A few days ago, Peggy Fletcher Stack reported in a Salt Lake Tribunearticle that wards in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Relief Society presidents had been sitting on the stand during sacrament meeting, were told to stop this by the area president. She also reports that many women, both in the area, and in other places, are unhappy with the change. For example, over at the Exponent, Kelly Ann posted her letter to the area presidency, and pointed out that one of the people quoted in the Tribune article is also collecting letters to send.
I share the frustration of the women and girls quoted in the article. It’s sad that such a tiny step toward showing women in a position of authority was something that the area president felt the need to put an end to.
But I’m also utterly unsurprised at the area president’s response. It’s just another exhibit to add to the long list that shows that patriarchy is truly one of the core values of the Church. We might have documents like the Articles of Faith to tell us what our core values are, at least in theory. But what values does the organization of the Church exhibit? Statements like scriptures or proclamations tell, but our practices show much more clearly. And we have so, so many practices that show that the GAs have patriarchy as a default assumption. Men’s Church participation is assumed and requires no comment; women’s participation is unusual and requires consideration and explanation.
With the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, leaving the question of abortion up to individual states, many American Mormons are celebrating the chance they have to live in a state that bans all (or nearly all) abortions. The Church’s official position allows for abortion under some circumstances, which makes it not consistent with such blanket bans. So why the inconsistency? Why, when the official position allows for some exceptions, are so many Church members excited to have all abortions banned?
A few years ago, I wrote a post where I asked this question and suggested an answer based on reviewing a bunch of Church rhetoric around abortion. I concluded that while GAs wrote the exceptions, their rhetoric constantly minimizes their occurrence, making them seem so rare as to be negligible.
Today I want to consider another line of explanation in addition: Church rhetoric on other issues—I’m taking modesty as an example—is based on a deeply patriarchal worldview that is straightforward to apply to abortion too. Note, just to be clear, that I’m not arguing that the Church’s stance on modesty causes its (or its members’) stance on abortion. I’m just saying that they’re both driven by the same underlying stance on women, so when GAs talk about one issue, it’s easy for members to understand the worldview and generalize it to another issue.
Here are some points of similarity I’m thinking of:
Men’s responsibility is ignored.
In Church modesty rhetoric, there is lots of discussion of women (and girls) needing to dress a particular way to avoid giving men (and boys) sexual thoughts or ideas about their sexual availability. There is no discussion of the need for men to stop themselves from objectifying women, regardless of how they’re dressed. (This is in contrast, of course, to Jesus’s famous admonition that “if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out . . .”)
It’s easy to see how this line of thinking lines up with abortion too. Nearly all pregnancies result from an act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, but anti-abortion rhetoric focuses pretty much completely on women. Sex is something that just happens, and so is pregnancy. Men’s participation is ignored. It’s assumed that if women don’t want to be pregnant, it’s on them to prevent it from happening. The whole topic of abortion isn’t even brought up until there’s a pregnancy.
The same line of thinking plays out in the Church too. Men are never reminded not to pressure their partners into unwanted sex or into unwanted pregnancy. In fact, given that couples are told to work out their childbearing decisions between themselves and God, but husbands are also told they’re to preside over their families, it seems likely that the effect in many families is that husbands dictate to wives how many children they will be bearing. Also, needless to say given that even these topics aren’t discussed, men are certainly never told explicitly not to commit rape.
As someone who’s been raising questions about LDS teachings and practices pretty much since my Primary days, I find that one of the most infuriating responses to people’s concerns is something along the lines of, “you just don’t understand,” whether the gospel generally or the specific principle being discussed. Because if you did understand, it seems to be assumed, you would cheerfully accept it, no more questions needed thank you very much. In years of feminist discussions, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been told that women who are discontent “just don’t understand” the true, eternal nature of patriarchy; or the meaning of divine gender roles; or the many opportunities the church gives to women. When people try to clear up complicated issues by producing a slew of GA quotes that purportedly explain everything, I find myself at a real loss as to how to best respond.Read More
Agency is central to LDS theology. We fought a war in the pre-mortal existence to preserve it, and it is an essential part of becoming like God. For this reason, one of the aspects of patriarchy that I find most disturbing is the way in which it affects agency, particularly female agency.
To make sense of this assertion, I need to start with a discussion of the nature of freedom. Mormons as well as other moderns tend to have what is called in theology a Pelagian understanding of freedom, as advocated by the early fifth-century Christian thinker Pelagius in his ongoing dispute with the well-known theologian Augustine. For Pelagius, freedom means the absolute ability to choose good or evil. The will is neutral, un-inclined in either direction, and entirely autonomous. Although in reality all humans fall short, perfection is in fact within human reach—there is no reason why a human being could not in theory make all the right choices. Sin is external to the will, something we choose; it does not infect the will itself.Read More
I detest strawberries. I shudder when I see my sisters eating them by the handful, or chopping them up for their cereal. I pick them out of salad so as not to ruin the flavor of the other ingredients. And I am horrified when people waste perfectly good chocolate by slathering it on strawberries. Since I’m also not fond of raspberries or tomatoes, a friend once accused me of having a phobia of red fruits. This is demonstrably false, as I will cheerfully eat a cherry or a red delicious apple. But keep the strawberries far from me.Read More
Midway through my mission, I was transferred into an area and took over teaching the new member discussions to a recent convert, a young single mother with one child. The father of her baby was an immigrant who had married a local in order to get citizenship; he had never slept with the woman he married or even lived in the same house with her, but he had to maintain his “marriage” on paper in order to stay in the country. Because of this, he could not marry our recent convert, the mother of his child. This situation was, sadly, quite common.
Shortly after she was baptized, he came over to her apartment uninvited, drunk, and raving, and slapped her around. I do not know what he was angry about, but she showed me the bruises on her body. Later that night, they slept together.Read More
In the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, the Emperor is fooled by some charlatans into paying a lot of money for some invisible clothes. As he parades through the town in his underwear, the cowed crowds lining the street applaud and praise his marvelous new clothes. It is not until a boy yells out, “The Emperor has no clothes!”, that everyone finally acknowledges this truth.
I was reminded of this story when my wife, a Young Womens’ leader, related her latest Sunday experience. In the new youth curriculum, the June lessons are about the Priesthood. So, this week the Young Women’s president asked a couple of male leaders to come talk to all the girls about the Priesthood.Read More
This ended up a little longer than I’d intended, but I like my findings too much to trim it down. If you’re not totally entranced by descriptive lexicography, I can’t say I understand, because I don’t (what’s wrong with you?); however, I can suggest that you read the first two paragraphs, the bolded paragraph in the middle, and the last four or five. You’ll get the argument I’m making, if not the methodology, or the fun.
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The comments on Apame’s fine post below have turned me to this question, and rather than threadjack her understandable envy of those who get to fine-tune their own wedding vows, I thought I’d give it its own post. Because honestly, I’m not sure I know what this word means. Read More
As a feminist, I frequently blog about what I see as the problematic elements of patriarchy. However, I realize that many members of the Church (not to mention Church leaders!) see the situation quite differently. So I thought it might be interesting to simply see what I could come up with as far as potential costs and benefits of a patriarchal system. I realize that given my own views on this topic, there’s probably no way I can do this in a fair manner, but I’ll give it my best shot, and trust our astute readers to correct any misperceptions and point out things that I’ve overlooked.Read More
