Censored: Mormon.org Profile

January 11, 2011 by 6 Comments

Guest Post by Jenne in response to the WAVE Call to Action to post a Mormon.org profile.

One of the questions available for members of the church to answer on Mormon.org is “What do Mormons believe about the nature of God?”

My answer:

“Mormons believe that God’s nature is that of the perfect parent. One of the greatest doctrines taught by the LDS church is that we believe we are loved by a Father and Mother in Heaven. Together, they love us with perfect knowledge of what we need to lead us to truth. They are patient, gentle, kind but firm and fair. Heavenly Father is attentive to our prayers (check for yahrzeit prayer here) and send the Spirit to guide and comfort us. He also sends his Spirit to others who will be guided to help and give us comfort in our struggles.”

Over a month later, it was still pending review.

I didn’t like the quandary that put me in. I didn’t feel like editing my response by cowing to the textbook answer; and it’s not something that I could argue with anyone. After a while, It seemed pretty clear to me that it was not going to be approved in that form and I wasn’t going to be hold the why’s behind it.

I toyed with the idea of leaving the answer the same but adding a personal experience to illustrate how I came to this belief and why it is so important to me spiritually. In the end that’s what I decided to do.

I did later find out that there had been a technical glitch with the system and my answer was never reviewed. In a way it was fortuitous, as I was given the opportunity to further reflect and add more detail and personal insight into my answer. It was a blessing to me to be able to bear testimony of Mother and Father in Heaven and to share my experiences of how I came to that testimony.

I’m pleased to report that my expanded answer was approved and is now available to view on my profile.

Mormons believe that God’s nature is that of the perfect parent. One of the greatest doctrines taught by the LDS church is that we believe we are loved by a Father and Mother in Heaven. Together, they love us with perfect knowledge of what we need to lead us to truth. They are patient, gentle, kind but firm and fair. Heavenly Father is attentive to our prayers and sends the Spirit to guide and comfort us. He also sends his Spirit to others who will be guided to help and give us comfort in our struggles.

Though I greatly mourned my father’s death, I had not had a good relationship with him when he was alive. Finding myself fatherless with no knowledge of my Father in Heaven, I yearned to know a father’s love. At first I thought it was very strange that Mormons called God “Heavenly Father” all the time. Then it grew on me when I realized that believing in a Heavenly Father meant I could come to know a perfect father and given the hope of the atonement of Christ, my father could become more perfect than he had been in life. I learned that God is a knowable, loveable personage that broke down my misconceptions about a Christian belief in God. Learning about the Mormon concept of the nature of God helped me embrace Christianity because Mormons reject the idea that God is a spirit, without passions, without body or shape.

Already having a nontraditional past and understanding of religion but valuing “truth wherever it can be found” the concept of Heavenly Mother, too, resounded strongly with me. Most Mormons first learn about Heavenly Mother in one of the LDS hymns which reads “In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason, truth eternal, tells me I’ve a mother there.” This concept made so much sense to me, and, I expect, to others who are coming from a pagan, earth-based religious background or who are familiar with the history of goddess worship throughout the centuries of the world. Its wonderful to me that neither gender is pushed aside for the other, but male and female reign together as divine beings.

In knowing about the existence of a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father, I have a better understanding of who I am as a daughter of God. Though not much is taught about Heavenly Mother, I envision a womanly goddess who is capable, strong, intelligent and all-knowing, creative, hardworking and infinitely loving: the perfect woman and mother and equal to power and ability to God the Father. The vision I have of Heavenly Father is gentle, loving, compassionate, all-knowing, patient and sensitive: the perfect man and father. In both, I find the parents I need to feel loved, comforted, guided and supported. I am able to learn how to be a better parent and partner to my husband because of the example I envision my heavenly parents set for me.

I find this experience frustrating and confusing, though in the end, I was glad to have the opportunity to bear testimony of Heavenly Mother, whom I feel is missing from my spiritual life and understanding. At this point, I have to be content with the idea I have of her in my heart and mind and pray that someday she will be more knowable.  I have faith that I will see her just as Eliza R. Snow describes in her hymn: “When I leave this frail existence, when I lay this mortal by; Father, Mother, may I meet you in your royal courts on high?” Yet, it’s with a pensive wistfulness that I hope to know her before then. And I hope for a church that openly recognizes, celebrates, seeks information about and teaches of her.

Note: This post has been edited to remove suggestion that Jenne’s profile was censored without communication as to why her answer was withheld. A technical glitch had prevented review of her response.

Filed Under: HOPE

Guest Post: Caring, Sharing, and Improving

December 15, 2010 by 5 Comments

by Sandra Jergensen

Sandra is a friend of several of the WAVE members and lives in Baltimore with her family. She was invited to share this story to illustrate how she helped create awareness regarding young women’s issues in the church.

Two months or so ago when Kathryn Soper’s article, “Why Standards Night is Substandard: Teaching Sexuality to Young Women” was published on Patheos, I read it and was really impressed. The article touched on things I experienced growing up but had never heard addressed in any standards night or lesson I attended. I then linked the article and posted it to my facebook account to share it with friends and family. The ideas were too important to keep to myself and I wanted to open a dialogue about a topic that I feel is really important and easily overlooked.

A few weeks ago I got an email from my dad asking for the link again, he had remembered the article and wanted to pass it along. My father is on the high council in his stake and works directly with the young women’s presidency, and they were planning their stake standards night. At the meeting when they, along with the young men’s presidency and stake presidency were deciding what to tailor their messages to fit, one person asked what do the young women need? It was quickly piped in that the girls are fine, and just need to watch themselves so the boys aren’t distracted. And that is when my father spoke up, recalling the article, saying that the young women shouldn’t be passed over in that fashion, and could he have everyone read an article his daughter had linked.
All agreed to read and reconvene.  My dad told me that everyone, the entire high coucil, stake presidency and young men and young women’s presidencies, had nothing but positive feedback. They were receptive, impressed and surprised, seeing the way sexuality and young women from an entirely different standpoint; something that was irrelevant at the last meeting.  And that was going to change the plans for the evening, something address that there is more to teen sex than just taming desire of volatile male libidos.
I was blown away; by my dad’s interest in something that concerns me, by his shared belief when he took the time to read the article, and his desire to pass the knowledge of the too often omissions in the way we teach chastity standards in the church. I am happy for the youth that will get the updated, improved and more applicable message in their standards nights.
I wish I could say I was responsible for all of the good that will come of this, but I’m not. I only did a simple thing: I shared something that mattered to me. It was a little thing that has meant so much.

Filed Under: HOPE

Guest Post: Temple Music

November 15, 2010 by 5 Comments

by Neylan McBaine

I have a confession: the music in the waiting chapel of the Salt Lake Temple drives me nuts. There I am, sitting reverently in my white dress, waiting for the session to start, and instead of a quiet atmosphere in which to ponder the reasons I came to the temple that day or even say a silent prayer, I am subjected to the kind of piped-in electric organ music that one might expect to hear in a funeral parlor.

As I sit there, trying to meditate but distracted by the wrong notes in the familiar hymns (the music must be played live somewhere by someone, since I hardly think there would be wrong notes in a recording), I figure I have three choices: I could resent that my religious institution forces its musical aesthetic on my personal worship and conclude that since I want to run from the musical choice I should run from the institution; I could ask the temple workers to turn it off and make a stink to the temple presidency; or I could stick my fingers in my ears so I don’t hear the music anymore and continue with my silent meditation.

If I chose to do the first — let my resentment of the imposed musical aesthetic lead to resentment of the institution — there would be no end to that slippery slope. I would start resenting many more of our cultural characteristics, mistakingly equating the questionable quality I perceive in them to questionable quality in our doctrine. From canned ham at Christmas parties to the invariably adorable treats of Young Women’s activities, our culture includes scads of quirky middle-class mid-century Americanisms that sometimes obscure our stated goal of saving souls.

This is a slippery slope that many members succumb to, understandably confusing discomfort with the institutional experience with discomfort with our doctrinal cannon. Although the  earthly experience should as closely as possible mirror the heavenly home our institution seeks to represent, it doesn’t always succeed for reasons of human error, personal taste, imperfect judgement and private corruption. My quibble in the temple is with the execution and presentation of the hymns, not the content of the hymns (to which I am personally devoted). If we can choose to control what we can and let the other stuff go, our experience within our institution will allow us to focus on the Savior, not the Spam.

I had a poignant experience a few years ago that helped fortify my understanding of our culture versus our doctrine and gave me hope that our future generations can successfully make this distinction. As a Juilliard- and Yale-trained musician, I was asked to give a class at a New England stake youth conference on music in the Church. I grew up speaking and playing the piano at firesides where my mother, a professional opera singer, offered her thoughts on the power of music to convey the Spirit. Music is utterly vital to my spiritual life, so talking on this subject comes easily to me. I have dozens of talks I’ve written on the history of the hymns, the power of the hymns, the importance of the classical repertoire in our worship, the triumverate communion that occurs between an individual and the group and God with congregational hymn singing… I could go on.

However, with this crowd of teenagers, I chose to take a different approach. I selected about 15 musical clips — ranging from Kanye West to Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Little Richard singing spirituals —  and I played each clip for the class. As we listened, I asked the kids to write down silently on a piece of paper whether they thought the music was “Sacred,” “sacred,” “neither,” or “both.” The results were astonishing.

Suffice it to say that very little of the “Sacred” music was also deemed “sacred,” meaning that those musical works that are categorized within the genre of Sacred music in a retail catalogue did not feel holy, or “sacred”, to their unique spiritual personalities. Several youths deemed every classical work played as “contrived” or “inauthentic,” thus driving away them farther away from a sense of the Spirit which they found more readily in music they defined as “real,” “pure,” and “natural.” Kanye West’s song, “Hey Mamma” was rated the most “sacred” song I played because of its sincere lyrics of gratitude for the singer’s mother and its soothing beat.

As our discussion progressed, I learned that these youths find peace and divine communion in very different places than I would expect with my own classical music training. Electronic instrumental music, with its ordered, patterned progressions, seemed especially meditative to my crowd. They dismissed some rock songs for their meaningless lyrics and embraced others for their messages, a surprise to me since I myself rarely pay attention to pop lyrics. But regardless of what I thought about their taste or how much I bemoaned the demise of classical music (subjects of another article!), I couldn’t deny the fact that these kids found the Lord’s presence in these unexpected places. They were hearing beauty, and they were letting it draw them closer to God.

We concluded our discussion by talking about why the Church has settled upon a certain musical aesthetic to represent “sacredness”. After all, many other denominations attract patrons with varied worship styles. (I know of one evangelical congregation that gives its members three different musical choices for Sunday worship: a room with a choir, a room with a jazz band and a room with a rock band.) I was encouraged by the practicality of their answers: We are a worldwide church that can come together over consistent applications of the hymns. The hymns are a tribute to our 19th century pioneer heritage. Chaos would ensue if we tried to appeal to 13 million people’s varying aesthetic tastes. We can ponder the lyrics of our songs, all of which have uplifting messages even if the style of the music doesn’t resonate. And most encouraging: We can recognize that we are responsible for our own communion with the Spirit and we are not spiritual outcasts if the certain chosen aesthetic doesn’t speak to us.

I know in reality the line will blur for some of these kids between their personal relationship with God and their cultural experience in the Church and that they will eventually forfeit one because of the other. But I like to think most of our rising generation will understand that our cultural quirks are themselves not absolute truths and that to equate the two would be to miss the mark.

So going back to my fidgety discomfort with the piped-in organ music, what about the second option? you ask. Why didn’t I ask the temple workers to turn it off so I and the other patrons could just enjoy the silence? The answer is I’m simply not that much of an activist. I prefer to work within the system, performing and supporting quality music (and silence where appropriate!) within the Church where I can and hoping that standard will permeate others’ experiences over time. Perhaps some day I’ll get up the nerve so say something to a temple worker — although I fear tearing some octogenarian temple patron away from meditating on those soothing sounds that remind him of singing hymns at his mother’s knee — but I may just leave that up to those kids in my New England class. Maybe when they’re in charge we’ll all be listening to Kanye West.

Meanwhile, I’ll be the woman with her fingers in her ears.

Filed Under: HOPE

Guest Post: Leaders Who Get it Right

November 7, 2010 by 2 Comments

by Kay Gaisford

(When I was at lunch with Kay I mentioned that we were looking for posts for the HOPE blog that demonstrate success with gender equality in the church. Here is a short story she sent me about her experience).

When we lived in Valley Forge Ward in the 1980s, I attended a New Beginnings evening with my teenaged daughters. Our bishop had been called to be bishop a short time before and was giving what I believe was his first talk to the young women. He was a thoughtful, reflective person with a teenaged daughter of his own, and I was surprised that he spoke to the girls in a way that portrayed them mostly in terms of having a secondary position to men in the church. He described their spiritual life in terms of preparing themselves to be married in the temple and support a husband in his priesthood. In fact, his talk sounded exactly like the talk I had heard Carol Lynn Pearson parody at Sunstone that summer in her presentation, “A Walk in Pink Moccasins.”

Although he was not a close friend of mine and I didn’t know him well, I perceived the bishop to be a “teachable” person, willing to consider new ideas and perspectives. Within a few days I gave him the audio tape of Carol Lynn Pearson’s Sunstone presentation, “A Walk in Pink Moccasins,” cueing it to the start of the parody. It was a transformative experience for him. He told me it gave him a new perspective on the young women he had been interviewing. He had been surprised to have a number of the girls tell him that they were feeling depressed. He made the connection that perhaps the YW organization should devote efforts to helping the girls realize their personal potential. Within a few weeks, he called Lou Chandler, a professional working woman, as YW president—definitely a new kind of role model for the girls!

Lou adds:

“I can’t claim to have been a model YW president back then, but this bishop was, indeed, a model of “righteous dominion.” He exhibited kind and caring service, intelligent leadership, good humor in all things, the zeal and humility for continued learning, and tremendous spiritual strength. His example was inspiring. Alas, his tenure ended all too soon as his work required moving is family to DC. But, to this day, I still consider his example when I find myself in leadership positions.”

We are looking for more stories like this about experiences where women find ways to advocate for equality in the church. Please submit yours to info@ldswave.org.

Filed Under: HOPE

Guest Post- Why Mormon Feminism Matters to Me: Melodramatic Edition

October 29, 2010 by 3 Comments

by Kiskilili*

What Mormonism purports to offer is a unique relationship to deity (of a quality said to surpass what’s available in other denominations), the authorization to act on God’s behalf, and a personal self-understanding as inchoately and potentially divine.

I would argue these are some of the most breathtaking aspects of the faith. God values, validates, trusts, and acknowledges us, even in our weakness and inability, and he provides us the means for constructing a self-concept as a subject in relation to deity, both personally and existentially. This is what, for a Mormon, it means to be human.

Or, stated more precisely, this is what it means to be male and human.

For some of us the Church offers the stupefying prospect of becoming an eternal nothing, insignificant or nonexistent, cut off from the possiblity of relationships and from the raison d’être of the eternities: nurturing human progeny. Some of us are asked, as a religious act, not to accept the authority to act in God’s name but to defer it, to construe ourselves as objects rather than subjects and our value as contingent rather than inherent. We’re given scant institutional means for constructing a religious self-concept as beings in communion with the divine. Instead, our personal relation to deity is compromised by the presence of male intermediaries, and our existential relation to deity is nullified by Heavenly Mother’s profound absence.

Female Mormonism is a sort of negative space, an irreligion, not an opportunity for acknowledgment from God but a denial of it. If religion matters, and if women matter, this is a travesty.

[Some] raise the possibility that patriarchy (and correspondingly, I assume, androcentrism) may represent God’s will.

This could well be the case. It’s also why I left the Church. Not because of doubt, but because of faith: in God, temple, scripture, and priesthood. This is the searing irony: that my faith led me to give up on God. In the Church’s holiest spaces and most sacred texts I failed to find compelling evidence women are people in any meaningful sense. It’s the Church itself—not just disgruntled feminists—that insists gender matters. If the Church is right about what it fundamentally means to be female, I have no reason to stay; what I do hardly matters. If the Church is wrong, I have no reason not to leave.

Of course, the clear gendered implications of liturgy, scripture, and policy—that God endorses the blatant marginalization of females at every level and in every age—is simply unsayable in today’s political climate, and the Church has obligingly thrown us a barrage of palliative sops about women’s superlative value (often in reference to men), statements with painfully little reference to practice, rituals, or sacred texts and even less awareness of women’s experience.

I concede that many—maybe most—women are happy with the situation. I would argue it’s in spite of, not because of, these theological implications. Women are happy because they’ve trained themselves not to notice or they’ve found a way they’re comfortable rejecting it.

For those of us who can’t not notice and who can’t find an easy way out from under it, it matters because religion is about who and what we are and can be. And what some of us are is apparently appendages, afterthoughts, and auxiliaries.

And, quite likely, this will never really change in any way deeper than the cosmetic. Because the people with the power to change it—maybe human men, maybe a male Godhead—are, exactly because of that power, the very people who will never understand why it matters.

*This post is reproduced with the author’s permission. It originally appeared here.

Filed Under: HOPE

My Mormon Feminist Journey

October 25, 2010 by 12 Comments
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, there was no reason for him to speak to her. In fact, there were a million reasons for him not to. Despite these things, he offered her so much more than the water with which she filled her pitcher.  At the well, Jesus demonstrated that not only is he the living water, but that he values women and treats them far better than required by his culture.

It’s the example of how Jesus treats women in the New Testament that gives me strength to  be a Mormon feminist.

Jesus was the first feminist. He treated women as individuals worthy of dignity, respect, and love. Part of understanding feminism is acknowledging the systematic ways that women are not treated equally in our culture.

I haven’t always been a feminist. I even remember thinking that it was a harsh  word when I was growing up. Feminism was a title claimed by power-hungry, testosterone-filled, bra-burning, can-hardly-be-called women. Ha! How wrong I was. (The feminists I know are kind, generous, brilliant, open-minded, thoughtful, and brave. Remarkably, most of them garden and knit, too.)

Of course I believed in equality, but I never saw a systemic problem with the way women were treated anywhere, in society or in the LDS church.

My feminist awakening came about four years ago during a discussion with my husband. During the conversation I remember asking my husband, “What women do you see as your spiritual leaders?” In the moment he took to think of an answer, I already knew.  No one. He didn’t even see his mother that way, and he really admires her.  In that split second, my worldview cracked and I found myself on the other side of the looking glass, staring in at a church that felt oddly lopsided and male-heavy.  I sensed the feminine wound (though it took me years to name it) and the absence of a divine feminine influence in my life and the life of men like my husband.

In the ensuing months and years, I’ve found myself learning more about what it means to be a woman and how I am entitled to name my own experience and give it value. Blogging has been a godsend for me as a way to share my story and also read about the stories of other women. I’ve also been moved by Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Mormon Enigma, Strangers in Paradox, and Mother Wove the Morning. Writing at the Exponent blog and working on the publication have been rewarding for me and I believe they make a difference in helping women feel that they are not alone on their spiritual journeys.

After online connections, I began to develop real-life friendships with women I knew from the blogs. Soon, we’d formed a playgroup, a book group, and combined with a more established Mormon feminist lunch group. Our social network in Arizona is quite developed, so if you know someone who could use our support, please let me know!

It was after years of listening and being heard through blogs and in social groups, that I decided to organize a group to move into the realm of advocacy.  As an insular group of self-identifying Mormon women, we can talk, listen, validate, and talk some more, but until we recognize and take steps to make our voices heard by more church members, including those who can affect change, then nothing will change.

My hope is that LDS WAVE is the very beginning of something bigger. I hope it’s the beginning of women recognizing that their voices are as important as men’s, that sometimes they haven’t been heard and that they should be. I hope that women and men who identify with what they read at WAVE will be motivated to participate in our Calls to Action, write their experiences for the HOPE blog, or contribute to the Women’s Service Mission.

I understand that not everyone who reads this will agree with me, and that’s just fine. I only want to be heard, to have someone say, “I acknowledge that you’ve had these experiences and I respect your right to act on your feelings and values.”  It’s the way I try to treat people I disagree with. And considering the way Jesus treated women in his life, it’s the very least we should expect from each other.

I’d love to hear from readers, what would you like to see from WAVE. How can we best help you to advocate for women’s voice and equality in the LDS church?

Filed Under: HOPE

A Window When The Doors Are All Closed

October 20, 2010 by 11 Comments
by Kylee Shields

I have wanderlust and ADHD and so I struggle with staying in one place and doing one thing. As a result I struggled many times in my life to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Even when I graduated from BYU with a degree in English and Linguistics I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to be and do. I was raised in a family (thankfully!) where we grew up as kids who were “jack of all trades–king of none.” In other words I loved doing everything and was never really good at anything one thing.

While serving my mission something amazing happened to me. I realized I was really good at something. I was good at memorizing scriptures, finding principles, outlining lessons, and making connections. I discovered my passion for teaching the gospel! As a result when I went back to BYU in my last year (b/c I fought the idea) I took the two semesters of Seminary Teaching Classes.

It was here that I felt the heavy burden of inequality but not just me as a female. We were told that most likely none of us would become seminary teachers. We were told that males who were married by the time they were up for hire, would not be hired. I was told that if I was actually (by some miracle) hired that as soon as I had a child I would have to quit my job. Even with all this negativity I felt the spirit very strong and confirming that this is what I was meant to do.

So I began my student teaching and I LOVED it! I loved my students and they loved me. I made a point to raise the bar in my classes and expected the kids to reach it. They did and then some and I saw miracles in my classes and in my students lives. The thing I didn’t see was the male leaders who were suppose to be coming in to see my teaching and evaluate me.

I watched as they came on a regular basis to the male teacher in my same seminary building who was up for hire and engaged. And half way through my year I was told that I would most likely not get hired so if I wanted to quit that would be okay. I chose to finish out the year for my students. I wasn’t visited again. I was actually teaching full time at this point b/c two of the teachers had health issues so I taken on their classes. The Seminary Principal believed in me, my students loved me, and I felt the support of the Lord and the spirit. Yet, I wasn’t hired. I know that there are a gazillion teachers up for hire each year and the likely hood that I would get hired was a shot in the dark but I
wanted my shot. I wanted an equal chance to show my love and passion for teaching. I was devastated by my unequal treatment and failure.

I was confused by the spirit’s assurance and the contradictory knowledge that certain men had power over my ability to do what I love and was good at!

I actually tried again in Boston while teaching early morning seminary to 11 dedicated LDS kids from 7 different high schools. I was made promises by males in power that they would come out and evaluate my teaching. Again they never came. I realized I didn’t have the stamina to fight this losing battle and I stashed my teaching files far away in the back of the storage unit my family owns.

Then I battled. I wrestled with the Lord, I talked to everyone I knew, I made lists, etc.  I did anything I could think and even some things others thought of to figure out what to do with my life. I was so angry!

Slowly over time the Lord opened a window where He had closed all the doors and I discovered that while I may not be able to teach the gospel to kids I could find ways to work with them. Besides, I had always had an affinity for the punk kids anyway. Through much prayer, fasting, schooling, frustration, heartache, and joy I became a child and adolescent therapist! I love what I do, I love listening to broken kids, I love being a part of the process of change in their lives, and in a small way, I love helping them know they are loved!

Men in power may have kept me from being a seminary teacher but they couldn’t keep me from teaching the gospel (I’m currently a sunday school teacher) or working with adolescent kids. The Lord and I found a new path, a new plan, and a new found faith!

Filed Under: HOPE

What Being an LDS Feminist Means to Me

September 24, 2010 by 9 Comments

by Chelsea, WAVE board member

Photo: Chelsea at 8 yrs old


I came home from school and plopped my backpack near the entry-way closet. I ran into the kitchen moving my head back-and-forth to feel the ribbons in my pigtails brush my face. My Dad was sitting on the stairs of our Tooele, Utah house and he opened his arms inviting me to come join him. It was such a sweet moment. I remember feeling very special that I got his undivided attention.

He asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I’d never been asked this question before. I knew I had to use this precious time wisely before one of the rug rats crawled in and stole my opportunity to shine. With little hesitation and the desire every kid has to make their father proud I confidently proclaimed, “The President of the United States!”

It was the first grand profession I could think of on such short notice and I still remember puffing up my chest up high and beaming a bucktoothed smile when my dad nonchalantly said, “You can’t be the President. What will your husband do?”

I didn’t know. I’d never really thought about it. As my chest slowly deflated, I guessed, “I don’t know. He could be with me?”

“But who will watch the kids?” my Dad explained.

Again, I’d never really thought about it and didn’t know what to say, so I just mumbled, “Yeah” and sat their seriously wondering “Who can watch the kids? C’mon think. Think. THINK.” But soon his attention was diverted and he was gone.

I never did come up with an answer for him and he never again asked me what I wanted to be. Up until this point in my life, I pretty much thought my father was God—omniscient, loving, always right, fun, etc. But something deep down inside my little 8 year-old body knew that he was wrong about this. I could be the President of the United States if I really wanted to be. Why did being a girl change anything? I didn’t feel any different from the boys I knew. Why would it be good for them and not me? I mean it wasn’t like I was really going to be President of the United States, I knew that, but it just killed me that there was already this opportunity that I couldn’t have just because I was a girl. Rather, an opportunity that the only man I loved, my dad, didn’t think I should have. At 8 years-old I came face-to-face with a shattered vision of the American dream, I realized that things are different for girls than they are for boys. It made me sad and then quickly, the way kids do, I changed my mind. I thought, “Who says he’s right anyway?” I gave credence to my own deep intuition and decided early that maybe boys aren’t always right about girl matters.

This poignant memory stayed with me throughout my life. Not the specifics necessarily, but the idea that I would have strong promptings throughout my life that were seemingly contradictory to my priesthood leaders.

It wasn’t that I was being disobedient. That is not in my nature. I love the church. I follow my leaders. I’ve always taken their counsel and advice very seriously.

The problem was that the very same mechanisms I had been taught to recognize as spiritual promptings—that I had always trusted to guide and direct my life–did not always align with those of my priesthood leaders. One example of this is after much prayer and pain I decided not to marry a former longtime beau. During this time I received much counsel from my college bishop, my home ward bishop, my institute professor, and my beau that encouraged me to get married. Each time one of my leaders questioned my personal revelation I would go back to the drawing board and start over. I would “search diligently, pray always, and be believing” (D & C 90:24). After much struggle and genuine desire for guidance, I arrived at the same conclusion each time. It was very confusing to me to feel like I was following the correct spiritual process of being directed by the Lord, but that my answers were different than what my priesthood leaders thought they should be. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that we were both right. My leaders general counsel was inspired, i.e. marriage is good, however, so was my personal revelation, i.e. who I should marry.

Similarly, I realized that this was how my Dad was trying to communicate all those years before. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me to become the President or didn’t think I was able, it was that he wanted me to realize that family was the most important thing. HowevWith that counsel in mind, it was also right for me to listen to the spirit and with my husband decide what that meant for our family life.

This realization has helped me through many big decisions in my life- none more poignantly than my struggle with being a feminist (simply meaning, one who believes in the equality of men and women) in the church. While the foundation of this belief is founded in basic gospel principles and reconfirmed via heartfelt study and prayer, gender inequality is something I regularly see perpetuated by church members. Most of these incidences are seemingly banal and, like the examples above, it sometimes takes me a long time to figure out the essential message in seemingly prejudice general counsel. I know that many members and leaders are even benevolent in their prejudice, in fact many women in the church are content, but it nevertheless makes me feel like a second-class child of God and an enabler of these ideas by doing nothing.

This has been a major challenge these last couple of years in my life. I have often felt discouraged and alone. The cognitive dissonance between equality and the church made me feel hurt, less valued, and, ultimately, upset. I would leave church meetings feeling frustrated rather than uplifted. At one point I felt that the two were mutually exclusive, I was at a crossroads and had to make a choice. They were both equally strong impressions. I felt torn between two things I loved and believed in deeply. At first I decided the church was more important. I tried to relegate my feelings into the “We just don’t know everything on earth” category and ignore the inequalities I saw. I did this for awhile but it felt like every time I would hear or see injustice or the consequences of gender discrimination in the lives of the women I knew a little piece of my spirit crumbled and died. I wasn’t being honest with myself and it was eating away at my soul. Eventually, I weighed my options again. There was nothing about the equality of women— in their divine nature or earthy treatment— that I felt was incorrect. Equality was intuitive, Christlike, a fundamental right. How could I go against this?

I did, however, harbor doubts about the church’s relationship with underrepresented minorities. There have been many wrongs that have been righted over time. That is why we have continued revelation. But why hasn’t this been the case with women? I also struggled with whether or not I wanted to raise my daughter in a society where she could not play a full and equal role and where she was taught that this was justified. I began to wonder if I might have to leave the church.

I mourned this decision. I wept. I felt like there was nowhere for me to discuss such things. At church I didn’t want to disrupt the spirit or diminish what little respect people had for me. Whenever I brought up my concerns with church members my faithfulness and obedience was questioned, when I brought it up with non-members it was my sanity they doubted.

Fortunately, God knew more than all of the above. If you remember, earlier he had helped me trust my spiritual promptings and marry the right person for me. I was very open with my husband about my challenges and frustrations. While it was hard for him to see me suffer and to watch me change, he supported and loved me throughout.

One day, I told him my decision about feeling like I would have to leave the church because, “I would never join a group that institutionally promulgated and culturally constituted inequality. So how can I stay in one that does?”

His response was beautiful and inspired, “But you are American.”

“What?” I thought I heard him wrong.

“Well, the US has often structurally and culturally mistreated minorities and women, which you are morally opposed to, so why do you stay?”

His question gave me cause to think deeply and humbly.

“You are right” I said.

I thought about it awhile and explained, “I stay in America because there are so many things about it that I love and believe in. There are also many things that I disagree with, but I feel like I have the power to help change those things.”

“So why can’t you do that with the church?” was his response.

“Maybe I can.” I thought.

And thus began another year of struggling to figure out my place in a male-biased hierarchy. I know that I have no right to receive revelation for the church. I trust that my leaders are inspired, but I do not presume they are omniscient. Maybe I was right in 2nd grade, “that boys aren’t always right about girl matters”. Maybe the only way to cause change is if enough women made their leaders aware of their struggles—that they agonize over their love for the gospel and their feelings of discrimination, that their exclusion from many hierarchies and rituals in the church make them feel inferior, that they desire to fulfill the measure of their own creation, that they cling to the belief that they have a Heavenly Mother and hope to know more about her, that being single or childless or secondary to their spouse makes them feel like they are not good enough on their own, that gender is only one aspect of who they are, that there is so much more that they can contribute to the church if allowed, that they hope continued revelation will be used on their behalf, and that if we are all sacred in the eyes of God, why does it feel like we are treated so differently here on earth?

This year has been a little easier. I have found more harmony and joy in being an LDS feminist. I have a bishop that respects my intuition and a Relief Society president that views it as an asset. I am doing my best to honor God by following both the spiritual promptings he sends me as well as those he gives to church leaders. This isn’t always easy and I don’t know why I am particularly prompted in this area. Connecting with other women who are aware of and seeking answers to these questions has been a huge blessing to me and my family. Participating in LDS WAVE helps me to feel like I am not alone and that together we can make a difference.

I plan on teaching my sons and daughters that family is the most important thing in the world and, hopefully, when they tell me what they want to be when they grow up gender won’t matter.

Filed Under: HOPE

HOPE Blog

September 6, 2010 by 1 Comment

The Hope Blog is a place of sharing and a place of action.

We encourage LDS women to share their personal experiences—successes and challenges—with church, faith, priesthood, patriarchy, womanhood, and feminism in a spirit of trust, openness, and faith.

We also encourage LDS women to promote action toward change by sharing stories of hope.  These can be best practices in creating local change or hopeful possibilities for changes in the future.

We intend this to be a place of non-judgment and inspiration.  We intend to focus on what is and what could be the best in LDS church.  We hope this will be a place where participants are striving for solutions that allow all to maintain faith and hope.

We realize these are tender topics and we encourage women to write about their discouraging and painful moments around these topics as well encouraging and hopeful moments.  We want to hear stories of things that feel broken and stories of things that feel whole.  Readers are encouraged to share ideas about how to make changes in our lives, our homes, and in our local congregations.

Please submit experiences and ideas to HOPEideas@ldswave.org and be respectful of others’ experiences in your correspondence.

Filed Under: HOPE
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