dismay at your conclusions. But take them together and recognize how they subtly, softly, and calmly weave the authority and dominance of men over women in every aspect of religious and everyday life, and it’s devastating.

Woven into every practice, each Sunday, each FHE, each meeting, each family practice, and every religious act, is a constant reminder of the authority and dominance of men. You can offer nice talks about the value and importance of women as many times as you want, but they are an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to the constant, consistent ingrained practices within benevolent patriarchy that uphold and emphasize men as essential, important pillars of wisdom, strength, spiritual authority, safety, security, and leadership, with women as their followers and supporters.

This is done, conveniently, all while reminding you that it’s not for man’s own gain. It’s so persuasive, I think many men practicing it truly believe it’s the best thing for women and a great sacrifice on their own part. Some of these same men embrace a different type of equality in their work life and even stretch it into many aspects of their home lives, but reserve a special place for benevolent patriarchy in their spiritual lives because they’ve been made to fear the alternatives. What could “the natural man” be without priesthood and patriarchy to contain and mold him into his best self?

Some people argue that this is the best we can get in this fallen world, but I’m not particularly interested in worshipping a God who would diminish one sex to build up another. Or even a God who would allow men to say, “This is the best we can do. It’s better than the dudes not worshipping God at all” and respond, “That makes sense. Who could expect more? Also, make sure the priesthood is clearly the most important, awesome thing ever, but also refer to it as moving and setting up chairs most of the time, so the ladies won’t feel bad.”

When I experience benevolent patriarchy, it reminds of the old saying, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” Except, in this case, they’re peeing on my leg, telling me it’s raining, then holding up an umbrella and telling me it’s a special umbrella only they can hold. The umbrella comes with all kinds of conditions and I’m not allowed to hold it myself, plus it’s actually full of holes that let the pee in. Meanwhile, I’m soaking wet and the men holding the umbrella keep insisting that I declare how grateful I am to be dry.