Exponent II's Blog, page 69

Acknowledging a bit of progress announced in the RS broadcast

Like many, I have big feelings about the recent Relief Society broadcast. In this post I want to focus on a crumb of change that I appreciate.

Camille N. Johnson, the General Relief Society President announced the policy for when a woman can be endowed. She said:

“Worthy sisters who desire to receive their own endowment may do so if they’re at least eighteen years old, have completed or are no longer attending high school, secondary school, or the equivalent, one full year has passed since their confirmation, and they feel a desire to receive and honor temple covenants throughout their lives.” (23:40 time stamp)

I like that the policy was announced to a general church audience. Having the policy generally known can reduce local differences due to leadership roulette. Announcing the policy to women is, well empowering is too strong a word. A woman who wants to be endowed is dependent on persuading multiple male authority figures that she is worthy to make temple covenants. But at least she can now argue that she has met all the church sanctioned requirements so that she can get endowed in a time frame that makes the most sense in her life. I couldn’t do that in the early 2000s.

I got engaged to my husband at the ripe old age of twenty. I wanted to get endowed in the spring. I would be spending the summer across the country doing an internship and getting married a week after returning to Provo. When I met with BYU student ward leadership hoping to get a live ordinance recommend, he wouldn’t give me one. He wanted me to wait and get my recommend over the summer during my 10 week internship. He was concerned something might happen when my fiancé was two thousand miles away, and he didn’t want me to get endowed just in case we decided to call off the wedding over the summer. He wouldn’t permit a young, unmarried woman to be endowed. I thought this was silly because BYU has hordes of young, unmarried men who had gone through the temple when they were even younger than me.

I had lived in my BYU student ward for over a year, so the bishop knew me for a relatively long time (as far as student wards go). Because I had to get a living ordinance recommend in the branch I attended during my internship, I *had* to make sure my membership records got moved. I think this took a few weeks. I was dependent on men to fulfill their volunteer callings in a timely manner. The branch president only knew me for a few weeks. He was confused about why my previous bishop didn’t give me a recommend.

I also needed the stake president to sign the recommend. I was told that the stake president visits the branch on a certain week (the very last week I would be in the branch!) so I could have my interview then. I was not told that I needed to make an appointment with the stake president. My last week came. The stake president did not. There was a senior missionary couple that drove me home that day. They saw that I was fighting back tears. One of them gave me a brand new pen they happened to have with them. I felt like a five-year-old, but I appreciated their effort.

The Stake President, bless his heart, drove an hour to the chapel on a weekday evening to meet with me before I left. He commented that my modest dress helped put him at ease that I would be ready to wear the temple garment. Incidentally, I wore that dress to the temple the day I was endowed. I brought the lowest cut style of garment top, but I was shocked to discover that it only worked with my dress if I used my bra to hold the garment neckline lower than it would naturally fall. I’d seen my parents’ and roommate’s garments plenty of times so I thought I knew what to expect, but keeping my new underclothing under my clothes ended up being more difficult than I anticipated.

I *still* have the dress! My conservative apparel helped me persuade a man that I was worthy and prepared to be endowed.

My mom was not able to escort me through the temple. It was logistically impossible. My brother started high school and my sister moved into her college dorm the same week as my wedding. Our wedding date was selected because it was the only possible day that would work for all members of my family. When we realized I would not be allowed to be endowed in the spring, I had to arrange for my aunt to be my escort. I’m lucky that I had another endowed female relative that lived nearby and could fit me into her schedule.

Because a man decided he understood my needs better than I did, I had to do so much extra work. The logistics were hard, but this work also depended on me appeasing multiple male gatekeepers with whom I did not have existing relationships: the membership clerks, the branch president, and the stake president. In the absence of a relationship, I was judged in part by my appearance. I would have benefited from a clear policy about who can get endowed and when. Men do not know women’s circumstances better than women know their own circumstances.

I appreciate that the endowment policy was announced by a woman and to women. I imagine it was created because church leaders have been listening to women’s stories. However, I am under no illusion that a woman gave the final approval for this policy. At every level of the church there is always a man who can override whatever a woman may want to do. While the rules for when a person can be endowed are now more equitable, only a select group of men have the power and authority to decide who can enter the temple. Men decide if and when policies are changed. Men decide what women are allowed to do within the temple. The temple, like the rest of church, is a male-controlled space. Women have simply been given more autonomy to decide when they will enter this male-controlled space. Yay. It’s a crumb. But I’m a spiritually starving dog, so I’ll eat it.

We’ve been here before

The comments and reflections on the Church’s Instagram’s debacle have snapped me out of my blogger’s writing block. The Church posted this on the very Sunday when some women were staging a Church boycott to draw attention to the Church’s reliance on women’s labor, which is undervalued in the structure of the institution. To those of us who have been in the Mormon feminist community for a while, it all feels too familiar, like we are returning to the pushback-activism-excommunication-small changes cycle of a decade ago.

I’ve been feeling the tenth anniversary of the April 5, 2014 Ordain Women action coming on for a few weeks. I was the chair of social media for Ordain Women and we’d been planning this event for a while. We gathered with a group of about 500 people at City Creek Park in Salt Lake City and walked over to the Tabernacle. I wrote a poem about my experiences.

My life has changed in significant ways in the last ten years. Today, I’m an ordained elder in the Melchizedek priesthood in Community of Christ. But before I was ordained, I was so very aware of all that I could do, even as a non member, in Community of Christ that was not open to me as a temple recommend-holding LDS woman. I helped plan and lead services. I helped prepare communion. I had a key to the space we used. I had a say in congregational finances and spending. My voice and vote mattered. My pastor looked for ways to share the power with the congregation. She modeled collaborative leadership and decision making and she remains an important model for me in my current role as pastor of a tiny congregation.

As I think back to the Ordain Women action, I want to write a letter to my past self. I want to reassure her that even though the Church will not make a significant change and ordain women, that I will change and I will be happy with the changes I make in my life. Here is what I want to say:

Dear Nancy of 10 Years ago,

There are so many big things happening in your life right now. You are in the middle of planning the Ordain Women action and it is both exciting and terrifying to you. You’re feeling the excitement but you have not begun to fathom the sheer terror underneath it all. You have tried to be obedient and good in the eyes of the Church all your life. You have devoted yourself to the Church and the faith it teaches. You haven’t understood the ways in which fear rules so much of your life and that the Church is a big piece of that.

In a few weeks, you are going to walk from City Creek Park to Temple Square and ask for admission to the Priesthood Session of General Conference. As you do that, this fear is going to make itself known to you in your body. It will demand your full attention. You will start shaking. You will think it is just the adrenaline of the moment until you are standing in front of the Tabernacle and in front of that nice lady who will tell you that you cannot enter. You will feel as though a 50 pound apple is stuck in your throat as all of your anxiety about obedience comes into conflict with this thing you know you must do and it is going to be fair more painful than you can imagine right now. You will sweat but you will not yet sweat it out. This well of fear runs so deep and you didn’t even know it was there.

Your awareness of this fear will change so many things in your life. It will destroy your faith and for a while you will believe that it has destroyed you. It will tear down your worldview and leave you bleeding and the church you have devoted your life to will not show up to help you repair these wounds. It will not apologize for the fear.

But I want to tell you right now – and I know you won’t be able to believe me yet – that you will be OK. In ten years, you will be sitting on your sofa and writing this letter and you will be glad that you became aware of this fear, glad that you left the Church. But it will take a lot of time before you make peace with what happened and your decisions.

I know that right now, you don’t want any of this news, so I’m going to keep my advice brief. You need to move away from fear and communities of conformity that thrive on fear and seek out new communities of joy that thrive on connection. You’ve found some of this in Mormon feminism, but there will be more. You aren’t done seeking.

Hang in there,

Nancy

When an LDS leader said women have priesthood authority, I was outside in the rain because the brethren wouldn’t let women come in.

I was there ten years ago, the first time a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) announced in General Conference that LDS women already have priesthood authority, despite the brethren’s ban on women’s ordination.

Okay, I wasn’t in the room where it happened.  I was right outside the door, standing in the rain, listening on my phone. I tried to come inside to listen to Elder Dallin H. Oaks’s talk, but I was denied entry to the Conference Center because I’m a woman.

And he didn’t tell women this news, not directly. He told a live audience of 20,000 men and boys—no girls allowed. But he knew we were listening in. It was the first time the Priesthood Session was broadcast live over the internet. This concession was a tiny bone thrown in the general direction of the Ordain Women movement. Hundreds of us had tried to attend the previous Priesthood Session, as a signal of our willingness to hold the priesthood, and here we were again.

“Since these subjects are of equal concern to men and to women, I am pleased that these proceedings are broadcast and published for all members of the Church,” Elder Oaks said to his all-male audience, while equally concerned women like me were getting drenched in the rain outside the guarded door. He continued,

“We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization.”

(Dallin H. Oaks, The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood, April 2014)

At this point, he added an important disclaimer. A woman’s priesthood is “under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood,” or in other words, under the direction of a man.

Elder Oaks was building on ideas shared by Elder M. Russell Ballard a few months earlier during a speech at Brigham Young University.

“Those who have priesthood keys—whether that be a deacon who has keys for his quorum or a bishop who has keys for his ward or a stake president who has keys for his stake or the president of the Church who holds all priesthood keys—literally make it possible for all who serve or labor faithfully under their direction to exercise priesthood authority and have access to priesthood power.”

(M. Russell Ballard, Let Us Think Straight, August 2013)

He didn’t call out women specifically there, but it is fair to infer that “all who serve or labor faithfully” under the direction of the males he did mention—like the bishop or the 12-year-old deacon’s quorum president—might include women. But he tried not to let the exhilarating suggestion that we ladies could exercise priesthood authority while serving under the direction of a 12-year-old boy go to our heads.  He clarified,

“Now, sisters, in speaking this frankly with men, may I also exercise a moment of candor with you. While your input is significant and welcomed in effective councils, you need to be careful not to assume a role that is not yours. Ward and stake councils that are the most successful are those in which priesthood leaders trust their sister leaders and encourage them to contribute to the discussions and in which sister leaders fully respect and sustain the decisions of the council made under the direction of priesthood leaders who hold keys.” 

(M. Russell Ballard, Let Us Think Straight, August 2013)

Elder Ballard also pointed to the temple endowment as a source of priesthood power for women.

“When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which by definition is priesthood power. …All who enter the house of the Lord officiate in the ordinances of the priesthood. This applies to men and women alike.”  

(M. Russell Ballard, Let Us Think Straight, August 2013)

He did not explain why this kind of priesthood power only makes it possible to officiate ordinances inside temple walls but not out in public, where women continue to be banned from officiating ordinances.

“You just don’t understand,” is the typical, patronizing response given to women who can’t see how church leaders can claim women have priesthood authority while continuing to ban them from the priesthood.

But according to late apostle Boyd K. Packer, it was never supposed to be hard to understand who has the priesthood.

“Some members of the Church are now teaching that priesthood is some kind of a free-floating authority which can be assumed by anyone who has had the endowment. …Do not miss that one simple, obvious absolute. Priesthood ever and always is conferred by ordination by one who holds proper authority, and it is known to the Church that he has it.”

(Boyd K. Packer, The Temple, the Priesthood, April 1993)

This kind of priesthood authority that church leaders are now claiming women have despite their continued ban on women’s ordination, the kind that comes without authority to administer ordinances outside the temple or give blessings or lead congregations, the kind that is so nearly invisible you have to squint really hard to find it, is anything but obvious.

Earlier this week, Sister J. Anette Dennis, First Counselor in the General Relief Society General Presidency, paraphrased Oaks’s and Ballard’s words.

“There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women. There are religions that ordain some women to positions such as priests and pastors, but very few relative to the number of women in their congregations receive that authority that their church gives them. By contrast, all women, 18 years and older, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who choose a covenant relationship with God in the house of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God. And as we serve in whatever calling or assignment, including ministering assignments, we are given priesthood authority to carry out those responsibilities. My dear sisters, you belong to a Church which offers all its women priesthood power and authority from God!”

(J. Anette Dennis, Worldwide Relief Society Devotional and Testimony Meeting, March 2024)

When the LDS church quoted Sister Dennis on its Instagram account, readers posted more than 13,000 comments, most of which were rebuttals from LDS women. Why has the response to Sister Dennis’s words been so much more negative than the responses Oaks and Ballard received ten years ago?

I hope this isn’t what’s happening, but it could just be another textbook case of gender bias. We accepted these words when they came from a man with (obvious) authority. When we heard the same thing from a woman, we felt more skeptical and knew we had more latitude to disagree.

It might be because the same words sound more like a betrayal when they come from another woman. We know our woman leaders are not elected by women to represent us, but rather appointed by men to serve at their disposal as female representatives of the brethren. Even so, we can’t help but want the women closest to the (obvious) authority figures of our church to advocate for us instead of gaslighting us.

Maybe it’s because when we first heard these speeches, we hoped they were a signal of change to come. Now that some of the brethren were willing to concede that priesthood wasn’t equivalent to maleness, and that women can and do exercise the priesthood, shouldn’t ordaining women to priesthood office be a natural next step?

A decade later, we know that didn’t happen. Our male leaders dug in their heels and refused to ordain women even when a worldwide pandemic kept many women socially distanced from the priesthood-holding men in their congregations, unable to partake of the sacrament or receive priesthood blessings when they succumbed to the virus.

We’ve seen the rhetoric around LDS women and priesthood change before. In the 19th century, back when it was socially acceptable to say such things, church leaders openly asserted that only men could hold the priesthood because they were the superior sex. By the mid-20th century, the rhetoric reversed. Suddenly, women were too good to need the priesthood. And now we have a new era, when women don’t get ordained to the priesthood because we already have it. When the reasoning behind a church policy changes so drastically, that’s a clue that the reasons were never doctrines, just excuses.

It’s time we stopped making excuses and ordained women to the priesthood—the obvious kind of priesthood.

Ordain women supporters stand outside in the rain during the April 2014 Priesthood Session. We requested entry, but were not admitted.

Call for Submissions: The Deleted Comments Department

On Sunday, March 17, the official Instagram account for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shared a quote from Sister J. Anette Dennis from a talk she gave that evening at a special broadcast to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society. It read, “There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women.” Later, some additional context from the talk was added to the caption.

Over the following days, more than 8,000 comments flooded the post. The comments ranged from a few words to several long paragraphs, with commenters responding to the quote and how the words did or did not fit their personal experience. A significant number of the comments appeared to be from active LDS women.

Initially, this was the Church’s response: “The Church’s social media team acknowledges the numerous comments that have emerged in response to this post. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Your comments will be shared with Church leaders who follow these issues. We, like you, strive to follow the example of Jesus Christ in our interactions, including conversations online.”

Within hours, the 8,000+ comments were no longer visible. There was an immediate outcry from people who believed their work had been deleted by the Church’s social media team.

We believe that these comments matter. The voices and experiences of LDS women and gender minorities matter. We hope the comments will be restored on Instagram and that what seems to be intentional silencing is simply a social media glitch. But whatever happens on Instagram, we believe it is important to record these voices and want to extend our platform to do so. We invite you to share your original comments and your ongoing thoughts here on this post. Please include your name (and/or Instagram handle). We will assemble comments into a series of posts. Find our comment policy here.

We invite you to share screenshots for potential reprinting in an upcoming issue of Exponent II magazine. Send the screenshot via DM to the Exponent II Instagram account.

If you have more to say than the length of an Instagram comment (and we hope you do!), we welcome you to submit a guest post to include in this series.

Sincerely,

Your Series Hosts, The Deleted Comments Department

Responding to the Church’s Instagram Snafu

Post by Anonymous. Wife + Mother. Working towards bringing abuse and inequality in the church towards women and children to light. 

(The following guest post is in response to a controversial post on the Church Instagram page on Sunday, March 17, 2043. As of today (March 19th) there are well over 7,000 comments posted, the overwhelming majority of which push back on the assertion that Latter-day Saint women are given power and authority in the church.)

The Mormon church is getting dragged for this and rightfully so. 

This first image was shared with ONLY this sentence before the rest of the talk was given. That’s a PR realm that I won’t talk about. 

I did want to talk about my experience being a woman (and a mother of daughters) in the LDS church. 

Let’s start with their greatest document, shall we?:

Marriage between a man and a woman is essential and ordained of God…Children are entitled to both a father and a mother. (Family proclamation).

Growing up I was taught about this divine plan (the plan of salvation). I was taught about a plan that God designed. Two other big name players: Jesus and Satan. 

Growing up I heard whisperings of Heavenly Mother, but I also saw how church authority responded: Don’t pray to her. We don’t talk about her. 

My entire life: who I was as a woman (what I should wear, how I should act, gospel lessons taught) was all dictated by men. When I went to the temple (a ceremony the church claims has the most truth and knowledge in its purest form) there wasn’t a single mention of women. In fact, God’s entire plan is created, designed, enacted and fulfilled solely by men. The only woman we do get is Eve, who is cursed because she did what God wanted her to do (which was eat the fruit) so the plan would be set in motion. 

Now for the facts: 

We know the Mormon church is comparable to the sexual assault (SA) statistics that the Catholic Church has. We also know that women are more likely to be physically, mentally, emotionally, financially abused in a patriarchal society. Add a patriarchal church to that and women are now at risk of being spiritually abused too. 

So we have this unspoken woman in the godhead, a mother that every child (according to the church) is ENTITLED to and yet her children cannot find her. She’s not in any part of any Mormon doctrine. And the response is simply: she’s too precious to talk about. 

Did you know that the most valuable painting in the world is the Mona Lisa? She’s not hidden away, people aren’t allowed to not look at her, not study her, not emulate her in their art and creativity. She is set on display for anyone in the world to view. She’s behind a glass wall but she’s still there. She’s still present. She’s not locked in some attic or basement because of her value. It’s her being displayed that makes her valuable. 

I’m so sick of the church gaslighting its women into thinking we’re equal or we’re so blessed when all we are receiving is breadcrumbs, and when men fail to get any revelation on the expansion of the role of women. Until a year ago I only existed in the temple or in my relationship with God via a husband. I’m sick of seeing young girls burnout and have low self esteem. I’m sick of seeing women torture themselves to fit into the box designed for them by a man. 

How different (and healthier) would women in the church be if they actually saw examples of men and women working equally together? If they knew of their Heavenly Mother (a mother they’re entitled to)? If they saw equal partnerships based on love and mutual respect? How fewer marriages would we have with a wife being the victim of spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, financial abuse? How much more confident would young women shine?

Girls are also more successful in life when they have female leadership at church. 

And don’t our men want that for us as women and as their daughters? Don’t our husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons desire the success, health and happiness of the women they love? 

I’m so tired of being told I have all this power and authority yet also told I cannot use it. 

So yes, this statement is laughable at best and thousands of women are being vocal about it, as they should be. It’s insulting and it’s completely false. Especially since the church just made $192,000,000 purchase from a church with a female prophet. Even Christ had female apostles, yet the modern-day church tells us “Don’t run faster than you are able”.

Below are some samples of comments left on this post. Go check out the Instagram post and add some of your own!

Letting Him Prevail

Guest Post: Ashli Carnicelli is an author, editor and classically trained singer. Ashli’s heartfelt narrative invites readers to embark on a soul-enriching experience through her works such as Cherish: The Joy of Our Mother in Heaven and her monthly newsletter sharing her testimony of Christ “The Pearls”. She recently was featured in LDS Living Magazine for her personal life experiences and reflections on God’s love. Ashli holds her Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from The Boston Conservatory, and she and her husband Tony are the parents of four daughters.

 

The Spirit Can Give Us Eyes to See Our Lives Through the Lord’s Perspective

When I joined the church at age 35 in 2017, my husband was completing his 5 year Cardiology Fellowship at Duke University. I supported our family financially through my work for the 7 previous years of his medical school training and residency. During his Fellowship, I was working for a plastic surgeon in Raleigh as a Medical Esthetician. This career, while I enjoyed it, was not what I had aspired to before we were married. 

I spent every moment of my childhood from age 5 into my early twenties studying, performing and preparing to be an Opera Singer. Everything in my life revolved around my art, and I was eager and ambitious. My husband and I met studying music- he at Berklee College of Music and me at The Boston Conservatory. After graduation when we decided to marry, it was also time for me to start applying to Masters programs for Opera Performance. My husband and I first met with my agent in Manhattan. He looked across the table from my husband and told him, “Ashli needs to give her career a solid 10 years and I will castrate you if you get her pregnant before that time.” I was 22 and absolutely appalled by his declaration over our lunch in SOHO. Surely I could have a family when we wanted to?! My husband and I rode the fast train back to Boston and discussed what I should do next. 

 I hired a new voice teacher, one who works with opera stars all over the world. She looked up at me from the piano as I started my vocal exercises in her home. “Are you planning on getting married and starting a family?” she asked. “Yes!” I gleefully exclaimed, starry eyed in love with my husband, my ring sparkling on my finger. “There’s a role I think you would be perfect for but it’s out in Colorado. Would he be okay with you being away for 9 months out of the year to be a part of a Company?” I hadn’t considered this. I honestly hadn’t even considered what my life would actually LOOK like as a performer- the implications on my relationships, my lifestyle, etc. My soul only knew the music; the stage- what I had worked so hard to achieve was almost in my grasp. “Oh- I don’t know.” I replied, uncertain. She advised, “This career is very hard for families. It’s very hard to have children with this lifestyle. It’s very hard on marriages. This is something you really should think about. If you want to truly make it you and your partner have to be willing to do what it takes.” And what did it take? Sacrificing our marriage? Putting off having children at all? I knew that as a woman I would at times need to choose to prioritize between work and marriage and family but was this really how it was?!

I called up another teacher I knew- this one not for opera –she had a really great career as a solo artist as well as a backup singer for Aretha Franklin, Reba McEntire, Amy Grant, Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton to name a few. I planned a private lesson with her. I trusted her advice because she had a steady career in the music industry and had many successful friends. “Donna, “ I started, my forearms resting on the upright piano across from her, “I’m getting advice and it is so negative. I am being told I can’t have this career AND have a husband and a family.” She stood up from the piano bench so that she was eye level with me. “Ashli, I am POSITIVE that they are right. I am telling you this right now. Look ahead at your life 10 years in the future. You are a huge success- you are famous- you have a cabinet full of Grammys and Tonys…if your house is full of accolades and success but no family, no one to love and be loved by… that’s not going to keep you warm at night.”

“But is that REALLY what it takes? To be successful in this industry?” I asked. “It’s the truth,” she started,  “Some give all and at the end of the road they aren’t even successful. In fact that is true for most,” She sighed. I was crushed. I left my lesson with her with a hug and I was grateful to her for being honest with me. 

I discussed it with my husband. We prayed, we studied scriptures and we counseled together (we were Catholic then). We both decided that at the end of our lives when we looked back what we wanted most was each other, our family, and a life full of service to humanity. While we both knew that music and the arts absolutely are a service to humanity, we were both unwilling to pay the cost required to go all in to make it our full time careers. Could it have worked out? Does it for some? Absolutely! However,  in hindsight I believe that the Lord had a different path for me, for us, and for our children in mind. We sought the Lord for our purpose, both individually and as a family. My answer was to become a nurse and work with infants in the NICU. My husband’s answer was to become a physician.

As I searched and prayed I had to ask myself- Do I put off having a family and possibly strain my marriage for my dream that I spent almost my entire life preparing for? OR- do I choose my husband and our family first instead of choosing myself and my dream? Do I choose a different career path entirely?  Do I choose to do what it takes for my husband and I both to build the life the Lord is asking us to? I chose my husband and our future children. I chose the path the Lord called me to, I have nicknamed, “The humble path”. I got to work right away to do all that would be required to support him and us and our future children during his long training which would include 5 years of fulfilling pre-med coursework requirements post- bac, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of Residency and 5 years of Fellowship.  I started first by choosing a shorter education pathway that would sustain us financially through his training. I enrolled in school for Massage Therapy and completed my certification in 13 months. I worked full time for 3 years before my husband was accepted to medical school, this experience making me employable no matter where we lived. I taught massage therapy and worked at a resort spa before our first daughter was born during my husband’s second year of medical school. As we moved from state to state for the different parts of his training,  I was able to continue my education and attended a program to become a Licensed Aesthetician and I also became a Registered Yoga Teacher.- both fields supporting us financially and both fields I fully enjoyed. I continued to perform a few times per year in recitals and in a few choirs, but my singing was no longer the center of my life. My husband and my family were. After my baptism, the Lord became the center of my life after my husband and children.   

13 years later after making this choice, when I joined the Church and received my Patriarchal Blessing, I received confirmation that I absolutely made the right choice. My blessing spoke of going from being a “woman of the world” to a “woman of Christ” and that part of this process would either occur or not based a few factors- one of which would be the difficult decisions that I would need to make as I prayerfully sought the Lord’s will and had the courage to obey His answers. 2005 was one of those moments of difficult decision that I sought the Lord’s will for and I did listen. 

I knew what mattered most to me- in a world of “good, better, best” I felt very guided by the Lord that building my life around my family would be the best thing for me and that following His guidance would bring me true joy. After learning the gospel and how families are so central to Heavenly Father’s plan for us, there can be no doubt in my mind that the Lord was guiding and directing my path, even through the grief of losing my dream and, at the time, my identity. Little did I know then that I would form a new identity and that it would be in Christ. Both my husband and myself have made large sacrifices for the greater good of what the Lord has asked us to do. I just finished my pre-nursing certificate and get to finish my BSN now that my husband’s 19 years of training is over, just like I was called to do.

This path has not been easy. It has been extremely humbling at times. There were days of tears and grief over giving up my dream. There were days I questioned if I made the right decision, as it felt risky to build my life around others instead of on myself.  As someone who tended to be more prideful and fiercely independent it took a lot of humbling for me to work with my husband and build our life together. Who was I without my music? Was I giving it all up for a guy? Was I making the right investment? Was it okay that we were now putting all of our eggs into his career basket instead of mine? Was I falling into one the stereotypes I so deeply resented- one of the “woman behind the man”? All of these questions arose from my being “in the world”. Now, seeing the life we’ve built together through the gospel lens I know that not only has this pathway pointed me towards becoming a “woman of Christ” but it has also shown me I started living my temple covenants before I even made them. 

I believe that if we turn our will over to His, we obtain a life that is sweeter than we could have crafted for ourselves. I believe that if we humbly ask, He will give us eyes to see the long view. The choices that I have made have eternal consequences. Fame, accolades and awards will one day be completely forgotten, much like when Jesus spoke of setting our hearts upon treasures that thieves will steal and rust doth corrupt.  My family- my husband and our four daughters- they are my treasures. Their knowing the Savior from my nurture will last through the eternities! The experience of honoring my temple covenants by sacrificing my time, talents and means to build God’s kingdom on the earth in the form of being a supportive wife and mother has brought me so much joy, even on the hard days. I love my Savior, and He loves me. I can’t describe the joy that comes from being obedient and letting Him prevail, even if the outside world might say that what I’m doing isn’t as exciting or glamorous, or fulfills a desire or dream for myself. 

The Lord has not forgotten my love of music. He has given me the opportunity to perform very often. I’ve been called to several callings in music within my ward, and have been able to continue performing because of my Church membership. I even get to be a part of an album with the Divine Music Project, singing alongside some incredibly talented artists. Our oldest daughter, who is 11, asked me to come to her Career Day at school. “Oh! Which career?” I asked her. Her answer stunned me- “Opera Singer”. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my love of music with the children, realizing that my music would always be a part of me. 

Over the last two decades I have thought of the Savior’s words in Matthew 16:25 often; “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” I will never regret turning my life over to the Savior and letting Him prevail, and I’m grateful that He has given me eyes to see the value of living a life in covenant relationship with Jesus Christ and letting Him guide my path. 

POSTSCRIPT FROM BLOGGER ABBY MAXWELL HANSEN:
I asked Ashli to submit this guest post to share another perspective of motherhood and careers, to go along with the blog I wrote yesterday: I Might’ve Been a Rocket Scientist (Like My Dad), But I Was a Girl – Exponent II. I would just like to brag on Ashli and share a picture I took of her soon to be released new book this past weekend! Contact Writ & Vision in Provo, Utah to pre-order your copy today! Art And Rare Books | Writ And Vision | Provo

I Might’ve Been a Rocket Scientist (Like My Dad), But I Was a Girl

Earlier this year I took my girl scout troop to tour Texas Instruments (TI) in Lehi, Utah. It’s a huge manufacturing plant for semiconductors used in electronic devices, and a very enthusiastic female employee spent two hours touring the facilities with us while giving a presentation about why girls make excellent engineers. My own dad is an MIT trained aerospace engineer (a rocket scientist) who worked on missiles, and during high school I attended a summer engineering program at Utah State University. Strangely enough, I remember standing to the side during all of the engineering challenges and letting the boys do everything (even when I thought they were doing a terrible job). I probably had the smartest dad in the room and the best DNA for engineering, but I barely participated because I was convinced engineering was for boys.

These are some pictures of me growing up with my dad, who was a great father. I don’t have any bad feelings (as everyone was just following the cultural norms), but I’ve always wondered if I’d had a brother what sort of career guidance he would have received.

Thankfully, our tour guide at TI told my girls repeatedly how great it is to work in STEM fields (like engineering) as women because they would always have job security, make good money and be able to support themselves.

My girl scouts at Texas Instruments, all faces except mine blurred for privacy (but they’re super cute!).

Outside of attending that summer engineering program during high school, I don’t remember ever being encouraged to pursue engineering by any adults in my life growing up. It was quite the opposite, actually. I was warned against pursuing a career of any kind following Ezra Taft Benson’s harsh disapproval of women working for pay outside of the home. Every single woman I interacted with in my small Utah town relayed these messages to me until I graduated from high school.

These quotes came from the following three talks: THIS ONE, THIS ONE, and THIS ONE, all given by President Ezra Taft Benson when I was six years old.

After graduation, boys were instructed to focus on their missions, and girls were instructed to focus on marriage. I heard that from my friends, youth leaders, in seminary, at church, at firesides, my patriarchal blessing, again at BYU, and probably even in my regular high school classes because I lived in Utah. I heard it from everyone I loved, and everyone who loved me. Instead of marriage though, I really wanted to go on a mission. Not only would it be an adventure away from Utah, it would allow me to postpone getting married and having kids for at least a few years.

One Sunday as a senior in high school I’d just left my church building when a very powerful feeling overcame me. I felt that Heavenly Father wanted me to get married next, not wait and go on a mission in three years. I thought to myself reluctantly, “Well, I guess this is the spirit preparing me to meet someone.”

Looking back on that moment now I think, “Oh my gosh, that wasn’t divine revelation! You’d just had seventeen lessons in a row about how you needed to get married and make babies, and your brain was finally giving in to the overwhelming pressure.”

The next fall I went to BYU and avoided boys completely because I was afraid dating would lead to marriage, which would lead to the most terrifying situation of all – being pregnant! I was not excited about motherhood, but if an honorable returned missionary picked me out, I felt like I’d be obligated to marry him. Since any righteous man and woman could make it work, and God wanted me to find a righteous man quickly, I chose to hide from anyone who could ruin my dreams of doing literally anything except getting married and pregnant. I was only 18 but didn’t feel like I could date just for fun, because all of the adults in my life had worked hard to make marriage the singular priority for me. None of them suggested choosing a serious career path or looking at what different jobs paid, even just as a backup plan in case no returned missionary ever picked me as his bride.

I eventually gave in and dated a nice freshman boy, and he became my boyfriend before leaving on his mission. Going through old photographs recently, I found pictures of us together on our way to church in the summer of 2000. This is me at age (barely) 19, and him at age (almost) 19. We’d both graduated from high school and finished our first year of college. Coincidentally, his dad was also an engineer. Educationally and career wise, we were still equals at this point.

After this photo he left on his mission, then I met and married my husband (and didn’t go on a mission), graduated from BYU, worked for a couple years, and quit to become a stay-at-home mom to three kids.

This boy served his mission, married his wife, graduated from BYU with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering, and never quit his job while also becoming a dad to five kids.

We’re both 42 now – but he has a marketable, high paying job with two decades of experience in his field and can be employed anywhere he wants to live. I have a worthless degree from twenty years ago that no employer cares about, and relatively little work experience beyond self-employment.

That night at Texas Instruments with my girl scouts turned unexpectedly emotional for me. I met female engineers who encouraged the girls to pursue engineering simply because they’d be good at it and love their jobs, and not just as a backup plan in case they weren’t pretty enough to snag a man.

As we left, our tour guide gave the girls Texas Instruments shirts with pink sleeves, designed to recruit teenage girls into future engineering jobs with their company. I took this picture in my closet later that night. I needed a photo of the shirt and my daughter didn’t want to put it on for me, so I just used myself as the model instead.

Me, pretending to be a teenager.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake thinking about that picture of myself with my college boyfriend in the summer of 2000. I still had a world of possibilities open to me back then, but I saw none of them because the voice of a dead man had blinded me to any of them. Wide awake at midnight, I opened the selfie of me in my daughter’s shirt and zoomed in on the wrinkles around my eyes. I kept thinking about that 19-year-old wrinkle-free face and imagined it was her in the shirt in 2000, not 42-year-old me (with lots of wrinkles) in 2024. I know it was a weird insomnia activity, but after staring at that picture long enough I got out of bed and cried for a solid hour – about not being an engineer.

The next day I thought about how weird the night had been, and how I probably need more therapy. I mean, has anyone else ever cried at midnight over not having a job that they didn’t even care about eight hours before?

Fortunately, social media has made my world much more expansive and within days of my own midnight sob, I came across a post in an online LDS women’s career group expressing a very similar experience. The author even describes having “a good cry” and feeling “ridiculous” about it, which described exactly what had happened to me. Her original post (and all of the screenshots I share below) have all identifying information removed and are shared with permission of the authors. I highlighted the words in yellow that jumped out to me personally from the original post below.

This post quickly became popular with hundreds of likes and almost a hundred comments. Many of the stories shared reminded me of my own. 

Each of the following comments come from a different woman responding to the woman’s post from above.

Finally, here is an emotional TikTok video from a creator who attended Rick’s College thirty years ago. She tells a story that felt so much like my own that I wanted to include it in this post. Like me, she talks about the boy she was dating at 19 – a talented musician just like her – and how painful it was to reconnect with him twelve years later. He’d created a successful music career while she’d been too busy with babies, diapers and housework to pursue anything of her own.

@lifetaketwo

Girls shoukd have the same opportunity as boys. Period. #tradwife #extrad #extradwife #whenwomenwin #feminist #sahm #couples #relationship #marriage #wedding #fiance #love #dating #romance

♬ original sound – Jennie

As mothers, we can love our children while not always loving what we gave up to be stay-at-home moms. As a community, we can also mourn the loss of the artists, scientists, creators, doctors, researchers, teachers (and rocket scientists!) we’ve collectively missed out on by pushing so many women into domestic labor only. I would’ve loved the opportunity that most LDS men seem to take for granted, which was the ability to have both a family and accomplishments, goals and ambitions outside of the home. I hope the next generation of girls can forge a different path than mine was able to. (Texas Instruments has some really cute shirts in Lehi if they want to go grab one!)

Why Placing Bishoprics Over the Young Men’s Program Hurts Women

When I was a young, conservative, fully participating young woman in the LDS Church, I recognized problems and disparities in the youth programs. I remember one particular leadership council meeting where I brought up how the Bishop regularly bought pizza for the young men. I questioned why the same wasn’t done for the young women. The group patiently explained to me that the Bishop presided over the young men and his buying them pizza was simply the way things were done. No need to get worked up about it or make a scene.

I, of course, wasn’t really bringing up just pizza that day. The Bishop, the most influential person in our ward, was regularly meeting and socializing with the young men. While our budgets were tightly managed, he casually purchased them pizza from his own pocket regularly because he was one of the guys. This was just one example of the my age-old frustration over young men casually meeting to have fun and hang out, while young women were constantly striving to learn and better themselves at each activity, with a spiritual purpose at the core.

The reality for young men is that they are born with purpose, they wake up with purpose, and they arrive with purpose. Simply being male makes them important and instantly allows them a special place at church. They hold the priesthood and their continued activity in the church is absolutely necessary for its survival. They are so important, the members of the Bishopric are part of their quorums and often appear to be “one of the guys” in the young men’s program, enjoying a special closeness and friendship young women (and any woman for that matter) will rarely enjoy with the leaders of the ward.

Men may like to tell women that they are more naturally spiritual to excuse focusing so much energy on boys, young men, and other men. It’s interesting, though, how their spiritual development seems so dependent on socializing, participating in physical activities, and having fun. I believe the truth is that being male in a patriarchal church already has so many spiritual and personal advantages, the underlying goal is truly retention.

And the rub? These advantages come at a cost for girls and women. If you are a 15 year-old girl and the Bishopric is embedded in the Young Men’s program, you learn from an early age how important boys are, their value in the ward, and their standing with leaders. When you meet together with leaders, they’ve established a relationship built through Sunday meetings and activities that excluded you. This is certain to impact your comfort level within and influence with the group.

Do I think this is intentional or deliberate? Absolutely not. But sometimes that makes it worse. It’s exhausting and painful to watch this cycle continue in 2024 without good men being bothered by it. I’ve heard suggestions that a female leader similar to the Bishop lead the Young Women’s Program – but who would that be?

And, honestly, as the LDS church becomes my central place of faith less and less, I feel a guilt sometimes for speaking up about these things. It seems like I’m trying to steal something precious from my own husband or sons. Plus, plenty of women and girls say they are happy and thriving.

But I also recognize that these constant, seemingly innocent decisions we let slide in patriarchy add up together to have lasting, harmful consequences. The bishopric spending so much time and energy exclusively with the young men sends a myriad of messages every Sunday. It emphasizes to young men how they are the priority and how important they are for the ward and the church. It subtly and not so subtly emphasizes how young women have a supporting role. It underlines the boys club of church leadership and how relationships of power are built.

To Seminary or Not To Seminary

“The soul knows who we are from the beginning.”

– Plato

When I read 1 John 4:16 in seminary during my freshman year of high school, my mind was blown: “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” God is love? God is not a man but some magical thing that can live inside us? Whoa. In an incredibly awesome moment, I realized that I knew God: I knew God because I knew love. I was stunned to tears. God finally made sense.

I ran my finger over the words: “God is love” as I looked around at the Provo High seminary students who held God inside them. 

When it was time to share and discuss, the class discussed apostasy and spiritual darkness. The seminary teacher made a list on the board: “How to know when someone is experiencing spiritual darkness.” 

The juxtaposition between my reading and the seminary lesson was jarring; the same scriptures that healed me condemned me and my friends, brothers, aunts, and uncles – some of the most loving people I had ever known. 

I raised my hand, “It says right here, that God is love.” God is love! God is in us.

“You need to be careful,” my teacher warned.

I don’t remember exactly what the seminary teacher said but I remember it crushed me and involved the word “antichrists.” 

Looking back on this story, I recognize my budding self. Teen me struggled with a lot but I love this story because, even though I spent the next class period crying in the bathroom, I see the strength of that girl who found herself in verses of love. 

My testimony was like an unidentified sapling with roots that grew and expanded, and I didn’t even know it existed until I felt it when I read those words, “God is love,” and I recognized its wispy little shape and the deep roots that made me. “Ah,” I thought, “there you are, that is what you look like.”

It surprises me now that I didn’t question the personal revelation I received my freshman year when I first read those words and felt God bursting within me and the people around me. I questioned the man teaching the class. I recognized that what was being taught in seminary was not my experience. 

I didn’t return to seminary again until my senior year of high school when I loved it. I loved hearing how peers prayed and what they prayed for, hearing stories where God appeared, learning how others read scriptures as their sacred texts, and being forced to question myself and preconceived notions. My seminary teacher was missing a thumb and made me laugh all the time. 

Every year, I receive an email asking me to register my teens for seminary and every year I sit with it for a while and then delete it. My teens choose not to seminary which is both relieving and sobering. Where will my teens discover who God is to them? What stories will they remember about finding the saplings in their souls?

Sometimes, other people’s ideas are like sunshine and spring, and sometimes like a tornado – seminary teachers were both for me. Often we can choose the environments we allow our soul trees to thrive or die in and sometimes we can’t. But I have learned that, sometimes, the only way to recognize our soul tree is to find new outside sources that feed us, a new environment where we can say, “Ah, there you are, that is what you look like.”

What is your sapling made of? What feeds it? What hacks at it? In what environments does it thrive?

Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash

Photo by Kasturi Laxmi Mohit on Unsplash

6 Books Mormon Feminists Should Read that Aren’t About Mormonism

Guest post by Brooke R. LeFevre, a history PhD candidate at Baylor University interested in intersections of women, religion, and medicine.

Last spring, I had the privilege of taking a graduate seminar on women and religion with Dr. Beth Allison Barr at Baylor University, where I am completing a PhD in history. (If you’ve never heard of Dr. Barr before, I’m very excited for you to learn about one of the most important scholars in evangelicalism and women’s religious history. I promise you will love her work.) We read books on topics ranging from Old Testament women to modern American seminaries. It might’ve been my favorite graduate seminar I’ve ever taken, particularly because she framed the entire class around one question: How do women exercise religious authority?

I am the only Mormon in my program. I’m sure my classmates got tired of how often I kept bringing up Mormonism in our class discussions, but I couldn’t help it! I saw so many connections between what we were reading and what I knew or experienced in Mormonism. Many of the books inspired me to think deeply about Mormon patriarchy and the ways that Mormon women have navigated, supported, or pushed back against those structures, and how gender functions to shape the Mormon world. Because of that, I want to recommend several of these books to Mormon feminists and hope that they give us the language and framework to think more deeply about women and patriarchy in Mormon history and culture.

1. The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr

Okay, technically we didn’t read this book in Barr’s seminar, but it’s her book and it has profoundly shaped how I think about religious patriarchy. I simply can’t recommend it enough. I wrote a review of this book here and how I saw it connecting with work I had been doing on Eliza R. Snow (and I wrote the review before I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Barr personally), if you’d like more.

Barr writes to evangelical women, dissecting the theology touted by conservative evangelicals called “complementarianism,” which maintains that women’s subordination is biblical. Barr explains, “This was my understanding of biblical womanhood: God designed women primarily to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers” (2). As an adult, as Barr began to realize the problems with this theology and that it wasn’t as biblical as evangelicals liked to believe, she stayed in complementarian churches. That was, until she realized, “By staying silent, I had become part of the problem. Instead of making a difference, I had become complicit in a system that used the name of Jesus to oppress and harm women” (6).

The book spans from Paul to the present, starting with the influence of Roman patriarchy on the early church, dissecting Paul’s letters and other scriptures used to prop up complementarian theology. She looks at the medieval period, the Reformation, biblical translations, the cult of domesticity in American history, the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist world, and the development of biblical womanhood. Even though her audience is evangelicals, there’s much that Mormon feminists can learn from her work. She argues, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing Christians that oppression is godly” (173). Perhaps religious patriarchy is one of the worst “traditions of our fathers.”

2. Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne by Wilda C. Gafney

If you’ve never heard the term “Womanism” before, Gafney’s book is a fascinating introduction. Womanism is sometimes defined as black feminism, but that can be too simple of a definition. Alice Walker, one of the founding theorists, explained, “Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender.” Womanism encompasses much more than just women’s oppression, but rather all forms of oppression as intrinsically interconnected, and centers the epistemological privilege of black women in understanding and dismantling oppression. Gafney’s book is “womanist biblical interpretation” and centers “a set of interpretive practices, including translation, exegesis, and biblical interpretation, that attends to marginalized characters in biblical narratives, especially women and girls, intentionally including and centering on non-Israelite people and enslaved persons” (3). Since many of these individuals’ experiences and voices are not immediately present in the text, Gafney uses “sanctified imagination,” something she learned from black preaching, “as a type of African American indigenous midrash” (3).

She also describes her work as “God-wrestling,” explaining, “In this womanist midrash I will struggle with God and the text and God-in-the-text explicitly as a religious reader” (5). She further explains that this text is “womanish” in that she is “talking back to the text, challenging it, questioning it, interrogating it, unafraid of the power and authority of the text, just as a girl-growing-into-a-woman talks back to her elders, questioning the world around her in order to learn how to understand and navigate it” (9).

Now, the study of languages has never been my forte. Gafney is brilliant and dissects the original language of the Hebrew Bible and the translation process in a way that often goes over my head. But it’s truly astonishing what she does and how thoroughly she is able to interrogate the text. Next time you’re going through the Old Testament, pick up a copy of Gafney’s book and read it alongside.

3. The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West by Gary Macy

This book was way out of my wheelhouse as a 19th-century historian, but it was fascinating and may have been my favorite from the semester. Macy begins the book by discussing how current debates about women’s ordination in Christianity often result in historians and theologians speaking right past each other because they ask fundamentally different questions. Theologians often use modern definitions and modern theology about ordination to ask questions about women’s historical ordinations, whereas historians ask questions about “what ordination meant at a particular moment in the past” and “whether they were considered ordained by their contemporaries according to the definition of ordination used at that time” (5). Macy uses a historical approach and uncovers a history that he argues “has been deliberately forgotten, intentionally marginalized, and, not infrequently, creatively explained away” (4).

Macy explains how in the early church, many women were ordained when ordination was seen as fulfilling “a certain function or role or ministry in the church” (76). Ordination was a calling to a specific role in a specific context. However, the definition of ordination shifted in the 12th century and “ordination became tied securely to power rather than to vocation.” Macy continues, “Ordination bestowed a power that could be used in any community at any time. No longer was it a vocation to a particular ministry in a particular church” (106). When the definition of ordination changed, women could no longer be ordained.

How many times have you heard Joseph Smith’s “I now turn the key to you in the name of God” explained away using modern definitions of priesthood and church authority? Do you think it’s possible that as the definition of priesthood has shifted in Mormon history, it has impacted how the institution relates to women’s religious authority? I do.

4. The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam by Ula Yvette Taylor

Okay, so technically we didn’t read this book in Barr’s class. I read in a seminar on gender and sex in American religious history that I took from Dr. Andrea Turpin, and it was my favorite book from that seminar, so I must include it. Taylor is interested in understanding the Nation of Islam (NOI) from the perspective of women who joined during the mid-20th century, interrogating why women would join such a patriarchal religion. What was the appeal?

She found that one of the great appeals of the NOI, and its patriarchal structure, was the promise of “protection, financial stability, and loving husbands” (4). For black women, who were vilified, subjected to threats of violence, and often victims of abuse, the type of patriarchy promulgated in the NOI promised protection and promoted racial pride. Taylor investigates how women navigated that religious patriarchy, explaining that these women often “found ingenious ways to work within the patriarchal system, indeed, to trump patriarchy for their own ends” (106). While Taylor doesn’t use one of my favorite terms, “patriarchal bargain” (ask my classmates how often I bring this up in our discussions), this is essentially what she is describing. However, she also discusses the cost of this, explaining the abuse that some women in the NOI experienced.

I think we need to do more to understand why Mormon women have supported and continue to support patriarchy, and the careful negotiations they have made to work within patriarchal systems. I wrote about that a bit here, but I think we need to understand what promises Mormon patriarchy makes to Mormon women.

5. Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power by Lisa Weaver Swartz

This is another book that was not at all close to the topics that I study, but I loved it. Swartz is a sociologist, and her book is a comparative study of Southern Seminary and Asbury Seminary. For those unfamiliar with the world of seminaries, Southern is the most well-known seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and is recognized for its central role in the conservative resurgence and its promotion of complementarian theology (remember the theology that Barr argues is not actually biblical?). The institution’s support of male headship and its stance against women’s ordination is critical. On the other hand, Asbury, with a heritage of Wesleyan Methodism, is known as a much more egalitarian seminary, one that supports women’s ordination.

Swartz’s book is about how gender works in each of these contexts. How does gender shape the experiences, the opportunities available, and the lives of students in these different seminaries? I was fascinated, and surprised, by her findings. Southern was mostly what I expected, promoting very narrow ideals of masculinity and femininity. Asbury, on the other hand, allowed space for a variety of masculinities, but strangely, women felt compelled to fit themselves into only two distinct models of femininity: churchwoman or wife. Asbury, she explained, promotes a rhetoric that she calls “genderblind,” claiming that gender doesn’t and shouldn’t matter in religious contexts. The problem is, however, that gender does matter, and that this rhetoric tends to ignore how gender functions. Swartz writes about talking with administrators at Asbury who were bewildered at how hard it was to attract women faculty members, while women students at Asbury told her how they felt like they didn’t fit in anywhere. Swartz explains, “egalitarian empowerment is mostly enjoyed by those willing and able to conform to an unarticulated set of gendered expectations” (122).

When I started the book, I expected that my experience as a student at BYU would align more with Southern Seminary because of the similarities on gender ideologies. However, I found myself relating to the experiences she told of those at Asbury. While Mormons certainly don’t claim to be genderblind, institutions like BYU that hire both male and female faculty often struggle to attract female faculty, and those that I have interacted with (mostly the male faculty and admin) seem just as bewildered as the Asbury administrators. What they often fail to recognize is how a place like BYU is still very much shaped by powerful and sometimes unacknowledged gendered expectations that put unfair constraints on women faculty and students.

6. The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities by Kate Bowler

Lastly is a book on evangelical women celebrities. Bowler begins her book with a personal note, and the last line might be my favorite of the whole book: “the visible and invisible rules that govern the lives of evangelical women can be mastered and occasionally subverted by those willing to play a difficult long game with handsome rewards and harsh penalties” (xiv).

Bowler’s book focuses on the last few decades. She shapes her chapters around the different roles that evangelical women celebrities can fill, namely preacher, homemaker, talent, counselor, and beauty. She looks a variety of different women and their “search for spiritual authority in an era of jumbotrons and searing stage lights” (5). Even though these women supported complementarianism, they found ways to assert their authority and gain recognition. Their fame was usually in the marketplace rather than in the church, since they were restricted in the roles they could play in church.

However, the authority that these women exercised was highly precarious, meaning that it could disappear if they stepped out of unarticulated boundaries created for them by evangelical culture. Bowler explains, “most conservative women’s careers rested on authority that was associational and, as such, contingent. They could not rule, but they were indispensable” (241). Bowler’s definitions of precarity and contingent power is incredibly useful in understanding how Mormon women navigate and negotiate Mormon patriarchy. Unlike these women, Mormon women do have institutional authority, but that authority is carefully overseen and curtailed by patriarchal authority. Mormon women can exercise influence within the church, but that influence is often contingent upon their willingness to adhere to “the visible and invisible rules” of Mormon patriarchy.

Have you read any of these books? Do you see connections between these works and the experiences and realities of women within Mormonism?