Exponent II's Blog, page 86

Written By Men For Men

“To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

The book I have read more than any other book is ripped apart and hidden in my bathroom cabinet. I have more copies of this book than any other book I own – it keeps appearing in my closet, on my bookshelves, tucked beneath my bed as I organize and clean my house for the changing season. But I have not read this book in years, and recently, in the name of healing poetry, I have started mutilating it.

The Book of Mormon is the book I read more times and have more copies of than any other book. My life was built around Book of Mormon stories and characters; my earliest memories of reading words were stumbling over “therefore” and “Lamanites” as I read the verses each night with my family. My grandparents celebrated their grandchildren who finished the Book of Mormon each year by taking us to the Golden Corral; a metaphor for “feasting on the words of Christ.” And it took me years to recognize that this book was not written for me.

Joseph Smith said: “the Book of Mormon was the most correct book of any book on earth.” So, I read it constantly. Each of my copies are colorfully marked up with words like “compassion” and “love” written in the margins. I assumed the book was for everyone and I found what I was looking for in a book full of men, written by men for their sons and brothers: I mined stories of love and compassion in this book about men and their wars.

And then I read the first three pages of the Dance of the Dissident Daughter and sobbed on a bench at an ice-skating rink. She. Her. Womb. Feminine. Goddess. Language matters. And Sue Monk Kidd was writing my wounds and despair into language that hugged me and held me rather than pushed me out and horrified me.

In Old English, the word mann meant “thinking one” and included all bodies, evidenced in the words: human, mankind, and woman. But language is fluid and changing (“awful” used to mean “worthy of awe”) and the word “man” now means “an adult male human being.” That is what it means to me. Every time I read it. And I realize: the Book of Mormon was always intended for men (males), not me.

The Introduction to the Book of Mormon (written in 1981, when the men who wrote it spoke modern American English) states that they “invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon.” They suggest that it tells “men what they must do to gain peace.” And they quote Joseph Smith, who “told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book . . . and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts . . .” Joseph Smith never told everyone that the Book of Mormon was correct for anyone, only his brethren.

This makes sense to me, and once I read The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, I could not stop reading texts that included me. I feasted on Braiding Sweetgrass, Women Who Run With the Wolves, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, This Here Flesh, The Power of Kindness, Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Ritual, etc. and felt what it was to have scripture written for me – to hear and see a God that isn’t just for men but for everyone.

I have read the Book of Mormon countless times and I am grateful for the language and songs that built my history, the ones that taught me about transformation in the waters of Mormon and the anti-Nephi-Lehi’s who didn’t fear death and the vision of a tree. I appreciate the study and love and dissecting and rejecting I learned from these words of men. I’m grateful for the parallels between Korihor the Anti-Christ and Alma the Younger – one privileged and the other condemned; one allowed to face his shadow, the other punished and killed by cruelty before he could change because he was not a son of a prophet. So, you see, I have learned to see myself in “him.”

However, I do not read this book anymore; we should believe Joseph Smith and the other men when they say their messages are for their brethren. I always felt I didn’t exist in the language of their stories – now I understand why that matters: because there are words and language and stories where I do exist. Words that are written for everyone.

“Language is our gift and our responsibility.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

The Body is Political: Part 6

TW: I talk about antifat bias and related racism and misogyny. Some of the words I use words can be triggering. 

A man–a white, middle-class Belgian man who loved numbers–made a study of the ages and weights at which the people in his area died. It was 200 years ago, so people died a lot younger and for a variety of causes we now prevent. But because some men attached meaning to those numbers, I had to stand in a line of girls in only our bras and underwear. The physical education teacher measured our quads, stomachs and triceps with calipers, calling out the total number to the assistant who then wrote it down as part of our fitness record. 

I remember a lot of humiliating P.E. moments, but fat measuring day ranks above them all. 

And here’s the thing. The numbers are made up and the points don’t matter. 

Really.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, any actual science behind the BMI. 

But our insurance companies sure love those numbers: they charge people more, or deny them coverage, based on their arbitrary spreadsheets. In fact, insurance actuaries are the ones who took the Belgian man’s numbers and turned them into a full-blown business model. Unsurprisingly, the BMI has been used to inaccurately calculate the health risks for all genders and races. Still the insurance agencies continue their love affair with a BMI.

The diet and fitness industries love those numbers, too. The BMI built everything from celery juice to whey powder; 24 Hour Fitness to Goop. The sandy foundation doesn’t seem to matter. What matters is that hundreds of thousands of us are steeped in wrong and harmful ideas about what we should look like and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on books, trainers, specialty diet food and diet companies like Weight Watchers. While we starve ourselves, the diet and fitness industries glut themselves.

When I was 12, standing in line with girls who came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, we stared straight forward, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes. None of us walked out of that room feeling excited about P.E., puberty, ourselves or each other. That day, many (maybe all?) of us started a lifelong war with our bodies that resulted in disordered eating, restrictive eating and dieting. It also fueled cruel taunts preteens and teens seem so good at and which ran through our minds like an add for self-hate. All because a white guy with some political power wrote down the weights and ages of white men who died 200 years ago.

Quetelet, the Belgian man, also had very clear ideas about criminology. In fact, he’s the co-founder of positivist criminology which insists that white people are naturally law-abiding and Black people are naturally criminals. He helped start the pseudoscience that developed phrenology, another bastion of racist ideology masquerading as science.

The BMI fails to account for natural differences in body types even on a large scale, such as regional and ancestral differences. One example of how the BMI fails, Asian Americans are more likely to have “ideal” cardiovascular health than white Americans. Awesome! Healthy hearts=longer lives. But, they’re also less likely to smoke, less likely to have normal blood glucose and more likely to self-report eating a “healthy” diet (with no clear definition of what healthy means in the context of the study and no mention of the unreliability of self-reported eating patterns). And that’s before we even talk about how problematic it is to try to divide people, with our messy ancestry and varied histories, into discrete categories based on another myth: race.

Even Quetelet, who as you can see was no prince, said the index was not to be used to gauge ideal weight for individuals, only populations. Now, I don’t think it works for whole populations, either, but it absolutely doesn’t work for individuals. Unfortunately the US government and the World Health Organization have yet to unravel the insidious tentacles the BMI has woven through nearly every system, including airlines, social science studies, NASA and the US military. Using the BMI as a restriction for employment means that Black, Latine, some Indigenous nations, older adults, women, and, in a weird twist, extremely muscular people, are more likely to be automatically rejected.

One day in 1998, thousands of people in the US woke up fat without gaining a pound. The National Institute of Health had adjusted their numbers overnight, without any evidence to back them up. But, since there never was evidence for the usefulness of the BMI, it isn’t out of character that they arbitrarily changed the numbers. 

I can hear some people say, “But people with higher BMI are more likely to have (insert something like heart disease/stroke/high cholesterol).” But when we look at those numbers, we’re looking at the problem the wrong way around (see the study above referring to Asian Americans and high glucose levels). We’re taking the results (poor health outcomes) and assuming they’re linked to BMI which was 100% made up and then misapplied to (checks notes) the entire Western world. Instead, we should be talking about healthcare in a time of antifat bias. Doctors are more likely to prescribe weight loss without taking into account family history of illness, current symptoms, and without running any tests. Disabled fat people have a harder time finding care that doesn’t depend on weight loss first. And try finding a doctor to help you transition if you’re trans and fat. All of that is assuming the person can get in to see a doctor in the first place. Doctors will literally tell people they won’t see them unless the would-be client loses weight. Consequently, people with higher BMI numbers are less likely to seek for or receive preventative medical care–would you go to a doctor who looked at you and, without running any tests, told you to change your eye color or height? Assuming that it’s even possible, in what way would changing those things alter, say, brain cancer?

We’ve changed the language. When I was in P.E. way back in the 1900s, teachers and government officials used ‘fat’ like a swear word. Now, we have influencers and people in our social groups who insist on being ‘healthy’ but they mean the same thing (I’m looking at you, Gwyneth Paltrow and Antoni Porowski. Also Yoga Pants Mom in the pickup line. You know who you are.)

It’s time to retire the BMI. Send it out to pasture. Put it in the “Bad Ideas Hall of Fame.” Most importantly, challenge anyone who still uses it as a guide for anything other than the average age and weight men in Belgium died 200 years ago. For my part, I refuse to let the pediatrician weigh my children until/unless it’s necessary for prescription dosage (even then, the dose is often too low. My children all need higher doses of anesthesia and lidocaine, just like their dad does. Almost like things are less BMI, more genetic). I also refuse to allow my doctor to weigh me and it’s been liberatory. Once, a woman behind me at the doctor’s heard me say, “I’m not going to be weighed,” and she cheered, “Wait! Can we do that? I want to do that.” Dear reader, yes, you can.

I anticipate some of our readers in the medical field will have feelings about my refusal. Why? In the U.S. doctors sometimes don’t get paid by insurance companies unless they a include the client’s BMI info. If that client is “above average BMI” the doctor will have to check a box that tells the insurance companies that they’ve told the client to lose weight. Yes, this sucks. Yes, we should have a different system. But just because insurance companies demand something of my doctor doesn’t mean I have to play along. Sometimes, we need a little creative obstruction, so I’m going to share some ideas 1. Refuse to be weighed. If the doctor asks your weight, and if it’s not needed for a prescription, tell them a number that, according to the BMI, is ideal for person your height; 2. Ask the doctor why they need the information. Have an open conversation about why the BMI is trash. Then ask them to help you engage in creative obstruction. 3. Preach the good word of fat activism on social media, in your peer groups, in Relief Society. 4. Challenge antifat speech, including in TV shows, movies, and on social media.

These won’t be useful suggestions for everyone. I’m white, abled, middle-class, cisgender and I have a ton of thin privilege. But if more of us refuse to go along meekly in a system that hurts our siblings, the system is more likely to change. After all, the BMI hasn’t always existed–it isn’t inevitable that it will always exist. 

As an act of healing my middle school self, I bought a bikini. This year, the beach has been getting my glorious, rounded, fleshy middle-aged body, complete with cellulite, stretch marks, sagging boobs and a stomach that overhangs my bottoms. And it’s felt divine.

For more reading, I recommend Sonya Renee Taylor here: https://thebodyisnotanapology.com and Aubrey Gordon here: https://www.yourfatfriend.com

The Body is Political: Part 1 (Intimate Partner Physical Abuse)

The Body is Political: Part 2 (Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse)

The Body is Political: Part 3 (Women Denied What Men Control)

The Body is Political: Part 4 (Gay All Year)

The Body is Political: Part 5 (My Political Body)

When I look in the mirror, I still hear all the antifat hate speech my culture passed on to me.

The LDS Church Gave Me Inadequate Career Advice – Part Two

I didn’t plan to write two posts about the inadequate career advice I received in the Young Women Program. However, based on the response to my first post I realized that a second post would be necessary. 

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on my first post. It’s probably taboo for me to say this, but comments are always cherished. It’s kind of sad to write a post and have it receive little feedback so I’m thrilled that so many people chimed into the conversation.

A common theme among the comments on the blog and on Facebook was that I’d left off an important point. I’d neglected to say that women could work just because they wanted to. There didn’t need to be a reason.

I’ll admit, I’m embarrassed I didn’t include that in my list. It’s a glaring omission. 

I’ve tried to think of why I didn’t include, “You can work because you want to” in the list of things I wish I’d been told by my parents and Young Women leaders back in the late 90’s early 2000’s. It boils down to three things. Two are kind of trivial, but the third one has me examining a lot of my thought patterns. 

#1. I was in a hurry and I forgot. I was rushing to get that post ready for my scheduled posting day. It had existed in in my head and in outline form for a while, but I literally wrote it the morning it was posted. Could it have used a little more time to “marinate?” Yeah. But I learned long ago that if I wait until I think something is perfect I’ll never actually finish anything. Sometimes I just have to push publish and put things out into the ether. Maybe if I’d waited another day or so I would have realized I’d left off “Work because you want to” as a perfectly good reason to work.

#2. That post was about my lived experience not matching what I was taught in the Young Women program. My lived experience involves working primarily out of economic necessity. I’ve never worked solely because I want to so I didn’t think to include that on the list.

#3. Apparently I have some deep seeded unconscious bias involving women who work – especially mothers who work. As I’ve pondered why I didn’t include “You can work because you want to” in my original post I realized it’s because that was never modeled to me when I was a teenager. In fact, the main lesson I learned when I was growing up was that no woman in her right mind would ever work just because she wanted to. There always had to be a REASON a woman was working.

Three memories have boiled to the surface as I’ve been pondering why I think that a women needs a reason to work. These memories all involve the messages I received from church about women’s rolls. Here they are:

Memory #1: I was 15 or 16 years old. I was talking in the church foyer with my friends. I don’t remember what we were talking about. Maybe career goals, maybe the number of children we wanted, maybe just about boys. A random old lady from the ward felt the need to interject into our conversation. 

She said, “You need to get married and have as many babies as you can so that Heavenly Father won’t be forced to send spirits to Africa.”

There are so many elements of problematic theology in that woman’s statement. But what I keep thinking about is how comfortable she felt just busting into our conversation to tell us that. Even random people at church had no problem telling me that my primary roll was to get married and have children. The teachings of my youth leaders were more subtle, but that woman’s declaration pretty much sums up everything the church taught me about women’s rolls.

Memory #2: I was in ninth grade seminary and we were studying the Old Testament. I think the lesson was about the nation of Israel desiring a king like other nations. The prophet Samuel warned them of all the dangers of wanting to be like other nations, but eventually gave in and ordained a king.

My seminary teacher somehow tied that lesson into women who work outside the home, and how that was an example of wanting to “be like other nations” so to speak. He said that working outside the home seems like a good idea, but it would bring ruin. He gave out a whole page of quotes from past prophets like Spencer W Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson about how women should be home with their children.

He then went on to lecture that he understood there were times a woman may need to work. But we needed to examine the reasons why. He said something like, “If your mom is working to help support the family that’s okay. But if she is working so that you can have a three car garage that is not okay.”

As I think back on my little impressionable teenage self in this memory I just want to rush in and pull myself out of that lesson. I think about all the years I spent agonizing over whether or not my career goals were in line with what God wanted. So much of that angst stemmed from this lesson alone. I kept that stupid page of quotes and referred to it occasionally as I debated different life plans. I wanted to be a rebel and work towards an amazing career. But I also wanted to be a rule follower and have God love me. What I ended up with was anxiety. 

Memory #3. I’m not sure how old I was in this memory. Definitely in Jr High. I was sitting in church listening to my friend give a sacrament meeting talk on Mother’s Day. My friend praised her mother for working. She said something like, “My sister had a job to pay for her dance company fees. She had a hard time working and keeping her grades up. So my mom got a job to help my sister pay for her fees so that she could have time to do her homework.”  

Later I would hear that some women in the ward were saying mean things about my friend’s mom because she was working. I don’t know if that was true. But I do know that my friend felt the need to publicly explain the reason why her mom was working. 

The point of all of this is that I obviously internalized the messages I received as a teenager. The lesson was clear, No good mother worked outside the home because she wanted to, there had to be a REASON. And 20 to 25 years later that manifested as a blog post about reasons I work that was not “because I want to – full stop.”

I’m sure there were women in my ward who were working and loving their jobs. Women who had ambitions. Women who were achieving things. But as far as I know they were never called into the Young Women’s program. If they were I NEVER heard about those things from them. If women talked about their work at all they always gave their reason. (Oh I work because all my kids are grown and I need something to do. I work because we need the extra income. I work because  . . .) I never heard anyone say, “I work because I want to. I work because I love what I do. I work because I’m good at my job.

So now that I’m more conscious of my unconscious bias, where do I go from here?

I definitely need to make sure that I’m talking about my work in a positive way. I want to model for my children that I like having a career. That I enjoy my job. That I’m working because I want to, and not just because we need the money. 

I also want to somehow model this for the Young Women in my ward. I don’t want them growing up thinking that they never knew a woman who enjoyed her job when I was RIGHT THERE the whole time. I want them to know that it’s okay to have ambitions. I want them to see that it’s possible to have a pretty decent work life balance as a mom.

And finally, I’m going to make sure that every time I talk about reasons to work I’m going to include “because you want to” at the top of the list. I’ll never make the mistake of leaving that out again. 

Photo by Mariah Hewines on Unsplash

What would General Conference sound like in Ken-dom?

Yesterday, blogger Abby Hansen had a great post about how she, like Ken in the Barbie Movie, learned about patriarchy.

But today, I want to take a minute to dive into the land of Ken-dom and Mojo, Dojo, Casa Houses. What would General Conference sound like in the world of this totally fictional patriarchy? The Barbie movie is such a fun romp that this should be a good time.

Barbie has so many different career options. She can be anything. How would Ken Kimball encourage her?

“I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Barbie, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the cafe. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother—cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one’s precious Ken and children. Come home, Barbies, to your Kens. Make your Mojo, Dojo, Casa House a heaven for them. Come home, Barbies, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal dolls who anxiously await.” —Ken Kimball, 1977

Barbie fosters creativity and imagination and possibility. Ken Benson wouldn’t boil down her purpose to a single, supportive role. Right?

“Young Barbies and Kens, with all my heart I counsel you not to postpone having your children, being co-creators with our Father in Heaven. Do not use the reasoning of the world, such as, ‘We will wait until we can better afford having children, until we are more secure, until Ken has completed his education, until he has a better paying job, until we have a larger mojo, dojo, casa house, until we have obtained a few of the material conveniences,’ and on and on. This is the reasoning of the world and is not pleasing in the sight of God. Barbies who enjoy good health, have your children and have them early. And, Kens, always be considerate of your Barbie in the bearing of children. Do not curtail the number of children for personal or selfish reasons. Material possessions, social convenience, and so-called professional advantages are nothing compared to a righteous posterity.”—Ken Benson, 1987

Barbies win Nobel Prizes, serve as president, and have great problem-solving abilities. How would Ken Ballard suggest she contribute in ward council meetings?

“We cannot meet our destiny as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in preparing this world for the 2nd coming of the Savior of the world without the support and the faith and the strength of the Barbies of this church. We need you. We need your voices. They need to be heard. They need to be heard in your community, in your neighborhoods, they need to be heard within the ward council or the branch council. Now don’t talk too much in those council meetings, just straighten the Kens out quickly and move the work on. We are building the kingdom of God.”—Ken Ballard, 2014

In the Barbies’ session of General Conference, what would President Ken Nelson say to the Barbies while speaking longer than any of the Barbies themselves?

“My dear Barbies, we need you! We need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices. We simply cannot gather Israel without you.”—Ken Nelson, 2018

In Ken-dom, it is Ken AND Barbie! That’s like, the definition of presiding as equal partners. Kens can’t get to heaven without Barbie!

You know what? For some reason, this little romp through Ken-dom isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.  

***

Featured image of Ryan Gosling as Ken courtesy of Warner Brothers.

As a Latter-day Saint Woman, I was Ken

There are a lot of ideas to unpack and discuss from the Barbie movie, which people are doing all over the internet right now. I didn’t think I had anything particularly unique from an LDS woman’s perspective until a few days ago, when I found myself thinking about Ken and how he experienced his world in Barbieland. It was actually a lot like my own experience growing up in the eighties and nineties in Utah as a devout Mormon girl.

For those who haven’t seen the movie but want context for my blog post, here is my basic summary of the parts of the story that apply to what I’m going to be talking about:

The movie starts in Barbieland, where all of the roles are reversed from the Real World. Barbies rule everything, and just like the dolls, women are the lawyers, judges, construction workers, doctors, supreme court justices, and even the president. The Kens are there, but only as accessories. They don’t have their own jobs, paychecks or houses. They depend on the Barbies to invite them to the parties and activities and the men just exist in the background of the women, who receive all of the accomplishments and accolades.

Barbie and Ken leave Barbieland for the Real World, where to Barbie’s shock and Ken’s delight their roles are completely reversed. Men make up most of the jobs that are reserved for women in Barbieland. They are the police officers, the doctors and the top businessmen. Ken goes into the library and finds books about patriarchy, and to his astonishment learns for the very first time in his life about a system where the men are the ones with all of the power. While Barbie is busy in the Real World, he slips back to Barbieland and explains patriarchy to all of the other Kens and they take over. 

Just like Ken had spent his entire life in Barbieland unaware there could be any other way to live, I also grew up in a system of deep inequality that I couldn’t recognize at the time.

I was a senior in high school in 1998/99, and my stake created a new calling for laurels and priests that year. They called one boy and one girl to be the president of a stake laurel’s presidency and a stake priest’s presidency (this may or may not be exactly what they called it, because I’ve forgotten).  Each president called two counselors and a secretary. I can’t remember what we did, but it was probably planning things like dances and youth conference, and I remember speaking in Sacrament Meetings a few times.

Jenny (not her real name) was called as the stake laurel’s president, and I was honored when she called me as her first counselor. Jenny was really smart, talented and kind, and she was a natural leader. I was thrilled she’d picked me for that role over everyone else in the stake.

The priest they called for the boys’ president was a confusing choice, on the other hand. I think the adult stake leaders were possibly trying to reactivate him by giving him this calling. He was not on top of anything, and he frequently slept in and missed our Sunday morning meetings. I remember one of his counselors getting angry with him during the school year over something and telling the girls he didn’t want to serve under him because of how he was behaving. Another night both presidencies were driving somewhere (Jenny was driving the girls in her car, and this boy was driving his presidency in his), when we saw him swerving dangerously on the road in front of us. We found out a few minutes later that he’d been trying to run over birds he saw perched in the road like some kind of deranged future serial killer. I could not believe this was the guy Heavenly Father wanted to give this calling to.

What did not bother me at the time was the fact that all final decisions were turned over to this boy, not Jenny. In the pattern of the church, the presiding priesthood authority would take everyone’s counsel into consideration and then make the judgment call on how to proceed. They were clearly training us to be future leaders in the church and wanted us to gain experience with this youth calling. Because this boy frequently skipped our meetings and was impossible to track down for days at a time (this was before the age of cell phones), many decisions were held up, waiting for him to decide. Jenny was the much more qualified and engaged teenage youth leader, but because the boy held the priesthood and she didn’t, he could make final decisions and she never could. I was frustrated by his lack of participation, but never once frustrated at the system. While it would’ve infuriated me anywhere else (like if the high school student council rules insisted that decisions were always to be made by the boys), I didn’t even question it in a church setting.

The year before all of this, Jenny and I had been in the same seminary class. One morning a female student was applying mascara at her desk before class started. A boy started to tease her about not getting ready before school, and our male seminary teacher told us about a challenge he’d given in the past to students that all girls had always failed at. He’d challenge students to get up and come to school every day for a week without looking in the mirror once in the morning, and he’d offer some kind of prize for those who managed it. It was hard for the boys, but they could do it. The girls however – they always failed. They had to put on makeup and fix their hair and see what they looked like.

The implied conclusion to his social experiment was that girls are too focused on their looks and thus more vain than the boys. As the guys chuckled about this with their teacher, Jenny stood up to them by saying, “You make fun of us for spending so much time getting ready, but if we showed up at school without makeup on you would complain about how ugly we all looked. Girls are supposed to always be beautiful for you to look at, but somehow we aren’t allowed to spend any time making ourselves beautiful?!”

Her bravery standing up to those boys and that teacher reminds me now of the speech given at the end of the Barbie movie where the impossible standards women are held to are laid out. (If you haven’t seen the movie and want to read this speech, here’s a link where you can read the entire thing.) Looking back I realize that girls in my high school were very restricted in ways we could access power, and looking pretty was our major tool. Individually we were limited in our ambitions, but if we became beautiful and appealing enough we could snag a man who did have real power. (For example, I heard many girls say, “I want to be a mission president’s wife someday!”, which is honestly not very different than Ken crying near the end of the movie and saying, “I don’t know what I am without you, Barbie! It’s supposed to be Barbie *and* Ken.” Ken and LDS women are too often viewed not by their own unique abilities, but by the romantic partner they were able to attract to themselves.)

As a real life example of this, here’s a post from The Church News on Instagram last week:

 

This is a post about Patricia Holland’s own funeral, but they don’t even say her name. They only call her “Sister Holland” yet use her husband’s full name (including the middle initial) and talk about his church calling before mentioning hers (and it doesn’t specify what her calling was).

The correct way to say this would’ve been: “Family members gather for the graveside service of Patricia T. Holland, former counselor in the general Young Women’s presidency. She leaves behind her husband, Elder Holland.”

They used his full name, but not hers, and led with his church calling, not hers. It’s HER funeral. She’s the one they’re supposed to be honoring! Women in the church as often treated as an accessory (like Ken) to their husbands rather than being seen as unique individuals with their own accomplishments.

Getting back to my stake calling as a senior in high school, the fact that even smart, brave Jenny never questioned the unfair system we were in makes me realize how hard it is to recognize inequality when it’s all you’ve ever known.

Ken had zero reference for any world where the Barbies weren’t automatically in charge of everything or where he could potentially have any job he wanted, rather than just “beach”. Just like girls in my high school wanted to look pretty enough to attract the interest of a boy who could grow up to become powerful, Ken desperately wanted to look cool enough that Barbie would notice him. He had no other means of advancing in the Barbieland society other than being acknowledged and accepted by Barbie. As a Mormon girl or as a Ken doll, your power comes from your looks and being noticed by someone else who has real power. By contrast a Mormon young man or Barbie had many other ways to gain self-worth, so they weren’t nearly as insecure about their looks.

High school ended, I graduated from college, got married and had three kids. When I was thirty two years old, I read this brief story in a packet of material produced by Ordain Women:

I remember reading this story and thinking to myself, huh – that’s uncomfortable. Patriarchy sounds kind of crappy when you put it that way. 

Just like Ken when he found books on patriarchy at the library and was introduced to the idea, this was my first time exploring the concept as an adult woman. I googled phrases like “Is patriarchy a bad thing?”. As both Ken and I embarked on our respective journeys to learn about patriarchy, he became more and more excited and I became more and more ill at ease. My entire life I’d only heard variables of the word “patriarchy” in positive contexts – patriarchal blessings, patriarch of the home, stake patriarch, the patriarchal grip. Nobody had ever suggested it wasn’t the best way to live life to me until I started reading an entire internet full of reasons why it might not be.

Not very long before my personal patriarchy deep dive was the first Wear Pants to Church Day by Mormon feminists in late 2012, when I was thirty one. I lingered after Sunday School that day chatting with a male neighbor, friend, high councilman (and future bishop) of mine. This man asked me for my opinion on Pants Day, and I told him, “I love wearing dresses, actually. I like to get dressed up and feel girly, and Sunday is my only day to really do that. I don’t want to wear pants on Sundays!” As soon as the words had left my mouth, I knew that I was oversimplifying the entire movement, and that I’d just told a man what I knew he’d want to hear from me rather than really investigating the ideas and forming my own opinion on the matter. I had picked the answer the patriarchy expected from me, even though I hadn’t quite learned what the patriarchy was yet. My instinct told me this was a man on his way up the priesthood leadership ladder, and I wanted him to have a good opinion of me.

So when I hear an LDS woman exclaim, “I love the way this church treats women!” I have so much compassion and understanding for that statement, even though I disagree. I would’ve said the exact same thing myself right up to the day I first googled “Is patriarchy bad?”. Ken would’ve said he was very happy any day that Barbie had acknowledged him. He had no idea he could even wish for something better than that.

In 2004 when I was twenty three years old, I gave the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting on the day a high councilman was speaking. It was right before Thanksgiving, and in my prayer I said, “Please bless President Hinckley, as this is his first holiday season without his wife.’ Plenty of time passed during the meeting between my prayer and the high councilman’s talk, but to my delight he opened his remarks by saying that my prayer had been beautiful and inspiring to him, and that it hadn’t even occurred to him to think about our prophet having his first Thanksgiving as a widower until I brought it up.

This praise probably lasted, I don’t know … twenty seconds? And yet, I remember it almost two decades later because I was so honored to be noticed by a higher up male leader. I realize today that this was an example of younger me figuring out a way to please the patriarchy. When I was noticed and acknowledged by a member of the bishopric, I felt delighted, just like Ken when Barbie waved at him. Likewise failed attempts to be noticed were disappointing to both myself and Ken. (And yes, I know that men also try to please male authorities, but the enormous difference between men and women is that a man might actually *be* in that authority position someday himself. He might be called to work with the man in that position as his counselor. He might’ve already spent years in the same position already. He belongs to the same quorum as that man and attends classes and activities and plays basketball with him. It’s worlds away from a woman’s experience, as she will forever have zero personal access to the power that man holds.)

One thing I really appreciated about the Barbie movie is that it came right out and used the word patriarchy over and over again. It didn’t tiptoe around anything or try to be super subtle. We live in a patriarchy – at school, in government, in city council meetings, in law enforcement, in the film industry, and in the most extreme example of all – our church. With so many younger girls seeing Barbie this year, I am now hopeful that very few will reach the age of 32 and still need to ask Google to explain patriarchy to them like I did. And hey, those girls might decide for now that patriarchy is God ordained and the order of heaven and that they’re perfectly okay with it. But at least going forward from here, they’ll be able to label the system they live in rather than just existing in it – and that is the first necessary step to taking control of their own futures as women in our society.

How hard is it to find garment-unfriendly men’s business wear?

Image by Mark G, CC BY-NC 2.0

I loved Laura’s By Common Consent post How hard is it to find a garment-friendly dress? She filtered through Macy’s online catalog and found the percentage of dresses that would be garment-compatible off the rack. (It’s a low number. Go read her article to see it.)

I wondered what percentage of men’s clothing marketed as business wear or formal attire (i.e. clothing that might be worn to church or a wedding) was not garment compatible. I examined the Macy’s catalog to stay consistent with the market of the other article. I looked at three categories of men’s clothing: pants, suits, and shirts. All numbers are pulled from August 4th/5th.

In the category “Dress Pants” all 185 options looked garment friendly.

There were 431 options in “Suits & Tuxedos”. There was one suit that had been tagged as being “sleeveless”, but whoever tagged that must have been thinking of the vest that goes under the long sleeved jacket. I quickly scrolled through all 431 options (because none of the other filtering options would have eliminated garment appropriateness), but zero choices looked incompatible with men’s garments, assuming they are worn with a dress shirt.

Shirts got a little more complicated. The other article used a definition of garment friendly that required opaque fabric to cover the entire garment. Men’s short sleeve dress shirts are often worn without a tie and with the top button or two undone. A man who opts to wear a crew neck style garment top with the shirt unbuttoned this way may be exposing the neckline of his garment. However, because it is socially acceptable for men to expose the garment neckline in this way, and a man could also opt to wear a different garment style with a lower neckline or button the shirt up all the way, I’m still going to consider these shirts “garment-friendly”. My search found 505 items in the “Dress Shirts” category. I know men sometimes have a problem with garment sleeves poking out of a short sleeved shirt. While it was possible to filter the “Dress Shirts” category by sleeve length, only 20 shirts were labeled “short sleeve” and 26 “long sleeve”, so I looked through all 505 shirts. It looked reasonable to expect the sleeves to cover the garment in every picture where the sleeves were visible. The necklines all seemed fine with the possible exception of two Hawaiian style shirts where it was unclear whether or not it would be possible to button the ironed down collar. Two out of 505 is 0.4%. And it would still be socially acceptable to wear those shirts with the garment showing.

While button down dress shirts are most common at church, sometimes men wear things like polo shirts. Macy’s had 2948 choices. Polo shirts have a wider variety of sleeve length than dress shirts. I asked my husband to judge whether or not each of the first 120 shirts listed could be worn with garments completely covered. He guessed that there were maybe 3 shirts where the garment sleeves would not be covered. Assuming all three would have sleeves that are too short, and assuming that the rest of the polo shirts have a similar fraction of shirts with shorter than average sleeves, 2.5% of the polo shirts would not be garment friendly.

Even if I include all men’s shirts (athletic wear, jerseys, tank tops, undershirts, etc.) and assume that 3% of the short sleeve shirts will show garments, only 7.3% of the total men’s shirts would be “immodest”. Over 90% of all the men’s shirts in the store are garment-ready, and the ones that are not would be easy to sort out simply because if it has sleeves, it’s probably fine.

If we combine the options of dress shirts and polo shirts, 2.2% of the available Sunday shirts at Macy’s might not be able to cover the garment. That means that 97.8% of the shirts and 100% of the pants and suits that a man might buy for church would be compatible with his garments. By comparison, the percentage of garment-compatible dresses was in the single digits. (Really. Go read her numbers.)

Just because that small fraction of available dresses are garment-compatible, it does not mean they fit the woman, or are appropriate for her desired use of the item. Last spring I was looking for a new top or two to refresh my wardrobe. I wanted something short-sleeved and nicer than a plain t-shirt. I had gone to two thrift stores and hadn’t had any luck. When my mother-in-law took the family to Macy’s for shopping, I tried on at least a dozen potentially-garment-covering tops (it can be hard to judge on the hanger just how low the v-neck is, or if the cap sleeves will cover garments). Only three of the shirts fit me, and only one of those was garment-friendly. The color was unspectacular with my skin tone. The fabric was heavy. The sleeves had layers of sweaty ruffles. It might have been a good shirt for wearing in an overly air conditioned office, but it was not a good shirt for wearing outside to enjoy a warm summer day. At this point I had looked for three hours in three stores for a shirt. I decided I was tired of using an immodest amount of time to look for “modest” clothing. I chose to get one of the shirts that was not garment-friendly.

Even though men’s garments and women’s garments cover similar proportions of their bodies, equality is not equity. A man can walk into a store and be assured that practically any dress shirt in his size will fit his body and cover his garments, even without trying it on. A woman may need to spend hours locating a comparable item. Looking at my new shirt, my husband was surprised that it did not cover the garment. He was also concerned that I chose to buy it. He’s a good man. He listened to my shopping experience. He recognized that he has never had a similar experience, and he wouldn’t want to be expected to put in that amount of effort to obtain “appropriate” clothing. He supports my decision. The gendered context in which men and women purchase clothing is very different. Finding garment-friendly clothing is significantly more burdensome for women than it is for men. To reiterate, Laura found the percentage of garment-friendly dresses at Macy’s to be in the single digits. I found the percentage of garment-friendly dress shirts to be in the high nineties. It’s harder to find a “garment-unfriendly” dress shirt than it is to find a “garment-friendly” dress. Impossible beauty standard # 539937: look feminine, but wear underwear that only works consistently with clothing that is similar to a man’s.

The LDS Church Gave Me Inadequate Career Advice

When I was about 9 or 10 years old I asked my mom why the church had a Boy Scouts program but not a Girl Scouts program. She told me, “Girl Scouts focuses on teaching girls to want careers. But the church wants girls to be moms.”

I wish she’d added something like, “but girls can be moms and have a career. Look at me, I’m your mom and I also do ______.”

But she didn’t add that second part, because in her world women, especially women with children, shouldn’t have careers.

I heard that message throughout my childhood and teenage years. The message came from my mom, both in word and deed. It was also heavily reinforced by the Young Women program.

In the Young Women program I often heard phrases like, “you’ll want an education, but only so you can fall back on it if your husband dies or you get a divorce.”

Death and divorce. Those were the only two reasons I was ever told a woman would actually need a career.

When I went to college I agonized over whether it would even be worth it. I was brilliant and could have studied anything, but I felt the weight of all those Young Women lessons and the expectations of my parents. Get an education, but don’t actually have any ambitions. You’re really supposed to be a stay at home mom in a few years anyway.

As I look back over the 20 years since I went to college, I realize how inadequate that advise was. Going to school just so I had something to fall back on “in case my husband died or we got divorced” hardly covered the many different life scenarios I’ve experienced. Here are a few things I wish my parents and Young Women leaders had added to the list of reasons why it was a good idea to have a career plan.

You might not get married – I didn’t meet my husband until I was nearly done with my Bachelors Degree. I was beginning to contemplate what my life would look like post-graduation if I was single. I’m sorry to say I’d never imagined that I’d make it through school without getting married. I was both excited and terrified of the possibility of being able to pick anywhere I wanted to live and work without considering a spouse’s needs.

You might need to work while your husband finishes school – I graduated before my husband did. I worked for two years while he finished his Bachelors Degree. I’ll admit this had been presented as a kind of a third option along with death and divorce as to why women could have jobs. But it wasn’t exactly framed as a career path when anyone talked about putting their husband through school. It was more as “it’s okay to have a small job for a little while so that you can help your husband through school. Then he’ll get a good paying job and you never have to work again.”

You might not have children – My husband and I went through a small degree of infertility. We were married for almost three years before I was able to get pregnant. I wanted children so those years of infertility were hard. I’m so glad I had meaningful work to do during those years. Why hadn’t my leaders brought up infertility as a possible reason to want a career? Infertility affects so many women. But the picture of my future that I was sold in the Young Women program completely ignored that.

You might have children close together and then be ready to re-enter the workforce withing a few years – When my body did figure out how to have babies it went ALL in. I had twin girls followed by a baby boy 17 months later, and then a baby girl 17 months after that. That’s four children in three years! I became a stay at home mom almost by default.

Those early baby years were intense. I couldn’t imagine working during those years. As time went on though I realized that because my children were so close in age they would all enter school within a few years of each other. The older three actually all started Pre-K together. When the twins were six I went back to work part time and have continued to work part time.

If my body had followed more traditional baby spacing I guess I’d still have younger children at home right now. Instead all my children have been in school for the past four years. I can’t even fathom what my life would look like without a job to keep me engaged while they are in school.

You might need to work while your husband goes back to school – When we talked about marriage in the Young Women program we always seemed to dream up husbands who had perfect jobs and never were out of work. That might have been because I grew up in the United States in the prosperous 1990s. But it was very short sighted. My husband graduated from college into one of the worst labor markets the US had seen in decades. He ended up joining the Army because that was the best career move he could make. When he got out of the Army he went back to school. I worked nearly full time while he was in school.

You might need to work while your husband is between jobs – Even after my husband graduated with his second degree he’s struggled to find long term employment. He’s a skilled worker, but life isn’t fair and things don’t always work out the way you plan. He’s worked for five different companies since graduating four years ago. He’s never out of work for very long so I’ve been able to stay with my part time job. It’s nice to know that I could get a full time job if he was unable to find work.

Your husband might be underemployed – Again, the imaginary husbands that we conjured up in class in Young Women always made a ton of money. We never talked about the fact that sometimes people aren’t paid what they are worth. There have been times that my husband hasn’t made as much money as is standard for his industry. That was frustrating, but thankfully we had my income to help offset his lower income.

You can make just as much money as your husband – Over the years, my husband and I often talked about flipping our roles. That maybe he would be the one who stayed home/worked part time while I went back to work full time. We even did that in the months between when he left the Army and started school. But it didn’t feel like a good long term plan. He could make more money than me in his industry than I could in mine – or so I thought. I was shocked when my boss gave me a raise to the amount that my husband was currently making per hour. Granted – this was during one of his periods of underemployment. Still, it was a wake up call to me. I could make as much money as my husband. This is actually one of the things that spurred me to get my second Bachelors Degree.

You might need to work for your mental health – This is a lesson I learned as a teenager. But I don’t think it was intentional. The story isn’t quite mine to share so I’ll be vague. Someone close to me had a mental breakdown when their youngest child went to school. This person hadn’t had any plan for what life looked like after raising all their little kids. Hours home alone every day took a toll on their already fragile mental state and this person ended up in the mental hospital. After completing time there, they needed to work in order to pay the medical bills. Maybe the treatment helped, but from my outside perspective it was the job that helped restore this person’s mental health.

The lesson I took away from that was stay at home mom = fragile mental health. While working mom = good mental health. Maybe it’s simplistic, but that’s what I observed. And that’s what spurred me to go to college and get a good degree in the first place. It’s what helped me to have a plan to go back to work when my kids were older. It’s what prompted me to get my first post-children job when I started to feel my mental health slipping as a stay at home mom.

The world needs your contributions – At church I was always told that my primary purpose in life was to raise good children. And yes that is very important. But guess what, I’m more than just a mother. I’m also an intelligent women who is very skilled. I’ve been at my current job for nearly four years. I’m integral to the success of the small company where I work. Because I’m good at my job, the people I work with are able to focus on their jobs. I find a lot of fulfillment and meaning in doing good work. Unlike my mom I can tell my children “Look at me. I’m your mom and I also do ______.”

What would you add to this list? I’ve presented things that I wish my parents and Young Women leaders had talked about when they gave reasons why a women should prepare for a career. But this is just my perspective as a married, straight, white women. I’m curious about your perspective. What do you wish the adults in your life told you as you contemplated a career? Did your mother give you good advise? Did your Young Women leaders talk to you about having a career only in case of death or divorce – or did they allow for more variation in life experience? Please share in the comments. I really want to know.

Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash

Subscribe to Exponent II’s New Podcast

Exponent II has a podcast–Xpod2! Join Ramona (blogger), Heather (former magazine editor, blogger, board historian), and Carol Ann (magazine managing editor) for a fun, conversation podcast featuring Mormon/LDS feminism. Exponent II online events are also recorded into podcast episodes, including craft writing workshops and magazine launch parties. 

Episodes have included our discussion of romance novels, interviews with feminist historians Nancy Ross and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the art of revision craft writing workshop with Dayna Patterson, and the Summer 2023 Magazine launch party, celebrating the contributing writers and artists for the upcoming Summer 2023 issue of the magazine. 

Find us by searching “Xpod2” wherever you listen to podcasts; here are the direct links for 

Apple and Spotify.

Have a question you want us to explore on the podcast? Send us a voice memo or email to podcast(at)exponentii.org 

The Parable of the Wendy’s Cheeseburger

We hadn’t eaten breakfast, it was lunchtime, we had 35 minutes to get to the temple, and the drive would take roughly 25 minutes. If that’s not a recipe for a Wendy’s drive through moment, I don’t know what is.

As we jammed over to the Wendy’s and waited in line, my husband popped out his phone, because he’s a strong believer in coupons when one purchases fast food. While we waited in the line to order, he showed me a coupon for a generic cheeseburger and asked me if I wanted that. Time was of the essence, so even though I didn’t particularly want the cheeseburger, I shrugged assent and we pulled up to order. 

I was only half listening until I heard the words “bacon,” “chicken,” and “Asiago Cheese.” “I want that!” I blurted.

My husband side eyed me in surprise. I was changing my order after having ordered and he was annoyed. We pulled up to pay for the cheeseburger and the deluxe chicken sandwich. “I didn’t know that was an option. You only showed me one coupon,” I explained in my defense.

He offered to switch orders, but I declined because he had ordered the spicy version and I would have preferred the standard version. After scarfing while driving, and a moment to think about what had transpired, my spouse said he was sorry. He didn’t know what he had been thinking to shortchange me with a substandard meal choice other than he had been in a hurry. I didn’t know what I had been thinking, except that I felt compelled to passively accept what was offered to me due to the rush.

In the way of parables, this story is supposed to show something for “those who have ears to hear.”

I hesitate to insist on an official interpretation of my story, though some themes of power and agency, gendered socialization, and self-advocacy stand out. This experience happened a few years back, but I find myself returning to it again and again. It makes me laugh. It makes me think.

When I say yes simply to please another person, why should I feel this overwhelming pressure to be agreeable and accommodating? Who benefits when a person doesn’t feel they are able to ask for more than they’ve been offered? What if the person who doesn’t feel they can ask for more is a person of color and/or identifies as LGBTQIA and/or is female?

What happens when we don’t know what we don’t know? What happens when the people with knowledge and power aren’t sharing their knowledge or reserve their knowledge for themselves?

What happens when it’s not a silly burger, but dignity, equality, respect, and empowerment at stake?

I leave you to your interpretation.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Men are More than Priesthood Vessels, Providers, and Presiders

Men are more than priesthood vessels, providers, and presiders. My husband is the best man I know, and he is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He does not hold Priesthood authority, has never been baptized, and does not attend church unless I’m giving a talk or singing or there’s some special reason to go. We both “provide” for our family, and we both “preside” in our home.

If some General Conference talks and the Family Proclamation were one’s only guide, then men aren’t supposed to be like my husband. They’re vessels for the Priesthood, administering blessings and fulfilling callings that (supposedly) only they can do. They’re providers, narrowly interpreted to mean primary wage-earners for their nuclear families. They’re presiders, authorities at church and home to whom the rest of us can – or rather must – defer to and rely on for leadership.

This is the double-edged sword of patriarchy. It objectifies and essentializes women in a million ways, but it objectifies and essentializes men in different ways. How many times have you heard someone compliment (or insult) a man in terms of his patriarchal roles? Here are some I’ve heard:

“He’s a good provider. He always made sure he made enough money so his wife wouldn’t have to work.”“I feel so bad for that family. Ever since their dad left the church, they haven’t had the Priesthood in the home.”“I’m worried about men these days. How are they supposed to preside if they’re so weak and soft?”“People make such rude comments about my husband because he’s not a returned missionary. I mean, come on, he holds the Priesthood! It’s not like he’s a non-member or inactive. That’s what matters.”“He hasn’t held a calling in a while. He’s wasting his Priesthood potential.”“Are you sure your husband should be the one staying home with the kids? Have you read the Family Proclamation?”

The list goes on and on (and please share more quotes you’ve heard in the comments). Men should not be defined by their religious roles but by who they are. If you tell me what you love about your husband or father or other man in your life, the list of reasons shouldn’t be interchangeable with any of the other men you love or any generic active man in the church. If the list of reasons you love him are interchangeable, then it sounds to me like you love his position and his access to power more than you love him as a whole person. And that’s the result of a patriarchal system that reduces people to their prescribed roles.

Look no further than the Eternal Marriage Student Manual section on Men’s Divine Roles and Responsibilities to confirm that this is not merely a handful of people misinterpreting the messaging from the church, but rather something the church needs to work on as a whole. You can see a few select quotes with my commentary below:

“Brethren, we are not doing our duty as holders of the priesthood when we go beyond the marriageable age and withhold ourselves from an honorable marriage to these lovely women” → Is there a “marriageable age,” and do men owe it to us women to get married for our sakes?“The Lord organized the whole program in the beginning with a father who procreates, provides, and loves and directs, and a mother who conceives and bears and nurtures and feeds and trains” → These gender distinctions seem arbitrary to me. Don’t men and women do pretty much all of those verbs?“Your occupation should be honorable and should provide sufficiently to meet the needs of your family. Are your duties and labors undertaken with a joyful and thankful spirit? Do your wife and children feel secure because you feel good about your occupation? Do you practice frugality and thrift and avoid debt by living within your income, your tithed income? Do your wife and children feel a sense of tradition and stability because the family home is not relocated on a whim, for unsound reasons?” → Fewer and fewer men find that their occupation can provide sufficiently for their family’s needs alone. Fewer and fewer families find that they even want to make the man’s occupation provide for their family alone.“With the assistance and counsel and encouragement of your eternal companion, you preside in the home. It is not a matter of whether you are most worthy or best qualified, but it is a matter of law and appointment. You preside at the meal table, at family prayer. You preside at family home evening; and as guided by the Spirit of the Lord, you see that your children are taught correct principles. It is your place to give direction relating to all of family life” → Even if my husband was a member, I’m not interested in being his spiritual sidekick. Also, does he really need to preside over me in everything, even at the meal table?

It’s not all bad. There are parts of that manual that are beautiful, including important messages for men to hear. But too much of it reduces men to specific, narrow roles and obligations they have to others. I actually like the scripture it cites much better, as it doesn’t take such a reductive view: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile” (D&C 121: 41-42). As this scripture teaches us, even when men need to obtain power or influence to do something in the world they should do so by being persuasive, long-suffering, gentle, meek, loving, kind, and knowledgeable – not by bludgeoning people over the metaphorical head with their Priesthood title.

Because I’m in a mixed-faith marriage and have a son, many people ask me whether I plan to raise him in the church. This is something my husband and I discussed many times prior to marriage. Thankfully, we both came from mixed-faith households where we were free to choose our religious beliefs or non-belief. We want the same opportunity for our son. But on top of that, I want him to know that I will never see him as just a Priesthood vessel, provider, and presider-in-training. I will not pin our family’s salvation on his strict observance of the religion I chose. I will not enlist him in the conversion of my husband. I will not tell him to get married by a certain age because he owes it to a certain woman to give her the gift of the Priesthood, a provider, and a presider in her home. I will not make him responsible for cutting the contours of who he knows he is to fit in the box some believe all men should occupy. He is worthy of so much more than that.