Exponent II's Blog, page 66

When Will God Expect More From Men?

When male religious leaders from the past demonstrate undesirable qualities, preach unsavory things, spew hate, make terrible choices, or proclaim misogynic and racist things, we call them products of their times; victims of presentism. When male religious leaders of the present do the same, we are commanded to follow their words until history (or a hardworking PR representative) tells us otherwise.

And I’m left to wonder: Isn’t the Gospel of Jesus Christ transformative? Doesn’t it demand everything of us? Weren’t the disciples supposed to drop all and follow Him? Shouldn’t the representatives of Jesus speak of and show us what should be without constantly being limited by what is?

At a minimum, why are men given such broad power and adoration without God better helping us separate when they represent their base selves, stuck in biases, pride, prejudices, and the now; and when they truly represent the word and will of God?

Right now, the solution seems to be to carefully pick and choose quotes and history that fit a clean narrative. The LDS Church weaves a black and white story of good and evil that glosses over the tough stuff. When people find the quotes left out – like the multitudes of, frankly, offensive ones from Brigham Young – or the forgotten sinful behaviors – like Joseph Smith sending men off on missions and secretly marrying their wives – they don’t have the tools to fit them into the black and white narrative.

Instead of clearly delineating those behaviors and words as wrong, murky “mental gymnastics” and other shenanigans ensue. What do you do when the reality of human failure mixes with being somehow specially called of God? How much can we expect that special, prophetic calling to transform men and demand more when we discover their deep, moral failings? If we recognize that they will still remain painfully infallible, would that change the way we revere them as people and force them into an unrealistic, precarious narrative?

Maybe the reality is that our Heavenly Parents never really meant for us to revere men. Perhaps no pictures should adorn our walls except those of our Heavenly Parents and Jesus Christ. Perhaps no man should be venerated and quoted so often that we hear him in place of our Heavenly Parents, without thought to his real, human failings that will inevitably interrupt God’s message. Maybe then we could listen as men speak – no matter their title – and better hear when God is truly speaking and when human frailty is interfering with that message.

I don’t expect men to be perfect. I’m also aware of the argument some make that Mormonism creates the best of men. But the spirit whispers to me that God is not stuck in the mire of men’s limitations. Our Heavenly Parents are not limited by sexism, pride, racism, fear, the need for power, or outdated ideas. They are certainly not meant to be weighed down by the words written down by men in the Bible motivated and influenced by so many of these things.

Frankly, women do not need another quote about how important or powerful we are. Because it will never ring true while social norms and church practices still scream the opposite daily. More than anything, women need for God (and men) to expect more of men. We need men to not be threatened by female leaders sitting on the stand. We need men who don’t just say they wouldn’t mind if women held the priesthood, but actively risk their status and standing by praying and speaking up about it. We need men who disrupt sexist jokes, actively engage women as leaders to both men and women, and call out outdated nonsense – even from revered men.

We need men who believe women when we say our Heavenly Parents speak to us of more and we need them to stand with us in making that vision possible.

Garments vs The Fashion Industry, Part 2, Maternity Edition

Disclaimer: My oldest is a teenager. I bought maternity garments when only the old styles were available. Newer styles started coming out in 2016, but not early enough for me to try any of them. I’ve hesitated to write this post because I know that change has happened (and I really appreciate that!) But also: even if the new style of garments are great, the children who have gestated within them aren’t even old enough to be baptized yet. Why did it take so long to have better options?

I still remember quite a bit from going shopping for maternity clothes: driving with my husband to the Motherhood Maternity at the outlet mall, figuring out that Target had the best local selection of nursing bras, and going to Kohl’s where I decided that I would be okay with looking like a bright pink zebra because the shirt was super comfy and could easily be altered to work with garments.

I fell in love with maternity pants. I was delighted at how easy it was to find pants with functional pockets. (This was the era of chapstick depth pockets, if there were pockets at all.) Maternity pants were even cut loose enough through the legs for easy movement! (Jeggings were just becoming popular, and most women’s pants were tight through the thighs.) Maternity clothes were practical. Then I realized that the fashion industry knew how to make practical clothes for women. My excitement turned to indignation. They knew tight jeans are restrictive. They knew fake/tiny pockets are limiting. They knew, and so many women bought tight, constricting pants because it was nearly impossible to buy anything else. I was frustrated with the fashion industry because they clearly knew how to make practical clothing for women, they just chose not to, unless you were expecting.

My frustrations with garments were different. Garment design indicated that the church did NOT know how pregnancy affects women’s bodies. I had heard countless talks and lessons encouraging women to have children, so I expected maternity garments to anticipate a pregnant person’s needs. Mormon women have born so many babies in the last century and a half that surely the patterns should be nearly perfected! I was so disappointed. I didn’t have sisters or close friends who were young mothers to talk about garments with, and I didn’t live near a distribution center, so I used the size recommendations off the website. It told me to order maternity and nursing garments in the same size that I usually wore, so I did. During my first pregnancy, I gained weight exactly as recommended and lost it all within a year of birth. I feel self conscious saying that because I know so many women struggle with baby weight, but it’s important context. My textbook weight gain (and loss) should have given me the best-case experience with maternity garments. Nevertheless:
1) I outgrew the bottoms by the end of the second trimester. I ended up pushing the waist under my belly and having everything sag.
2) The neckline of the maternity garments (only available in the old chemise style) was too high for the vast majority of maternity tops, and it was too high for me to nurse in. Like many pregnant women, my nipples were tender. I had to use my bra to hold the neckline of the garment under my shirt. This was physically painful.
3) The nursing tops were not designed for a post-partum body. For the first several months (at least six) the bottom of the unhemmed shirt would roll up to my natural waistline because I still had a soft belly. That roll was obnoxious, uncomfortable, and unnecessary. A real hem and a slightly more generous cut through the belly would have made a huge difference in my comfort.

It boggles my mind that I put up with all that unnecessary discomfort for two pregnancies. For my third, I tried special ordering a top that would work for pregnancy and early post-partum. A long story short: what they sent me was several inches wider than my most muumuu-like maternity shirt.

I happened to vacation near a distribution center right when I was starting to need maternity shirts. The lady there said many pregnant women wore the regular lower-cut non-maternity garment tops, just a few sizes bigger. That’s right. The regular garments worked better for pregnant women than garments supposedly designed for maternity. It definitely worked better for me. I didn’t gain much weight with that baby, so I don’t know how well it would have worked for most women in the third trimester.

This was my cutest maternity top. I hardly ever wore it because it was the top with the lowest cut neckline, and it *hurt* to keep my garments hidden.

[image error]When I could find maternity clothes in my size, they were usually pretty good: comfortable, practical, stylish enough. Maternity garments were awful. After cutting up the nearly-new fabric of my maternity bottoms, I wrote: “My heart is broken because we champion motherhood so much in the church, but the church shows so little understanding about the intimate details of how a woman and her needs actually change with motherhood.”

The new maternity and nursing garment styles came out too late for me to try them. It seems like they would be better. What has your experience been? (Bonus points if you’ve tried both styles!) Are there any improvements you would like? Fashions have changed too. How do garments work with your maternity clothes? Are the feelings you’ve had about maternity clothes and maternity garments the same or different?

(This post continues a conversation about garments and fashion. Part 1 talks about my experience transitioning to garments and women’s clothing. Additionally, the posts How hard is it to find a garment-friendly dress? and How hard is it to find garment-unfriendly men’s business wear? discuss how fashion creates disparate garment-wearing experiences for women and men. This post also relates to mother’s issues, like inadequate nursing rooms, which often go unseen because women are not in decision making positions.)

Garments never reminded me of Jesus

Like many of you I’m trying to process the church’s stricter stance regarding garments. I find it strange that the theology about garments has seemed to shift. In the most recent General Conference in April 2024 Both Annette Dennis and Dallin Oaks made statements that say that garments are supposed to remind us of Jesus Christ. 

Annette Dennis stated: “Our temple garment reminds us that the Savior and the blessings of His Atonement cover us throughout our lives. As we put on the garment of the holy priesthood each day, that beautiful symbol becomes a part of us.“

Dallin Oaks said: “Persons who wear their garments faithfully and keep their temple covenants continually affirm their role as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.“

The next week the temple recommend interview questions were changed. Every person who renews their temple recommend will have a statement read to them. The first part of the statement reads: “The garment of the holy priesthood reminds us of the veil in the temple, and that veil is symbolic of Jesus Christ. When you put on your garment, you put on a sacred symbol of Jesus Christ. Wearing it is an outward expression of your inner commitment to follow him.“

I read all these statements and was like, “What?”

Maybe I missed something, but until recently there wasn’t this much theology surrounding garments. 

As far as I remember they were supposed to represent the coats of skins that God made for Adam and Eve. The garment was to protect us. For most of my life it seemed that everyone took a very literal interpretation to the “protection.” I heard countless stories about people who said they were protected from physical harm because of their garments.

I never once heard that the garment represented the continuous covering of the atonement. No one clearly explained that the garment was a symbol of the veil of the temple. I certainly never heard that the veil is symbolic of Jesus Christ and I’m going to need a minute to unpack all the implications of THAT. (Doesn’t the veil of the temple separate us from God? How is that a symbol of Jesus?)

In the 15 years that I wore garments I never once thought of them as a symbol of Jesus. They did remind me of my temple covenants which I guess directed me to Jesus. But I didn’t associate them with Jesus, or the atonement, or even the veil of the temple. 

Here’s what I did think about when I wore garments:

“Will these clothes properly cover my garments?” “I guess I’ll only have one or two shorts that ever really work with garments.” “I hate these weird fat rolls around my waist from the garment bottoms that are too high.” (They did release a lower waist option a few years ago, but then the tops somehow were too long and bunched around my waist.) “Is sweating this much in Texas in July normal? Or are my garments making it worse?”“I’ll wear all my clothes to the pool. Change in the dressing room. And then put ALL the layers back on when I’m done swimming because I want to make sure I’m wearing the garment as often as possible.”“I wish I had something that supported my pads better so I didn’t leak all over my bed at night.” (I’d been instructed by my gynecologist to not wear tampons at night so I had to go back to pads at night and those never worked well with garments.)“My pregnant body is getting too big for these garments, but I can’t afford maternity garments that I’ll only need for a few months.”“Why are these garment tops so short. I feel like Winnie the Pooh?”“Why are these garment tops way too long? I’m already insecure about my belly. Is all this extra fabric necessary?”“If the church insists we wear these all the time, can they join up with Spanks or something? If I have to wear all these extra layers it would be nice if it was shapewear.”“How do you wear shapewear with garments?”“Nursing garments are the grossest things I’ve ever seen.”“Nope, one piece garments are the grossest things I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe someone told me these work well under dresses.”“I can tell this church is run by men, because no women would make other women buy clothes without the option to try them on.”“Bleeding all over my garments feels sacrilegious.”“I miss the underwear I wore when I was 20. It had little blue flowers on it. Why can’t my underwear have pretty things on it anymore?”“That girl’s skirt is short. She says she went to the temple, but I don’t see how she could be wearing garments with that skirt. She told me she’s a convert. Maybe no one told her she needs to wear her garments all the time. Maybe I should tell her.”  (I am so glad that I decided not to have that conversation with her.)“I can’t wear this white undershirt because when it’s untucked it looks like I’m letting my garments hang out.”“This shirt is modest. How are there still garments peaking out at the edges of my neckline?” 

This list could go on and on. Wearing garments created extra stress, worry, and anxiety about living with my body. They did not bring me closer to Jesus. I wore them to appease a grumpy God. A God who seemed to care a lot about my outward actions, but didn’t seem to care about the worries and fears in my heart. 

I tried to make garments work for 15 years. Two years ago things changed. 

The first change was I gave up on pads and started wearing period underwear. I was done with leaking blood onto my garments. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to wear garments during my period. 

I found myself looking forward to my periods because I could wear period underwear. When I realized that I liked my period underwear more than my garments I took a moment to really think about that. I let myself admit that I hated garments. That I had always hated garments.

I was also spending a lot of time with Christian women from another church. These women loved Jesus. They knew so much about the Bible. They were faithful and righteous. They also wore tank tops and mid-thigh shorts. The God they knew didn’t have a lot of strict rules about dress. I began to wonder if God really didn’t care that much about my underwear. 

All these changes to my thought patterns were happening around the beginning of September. I told my husband, “that was the last summer that I will wear garments. I’m not going to wear garments next summer. I’m done being hot and uncomfortable during the summer.”

And then I thought, “why wait?”  I stopped wearing garments that week.

For a while I tried to wear garments on Sundays. But I was pulling them off again as soon as we got home from church. I didn’t like the bunching fabric. The extra heat. The way the top never seemed to stay tucked right. I told my husband, “I don’t think underwear is supposed to fill you with rage.”

So I stopped wearing them all together. 

By the time the next summer rolled around I had amassed a collection of shorts that were shorter than garments would cover. I LOVE those shorts. So much of my body has changed through childbirth and aging. I’m happy that my lower thighs actually still look like they did when I was in my early 20s. I love wearing shorts and looking down at my legs. Seeing my lower thighs in shorts is a reminder that I’m still me. 

I don’t feel like I’m less of a disciple of Jesus because I no longer wear garments. In fact, I feel closer to Jesus because I’m focusing on things that feed my soul. I believe in a Jesus who loves me no matter what I’m wearing.  A Jesus who wants me to be comfortable in my body. I believe in a Jesus who cares about how I treat other people.

I believe in a Jesus whose atonement covers me continuously. I can remember that just fine without wearing distracting underwear.

Photo by Beth Hope on Unsplash

Totality

Viewing an eclipse, the difference between 100% totality and anything less, is a factor of thousands. 

We learned this in 2017, when we were able to drive a few hours from our home in Salt Lake City, to a remote area on BLM land in Wyoming. We climbed to the top of a mountain that had a view of the Wind River Range. We watched through our eclipse glasses as the sun gradually became a thin crescent, then disappeared as we saw the edge of shadow sweep across the range and cover us. Mike quickly reminded me to remove the glasses so I could see. In totality the aura of the sun flared out from the shadow of the moon, and was a new creature in the sky. The sudden sound of countless crickets was as loud as a plane taking off, and a rim of sunset light rose from 360 degrees of the horizon. We were so overcome, we were sobbing, and breathless, and shouting, unable to comprehend what we were seeing or feeling. 

In a few moments, it was over, and we had to put the eclipse glasses on again before we could look at the slim crescent of sun appear again in the filter, and gradually thicken to a complete circle. 

We began planning for this year’s eclipse soon after that. Mike followed photography tutorials about camera settings for the eclipse. We researched weather patterns along the path of totality, looking at what areas would statistically have clear skies in April. We used satellite images to find possible places we could park our van, and set up cameras the night before. As the eclipse was finally weeks away, and the forecast kept changing, we looked at difference sites, and kept adjusting plans, ready to shift up until the moment we left. We discussed each update that was posted on the multiple sites we checked, and finally selected a small historic town in Indiana as the most favorable. Since we were driving, and sleeping in our van, we could adjust our plans to the last minute. We wanted to be certain, but knew there was no guarantee. 

We drove for 2 days, stopping at rest areas to sleep. We followed reports about the General Conference talks going on, and hoped for messages of healing. Mike and I had been having conversations about grace, and learning to see barriers to it. We had taken on looking at past events, some long ago, some recent, where we struggled to offer or receive grace or forgiveness. We had experienced betrayal from leaders at work and at church years ago. The wrestle with this has been heavy for years. In those hours of sharing and talking while we made our way across the plains that had been walked by our ancestors, we helped each other see what we hadn’t seen before. We broke through some barriers to grace, and found some light where it hadn’t been before.

We drove through fierce headwinds across Wyoming and Nebraska. The wind calmed by the time we were in Illinois, and the redbuds were blooming everywhere. The satellite map images of Franklin, Indiana did not prepare us for this little historic town that had become an excellent host for festivals. This place was welcoming the world to come view the eclipse. There were beautiful murals and art installations among the historic buildings. The thriving artist community had created eclipse images on banners, shirts and posters everywhere. Volunteers encouraged us to put pins in a giant map to show where we were from, and we saw that people had come from all over the world. We knew we would have the parking lot of the small LDS church house to ourselves, since it was conference weekend. 

We woke to clear skies the next morning. The new high school on the edge of town was raising money for its band by selling concessions and asking for donations to park there. It was surrounded by fields and forests and wetlands, and was a perfect spot for viewing. The band parents shared advice about avoiding traffic afterwards, and made it worth much more than the requested donation. We were the first to park and set up, before more groups came. Mike set up several cameras. My sister and brother-in-law spread out a sheet under a tree so we could see the crescent shadow effect as the eclipse progressed. Several families set up near us, and their children covered more and more of the parking area with chalk drawings as the hours passed. One of the adults set up a telescope and let us look at the sunspots through it. We found instant community with those around us, sharing our interest, and history, and study, and hope for the eclipse. 

The moment we noticed the beginning of the eclipse, we kept our filter glasses on, watching the shifting shape of the circle, and noticing the changing patterns of shadows. As the sun crescent thinned, the spaces between shadows of leaves, or pinholes, or fingers held up, became dancing crescents. Even as the edges of some shadows shimmered in these crescent shapes, other edges sharpened. I could see sharp lines of individual shadows of the hairs on my head that looked like they had been drawn by a fine pen. 

Unlike in 2017, I watched carefully for the moment the thin line of the sun disappeared in the glasses, and I quickly removed them so I could see totality. 

Everything, everywhere, all at once…

The light changed. In videos, it looks like night suddenly fell. That is not it. The light changed, and there was incredible clarity of detail. Everything was in sharp focus in this unusual light.

Colors changed. Especially red and green. I don’t have a way to describe what they changed into. These colors are not in my usual palette.

When air moved leaves or plants, they shimmered and vibrated. Life seemed to be breathing in a different way.

The sun became enormous. The aura of the solar waves and flares fluoresced far beyond the eclipsing moon. As the sun suddenly grew, the moon did as well. Red spots of flares glimmered where the two merged. 

The air was different, and I was gasping or sobbing, trying to draw this celestial oxygen deep into and through me. These incomprehensibly large and distant spheres not only became larger and clearer to my eyes, I suddenly felt intimately connected to them because their shadow was touching me, surrounding me, bringing with it a deeper breath. I was just a speck of a being, who suddenly was connected to immensity beyond language. 

In order to experience this, I had to remove the filter from my eyes. 

The moment of totality is unlike any other, yet it reminded me of some of my God moments.

Two specific times come to mind, when I was in pain and confused, pleading for help. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for months and years. I thought my righteous pleas ought to be answered, and despaired at the lack of results. It was only in a moment of letting go of expected results, exhausted and no longer pleading for God to fix things, to fix people, to fix me, even though the fixing pleas were about God making sure people felt loved. In that moment of exhaustion from trying to make things makes sense, and match up with what I thought it should be – only then did I see my filter. I did not have room for any response except for God to fix it. Something seemed to shimmer around me for a moment, and the words, “Ask a different question” seemed to come from the edge of a shadow in me. I took off my filter of thinking God could only answer the way I wanted. 

The no-filter, no fix-it question came. 

“Is there love?”

Instantly, God and love and all eternity was so much more, great enough to fill all of everything and everyone. It poured into me and over me. I opened my eyes expecting to see something of an indescribable color spilling out of me onto everything around. What seemed so distant, so out of reach, it was now connected to every molecule. I was breathing air that created new ways to exist and see and feel. The love and awareness and presence of God was so palpable, how could I have wondered about limits and conditions? Somehow I got that this had always, and would always be there, yet in the moment anyone was forced to receive it, or live it, it could not exist. The filter could only be removed by me. By each of us.

Why is it that I would ever let a barrier or filter be in the way of such clarity? But it still happens, and I miss out on the totality of what this is. Anything that suggests something can lessen or diminish this totality of what God is – this love and grace and connection that is beyond our language or human experience, it is there offering greater life, no matter how much I cling to filters – the difference between less, and total, unfiltered experience of it, is a factor of infinite numbers. 

In the path of totality with God, I take off the filter. I see the world with clarity in a different light, let colors transform, breathe air that fills all parts of me. They invite me to a deeper life of love, living creation, wide as all eternity.

Guest Post: I Know My Heavenly Mother Didn’t Create Garments

by Linda Hamilton

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, She’d know about the infections, the rashes. She’d know about the blood, the discharge, the stains that never come out of bright white. She’d know about the pads, the tampons, the cups, the mesh underwear after birth.

She’d understand too well the swell of the belly and ache of the breasts. She’d understand the horrible heat and sweat, the constant discomfort. She’d understand the frustration of unlatching and digging through layer after layer while a baby screams and roots. She’d understand the milk-soaked fabric that stinks and hardens, the burn of raw chapped nipples against coarse fabric.

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, She’d know that you cannot take a cloth designed for a man’s body and simply retrofit it to a woman. She’d know that breasts and torsos and legs all vary so drastically. She’d know that bodies grow and shrink with hormones, monthly cycle to cycle, pregnancy to menopause.

She’d understand the pain of standing in a dressing room holding back tears after trying on dress after after dress but none cover. She’d understand the frustration of going store to store, hour after hour, trying to find just a few items of clothing, while a man can walk into any store and know it’ll all work without issue. She’d understand the struggle of fighting with a spouse who doesn’t understand how much more money it takes to buy modest clothing.

She’d know about the extra layers to cover and cover and then cover again, every line and stretch of white not to be seen. She’d know about the heat, the sensation of wearing too many layers, too much restriction. She’d know about the envy of watching men with their celestial smiles and protruding white collars that no one bats an eye at, but the shame and policing of your own visible hemlines.

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, She’d know She had children all over the world who live in drastic climates, unable to easily wear another layer without rashes and heat stroke. She’d know that Her children all come from different cultures, with different standards of beauty and modesty, that white western puritanism isn’t supreme.

She’d understand the beauty of all bodies, the majesty of skin in all hues. She’d understand the tapestry of humanity She created, that uniformity isn’t inherently sacred.

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, she’d know how it feels to sit alone in a small room with a man you hardly know answering questions about your underwear. She’d know what it’s like to have a man judge her hemlines, her bra lines, to search her bottom and thighs for visible markers. She’d know what it’s like to be denied mercy and compassion for a unique body, for the sin of being born female in a male church.

She’d understand the humiliation of being told what underwear to wear, how to wear it, when to wear it, all by men; men as far away as Salt Lake City who will never see you or know you. She’d understand the pain of losing your temple recommend because circumstances keep you from wearing garments day and night.

She’d know the horror of being 12 and told your shoulders are pornography. She’d know the terror of being taught that young men cannot control themselves and that you are making them sin. She’d know the fears of hiding your skin your entire life, terrified that any slip of cleavage or line of belly will end in your rape.

She’d know too well the judgments, the whispers, the holier-than-thou comments and looks when you dare to post a picture from your vacation in a tank top. She’d know how men set women up to police each other, to shame each other into compliance.

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, She’d understand the sensation of invisible men’s hands on your body, of the trauma of assault victims re-living their nightmares with their required underwear. She’d understand that sometimes when you wear them, you can feel Joseph’s hands around your thighs, around your neck; the hands of a prophet who married teens and other men’s wives, who condemned his own wife for not allowing him to collect virgins as he desired and now we call it scripture.

I know my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments.

If She did, She’d know the sorrows of begging men for change, of pleading for help. She’d know how it feels to have your underwear designed by men, controlled by men, worn for men. She’d know how cries for improvement fall on deaf ears, lead to more threats, or the tossing of mere scraps that feel like a meal because you’re starving.

And I know that if my Heavenly Mother didn’t create garments, my Heavenly Father wouldn’t either, because They are one. Because They don’t need to cling to the vestments of the past, of a tradition that worked for one man and his designs but doesn’t need to hold the future hostage. Because They love and bless, not suppress and force into compliance.

I know my Heavenly Parents trust the mind and body They gave me to guide me, to protect me. I don’t need a shield of white cloth to remind me. I’ve made my covenants, I hold them dear and ponder them often.

I don’t need a man’s blessing to dress myself, to free myself.

Linda is an author and grad student in history at Sam Houston State University. When she’s not writing, she’d probably reading or finding an excuse to go to Target. https://lindahamiltonwriter.substack.com/

Guest Post: She Can, I Can

by Marianne Monson

I just returned from Utah, where I spoke at BYU and area schools about my work writing women’s history. It is a place that always elicits a mixture of emotions for me. I grew up in a conservative LDS family, where our religion was the most defining feature of our family life. While my parents were born in Utah, I was born in Boston and spent most of my childhood in California and Chicago. So, while I visited family in Utah regularly, it always felt both foreign and familiar, a reaction I still have today.

I graduated from BYU, but only spent four semesters on campus in part because I never felt totally at home. Perhaps as a six-foot-tall redhead I felt physically different in a place that puts a high value on traditional female beauty. Perhaps as a passionate young woman who knew she wanted a writing career in the 90s when the church still openly discouraged women from pursuing careers, this was the also a part of the disconnect.

Speaking in Utah this past week was a dream come true in many ways—an opportunity to revisit those spaces and speak directly to young students who might also feel they don’t belong.

One of my favorite moments of the trip came unexpectedly, though, when the professor who invited me asked if I wanted to attend a storytelling event for girls and women. Reyna Aburto opened the event by talking about current negative outcomes for women in Utah. Utah has some of the highest rates of depression among girls and women. It continues to have one of the highest gender wage gaps in the country, and one of the lowest rates women serving in top business leadership positions. Women in Utah are at higher risk of sexual assault and domestic violence than in many other states.

The wellbeing of Utah women is, of course, impacted directly by the LDS church and its practices. The sobering statistics about Utah women stand in direct contrast with the words of J. Anette Dennis, a church Relief Society leader, who said recently at the organization’s anniversary: “There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women.” The outcry in response to her statement on social media was swift and dramatic, as thousands of women called out the hypocrisy.

My frustration with the lack of female spiritual power in the church is compounded by the fact that in earlier eras, women played much more central roles in the organization, and their power was utilized in a way that has been slowly eroded. This historical context reinforces the position that things do not have to be the way they are now.

As a young woman, I didn’t have the statistics to back up the distrust for female strength and intelligence in Utah’s culture, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of it, or that it didn’t impact my decision to spend most of my life outside of the state.

She Can, I Can, was a free storytelling event put on by Utah Valley Women Leadership Collaborative. The event opened with a tabling event for women-focused organizations in Utah County. Reyna Aburto was our host, a Nicaraguan-American woman who fled civil violence in Central America and joined the LDS church in California. She earned a degree in computer science and worked in the industry for decades before serving as the second counselor in the Relief Society general presidency (2017-2022).

Aburto introduced each storyteller, who ranged from a young woman who spoke about navigating bullying and the loss of friendships at school to a woman in her sixties who spoke about the process of telling her family she intended to divorce her oppressive husband. One of the most powerful stories was from a newly married woman who spoke about an LDS patriarch who told her that her career might be important “if her husband died,” and the subsequent years of trying to undo the impact of his words.

During the final part of the event, participants began writing their own stories to workshop with other women. As someone who spends a lot of time telling stories, I was unprepared for how impactful it would be to share a story with other women. I shouldn’t have been surprised—I know the research behind the bonding that happens when we share stories in vulnerability, but knowing research is never the same as experiencing something in real time. This event reminded me that safe havens can be created from physical space in real time.

While everyone is firing away at the LDS church, meanwhile women in Utah are doing incredible work to improve things on the ground. They have sort of sidestepped the church entirely, and the fact that Sister Aburto is involved is amazing. She’s breaking new ground just as she’s done her entire career.

For the first time, I felt like I might want to be in Utah to join forces with these women. For the first time I felt like I actually could belong.

I applaud Reyna Aburto and the other organizers of Utah Valley Women Leadership Collaborative for a beautiful, transformative event. I also applaud them for not waiting for the LDS church to make sweeping organizational changes before working to improve outcomes for Utah’s girls and women. Change typically doesn’t come from inside archaic institutions until it begins and swells on the streets outside of them. Here’s to all those joining in that chorus.

Marianne Monson is a women’s history author known for unearthing remarkable stories of incredible women. She graduated from BYU and writes from a 100-year-old house in Astoria, Oregon. www.mariannemonson.com

Mothers and Infants are Uncomfortable at Church: A Call for Help

Guest Post: Ashley Hoth lives deep in the woods of Castle Rock, Washington with her husband and three young children. She studied recreational therapy at BYU and loves oil painting. Art is one of her favorite ways of connecting with her Heavenly Parents and Christ, and she uses art to cope with and explore complicated things. She enjoys working with wood from the family sawmill, building forts with her children, and is a big fan of hammocks. 

Original artwork by Ashley. Check out more at her Instagram: @ashleyhoth_art.

It was stake conference, and I had a very new baby. While my busy toddler and older child could handle the 2-hour meeting with enough toys and snacks, I dreaded the prospect with my nursing baby. I knew how many young mothers would be there and how little space there was for us. Nonetheless we went and soon our baby needed to nurse. It was crowded on the folding chairs and the nursing cover wasn’t working, so I retreated to the mother’s room – a small, closet-sized space. I opened it, and I still remember the look on the young mother’s face as she sat in the only chair, with a tiny baby crying on her lap as she struggled to change a diaper. She looked up at me surprised and apologetic, and I closed the door to give her privacy.

 

The other main rooms were also crowded, so I returned to my husband and asked for the car keys to nurse there. Though my instincts told me I would have been better off with a zoom link and my baby safe at home, societal expectations urged us to attend. Mothers often bear the brunt, missing talks and resorting to nursing in cars. My husband knew I was worried and had said it would be fine, but now all my concerns proved accurate so he stood up and said, “follow me.”

 

Being involved with the stake presidency, he had access to the high council room. Unlocking the door, he ushered me into a spacious room where the voice of the speaker filled the air. A large table surrounded by comfortable padded chairs with armrests greeted us. My chair even tipped back slightly, perfect for nursing. My husband made sure I was comfortable, then left. Sitting there, able to hear the talks while caring for my baby, I glanced around the room. I saw fifteen large, framed pictures of men – the First Presidency of the church and the current Twelve Apostles. I looked at the many other chairs used almost exclusively by men in the high council room of the stake building. “They really don’t see us,” I thought in that moment.

 

It was a pain I can’t describe, cuddling and caring for my sweet child, fulfilling what this church has taught is the highest honor of women, while seeing the stark contrast between the closet-sized space for the mothers, and the big, comfortable room used by the men.

 

It felt like that soft seat in that big space invited me to set down a pack I didn’t know I was carrying. Once the weight was off and I could look at it, I saw how heavy and huge a burden it was, trying to get through church with a baby and my kids, and it hurt. This space showed it didn’t need to be that hard, and it brought me to tears.

 

I felt for the other moms pacing in the halls who didn’t have access to this space. I flashed to the other places where I had tried feeding babies at church over the years, bumping knees with another mom and our babies looking up too distracted to eat, or having my baby wake every time a toilet flushed, or the folding chair I set up in the corner of empty classrooms with my back to the door, and foot propped on the wall. All that ache mingled with relief that I was in a space that was so truly comfortable for my needs, yet I felt like an intruder, knowing that space was not intended for me.

 

Then it hit me. All high council rooms could be open to mothers and infants during every stake conference in every building. Can we ask this of our leaders? Can we spread the word? Other stakes may do this or have better spaces already, but if not, inviting mothers into high council rooms would help. It usually has the space to spread out, the soft chairs with armrests, the in-wall speakers, the quiet corner of the building, and it’s easy to open a door and hang signs welcoming mothers. I’ve been in other countries where public nursing is much more accepted, but if we still insist on it being more covered and private in some places like the United States, we have got to provide more space. Young mothers are carrying around huge burdens, compounded by the crammed, dated, uncomfortable and insufficient mothers rooms.

 

I know leaders don’t mean to not see us, which is why I share this story. If they don’t know, they can’t help. Share this, so leaders can know. Being a mother in Zion can be hard, and I am not unfaithful, deceived, power-hungry, or selfish for saying that – all things that have been said at times about women who have brought honest concerns to the table in our church. We can do better for our sisters and our daughters, and I know so many leaders are eager to help. This is a simple place to start.

(This is a guest post solicited to be a companion piece to LDS Mother’s Rooms for Nursing Moms Suck – Exponent II. Click for examples of how LDS mother’s rooms compared to other some at other church buildings.)

LDS Mother’s Rooms for Nursing Moms Suck

Original artwork by Ashley Hoth – see more on Instagram @ashleyhoth_art.

I have an opinion: Babies are great. However, they’re also much, much better when they finally stop being babies. I’m the mom of three kids who are currently 10, 15 and 17. Do you know one part of early parenthood that I do not miss at all? Taking care of babies at church! I didn’t realize until years after I was done breastfeeding that our accommodations for nursing mothers are terrible. We claim to value motherhood and women above all else, but we treat them like an afterthought in so many ways. Specifically in this post, I want to talk about Mother’s rooms.

The LDS church has a large demographic of young families, which means we have a lot of mothers and young babies. Young fathers are frequently absent because they have more important duties than helping with their own children, like sitting on the stand and being in charge of stuff.

I experienced frequent Sunday meetings without my own husband during the early years of parenthood because his military and civilian careers frequently took him away on weekends. Not only did he have monthly military drills and annual trainings, he also spent multiple years deployed to the Middle East. Church was me, on my own, with small children and a baby many times.

I nursed each of my three babies for twelve months. I almost always made the trek to the mother’s room out of concern for the comfort of those around me over concern for my own well-being. My conservative Utah county ward was highly disapproving of moms nursing in the chapel, often citing concerns that we were exacerbating pornography problems for the men and boys in the ward – even if the mother was well covered with a blanket (because “boys still know what’s underneath it”) as they passed the sacrament tray to her. It’s a weird double standard when those exact same boys then played shirtless basketball in the exact same cultural hall overflow a few days later. Why is it perfectly acceptable for boys or men whose nipples serve zero function whatsoever to be totally naked from the waist up in the church building, while a mother feeding her baby there is considered obscene?

Yet for now, I want to focus simply on the mother’s rooms where women are required to feed their hungry babies.

According to the internet, these are the most basic requirements of a breastfeeding/pumping room for nursing moms in an office space:

–Comfortable seating
-Table
-Outlet to connect electric breast pump
-Sink for cleaning nursing equipment
-Lockable door
-Contact information in case there’s a problem
-Hygienic space – cleaned daily

I think in a church that values women and mothers so highly we’d not just reach those basic requirements, but far exceed them. Unfortunately, no. We kind of suck, actually. (Pun intended.)

If women must leave the most sacred meeting of their week to feed their babies, shouldn’t that room be an extension of the sanctuary the chapel is designed to be? Shouldn’t mothers of large families, who will spend years leaving meetings to go to this specific room, expect a beautiful and relaxing space to continue their worship in while caring for their infant?

I wanted to show what a typical mother’s room looks like in a church building in 2024, but it was very hard to find images online anywhere. (Apparently, our mother’s rooms are not worth bragging about on the internet.) So after dropping my kids at school one morning, I headed on a whim to the local stake center and made this video of myself touring a problematic mother’s room:

You can watch the video to see what problems I encountered on this visit, which included:

–A broken chair
-Dirty and stained fabric on the chairs
-Very small and cramped
-Broken (and very smelly) trash bin
-Not enough chairs, so some women will inevitably sit on the floor to nurse
-No lock on the door for privacy, despite it opening directly into the main lobby outside the chapel
-No footrests to avoid aching backs while nursing
-Diaper changing table directly next to the head of a nursing moms
–Harsh overhead lighting
-Broken ceiling panels

Other frequent complaints from women include:
-Too hot or too cold
-Moms have to bring in their other small children, who are bored and noisy
-Dirty with crumbs and crushed snacks on the floor
-Trashes aren’t emptied regularly
-No supplies for moms and babies 
-The sound doesn’t work to hear the meeting

Here is what some mother’s rooms look like at other church buildings in 2024:

If you’ve never visited a non-LDS church building while nursing a baby, you might have missed how bad our facilities for mothers actually are.

After brainstorming for a few days (and getting ideas from other church websites), here are what I think our mother’s rooms should all have:

Complimentary diapers, wipes and diaper rash cream in a cabinet (along with a reminder to preferably change and dispose of the baby’s diapers in a restroom, not the nursing room). (At the very least, provide a diaper genie or some kind of odor locking technology like most of us have in our own homes with infants. Just do something to keep the room from smelling like poop all the time!)A mini fridge with cold bottled water. Nursing moms get so thirsty.Blankets to wrap yourself or your baby in if it’s cold (washed weekly). Coloring books and crayons for the older siblings of kids (like mine) without a dad there during church meetings to help out.A box of soft tissues! Usually there are just paper towels which is awful for blowing your nose or wiping your baby’s face.Beautiful decor. Paint the walls, hang pretty art, put up drapery, place flowers on the table, pick out a pretty rug and a nice comfortable couch. Nursing can be painful and stressful with brand new babies, so doing it away from home should be as relaxing as possible.Put chocolates and snacks in a bowl for exhausted moms to help themselves to.Top of the line, comfortable nursing chairs AND a footrest or ottoman for each one. There were times I sat cross legged on the floor in a dress to feed my baby because there were two chairs – and one was broken, and the other being used by another mom – and sitting on the hard floor was more comfortable than the leaning chair that I felt I was constantly on the verge of being dumped out of. (Sidenote: all of this is so much easier in slacks than a dress. Nursing moms can wear pants to church.)Provide plumbing and a sink so women can clean up spills and their clothing if necessary.Hang a full-length mirror on the wall so we can readjust ourselves properly before walking back out into the busy halls of the church.Bring in a table where we can set our bags and supplies down, rather than on the floor.Have blackout curtains and dimmable lights, to help rock an infant or toddler to sleep when church interferes with nap time. Replace the glaring fluorescent lights with dimmable lamps.Sanitizing wipes to clean off surfaces, toys and changing pads to cut down on the spread of illness during flu season.Put in a TV screen that plays a live feed of the meetings the women are missing. There’s usually been a cackling broken speaker that’s hard to understand at most buildings I’ve nursed in. How nice would it be to be able to see the speaker AND hear them, too?Plug in air fresheners.Put a sign on the wall for who to contact if there is an issue with the mother’s room. Why are chairs endlessly broken? Probably because no one knows who to tell or what to do to get it replaced with a new one. Men are the ones with access to the money and budgets, and they’ll never step into that room.An electrical outlet to plug in breast pumps. Some women exclusively pump and need a space to do so even during church.A crib to lie a baby in when they nap so a mom’s arms can have a rest.Boppy (nursing) pillows – covers washed weekly.Coat racks to hang up extra clothing and diaper bags, rather than putting them on the floor.A white noise machine to turn on to help calm cranky babies to sleep.An adjustable thermostat! Sometimes these rooms get excessively warm or cold, depending on the season.Finally, we need a bigger room. There has to be space for more than two chairs, because there are almost always more than two nursing women at any typical church building on any typical Sunday. There also needs to be an area for changing diapers that is separated from the nursing babies. A tiny walk-in closet sized space is not adequate.

I found some recent videos online of an LDS mom who redid her mother’s room to better fit the needs of moms and babies. She did awesome, but unfortunately, she had to get the bishop’s approval to do any of these improvements – which included spending her own money to purchase and refinish a changing table for the room. (Prior to her upgrade, you’ll see that mothers were changing their babies on the floor.) She’s still waiting to hear back on approval to hang artwork on the walls. I know this is just how it currently works, but I find it frustrating that as women we have to ask our male leaders for permission to hang something on the walls of our female-only spaces.

All of these questions and frustrations aside, this TikTok mom is doing great work. Her first video shows her kneeling on the ground to change her baby and wanting to make improvements for herself and other moms, and the second shows the upgrades she’s been approved so far to do.

@nialui21

What do you think a Mother’s room needs? I want to help moms be as comfortable as possible while at church. Stay tuned to see what I do with the room. #mothersroom #motherslounge #church #Ids #Idsmom #churchwithkids #Idschurch #bethechangeyouwanttosee #momlife #churchwithbaby #nursingroom #breastfeedingroom

♬ New Home – Frozen Silence

@nialui21

Replying to @dat_spooky_witch I have loved improving the mother’s room and making it more comfortable for mom’s in our building. #mothersroom #bethechangeyouwanttosee #ldsmom #ldsmothersroom #nursingroom #momlife #churchwithkids #breastfeedingmom #ldsfamily #ldschurch

♬ original sound – Nia Mullet Mom

I feel like we pay lip service to motherhood all the time, but typically fail to back any of that up with substantive help with the very real physical demands on a woman’s body after giving birth to a child. When the chairs in the high council room are significantly nicer than the chairs the new moms feed their babies on, we have a problem with our priorities. Until changes are made, I think all bishoprics should hold their weekly Sunday meetings in the mother’s room after a full block of meetings next to a trash can full of diapers. Two of them can sit in the old, spit-up covered and possibly broken chairs, and the others can sit cross legged on the floor, trying to remain modest while balancing their very important paperwork on their laps.

Maybe then we’d see an improvement!

Here are a couple short videos of non-LDS churches and their nursing rooms (for inspiration!):

@mirandap140

My church is so great in so many ways! #GatewayChurch #christiantiktok #God #churchtiktok #church #gatewayexperience @gatewaypeople

♬ Che La Luna – Louis Prima

@adrieriss

Every place should have something like this! #evangelchurch #nursingrooms

♬ Put It On Da Floor – Latto

@heytaylorv

This is such a cool room for moms and kiddos! Do other places have these?! #Church #MomsOfTikTok #Baby #SummerMashup #WelcomeBack

♬ original sound – Taylor

@crystaltheredhead

My church outdid themselves for Mothers Day with this remodeled mothers room #mothersday #nursingmom

♬ Aesthetic Girl – Yusei

(After completing this blog post a couple months ago, I came across a poignant story from a nursing mom (Ashley, the artist who sketched the main image for this post) at stake conference whose husband unlocked the high council room for her to nurse in. At my request she submitted her story and we published it as a guest post here: Mothers and Infants are Uncomfortable at Church: A Call for Help – Exponent II)

Guest Post: Yoga Pants and Patriarchy

by Laura

If you are a woman in the LDS community, chances are the past few weeks have stirred up a myriad of complex emotions within your body. When the church’s social media team posted a tone-deaf message “reassuring” women that we have power and authority, like so many others my first reaction was disbelief immediately followed by a white-hot stab of anger. It took a couple of weeks for my pulse to return to normal until finally I convinced myself that it’s pointless to marinate in my feelings around gender disparity within the church, especially when history has shown that the organization will not change as a result of this experience. You can’t learn from a problem you refuse to acknowledge, and church leaders seem perfectly content to bury their heads in the sand on women’s concerns. In light of this depressing fact, the only emotion that remained in my heart was sadness.

But when this article dropped in the Trib a few days ago, something primal emerged in my chest, and this time, my emotions were not so complex. I was filled with one sentiment and one sentiment only. Rage. One line in the article stood out to me above all others, and in light of recent events, I’d wager I’m not the first to catch it.

[Elder] Hamilton said that many younger women are opting for “yoga pants” during the week.

I’m not sure why yoga pants appears in quotations as if perhaps they are code for some other more deviant sort of athleisure wear, but that’s beside the point. When I read this sentence, I had so many questions for Elder Hamilton. First of all, how does he know that women are opting for these imposter yoga pants sans garments? Are female members self-reporting or are garment enforcing spies keeping tabs on underwear lines? Honestly, I have no idea which is worse – grown women discussing their underwear with male clergy or ward members policing those grown women and reporting underwear infractions to her bishop? While I completely respect that many LDS women find peace and refuge in garment wearing, can we also respect those women who find garments to be uncomfortable and/or damaging to our self-esteem? Can we acknowledge that some women have sensory issues or a history of sexual abuse or body dysmorphia that can make garment wearing a huge burden that no amount of prayer is able to cure?

Secondly, it did not escape my attention that nowhere in the article was Hamilton quoted on the subject of men’s garment wearing habits. Is it possible that there are men who prefer to do yard work shirtless or spend all day in basketball shorts with a pair of breezy boxers or play six hours of golf in a pair of briefs? Why does Elder Hamilton not call attention to these possible transgressions, choosing instead to focus on women? As is usually the case, women are once again the target of the dress police. And I for one am tired of being told again and again when where and how to wear a pair of underwear I never would have chosen for myself.

As a side, we are told that Elder Hamilton is on a committee studying a possible redesign of garments, but I have to wonder if there are any women on this team. Considering the fact that we are discussing both men and women’s underwear, it seems only fitting that half of this committee should be female. How else will leaders know how annoying it is when pubic hairs needle through the carinessa fabric of our shorts, how impossible it is to keep a menstrual pad in place, how painful it is when a woman contracts repeated UTI’s from wearing unbreathable fabrics so close to her body. How else will they understand the frustration of layering tank tops over dry silk or the stickiness of nursing a baby or the bloodied crotch pieces or the pregnant bellies or the hot flashes or the years of body image issues we are addressing in therapy? Are you as uncomfortable hearing about these topics as I am writing about them? Perhaps it’s a sign that women should have full and unquestionable authority when choosing something as private as our underwear, and that choice should have no bearing on our worthiness. Throughout a woman’s life, her body will undergo thousands of changes. Some are tiny, hardly noticeable while others will reshape not only the terrain of her curves and edges, but that will echo in the quiet, shame-ridden chambers of her heart. With that in mind, who is more qualified to make underwear choices for women than women themselves?

But according to Elder Hamilton, that kind of autonomy for members of the church seems more out of reach than ever. The article states that a new temple worthiness question “won’t leave garment wearing up to personal interpretation” which leads me to wonder if the temple will see a decline in female participation. For many of us, especially younger generations, these kinds of challenges to our personal authority serve as reminders for why we feel so marginalized in the LDS church. I’m no prophetess, but I predict this new line of interrogation is not going to sit well with many of our sisters, and it’s only a matter of time before rage turns to an emotion less visceral but far more detrimental to the LDS church. Indifference.

Laura is a writer, wife, and mother of three living in Texas with my family.

Think Celestial! …or not

The celestial is on my mind. And not because six general authorities quoted President Nelson’s admonition to “think celestial!” in this recent general conference. 

I was fortunate enough to drive to the path of totality for this week’s solar eclipse. It is truly hard to put in words the awe I felt in those brief three minutes.

The event is over, but my thoughts have lingered on how to cherish the joy that comes from living in the moment. 

In President Nelson’s Think Celestial talk he said, “The baseless notion that we should “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us”6 is one of the most absurd lies in the universe.”

But I disagree that living for now or living for the future is a rigid binary. The people I know who choose not to think celestial are living lives of intention and care for the gifts and problems of the present.  

And while I agree that having a long term perspective can be helpful, I fear that too often how this plays out is putting off care in the present because if you think celestially – God is just going to take care of it all in the end. 

Women are being harmed by current sealing policies? No problem! Think Celestial! God will sort it out in heaven!

People in need of housing and food now? No problem! Let’s set aside a hundred billion dollars for a rainy day when Jesus comes again. But you’re suffering now? Think celestial!

The earth is heating up from our actions? Think celestial! It’s paradisical glory is around the corner!

What would change in the church and in our personal lives if we didn’t think celestial, but instead enjoyed the ephemeral? 

*N. Skye wrote a wonderful post last year about the unintended ramifications of Pres. Nelson’s talk. As think celestial becomes the new Mormon catchphrase, her post is worth reading again.