Commenting on Seraphine’s Healing the Breach post at Times and Seasons, bbell asked this question:
If as you claim the LDS church is so alienating for women then why does it seem from all I have ever read that there are more active women then men? It would seem to me that men are being more alienated.
This seems like a reasonable point. Read More
(I originally posted this on my individual blog, from which I am currently taking a hiatus. I’ve revised it slightly and am reposting it here because I wanted a wider audience for my thoughts. Enjoy!)
There was a post on Feminist Mormon Housewives earlier this year (in response to a post on a conversation in other feminist blogs about women, beauty, compliments, derogatory comments, feminism, and other related matters) that got me thinking about the issues of beauty and power and how they play out in women’s lives, both inside and outside of the church. Read More
I’ve been in Utah for the last several weeks, and yesterday I was able to attend a couple of Sunstone sessions, including the panel on Mormon Feminist Bloggers. It was really fun to put faces with some familiar names. I’m a little behind on sleep–it’s been a bit of a crazy week, and I’m about to leave to drive back to California. But here are some of my hopefully not too incoherent notes on what was said. Read More
Which is your favorite?
1. Choose a word that is easier to redefine (my suggestions would be “dominion” or “superpower”). Replace “preside” with this word, and redefine this word to mean “equality.” Read More
One of the things that we sometimes discuss in my Women’s Studies classes is the issue of language. Many feminists critique the use of “man” or “mankind” to refer to men and women, the use of “he” as a generic pronoun, etc. Feminists argue that inequality in language occurs on a spectrum of related discriminations, and you can’t eliminate all discrimination if you don’t address all the contributing practices (including things that may seem inconsequential, such as using the term “mankind”). I see a lot of resistance in my classes to this argument. The students recognize that there’s an inequality in language use, but they just don’t see why it matters. According to them, this language doesn’t hurt anyone. Many of the female students in my classes admit that it’s not something that offends them, and so they don’t see why we need to change our language use. Read More
I was an emotionally sensitive child, and I’m an emotionally sensitive adult. Despite the many years I spent trying to shut down my emotions, and despite my proclivities for philosophy and rational argument, I am easily upset by the daily events in my life. When I am extremely tired, I cry at the drop of a hat. When I am extremely stressed, I cry at the drop of a hat. I am also very easily affected by the emotional states of others.
I have a tense relationship with this aspect of myself. While I have grown to value the gifts I seem to possess of sensing and empathizing with the pain of others, I was raised to believe that having strong emotional reactions is a sign of weakness (I have been told too often throughout my life in a variety of ways to “buck up” and “get over my problems” because “crying doesn’t accomplish anything”). Growing up, I wanted to be more like my dad, who was strongly opinionated, mellow, and certainly not emotionally sensitive. In other words, I didn’t want to be one of those crazy “emotional women.” Read More
In the latest of Alexander McCall Smith’s absolutely delightful “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” books, Blue Shoes and Happiness, there’s a passage about feminism that I thought was hilarious. The character Phuti Radiphuti, a rather shy, earnest man, who is engaged to Mma. Makutsi, is contemplating: Read More
I’ve heard it said that all women, regardless of whether they have children, are mothers. (Sheri Dew’s oft-quoted talk on the subject a few years ago is a well-known instance of this point of view.) While I appreciate the inclusive intent behind it, I have some serious reservations about such a claim. Read More
It’s now been almost two years since I received my endowment, and these have been, without question, the least religious two years of my life.
I was not a closet feminist before my temple experience. I was quite upfront with my bishop about the fact that I think there’s no good reason for women not to hold the priesthood, and how I pray the Proclamation on the Family is uninspired. I took the temple prep class four times over the course of several years, and drove a series of teachers crazy with questions. (Why are ordinances necessary, anyway?) Read More
In writing papers for school, I continually find myself confronted with questions about language and gender. Like most of the academic world, I pretty much take it for granted that saying “man” and “he” simply isn’t going to cut it if I’m talking about the entire human race. The lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular is awkward at times– my own preference is usually to alternate between “she” and “he”– but I’m very much a believer in the importance of not writing as if all humans were male. Read More
I’ve been a teaching assistant for an introductory Women’s Studies class the past few semesters. Last semester I had a rewarding and thought-provoking experience (I’ve actually had many, but I’m going to talk about one in particular) with one of my sections. We were talking one week about art and activism and the ways in which women have used art to represent their lives and make feminist statements. I think the reading prompted the students to consider how to negotiate feminism in their own lives because one student expressed frustration with translating the ideas from class into her lived experience. She was trying to deal with friends dismissing her by saying things like “Oh, there she goes again with her feminist complaints about patriarchy,” and she wanted to know what to say in these situations; basically, she wanted to know how to communicate the ideas she learned in class and have people actually listen. We talked in class some about that frustration, and ended up bringing the conversation back to the art we were discussing–how the women artists used humor, creativity, and personal experiences to reach their audience (rather than just angry ranting). Read More
Last night I read again in 3 Nephi 28 about the three Nephite disciples who didn’t dare tell Christ what they most desired, leaving him to read the thoughts and the sorrows of their hearts. I won’t pretend that my desires are anything like theirs, but their fear to speak their own deepest yearnings lays bare something in me. Read More