God, Women, and Religious Inequality
I'm going to raise a subject that will probably be somewhat polarizing. I don't know what the religious breakdown is in this community; I'm sure some of you believe in God, and some of you do not. Either is good with me, but I myself am a pretty religious woman. I've found that being religious and being a feminist has not always been easy- in fact, it has frequently been extremely difficult. I've spent much of my life trying to find a way to balance my passion and need for gender equality in all situations with my religion.
I was born and raised in the Mormon church. Unlike many other feminists I've known who were born and raised in the Mormon church, I'm still an active member. I have had much internal debate about whether staying in the church would be the best course of action, and a few years ago, I finally decided that it would. Hear me out. I believe that most LDS people are genuinely good, nice people. However, LDS culture has never been known to move with the times or accept diversity. Many members of the Church have never been educated about gender equality. The culture in the Church adheres to strict, antiquated gender roles, not because that's what the Lord said should happen, but because it's what LDS culture said should happen. I believe that this culture can change, but for that to happen, there have to be people working to change it. Thus, I think it's extremely important that people like me stick around and do what we can to make changes for the better. I don't want the next generation of women growing up to think that they have to get married immediately and have tons of babies and that if they don't, they've failed everyone. Unless changes are made, that's exactly how it's going to be. So I stay, and pray I can make a difference without getting excommunicated.So far, so good.
The Mormon culture is the paragon of patriarchal societies. That being said, I do not believe that the Church and the Culture are the same thing. I believe that the Church contains the necessary tools and instructions for salvation. However, I do not believe that the Church or it's surrounding culture is perfect, or that the doctrine and policy that the Church propagates is 100% correct. It's run by human beings, as much as it would like to pretend otherwise. I also believe that there are many paths to God, and I don't believe that a loving God would reject a genuinely good person because s/he never found the "right" religion.
I do not believe in a misogynistic God. I do not believe that God put women on Earth to be subservient to men. I believe that both men and women were created in God's image. The word "Elohim" that gets thrown around a lot in the Church in reference to God is actually plural. I don't think that's an accident. I think there are multiple Gods, and some of them are almost definitely female, especially when you take into consideration how much emphasis the Church puts on marriage. If God could be God without a wife, then marriage wouldn't be such a big deal.
My husband thinks God might be a polygamist, and that's why he's never come clean about his wife (wives?). I suspect it's more so that Mormonism can keep pretending to be a monotheistic religion. But I digress.
The Mormon church has a long history of misogyny, from males and females alike. In fact, I think that nowadays, the most damaging and prevalent gender oppression is perpetrated against women by other women. By way of example, my mother-in-law is a doctor. She owns her own successful practice and spends the bulk of her time working. Her husband is her office-manager as well as the primary caregiver to their children. My father-in-law is much more nurturing and enjoys being around children much more than my mother-in-law does. Common sense dictates that their arrangement is the best one for all parties involved, including the children. They are also active members in the Church, but my mother-in-law has often been vilified and ostracized by the other women in the Church. Many of the other women work, but because it is "A Necessity." Their families could not survive financially if they did not work. Because my mother-in-law works because she chooses to, there is something wrong with her.
Many women in the Church do not ever achieve higher education than a Bachelor's degree. I'm attending Brigham Young University (it's extremely inexpensive education, especially for Mormons), and almost all of the women I associate with are majoring in one of two things: Education (different focuses, but all for secondary education or lower) or Family Life. Because it's apparently still 1890, teaching is regarded as an "acceptable" profession for Mormon women. Plus, that way you can home-school your kids, so perks all around. Family Life is exactly what it sounds like- a degree in getting married and having babies. The idea behind it is that women who choose this major can finish quickly (it's a 33-credit major, which is a joke) and commence the baby-making, but if something happens to their husbands, they'll at least be able to say they finished their undergrad. I have never met a man who majored in Family Life.
As an sociocultural anthropology major, I often feel extremely out of place when talking to other women. I want to be a researcher. I want to get a PhD. I don't want to live in the middle of Utah and teach sixth grade math. Already, I've found that my choice in study has alienated me from many of my peers, because our goals are so different. I say "I don't know if I want to have children" and suddenly, no one can make eye-contact with me.
My attitude toward men, women, and gender roles is very unusual in the Church. My mother is very much the typical Mormon mom, and is often extremely distressed by my pro-woman sentiments, because she doesn't want me rocking the boat. She wishes I would just accept things how they are and roll with it. I spent my teenage years reading Bitch magazine and hiding it under the bed. My brothers rebelled with drugs, I rebelled with Bitch. I don't know which bothered my mother more. She very much believes that it is not our place to question the status quo.
I strongly disagree. If we cannot question our religious leaders, who can we question? If we cannot scrutinize the people who allegedly hold the keys to our salvation, we're begging to be taken advantage of. Now, I do believe that the leaders of the LDS church are good men. I also know that some of the past leaders of the Church have allowed their personal biases to sway Church policy, and I don't believe that it's impossible for that to happen again.
In the early 2000s, the Church presidency issued a statement called The Family: A Proclamation to the World, in which they laid out guidelines for how families should operate. It includes the line "Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."
This proclamation was written entirely by middle-aged to elderly men. I believe that the above statement is a reflection of their personal belief systems and biases. Many of them grew up in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, during which time it was stressed again and again that the father went to work and paid the bills and the mother stayed home with the babies and vacuumed in pearls. If that were truly what God intended, why would he give many women the talent and inclination to be successful in the workplace? Why would he give some men the talent and inclination to be stay-at-home dads? There'd be no point.
From the time I was very young, many of my church associates tried to beat the feminism out of me. At the age of fifteen years old, I was attending a church activity. While there, I was approached by a forty-year-old man. He was not a friend of mine or a friend of my parents. To my knowledge, prior to this encounter, he had had almost no interaction with anyone in my family at all. He then informed me without provocation that "boys are intimidated by a girl who's smart...and beautiful. If you want to have a boyfriend, maybe you should tone it down."
To this day, I wonder what this middle-aged man who didn't know me or my family or my friends had to gain by telling me to dumb it down for the boys.
The next year, I had a meeting with my Bishop, and we started discussing my plans for college. I told him I was considering BYU (seriously, it's really cheap), but I said I didn't plan on getting married anytime soon, because I wanted to wait until I was sure I was a fully-formed, independent adult. I thought that was pretty mature of sixteen year old me. Most of the other girls my age could not wait to find a man, settle down, and start having kids.
He told me he thought I was fine. I was ready to get married, he said. At sixteen years old, I was ready to get married, according to my ecclesiastical leader.
Ridiculous. No sixteen year old in the United States of America is ready to get married. Beside the fact that I had no savings, no education beyond sophomore year of high school, and no idea how to be financially responsible (at that point, I had never had a real job), I was in no way prepared to move in with some guy and start making mutually beneficial decisions by committee. I have no idea what he was basing his decision on other than possibly "You're smart. You'll figure it out." Or, possibly "You're a girl. You weren't built to do anything else, so why put it off?" I like to think it was the former, but it could very well have been the latter.
On top of these experiences, every year a member of the Bishopric (the three men -always men- in charge of running a ward) would come and speak to my Young Women's group. Every year it was the same lesson: How to be a Good Wife and a Good Mother. This started at age twelve and continued until I was eighteen and graduated to the Relief Society, where it's nothing but How to be a Good Wife and a Good Mother, because God Forbid There's Anything Else in Your Life.
I have a friend who just got engaged. She and her fiance are planning on getting married in Summer 2012, after they are both finished with their undergraduate degrees. Sounds like a sensible plan to me. She went to talk to her Bishop, who commenced to pressure her to drop out of school, get married right away, and start the procreating. I should mention that telling her to drop out of school is actually in direct violation of the Church Presidency's advice, which is that women should get degrees even if they don't plan on ever using them. So the Presidency is progressing, at least a little bit.
Now, I would also like to state for the record that I am in no way opposed to a woman being a stay-at-home mom, if that is honestly what she wants. If it is truly her first choice, then I am 100% supportive. I just don't like how in current LDS culture, it's portrayed as the ONLY choice, lest she suffer the wrath of God, the women in her peer group, and her bishop.
I was born and raised in the Mormon church. Unlike many other feminists I've known who were born and raised in the Mormon church, I'm still an active member. I have had much internal debate about whether staying in the church would be the best course of action, and a few years ago, I finally decided that it would. Hear me out. I believe that most LDS people are genuinely good, nice people. However, LDS culture has never been known to move with the times or accept diversity. Many members of the Church have never been educated about gender equality. The culture in the Church adheres to strict, antiquated gender roles, not because that's what the Lord said should happen, but because it's what LDS culture said should happen. I believe that this culture can change, but for that to happen, there have to be people working to change it. Thus, I think it's extremely important that people like me stick around and do what we can to make changes for the better. I don't want the next generation of women growing up to think that they have to get married immediately and have tons of babies and that if they don't, they've failed everyone. Unless changes are made, that's exactly how it's going to be. So I stay, and pray I can make a difference without getting excommunicated.So far, so good.
The Mormon culture is the paragon of patriarchal societies. That being said, I do not believe that the Church and the Culture are the same thing. I believe that the Church contains the necessary tools and instructions for salvation. However, I do not believe that the Church or it's surrounding culture is perfect, or that the doctrine and policy that the Church propagates is 100% correct. It's run by human beings, as much as it would like to pretend otherwise. I also believe that there are many paths to God, and I don't believe that a loving God would reject a genuinely good person because s/he never found the "right" religion.
I do not believe in a misogynistic God. I do not believe that God put women on Earth to be subservient to men. I believe that both men and women were created in God's image. The word "Elohim" that gets thrown around a lot in the Church in reference to God is actually plural. I don't think that's an accident. I think there are multiple Gods, and some of them are almost definitely female, especially when you take into consideration how much emphasis the Church puts on marriage. If God could be God without a wife, then marriage wouldn't be such a big deal.
My husband thinks God might be a polygamist, and that's why he's never come clean about his wife (wives?). I suspect it's more so that Mormonism can keep pretending to be a monotheistic religion. But I digress.
The Mormon church has a long history of misogyny, from males and females alike. In fact, I think that nowadays, the most damaging and prevalent gender oppression is perpetrated against women by other women. By way of example, my mother-in-law is a doctor. She owns her own successful practice and spends the bulk of her time working. Her husband is her office-manager as well as the primary caregiver to their children. My father-in-law is much more nurturing and enjoys being around children much more than my mother-in-law does. Common sense dictates that their arrangement is the best one for all parties involved, including the children. They are also active members in the Church, but my mother-in-law has often been vilified and ostracized by the other women in the Church. Many of the other women work, but because it is "A Necessity." Their families could not survive financially if they did not work. Because my mother-in-law works because she chooses to, there is something wrong with her.
Many women in the Church do not ever achieve higher education than a Bachelor's degree. I'm attending Brigham Young University (it's extremely inexpensive education, especially for Mormons), and almost all of the women I associate with are majoring in one of two things: Education (different focuses, but all for secondary education or lower) or Family Life. Because it's apparently still 1890, teaching is regarded as an "acceptable" profession for Mormon women. Plus, that way you can home-school your kids, so perks all around. Family Life is exactly what it sounds like- a degree in getting married and having babies. The idea behind it is that women who choose this major can finish quickly (it's a 33-credit major, which is a joke) and commence the baby-making, but if something happens to their husbands, they'll at least be able to say they finished their undergrad. I have never met a man who majored in Family Life.
As an sociocultural anthropology major, I often feel extremely out of place when talking to other women. I want to be a researcher. I want to get a PhD. I don't want to live in the middle of Utah and teach sixth grade math. Already, I've found that my choice in study has alienated me from many of my peers, because our goals are so different. I say "I don't know if I want to have children" and suddenly, no one can make eye-contact with me.
My attitude toward men, women, and gender roles is very unusual in the Church. My mother is very much the typical Mormon mom, and is often extremely distressed by my pro-woman sentiments, because she doesn't want me rocking the boat. She wishes I would just accept things how they are and roll with it. I spent my teenage years reading Bitch magazine and hiding it under the bed. My brothers rebelled with drugs, I rebelled with Bitch. I don't know which bothered my mother more. She very much believes that it is not our place to question the status quo.
I strongly disagree. If we cannot question our religious leaders, who can we question? If we cannot scrutinize the people who allegedly hold the keys to our salvation, we're begging to be taken advantage of. Now, I do believe that the leaders of the LDS church are good men. I also know that some of the past leaders of the Church have allowed their personal biases to sway Church policy, and I don't believe that it's impossible for that to happen again.
In the early 2000s, the Church presidency issued a statement called The Family: A Proclamation to the World, in which they laid out guidelines for how families should operate. It includes the line "Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."
This proclamation was written entirely by middle-aged to elderly men. I believe that the above statement is a reflection of their personal belief systems and biases. Many of them grew up in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, during which time it was stressed again and again that the father went to work and paid the bills and the mother stayed home with the babies and vacuumed in pearls. If that were truly what God intended, why would he give many women the talent and inclination to be successful in the workplace? Why would he give some men the talent and inclination to be stay-at-home dads? There'd be no point.
From the time I was very young, many of my church associates tried to beat the feminism out of me. At the age of fifteen years old, I was attending a church activity. While there, I was approached by a forty-year-old man. He was not a friend of mine or a friend of my parents. To my knowledge, prior to this encounter, he had had almost no interaction with anyone in my family at all. He then informed me without provocation that "boys are intimidated by a girl who's smart...and beautiful. If you want to have a boyfriend, maybe you should tone it down."
To this day, I wonder what this middle-aged man who didn't know me or my family or my friends had to gain by telling me to dumb it down for the boys.
The next year, I had a meeting with my Bishop, and we started discussing my plans for college. I told him I was considering BYU (seriously, it's really cheap), but I said I didn't plan on getting married anytime soon, because I wanted to wait until I was sure I was a fully-formed, independent adult. I thought that was pretty mature of sixteen year old me. Most of the other girls my age could not wait to find a man, settle down, and start having kids.
He told me he thought I was fine. I was ready to get married, he said. At sixteen years old, I was ready to get married, according to my ecclesiastical leader.
Ridiculous. No sixteen year old in the United States of America is ready to get married. Beside the fact that I had no savings, no education beyond sophomore year of high school, and no idea how to be financially responsible (at that point, I had never had a real job), I was in no way prepared to move in with some guy and start making mutually beneficial decisions by committee. I have no idea what he was basing his decision on other than possibly "You're smart. You'll figure it out." Or, possibly "You're a girl. You weren't built to do anything else, so why put it off?" I like to think it was the former, but it could very well have been the latter.
On top of these experiences, every year a member of the Bishopric (the three men -always men- in charge of running a ward) would come and speak to my Young Women's group. Every year it was the same lesson: How to be a Good Wife and a Good Mother. This started at age twelve and continued until I was eighteen and graduated to the Relief Society, where it's nothing but How to be a Good Wife and a Good Mother, because God Forbid There's Anything Else in Your Life.
I have a friend who just got engaged. She and her fiance are planning on getting married in Summer 2012, after they are both finished with their undergraduate degrees. Sounds like a sensible plan to me. She went to talk to her Bishop, who commenced to pressure her to drop out of school, get married right away, and start the procreating. I should mention that telling her to drop out of school is actually in direct violation of the Church Presidency's advice, which is that women should get degrees even if they don't plan on ever using them. So the Presidency is progressing, at least a little bit.
Now, I would also like to state for the record that I am in no way opposed to a woman being a stay-at-home mom, if that is honestly what she wants. If it is truly her first choice, then I am 100% supportive. I just don't like how in current LDS culture, it's portrayed as the ONLY choice, lest she suffer the wrath of God, the women in her peer group, and her bishop.