Zelophehad's Daughters

First: What happens on the bloggernacle, stays on the bloggernacle.

Second: The latest comment will be more controversial than the original post.

Third: The current post is more important to us than whatever we said last week.

Fourth: If the prophet leads the church astray, the bloggernacle will be sure to point it out. (Also, even if he doesn’t.)

Fifth: The commenter is not required to have any particular credentials or training in order to call the original poster to repentance.

Sixth: The commenter does not have to say “This is just my opinion” for it to be just her opinion.

Seventh: Whether you need to know it, or want to know it, or wish you’d never heard it, you can find someone on the bloggernacle vehemently defending it.

Eighth: The feminism of the bloggernacle  is not limited by men’s reasoning.

Ninth: The bloggernacle  can start flame wars on any matter – temporal, spiritual, ontological, ecumenical, grammatical, fiscal, or edible.

Tenth: The blogger may be involved in your local congregation. (Little do you know!)

Eleventh: The two groups who have the most difficulty following the bloggernacle  are the proud who are Correlated and the proud who still have dial-up.

Twelfth: The bloggernacle will not be popular with the popular.

Thirteenth: The bloggernacle and its blogs make up the unwashed masses – the lowest quorum in the church.

Fourteenth: Threats will get you nowhere.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post titled “Why I Don’t Want to Believe In Heavenly Mother.” Basically, I argued that our teachings about Heavenly Mother in their current form raise more feminist problems than solve them, and I concluded, “I sometimes think I might rather deal with the difficulties of no Heavenly Mother at all, than with the challenges posed by the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother who is irrelevant to the Plan of Salvation, and who is either unable or unwilling to communicate with her children.”

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We are excited to announce that after several years of discussing whether we should add new bloggers but never getting around to it (in classic ZD fashion), we have recruited two new bloggers: Apame and Petra.

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In the past couple of years, I’ve presented at quite a few Mormon Studies kinds of conferences. Almost all of them have been recorded–some just with audio, but some with video as well. (I’ve found this far more common in the Mormon Studies conferences I’ve attended than ones in my academic field more generally, which is why I mention them specifically.) I can appreciate why this is done; there are a lot more people who are interested in hearing what happens at these events than are able to actually attend, and from that perspective, it’s great to have the material available. Read More

The last two months of my life have seen a complete transformation. My experiment with on-line dating led to a relationship this summer, and recently, in an unexpected turn of events, my significant other and I got engaged. It’s been a crazy whirlwind, but in a completely wonderful way. Read More

Not Ophelia put up the text of President Benson’s 1987 talk about women not working outside the home over at FMH today. I had some thoughts after reading it, and I decided they were long and involved enough (and a little off-topic enough) that it would be better to put them up here as their own post. But they’re a reaction to the talk, so go read (or at least skim) it first.

While I always knew about this talk, I don’t recall ever being taught it much (though it’s possible I simply blew it off if/when it was taught and that’s why I don’t remember it), luckily. And I’m very grateful that my mother (who is very faithful, orthodox, conservative, and was always a SAHM mom) not only didn’t teach it, but didn’t listen to it. Or rather, that she didn’t let it keep her from making the choices that she thought were best for herself and her family. Read More

I’m at a point where I have never felt more free to choose the path I want my life to follow. In many ways, this is a wonderful thing, but my biggest dilemma is that I’m struggling to figure out what I want. I know I love teaching high school English and want to continue in this profession. And I know I eventually want marriage and motherhood. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about my patriarchal blessing, and doing some reevaluating. Read More

Check out this new blog–some academic-type Mormon women writing about women’s religious history, feminism, and other fun things. They’ve kicked things off with a discussion of the Pink Issue of Dialogue. Looks fabulous.