Feminist Mormon Housewives

By Rachel Hunt
About myself: I have a master’s degree in library science at a small liberal arts school in Boston, but am now pursuing an additional master’s and doctoral degree in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University. I also once worked at BYU’s library archiving Hugh Nibley’s papers and correspondence, then researched Heavenly Mother for and with David Paulsen, a BYU philosophy professor.

I recently read an article on George Albert Smith, the 8th president of the LDS church, that pointed me to a longer article on George Albert Smith, the 8th president of the LDS church. The longer article was written by Mary Jane Woodger, a woman that I know. She was my Teaching of the Living Prophets professor when I was a sophomore at BYU and is more conservative than me, and much more not-a-feminist than me, but is also devoted, sincere, and kind. All in all: I like her.

I was eager to read her article for a few reasons, the strongest being that mental illness is an issue that is near to me. I have seen close family members and friends struggle with this. I have seen myself struggle with this. When I read it (beginning on about page 120), I learned that George Albert Smith was bedridden for long periods of time, including year periods of time. There were also expansive periods when he (as an apostle) was not only incapable of performing his services in the church, but was incapable of attending church services altgoether. During such periods he would occasionally try to do his perceived duty, but any attempt would bring his illness on even stronger. This eager, willing man would be filled with anxiety and nervousness to the point of shaking and near collapse. He would then be taken home in shame and loneliness, where he would wait out the latest episode, or receive a Priesthood blessing to seemingly no avail. At one point, and at a doctor’s order, he traveled to California from Utah in an effort to heal. He would stay there for a long time, and his family would visit on occasion. On one such visit, they all went for a swim in the grand Pacific Ocean. Later he went by himself, with disastrous consequences. He was not a strong swimmer. He was not strong–physically or mentally. Thus, it was probably not the best idea for him to venture out unattended. He almost drowned, but was spotted by someone on shore, and rescued. During his long bouts of depression he felt inadequate and troubled, like he was letting God and the church down, as well as his friends and family. Despite all of the things he tried, he was unable to bring himself out of his depression. It eventually did get better (and he eventually became the prophet), but he waded through the murkiness of an overly anxious life for many, many years.

These stories are absent from the manual that we will study every Sunday for this entire year. I wish that they were present. Can you imagine if they were? What if there was a lesson entirely devoted to this prophet’s mental anguish? What could that do for those who similarly suffer? What self love might increase? What guilt and unnecessary anxiety would decrease? Would such individuals not see (even a small glimpse) of the truth that they are still loved by God and are still worthy of inspiration and direction? What could it do for those who live with and love those who are suffering from depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses? What greater measure of compassion and understanding might be brought about?

I have been thinking extra hard about these things, because at this moment, one of my relatives is struggling with mental illness in very deep ways (even more than normal ways), while another relative, sharing the exact same relation, is struggling with physical illness in very deep ways. Both need help. Both are in pain, but it is a different kind of pain. And each is responded to differently. This disparity has caused me to reflect on both the parallels and inconsistencies between mental and physical illness. Mental illness is not as easy to understand. It is more quiet, more private. It is much easier for people to have compassion for those who are outwardly ill. In my church (the LDS church), it is common for individuals to bring meals to families after births, deaths, and illnesses. This has been true in the case of the second relative. I want to emphasize that I am happy that this is the case: I am happy that this relative is receiving external support from those who love her. But, I wonder: What about people who have conditions of the brain? Do they receive the support that they need? It is also a sickness, but one that we still don’t know very much about. One that seems so different. The first relative is not receiving meals or visitors willing to help her clean her home. Maybe she doesn’t need those things, but she may need something else, like a listening ear or simply love, that thing that all of us need and that none of us receives enough. She probably needs those closest to her not to give up on her, or be frustrated with her when she can’t be as calm or as good at decision making as before. We do not become frustrated or angry with those who are afflicted by physical maladies. Why would we do so here? Is it any more her fault?

I asked the first relative why she thought there were these differences. She answered that the other is in danger of dying. While I admit that that is true, I also submit that depression is death. Depression makes life feel like death so that the person wants to die. When someone is depressed, it is hard to get help. It is hard to believe that help is possible. It is hard to have even that small hope. It is even harder to have the big hope, that sadness can give way to happiness. The only way that I can explain it is to recall my Oregon days. Boston, Massachusetts does not work, because there when it rains, it rains all day, pours all day. But Oregon (at least in Cottage Grove, Oregon), when it is raining it rains for a (comparatively) little while, before becoming sunny again: fully sunny. Even though I knew this, it was difficult when I was walking home from school in the gray, cold downpour to believe that it would ever be bright again. The sky looked as if it could never be sunny again with that bright clear blue that I loved. But it happened. Every time. And the reverse was also true: When it was sunny, it was hard to believe that it could ever be rainy. Depression feels like that: when you are happy, you are happy, but when you are sad, it seems like you will always be sad.

I have not been bedridden for years like George Albert Smith, but I have been for days, and have sometimes wanted to be for more than days: weeks, months, etc. The first time I realized I had depression I was 18. I was living away from home for the first time and I was more homesick than I ever thought possible. I cried every day. Multiple times a day. My mom pled with me to seek help, giving me lecture after lecture about how we don’t judge people who are coughing for taking cough syrup. She tried to convince me that it was the same thing, even though it felt so different. She said it was the responsible thing, to get help. For that entire year, I refused, though I continued to struggle. I thought many things, none of which were true. The first of these untruths was that it was a matter of faith. “If I just had enough faith I would be healed!” The second untruth took the form of a feeling: I felt weak because I could not take care of the problem by myself when I wanted to so desperately. I didn’t think God loved me anymore, and I didn’t feel worth. Likely because of these first two things, I couldn’t feel love and I couldn’t love. I still remember my best friend hugging me for a long time, mourning with one who mourned, and me as the original mourner feeling nothing. She couldn’t break her way in, and I could not accept her love. The one thing I could do was school. I could still go to class, I could still do my homework, I could still get my usual B+’s and A-’s, but that was all. Someone else close to me could not do school during her own time of great struggle, but could do work.

The next most terrible time was in Boston, after the worst heartbreak I have ever experienced. When my heart broke, it felt as if the rest of me broke too, my mind as well as my body. I could not sleep without pills, and I didn’t eat fruits or vegetables for two weeks. I was vegan at the time, so I am not even sure what I lived on. I can only assume that it was mostly candy. Three dear women took me into their apartment for days. They had me sleep on their couch. They gave me tea and nutritious meals. One serenaded me on the violin. Another friend flew me to her North Carolina city, and then called me every day for a long time afterward to make sure I was (reasonably) okay. It was only after their boosts of love and care that I was able to start making good choices by myself again. I started exercising daily. I picked up books after a long setting down. Scripture books and poetry books. I read every day for two hours. I returned to fruits and vegetables. I went on walks and listened to Noah and the Whale and Fanfarlo on repeat. I stopped listening to Bright Eyes and my usual sad music for awhile. I started going to a Jewish therapist. And with all of those things together, I stayed alive. One and a half years after that, I am doing much better, though I still have bad days, bad hours, and bad minutes. Occasionally dark thoughts still creep into my mind. I do my best to shut them out. I do my best to do the things that help me be happy, but I remember that when I am overly sad, it is not my fault. It does not demonstrate a lack of faith or a human failing. It only demonstrates a human being with a human brain and heart, who sometimes gets depressed as part of possessing that human brain and heart. I don’t question God’s love for me in the ways I did ten years ago. I don’t wonder if my worthiness or ability to receive inspiration is dependent on my happiness.

I get frustrated with the impatience of people who don’t understand depression, and who carelessly affirm, “You can just choose to be happy!” (I should probably try to increase my patience for them.) Choosing happiness has never been that simple for me, and is not that simple for others like me. There is no happiness switch. While I do not believe that depressed or anxious people can simply “choose to be happy,” I do believe that there are things that they (we) can do to work to be happy. Even still, it is often not possible to engage in these tasks until first receiving the requisite love and support necessary, as my time in Boston so clearly taught me. With that said, please let us be a little kinder to those with physical and mental illnesses. Please let us remember George Albert Smith, that he a prophet, a man chosen by God, also suffered in these ways. I think we will see a growth of love and understanding capable of healing heart and mind wounds, and it assuredly will help us keep our covenants to strengthen feeble knees and lift up the hands which hang so sorrowfully down.

Yes, we’re talking about it again. Yes, we’re talking about it still.
Some of you will say, “Can we please talk about something else?” Yes, yes you can. Just not on this post According to Joanna Brooks, we don’t talk about polygamy enough. And she’s right, it’s an icky thing to many Mormons, especially those who fail to realize the deep significance and weight the theology once carried, or maybe especially for those who do.

Gloria Steinem said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
Yep, that about sums it up for most of us. Since starting the Forgotten Women series, I have been able to be involved with many FABULOUS discussions about this topic with people all across the faith spectrum and all over Mormonism. I’ve heard so many amazing stories and feel so blessed that this series is important to so many of you. Often, my motives are questioned. Some ask ‘what is it I’m really trying to do?’ Before we start up with Forgotten Women series again this upcoming Tuesday, I thought I’d answer those questions for you.

What am I really trying to do?
I’m trying to talk about polygamy. For many women in the church, the looming possibility of having to share their husbands is so painful to them, they can’t even discuss it. How many of you feel that you can openly chat about this in Relief Society? How many of you can talk about becoming a polygamous wife as a reward for your righteous living, in the Celestial Kingdom without feeling deep fear and pain? I’m going to guess not many of you. Not many of the women I know are or have ever been okay with it. I have a faithful SIL who can’t even say the word aloud. I am tired of women being so hurt by the very word “polygamy” without even understanding why it was instituted and how it is lived.
So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m putting the info out there and letting people make up their minds on how they feel about it. Does Joseph’s lived practice of it make you feel better about it or worse? That’s what you get to decide, not me.
Before my study, polygamy always wounded my heart and made me fear for heaven. It wasn’t until I researched it to hell-and-back-again that I let myself calm down. I see it as something Joseph tried and it didn’t work out. I don’t think God has it in store for us. And if Mormon heaven is a hell to most women, what’s the point? (My ward members will say that I’ll feel differently about it in the afterlife. That would be so super cool if our agency dissolved so magically.)
I always say half-jokingly that if we find out someday that Warren Jeffs has it right, I’d rather have tawdry talks with Oscar Wilde in hell for all eternity than have sex with Warren Jeffs, even once. I’m good, thank you very much.
So for me, airing this stuff has healed my heart. I no longer fear it, and I no longer believe God believes in it. That’s for me to choose and not one of you has to go down the same path. It’s painful to learn it, but not so much worse than the looming threat of it. And after you know of it, you get to decide what you believe. You.

Where are my biases?
This brings me to where I stand. Everyone approaches history with a bias, you just can’t escape your own lens. Mine is that I think polygamy is hurtful to women. Mostly because it functions under a patriarchy. When a woman’s sexual, physical and spiritual logistics are placed in the hands of a man, I just don’t think it’s healthy. Now, that doesn’t mean I disagree with those who practice it. I’m trying to be open minded to my fundamentalist friends who believe it a sacred order of God. My ancestors believed it was a sacred pattern of heaven. There needs to be weight put to that. Because I have this bias, I try to not filter the entire story as polygamy being ‘wrong.’ I desperately try to put the story out there without letting that position color the history. Sometimes it slips in, but since I’m putting it out there- you can know when you read the posts that this is my bias and use your own filter accordingly. And to the fundamentalists who practice it, I realize this viewpoint isn’t fair to you, but I tell you so you can factor it in. I do, however, love the idea of eternal ties of Heaven. A sort of Oneida standpoint that we’re all married in heaven. That spiritual or celestial relationships are so intimate, that we’re all tied together. But that’s a topic for another time and requires the patriarchy to stop functioning as we understand it doctrinally.

Why do you have to talk about something so negative?
I get accused of focusing on the negative aspects of history quite a bit. My answer to that is, there are a hundred and one women of faith blogs you can check out if you don’t want to read anything but faith promoting stories. Go check them out! Go to church! Go to the Relief Society birthday party. If you want the history, warts and all, come here. Like Reese Dixon so famously told me once, “If people don’t like what they read, that’s on Joseph, not on you.”

I told this to my church historian friends- if the history gives me a positive story about polygamy, I’ll publish it. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of that. There’s a lot of heartbreak, sacrifice, confusion and pain. There’s also some pretty cool faith, strength and sisterhood to be discovered too. Truth is hard and sometimes it’s ugly. It’s dimensional. It’s complicated and complex, and these women deserve to have those complexities come to light. They lived it and we get to celebrate it and appreciate it and admire it and cry from it and learn from it. Life is hard, and it is real and we all know this and these histories are no different. We have this in common with them- a faith and a religion that has forever shaped our lives, no matter the end result, and I think that’s pretty amazing! We’re big kids. We know what heartache and problems are- we can handle it, if only allowed to.

What are my sources?
I’ve spoken to some brilliant LDS employed church historians about this series. I thought they were going to be critical, but they were far from it. We’ve had some wonderful discussions about the Nauvoo era and I thank them for those talks. That said, they have pointed out that every source has it’s flaws. I try to help you understand that without engaging in apologetics. When John C. Bennett quotes Joseph, we need to keep in mind he had an ax to grind with a good friend-turned-enemy. When McClellan writes, we need to keep in mind his primary purpose in the later 1800′s was to convince Joseph Smith Jr. III that his father practiced polygamy. When we quote the stories of the wives themselves, we need to keep in mind that many of the reminiscences were written many years after the events took place. However, please also know that I take these sources VERY seriously. I know how suspicious us LDS folk are taught to be of ‘outside sources.’ I only choose the most credible, especially from an LDS standpoint. The bottom line is, don’t take my word for it. Polygamy is well documented and you can find family and personal histories online, pdf documents, and more just from your computer. And if that still isn’t good enough for you or you’re left reeling, sometimes Mormon apologists can be helpful. FAIR LDS are a group of faithful Mormons who try to give explanations for uncomfortable things in history. Their explanations might help you. They are far from perfect, and many find them more problematic than useful. That’s for you to decide.

Where do we go from here?
Because this series was started to honor these women and help alleviate the pain their stories bring, I recognize that the stories have caused a new sort of pain within the readership. The pain of cold, hard truth. I’m resentful when I express my pain and people say, “Oh, that’s so cute. Someday you’ll understand these things like I do, and it will all be better.” Don’t accept that garbage. Pain is real and it serves a purpose. Take your pain seriously. It’s important to work through. Don’t let anyone, me, or anyone else here or in your real life tell you how you should feel about this. Polygamy is a tricky issue with many interpretations to be had. You get to own yours. Pray to Heavenly Parents about it. Study the issues deeply, if that helps (it did me). Pick up Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness (and a hundred other recommendations I can give you). Learn everything you can about Joseph. Polygamy was just one aspect of his life and ministry. Context always heals my wounds and to get context on these things, you need to study and dig and dig and study. I’m still doing it. Talk about it. Talk about it some more. Come here and vent. As Sisters in Zion, we’re all in this together, past and present and I’m grateful to this gospel for that.

In the last few months this community (fMh) has experienced a broad shift in the way our community interacts. It all started (for those of you who are unaware) when I opened up a new private fMh Facebook group (feel free to join it if you’re into The Facebook.). The new group made it easy and convenient for fMh peeps to interact privately.

And the group exploded. I was not expecting that, and my very first instinct was to be a bitty bit jealous for my precious beautiful baby blog. All those beautiful comments! I wants them, I needs them! My precious!

I got over myself pretty quickly though, the facebook conversations were great, people were enjoying themselves, building community, and really helping each other out. Good works were done. Love was spread. That’s what it’s all about. But the result has been a significant decrease in comments here on the blog. Over time many new members have joined the facebook group, some of them added by friends, many feel little to no connection to the blog. And so the fb group transforms further away from being an auxiliary of the blog, to something entirely its own.

I’m not sure in the end if this shift will be a good, bad or neutral thing. The internet is like that, people shift around to whatever is trendy and convenient. I don’t know if there’s much to be done to fight it, if fight it is even what we wanted to do.

But I do think that it would be a good idea to openly and honestly discuss this shift and the possible consequences (positive and negative) and just get it all out on the table. I like to think of it as community planning. Or at least community awareness.

So as I see it, there are advantages and disadvantages to both formats I’ll lay them out as I see them, chime in with your thoughts.

The Blog has been an important public face for Mormon Feminism. Brimming with (excellent!) content, It’s searchable and accessible to anyone. Every day Mormon women are entering into faith transitions, she(s) may google “Heavenly Mother” or “motherhood/priesthood” and the conversations we have here are instantly available. Finding the facebook group is not as easy, and the conversations are quickly lost, difficult if not impossible to search/revisit, and only available to those who belong the group.

While Mormons are our primary readers, I hear all the time about students who are given assignments that involve reading fMh for divinity/sociology/gender studies classes. My doctor told me she recommends it to her patients. We are a public, open and accessible go-to source for the media or anyone else interested in issues where Mormonism and gender and politics and culture meet. There are other excellent sources, but I like to think the blog has offered something unique and fabulous to the world.

The FB group on the other hand, is super convenient, it’s got a natural vitality going for it, and anyone can contribute content. So if you had a difficult day in Sunday School, you can vent without writing up a big ol’ post, submitting it and waiting for the underpaid blogging staff to put it up days later when you’re already kinda over it. If you find an interesting article on foot binding you can share it instantly discuss it with the whole community. Often resulting in really satisfying, educational, and supportive discussions. If you just can’t take it anymore there are ten people who totally get it, “like” your rant, and have something wise to say.

We used to have many of these discussion on the blog as well, embedded in the comments of the post, slipped in here and there around the topic of the day. But it’s just so logical and easy to move those discussions over to FB, a format that is far more flexible. But the loss of those discussion on the blog have made this space less spontaneous and dynamic and less about community. I mourn that loss a little bit.

On to another issue . . . it’s taken a lot of cultivation, moderation, hard work, and tears to develop this community and the ever important tone of civility and decency and open honest discussion and respect for a wide range of experience, belief and circumstances. That’s not so easy to do (go ahead and read any newspaper comment section), and we bloggers at fMh take very seriously our duty to keep things fabulously fMh-ish. And the very nature of fb makes it harder for us to nurture cultivate and moderate tone over yonder. So far, the group has been pretty good at moderating itself, and reaching out to us when things need a little nudge, or when the occasional mud has been slung. But should the general mood shift, I think it would be a very different kind of moderating task, and I’m not entirely certain what the outcome would be (who is, I’m sure?)(silly rabbit). So far, so good.

I could be wrong on this one, but I kinda feel like we may have lost a little bit in the depth and quality of discussion. It’s disappointing to see brilliant posts that I think would have garnered far more comments in the past, to be overlooked in favor of discussing the latest stupid sexist fb meme. I have been as guilty of this as anyone, and my perception could be off, so . . . Opinions?

Another thing that occurs to me is that The Facebook doesn’t crash, and it’s nice to have a back up, when we have so clearly stinked royally at the techy side of things.

Also there have arisen (in a fb discussion) questions of identity. On facebook the discussion is “private”, insofar as a discussion between yourself and 755 of your closest friends can be. But again, it’s not searchable on the internet and your family won’t see it (unless they join the group)(or someone breaks the top secret secrecy oath and cuts ‘n pastes your rant and sends it to your sister-in-law). But there is also the (often unfounded and certainly mostly unenforceable) expectation that people are participating under their real names and identities. The blog on the other hand is searchable, your family can easily read it, but it is also easy to participate using a pseudonym, with no expectation that you will ever reveal your secret identity.

So how do you feel about these shifts? What changes would you like to see? What suggestions do you have? Where do you see this community going in the foreseeable future?
(also I really should do one more read through but I have to make dinner now, I’m posting, so there!)

I’m pleased to bring you a post by a good buddy of mine. I grew up in the same ward as Chris, and he was the older boy in the neighborhood all us little beehives would dream about in our tents at girl’s camp. He was sort of a hero to all of us younger kids, and I’m pleased as pie he agreed to write a post for fmh. He has such as interesting story and he’s so smart and talented, and somewhere, fourteen-year-old me is swooning….

By Chris Hanna

I stayed up late watching the movie “The Help” last night. The theme of the movie touches on something that has always made me feel uncomfortable. It’s a fictional story about the writing of a tell-all manuscript that exposes the trials and tribulations of black maids in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Era. The manuscript is assembled and written by a young white lady, and later distributed by a profiteering white-run publishing agency in New York City. To make matters worse, the overall story was written by a white woman imagining it all in 2009 (I’m sure there were dabbles of research). I don’t believe it helped me hear the voice of “the help” from this era any better than if Ms. Hannigan had told me the story of Annie, Or if Darth Vader told me the story of the Rebels. Both characters were reformed by the end of it all, shouldn’t they be able to tell the story??? I think probably not. I came to The Help (without having researched anything about it) hoping to learn something from a perspective I had never heard before, but I think there were too many filters to get the real picture in the end.

A few years back, my cousin came out to his largely Mormon kin as a homosexual. He experienced varying degrees of acceptance, and certainly went through some difficult times realizing that, in this state, he was going to be treated as a “less-than” in the eyes of many people, some of them family. I tried to support him as much as I could. He started a book club at a bookstore in Salt Lake that studied the literature of struggles of homosexuals and other gender and queer themes from all over the world including Salt Lake. Every week I would read the books and show up for the discussions. It was fascinating to hear the perspectives of the authors, the characters, and the commentaries of my cousin and his colleagues with shared experiences. The experiences they had from Utah’s In-group are to this day, incomprehensible to me.

As I continued to participate to support, I realized something happening that was very contradictive to my nature; I had very little to say. I could empathize, but as you listen to people who experience constant cultural dominance in big ways, but perhaps worse and harder for an outsider to understand, in a million little ways, you realize empathy falls pathetically short of even starting to comprehend another person’s world. I realized on a few occasions, that me saying the words “I understand” could come across as offensive…although it was never accepted in any way but graciously.

My friend, Lindsay Hansen Park (Winterbuzz), asked me to write something, well..this, for the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog for the “Manuary” themed month. I am a single, childless, ex-mormon male with an apartment. Now, let me tell you all about you. I realized pretty quickly that I have about as much to add as I did with my cousin, or Darth Vader does to the rebel story (women like Star Wars references right? … Crap, I made a joke from a trite stereotype). I accepted knowing that Gender Studies is as important to me as perhaps any area of academia that I have come across. I am a fan of the concepts. I am a super fan of the change that it is bringing to the world. I am a bigger fan of what it brings to our little society.

I studied liberal arts at the University of Utah. I have had several post-graduate gender studies classes. (don’t furl your brow, this isn’t an academic paper) I’ve read De Beauvoir, Kristeva, Butler and countless others. Through Feminist Mormon housewives, I have read a lot of your perspectives about the issues you bring up and I find it extremely informative. I can safely say that I am barely starting to understand. Please don’t take offense to that. I haven’t ever commented on any of the FMH posts, but I am subscribed to the group and read most of it. Even after all of this, when I went to write some thoughts, I still felt my voice didn’t exactly fit in. Everything sounded too preachy or made too much fun of situations that are products of a wonky system we had the pleasure to marinate in growing up Mormon… I’d describe it as masculinity-in-crisis soup in a pressure cooker, and strangely, many women behaved as henchmen for the powers that be. Maybe that’s over the top… I digress.

Feminism is not and has never been a defense of a weaker sex. The feminist voice has exponentially more power than the voice defending it has. The power has always been there and will always be there no matter how much it might try to be controlled or repressed or summed up by opposing forces. In the end, I decided to toss my little voice out understanding fully that it isn’t mine that matters in the feminist narrative. However, I can offer ears and eyes to read and listen and efforts to help spread your voices and direct others to your perspectives. I thank you all for being brave enough to give them.

The feminist voice is incredibly important not only to stand in opposition to the worst parts of hegemonic dominance, but also to better educate well-meaning, but ignorant participants in the hegemony. I continue to group myself in with the latter but I promise I’m getting better, I swear. You’ve helped change me, and I know you have ruffled feathers of an ole boys club. Your existence warms my Grinch heart. Carry on!

Thank You,
Chris Hanna

—————–
Chris is from Murray, Utah. He served a mission in Mexico City and has a MA in languages in literature from the U of U. He is an HR Director by day and Musician by night. Chris left the LDS Church sometime after researching it during college. He stayed closeted about his disbelief for about 3 years and was actually outed by a girlfriend. He sometimes wonders if he’d still keep it to himself if that didn’t happen. His struggles over it played a part in a divorce after being married in the Temple. He comes from a TBM family (His father is a Stake Patriarch and 35 year COB employee), but they are very nice people. All of his experiences within the Mormon Church outside of the marriage were good experiences. He had to move on simply out of not being able to reconcile all of the issues within the church after studying as much as he could about it including all the apologetics he could handle. It was not a simple process. He is a newcomer to feminism, but part of the FB group.

I know I’m crowding Manuary, but it’s time, oh yes, it’s time. Registration for this year’s Little Red Riding Hood cycling event begins tomorrow and I want to get an fMh peloton together. Who’s with me? Details and registration info. is here. (My post about my first ride is here.) This event is known to sell out and seems to get bigger every year and there’s a very good reason for that. It’s a women’s ride and it’s for riders of every skill, or lack thereof, so do not be intimidated! From the BCC website (not this one, the other one):

Little Red Riding Hood is a fully supported, non-competitive, women only cycling event. With 18, 36, 50, 80 and 100 mile distances, there is a ride for everyone.

Spend the day riding through the beautiful Cache Valley in Northern Utah. The route is a loop through the valley on paved rural and country roads. The terrain is mostly flat, with some rolling hills (NO big climbs).

You will, of course, need to practice a little first, to save yourself from saddle sores on the day of the ride. Speaking as one who has not ridden her bike for several months and is primed to get saddle sores. But it is well worth the effort.

We do not as yet have fMh jerseys. But we could wear buttons (Winterbuzz? got some?) and work a snacker around the ride. Or we could just wear roses in our helmets.

Sisters, let us ride together.

By Daymon Smith

Daymon Smith is a Mormon anthropologist and historian, author of several books including The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About The Corporation That Owns The Mormons, and has contributed greatly to the current Mormon discourse. You can check out his amazing site here as well as his other FMH contributions here.

It is a troubling thing to me that two out of every four years the LDS ChurchTM requires its donors, all seated on cushy folding chairs in Sunday schools worldwide, to read, study and discuss the Book of the Great and Abominable Church. And then the other two years are spent, well, squeezing the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants into that abominable book. WTF?!? I know, right?

Let us see what our own Book of Mormon has to say on the subject of books. Turn to Nephi’s Vision. He sees a book carried forth among the Gentiles, after the day of their liberation (which may not have happened yet, by the way). The angel narrates thusly:

The book that thou beholdest is a record of the Jews, which
Contains the covenants of the Lord which he hath made unto
The House of Israel, and it also containeth many of the prophecies
Of the Holy Prophets. And it is a record like unto the engravings which are
Upon the Brass Plates, save there are not so many…

The book, according to Nephi’s psychopomp, “proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew,” some seer perhaps, and it once contained the “plainness of the Gospel of the Lord, of whom the Twelve Apostles bear record.” Titled the Book of the Lamb of God, it goes “in purity,” “by the hand of the Twelve Apostles,” to the Gentiles. Then is formed “that Great and Abominable Church,” and “they have taken away from the Gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious.” Due to the efforts of the Great and Abominable Church (GA Church, for short), the Gentiles fall under the captivity of Satan.

The “Bible”? Not merely some slightly confused version of the Book of the Lamb of God, unconfounded with a commentary or two, some Isaiah Made Easier, nor your favorite Hebrew and Greek Lexicon. It is a book written and designed by the GA Church, for the express purpose of getting power over the Gentiles. Conspiracy? Duh. Now, I don’t mean “The Catholics,” or some actual known church, when I speak of the GA Church; only the GA Church. Presumably they aren’t dumb enough to actually incorporate and get logos and a headquarters, take roll and hold annual conferences. They simply provided a book, and said God wrote it.

Compare the description of the Book of the Lamb of God to some edition (say, KJV) of the Bible. The “Old Testament,” of course, is a compilation of sayings and writings attributed to various quasi-mythical persons (Moses, Solomon, etc.), only some of whom are even explicitly said to be Jews. Most of the “prophets,” in fact, whose writings make up so much of that book, are of the House of Israel (the “Northern Kingdom”), not of Judah; and their writings almost exclusively condemn one people or one city, and then another, down the roll call of the damned. And given that the oldest biblical texts are not as old as writings attributed to the voice of Homer, it is hard to believe the ancient dating of even the most sincere and thorough scholars. I know there’s evidence for this and that dating, but come on . . . nobody can really be sure of any of it. And then there’s the New Testament. Testimonies of the Twelve Apostles? Not so much, but something that could pass as a reasonable collection of some of the purported apostles. Purported where? In the Bible, of course. We can’t even reliably name the Twelve Apostles, if the Bible has gone through the claws and out the bowels of the GA Church. Indeed, D&C 7 seems to suggest that “John” was greater than “Peter,” and that said Peter (whoever he was) did not hold the keys exclusively. Take away the Book of Mormon, and what do we have? Nothing. Take away the Bible? Maybe not nothing. Maybe much more.

What is the Bible? Though I personally find it a worthy book, and the KJV lovely to read, and just yesterday read all of Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and half of Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is no more than a counterfeit of the Book of the Lamb of God, got up by the GA Church, itself a counterfeit to the Church of the Lamb. A counterfeit, of course, is what happens when an imitation is passed off to the gullible as authentic. One can admire the artistry of a phony dollar bill, or laugh at a Rolecks, but its something entirely different to pay one’s tithing with it or to wear it golfing with the boss. Keep that in mind.

In this awful state of having been duped by a really good, but ultimately evil book, the Lord extends his great mercy. How? He brings forth “much of my gospel,” found among the writings of the seed of Nephi (i.e., Mormon and Moroni’s writings). We can turn to Moroni’s prophecy to see why his writings came to us.

After a poetic repetition of “it shall come in a day,” when it is said miracles are done away, when the blood of saints cries to the Lord, when the power of God is denied, when churches are defiled and lifted up in their pride, and many other terrible signs occur, then are revealed the writings eventually titled The Book of Mormon. That book is, as Nephi foresaw, designed to remedy this lament of Moroni’s: “Why have ye transfigured the Holy Word of God?” But, as my own series on the Cultural History of The Book of Mormon is currently tracing, even that book does not by itself free us from the power of the Book of the GA Church, so much as persuade us to believe in the mercy of God, and delight in His wonder-working (“Moroni’s Promise” is explicitly given only to the Lamanites, of course; and the Holy Ghost will to them testify of the truth of this small account of the mercies of the God. Read it, if you think I’m wrong.)

The Book of Mormon is written and given to prepare the Gentiles for further light and knowledge, as yet kept from us (as thus, from others) for reasons explained later, but briefly listed as: unbelief, iniquity, pollution. Indeed as Nephi laments, the Gentiles will respond to new revelations with, “a bible, a bible, we have got a bible, and there cannot be any more bible!” If you are tempted to read this “a bible” as the same as the Book of the Lamb of God, consider his description: “it shall proceed forth from the mouth of the Jews,” and is just one among many records kept by the command of the Lord. No mention of the GA Church, nor the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb; nothing but a stumbling block to the Gentiles, this Bible of the GA Church.

Nephi’s Prophecy situates the Book of Mormon’s environment in just as awful a place as that foreseen by Moroni, where the Great and Abominable Church reigns over all Gentiles. And so, to bring down that church, the book goes to the Gentiles:

But behold! That Great and Abominable Church, the whore of all the earth
Must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof!
For the Kingdom of the Devil must shake!

So far, so familiar. Right? Perhaps you missed this next passage:

And they which belong to it must needs be stirred up
Unto repentance, or the Devil will grasp them
With his Everlasting Chains, and they be stirred up to anger
And perish! For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts
Of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.

In this Kingdom of the Devil, where the book goes forth in a last effort to reclaim the servants of darkness before being grasped, not with flaxen cords, but with “Everlasting Chains,” you will find not only the angry. Here are men and women lulled into false security, who proclaim, “All is well! Yea, Zion prospereth, all is well!” Hi-Five! Nephi gives us here a good sampling of the typical Soft Satanist today. No hard core baby eaters and goat worshippers, not in His Satanic Majesty’s Modern Day Corporate Empire. We’ve changed, that is the message. But some things never change. Indeed, others are flattered into believing they are smart enough to know that there is no Hell, and no Devil. Ha! Nephi then repeats his warning, “wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well!” And so on.

Now, the point I’d like to make here is that these wretched people are in the Great and Abominable Church, but speak of Zion. That is, they believe they have Zion, because they confuse material prosperity—surrounded by shoddy plastic goods, ginormous homes, and high maintenance vehicles—for the real Zion, where the power of God is found, forest creatures singing together, and there is no poor. It is not simply that those in Zion should be uncomfortable, or striving for more prosperity, but that the Book of Mormon comes to Gentiles who belong to the GA Church. That church operates inside the Kingdom of the Devil; and its members think they are Zion, or that the Devil is a boogeyman and no being. And it comes among us in the GA Church so that the Kingdom of the Devil will shake, a sort of textual bunker busting. When the GA Church finally falls there is at least a tremor or two in that kingdom, though we can imagine his minions have stockpiled weapons and enough dry-freeze slop to last many battles and famines, blasting away at hungry and nursing mothers audacious enough to scrounge for a crumb, and so to feed their own sucking daughters.

For those less eager to shoot and instead feed hungry neighbors, I suggest a glance at this other book. The Book of Mormon sets out a map for its readers to reckon where they are, and how to get out. If it is “written for our day,” then that is what it must do, and do so among readers inside the Devil’s Kingdom. But untangling ourselves from the imagination of the Devil is no simple task. Integrating the KJV Bible with the Book of Mormon was a necessary concession by Joseph Smith, for sure; but subordinating the Book of Mormon to the Bible was an evil work which began as early as 1829, when the book’s enemies titled it the Golden Bible, and its followers, largely a branch of the Campbellite Church, were called the Mormonites. Doesn’t it mean something that the Book of Mormon was framed first by its enemies, and its advocates used the Bible (say, Ezekiel’s “two sticks”) of their enemies to justify its very existence? Given that the Book of Mormon depicts previous texts as counterfeits and no less Satanic, perhaps the integration of these two books, an evil finally accomplished by Correlationists in 1981, wasn’t a step out of darkness toward light, so much as a hiding of this lone candle under a vast bushel of footnotes, board games and commentaries. Though they try, it won’t be blown out.

The Book of Mormon does indeed concede that the bible has a (thankfully, diminishing) power over the Gentiles, and was written (stylistically, and so on) so that you’d believe it, if you believe the bible. But it is time to forget everything you’ve learned from the bible, which is not also found in the Book of Mormon. And if you imagine a positive match between the two, it is time to examine exactly where you got your interpretation of the Book of Mormon: was it from tradition, going back to the first days of the Church of Christ, when the Book of Mormon was buried under the floor of the Bible’s architecture? This is no easy task, nor one lazily accomplished. Obviously evil books (and there’s no need to list them) only make the rare exceptional counterfeits so much more insidious, you see. What is needed, then, is a zapping of two centuries of cancerous growth inside the Book of Mormon (or rather, in our imaginings of it). Alas! the task of waking up to our awful situation can seem utterly without hope. But feel in this darkness for its glow.

We Gentiles are not God’s last great hope. Our task is to take this book, and other books which will convince (and not merely induce “belief” among) the House of Israel, finally, that Jesus is the Christ; to take all these books (most of which we’ve not yet received) to the Lamanites first. (And don’t imagine you’ve found them, so much as candidates for that great people.) It may demand centuries, but at some point some Gentiles will realize they are not Zion. They imitate Zion, just as Pharaoh imitated Shem’s priesthood when his attempt to castrate his own father (Noah) was thwarted. We are Egypt, and that means, according to Joseph Smith’s maligned interpretation, “forbidden.” Rather than ask whether his interpretation comports with so-and-so’s dictionary, we should instead wonder why Egypt was forbidden, why Joseph (whoever he was) ended up there, and why Moses (whoever he was) was necessary for some people’s deliverance.

Counterfeits have their uses, even Abraham (whoever he was) visited Egypt for a time. But after a while (say, since 1845), we ought to grow tired of explaining away why Heaven refuses to trade with our bogus currency. We call our imitations of heavenly things “symbolic,” in order to explain away our failures to commune with angels and unlock the mysteries of heaven and to commune with the Church of the Firstborn. That which is explicitly attributed by scripture to the operations of the Spirit, and to faith, we credit to some Priesthood. We call old men “apostles” because we must have twelve of them; and apostles call themselves angels, for is it not easier to redefine our terms than to come to terms with our failure to pass, in the economy of Heaven, a counterfeit church for the real deal? Can we say we haven’t had poured out upon us the Spirit of Deep Sleep, and these fancies and dreams of authority, of godhood and priesthood, the effects of closing our eyes to prophets like Nephi who do prophesy, and seers, like Moroni, who actually foresee?

The GA Church, like every church that is not the Church of the Lamb, is merely a counterfeit. And any imitation of heavenly things, performed “symbolically,” with ordinations of “members” to “become such”—when passed off as authentic—becomes another Gentile abomination. But God is longsuffering, and He waits. Gentiles will awaken, someday; and like a man that hungers and dreams of a feast and then awakens and says, My soul hath appetite, they will be hungry. They will work for food. Some day they, we, or our children will repent of these iniquities and become clean before the Lord; repent of having, as Moroni foresees happening shortly after his own writings come forth, wholly polluted the Holy Church of God. Polluted how? By their mere presence as Gentiles; and more by their counterfeit works, pretensions to glory, those “symbolic” abominations.

Graced with the Holy Spirit, however, Gentiles are in a unique position to invent themselves as one thing or as another, blessed to start a new story. And how they, we, you, and I read the Book of Mormon seems to be the catalyst for our inventing. It happens for persons every day, but not yet for this people. What is the sign that something has changed, and invented for the better? Then the books which are sealed will be opened, and the Gentiles may at last apply for adoption into the House of Israel, with these books their leverage to an endowment of real power. In fact, until we receive more books, we can be assured we remain captive in the Kingdom of the Devil, despite our laments, PR, and YouTube boastings about Zion. There may be seen shades of “grey” when one is in darkness, or in absolute light. But there is no “grey” in this history; only darkness or light, devils or saints, words on a white page seen from an outsider’s perspective.

Alex Thompson brings Manuary 2012 to a smashing conclusion with this short history of Correlation.  I invited him to contribute after reading his brilliant thesis on the rise of political conservatism in Mormonism.

Now that I have your attention, let me clarify that I am not a Church apologist nor have I always been a strong member—just ask any of my drinking buddies from college. To give me further street cred, I wear my Democratic Party socks to Church almost every week in silent protest of what I see as an unspoken unification of conservative politics and Church authority. And I roll my eyes as much as anyone during the boring Sunday School lessons that are dumbed-down and recycled every four years. But as easy as it is to use “correlation” as an excuse to stop attending Church or to explain everything you may dislike about the Church, the history of correlation is far too nuanced to give it an overall positive or negative label.

The concept of correlation originally came into conception as early as 1912 when doctrinal duplication by the Church’s various auxiliaries became a point of organizational tension. Despite acknowledging these problems, the Church did not enact changes until an incredible membership growth in the 50’s and 60’s transformed these once frustrating inefficiencies into insufferable organizational disasters. In the 1960’s alone, the approximately 1.5 million member Church added over one million members, 206 stakes, and constructed 2,158 chapels making it the fastest growing Church in America.[1] The rate of membership expansion in the United States alone was such that if the rates of American population and domestic Mormon membership growth were kept constant, every American citizen would have been Mormon by 2130 (imagine, the entire United States as one large Utah *shiver*).[2]

The tremendous membership growth outside the United States also made it necessary for the Church bureaucracy to function in the many languages spoken by an increasingly international membership.[3] If the bureaucratic structure held—which had an individual auxiliary representing every different Church group—then every individual auxiliary would then be required to interpret doctrine, write out instructions, and translate lessons for millions of new members across the globe with little coordination with the other auxiliaries.

Correlation, which would not truly come into force until 1970, began in response to these structural inefficiencies. In 1960, President David O. McKay appointed Apostle Harold B. Lee to begin reorganizing the bureaucracy. Lee, a ferocious organizer who designed the Church’s welfare system during the Great Depression, continually made ambitious proposals to streamline the Church’s bureaucracy but McKay often vetoed them because—he believed—the hierarchy “cannot run the Church as we would run a business.”[4] Such firm objections to Lee’s work slowed the pace of correlation but ultimately did little to solve the problems of membership growth being addressed by Lee, however right or wrong his attempts were.

The pressures on the Church’s “web of authority” became further exacerbated as political and philosophical ruptures appeared among the burgeoning membership; embodied and partially caused by two Church leaders, Apostles Ezra Taft Benson and Hugh B. Brown. The conflict had escalated since the early 60’s and had reached a fever pitch by the end of the decade. At the April 1969 General Conference,  for example, Benson addressed the rather public divisions arguing that actually no disunion existed in the Church but that some members were simply “not in harmony with it,” and predicted an imminent “cleansing” of such “apostates.” Speaking at the same General Conference, High B. Brown proclaimed “we [the Church] do not claim to be better than any other people. We have our differences; we have our difficulties; we are mortal.”[5] Brown’s “The Gospel is for All Men” address called for intellectual humility and inclusiveness in contrast to Benson who feared such an attitude would permit an influx of false doctrine. In the middle of these two opposing ecclesiastical leaders, however, was a largely confused membership unsure of whose divinely-inspired words to follow (this, of course, contrasts with today’s General Conferences which feature a rotating set of General Authorities repeating similar talking points).

As a result, Lee became increasingly frustrated with not only the Church’s organizational deficiencies but also the overt politicization of the Church on the hierarchical and local level. And as his frustrations increased, so would his ambitions to reform the Church. In his April 1966 General Conference address which repeatedly alluded to Brown and Benson, Lee expressed his wish that “all who are called to high places in the Church would determine, as did the Apostle to the Gentiles, to know and to preach nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The growth of the Church and the deepening divisions within it, Lee believed, required far more than steps to prevent doctrinal duplication but a dramatic reorganization to preserve the Church’s doctrinal message.

When McKay passed away in 1970, Lee became First Counselor to the ninety-three year old Joseph Fielding Smith and would proceed to yield great authority to enact his correlation agenda. Soon, the auxiliaries were all but dissolved and all instructional materials came from committees under the General Authorities’ direct control. These steps ensured that instead of auxiliaries and individual instructors writing and teaching their own various doctrinal interpretations, the Church would speak with a single unified voice.

Lee then proceeded to diminish the Church’s politicization in order to refocus the Church’s leaders and members on fundamental doctrines. Ernest Wilkinson—the zealous and very politically conservative President of BYU who became famous for sending students to spy on allegedly liberal professors—soon stepped down from his post at BYU. Right-wing BYU professor Cleon Skousen—who had used his position as a religion teacher to promote right-wing organizations—was soon handcuffed (figuratively, not literally). And after 75 percent of his General Conference addresses in the 1960’s had been overtly political, Ezra Taft Benson took a sharp turn away from politics and focused on rather benign, faith-promoting subjects.

Never one to shy away from judgment, Lee was equally harsh with Hugh B. Brown’s Mormon intellectuals, denouncing the attitude of these Mormon “liberals” as belittling “the faithful who choose to accept Church authorities as God’s special witnesses of the gospel and his agents in directing the affairs of the Church.”[6] Overall, Lee believed the Church could be reunified and made to work for the increasingly diverse membership through a coherent, unified, and, yes, simplified focus on fundamental doctrines.

One may agree or disagree with Lee’s reforms, but it is absolutely clear that substantial steps were needed to address increasing divisions and tremendous bureaucratic inefficiencies within the Church. The question becomes whether centralizing power under the General Authorities was the proper response. Indeed, the same system that gave General Authorities far more direct control as a means of refocusing on fundamental doctrines was later employed to organize members behind conservative political causes such the Equal Rights Amendment and Prop 8. At the same time, this system of control also allowed the Church to almost seamlessly transition away from its priesthood ban in 1978. Many LDS members and General Authorities had resolutely defended the divinity of the black priesthood ban against tremendous public criticism for over twenty years. Yet, no organized opposition to the ban formed within the Church membership as had occurred when the Church transitioned away from polygamy at the end of the nineteenth century.[7] Correlation gave the Church incredible powers to consolidate members behind the will of the General Authorities, and like any religious institution, it has abused this power at times. But was there a better way? I’m not so sure.

 

[1] James Allen and Glen Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, (Salt Lake: Deseret Book: 1976), 612-13.

[2] Jan Shipps, “The Mormons: Looking Forward and Outward,” Christian Century, August 16, 1978.

[3] In 1968, for example, the Church Historian’s Office authorized the submission of reports in languages other than English. Allen and Leonard, The Story of the Latter-Day Saints, 613; By 1972, Harold B. Lee’s first presidency would include a man born and raised in Mexico and another from Canada. Brent Goates, Harold B. Lee: Prophet & Seer. (Salt Lake: Bookcraft:1985), 466.

[4] The full quotation demonstrates the distinct leadership style of McKay: “Men must learn that in presiding over the Church we are dealing with human hearts, that individual rights are sacred, and the human soul is tended. We cannot run the Church as we would a business.” Note by Clare Middlemiss. David O. McKay Diary May 171962. As quoted in Prince, David O. McKay, 21, 150; An example of this reorganization is that previously, the General Authorities tried to attend stake conferences twice a year but could not keep up with the pace as the membership continually grew. As a result, the decision was made to expand their authority to the members of a lower quorum, the Council of the Seventy, who would now be able to perform the ordinations previously restricted to only the General Authorities. This occurred as early as 1961 but was not publicly announced. Allen and Leonard, The Story of the Latter-Day Saints, 602.

[5] Hugh B. Brown, “The Gospel Is for All Men,” Improvement Era, June 1969

[6] Harold B. Lee, “The Iron Rod,” Ensign June 1971, 5.

[7] Armand Mauss. “The Fading of the Pharaoh’s Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood’s Ban Against Blacks.” Dialogue (September 1981), 29.

 

If I cared about football, I’d say I feel like I just came home from the superbowl!

Our ward has a tradition that the priesthood and relief society meet together for a common meeting on any 5th Sunday.  Yesturday, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich introduced Daughters In My Kingdom to the ward.  I took notes and shared with friends, who have encouraged me to post them for y’all!

(Disclaimer:  The presentation was not recorded – I had no idea it was happening until the bishop started talking – so this report is based solely on my own notes, memory, and probably human propensity to hear what I wanted to hear.  I take full responsibility for the following contents as my own personal experience, but of course, quotes are not precise or exact.  If you want a copy of the handout, email me at Elisothelatgmail.com)

First, the bishop introduced Laurel and explained that DIMK was a new manual the Church was introducing for the sisters to use in Relief Society this year.  The elder’s quorum will also have the option of using it on the first Sundays, since so much interest in the subject had circulated around the ward.

Laurel started by reading a letter written to Brigham Young from Abigail Abbott, the wife of a Mormon Battalion soldier.  Her husband had left her in Illinois to go west and she expected him to send a wagon back for her.  Eventually she got word he was with the Battalion, so she moved her family west by herself.  The letter recounts her life in an incompleted meetinghouse with other families, her trek, her work to feed her family and provide their needs.  She had a huge list of amazing accomplishments, and she sent it to Brigham Young – not in an angry way, not in a boastful way, but so he would know the
accomplishments of the sisters and to point out that, though the exploits of the Battalion were famous and numerous and important, the Lord’s work couldn’t have been done without the women.  She kept an accounting of her works, and she wanted him to know it.

Laurel then introduced DIMK, as well as the talk that Sister Beck gave in the Relief Society Broadcast called “What I Hope by Granddaughters (and Grandsons) Will Understand About Relief Society.”  She said Sister Beck laid out 4 points that she (Beck) hoped people would take away from the Relief Society history and that her (Laurel’s) hopes also corresponded with these points by Sister Beck.   Yet, she wanted to state her (Laurel’s) hopes more explicitly.

She held up the manual: “This is not the best piece of history ever written,” she said, “But it’s an important step.”  She went on about how this manual had been produced by the Church, that it was being translated into many languages and being distributed free.  It was a huge investment for the church which reflected an enormous effort and significant resources.  She couldn’t think of any other church manual published in her lifetime that was “written by women, for women”.  Yes it glossed over many important things, but it still marked a “turning point” for sisters in the Church.

So what should we do with it?  What can we learn from it?

She read the quote in the beginning of DIMK by President Kimball: “We know that women who have deep appreciation for the past will be concerned about shaping a righteous future.”  She said “History is the study of change over time” and that this quote implied we should use knowledge from the past to shape the future.

She said the opportunity was summed up nicely when a friend of hers said:  ”It’s tiresome to hear men quote men about women.”  We still do this all the time:  even when women are teaching in Church they quote men.  This book is different.

She then wanted to give us her 4 points of what she hopes we, who may as well be her grandchildren, will understand about Relief Society (in parallel to Beck’s talk).

1 – There are parallels between the Relief Society and Priesthood organization.  Today, we speak of RS as an “auxiliary”, as though it is something added on to something more central.  ”That’s not how Joseph Smith taught it”.

Sister Beck’s talk goes out of its way to say: “I hope my granddaughters will understand that the Lord inspired the Prophet Joseph Smith to organize the women of the Church under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood,” but this “pattern of the priesthood” quote, though attributed to JS in DIMK, was not in the actual relief society minutes. It came from a memoir written for the Women’s Exponent in the 1880′s (Sarah M. Kimball, “Auto-biography,” Woman’s Exponent, Sept. 1, 1883, 51.)  When you actually look to see what JS said, it was quite different.

She explained how to find the original Relief Society Minutes online, then said that JS gave 6 sermons to the Relief Society, from which she had chosen excerpts for her handout.  She wanted us to read them and see how Joseph Smith used parallelism between the RS and PH throughout. Some people interpret this to mean that he was establishing the society following a kind of priesthood template (after the pattern, etc), or that his intention was to prepare the women for temple ordinances, which would soon follow the establishment of the RS.

She read this excerpt from the minutes:  JS said that “…the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood, hence there should be a select society separate from all the evils of the world, choice, virtuous, and holy – Said he was going to make of this Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day – as in Paul’s day.”

There were other parallelisms – how officers were to be elected, how the sisters were to teach, etc.  Another interpretation of Joseph Smith’s language from the original minutes appears to be establishing Relief Society as a Priesthood Quorum.

*you could hear a pin drop.  the sister next to me is crying*

2 – She gave some history:  The RS was established in 1842 and ran for about 2 years.  Emma Smith used the Relief Society to combat plural marriage, so after JS died, BY disbanded the RS.  Most of you here don’t know that.  But BY dissolved it and didn’t reestablish it again until 1869.  For 25 years, there was no Relief Society, though there were literally dozens of women’s groups and gatherings that carried on the work of that original Relief Society.

So my second point to consider is, what do women’s activities in the 1850′s and 1860′s tell us about individual and ecclesiastical/communal, discipleship?  What were the women doing, that they had learned in Relief Society, and carried through for two and a half decades as their version of fulfilling their discipleship in the absence of a formal organization? She said you could read about it in great detail in the book Woman of Covenant, which was also published by the Church.  She left this point cryptically unfinished and moved on.  (In case you’re not familiar with this history, it is the period when women met together all the time for giving blessings, healing, speaking in tongues, and prayer meetings – an enormously rich season of what we now call manifestations of “spiritual gifts”.)

3 – In UT after 1869, the Relief Society became very powerful.  They established the Primary, the Young Women’s organization, conducted most church welfare business, and were intimately connected to women getting the vote.  Though UT was the second territory to give women the vote, it was the first for women to actually exercise it in an election.  The Relief Society remained involved with other organizations advocating for women’s rights all the way up through the 1950′s.

4 – One thing you all should know:  until the 1970′s, the Relief Society had a LOT of autonomy:  they had their own budgets (which is important – it meant they had to make their own money but that they could spend it how they wished), their own buildings, they handled the adoptions, and most of what we’d now call social services.  Relief Society sisters ran their own independent publication, the Women’s Exponent, from 1872-1912, when it was replaced by the Relief Society magazine that continued until the 1970′s. There was a drastic change in the 1970′s. In the back of DIMK there is a timeline, and I want you all to turn to it and study the last page.  It essentially chronicles the disappearance and integration of Relief Society.

At the time, I was really excited because I thought the Relief Society magazine was kind of stodgy, and I was tired of making toys to sell at the RS fundraising bazaar.  I was tired of paying babysitters to watch my kids while I made toys to sell at the fundraising bazaar.  I really thought this was a mark of progress and a big step forward. Integration: the Relief Society and Priesthood coming together!  I didn’t really understand the distress of some of the other sisters at the time.

What I want you to ponder is this:  what are the strengths and limitations of integrating the Priesthood and Relief Society?  Did we achieve a partnership, or a more powerful form of patriarchy?

*A stunning moment.  If you could hear a pin drop, it would have echoed.  I didn’t even hear breathing.*

When I was growing up, GA’s came to regional conferences.  BOTH the female and male leaders came and sat on the stand.  It was a very separate, independent format.  We had a Young Women’s Conference, and a Relief Society Conference.  Now nobody knows that unless they are old enough to remember it.  Now we hear 1-2 female leaders speak in General Conference.

History is the story of change over time.  This quote by President Kimball  says the study of history informs us to shape the future.  We do that by sifting out of the past what is enduring from what is ephemeral.  What aspects of the Church are for a particular time, and what are enduring and eternal?

Elder Beck’s theme (yes, she actually said that, a slip of the tongue but it made an impression!) was discipleship.  We talk a lot about the Priesthood, how it was restored, how grateful we are to have it, how the men fulfill God’s plan with it.  But consider how the Church has tried to figure out this relationship between the Priesthood and the women of the Church.  If we look to the past and see how women behaved…well Abigail Abbott submitted to and respected her Priesthood leaders, she loved the Church, but she was assertive in letting the prophet know what she had done to make God’s work possible.  She made sure she was heard.”

After that, the bishop called on me to give the prayer.  He had not arranged this with me beforehand, and I was very emotional.  I stood at the mic and during my unintended big dramatic pause I was like “I’m thinking Dear Heavenly Mother and Father.  I can’t say that out loud. Don’t say that out loud”.  I gave an awesome heartfelt prayer. Like the kind you only give sometimes.  The kind where the moment is real and you don’t care you’re up in front of 200 people and you don’t feel pressed to talk quickly.  Where you don’t care if your voice cracks or if you can taste your wet mascara by the end.

I spoke with Laurel afterward.  She encouraged me to read Sister Beck’s talk CLOSELY.  She thought it was significant.  I did – and with my feminist glasses on , I can see what she means.

So, so awesome.  A matriarch, teaching women and MEN, during priesthood hour, being bold and to the point.  Reading the Relief Society minutes from a mic in the chapel.  Telling it like it is, and who’s to argue? What a vision it was for me, a moment I could see as the future of the church.  It made me remember what the Spirit feels like, in all its cutting, ascending, gloriousness.

That’s my day in Camelot.  You’re all citizens, even if you weren’t there!!

I’ve now had seven months as the stay-at-home parent in our family. Luv took her maximum maternity leave, but because her job offered more hours and insurance, I left my job to be the SAHP.

I absolutely love it.

No question, it is a difficult challenge. Many days each week, I feel like I accomplish nothing aside from keeping Nibblet fed, dry, and content. Chores and my freelance work pile up. I am not scared of dirty diapers, but cleaning diapers—and clothes—several times a day gets…unpleasant. Like any baby, Nibblet is at times a pill. There was even one day when I felt this irrational resentment at having to arrange my entire life around the whims of a child. Fairly typical Mommy complaints, right?

And yet each day I find little moments that make it all worthwhile. The mornings where he wakes up with a confused expression, sees me, then slowly breaks into a smile. The times he looks around with his wide brown eyes, observing everything, seemingly keenly aware and curious. The times he snuggles into my chest after he wakes up. The time I laid us down to have him nap, and we ended up babbling enthusiastically to one another nonstop for at least half an hour. The times he invents a new sound, and sings it proudly all day (lately it’s the sibilants, accompanied by copious amounts of spit and drool). The times he stares with fascination at his hand as he practices the different motions. The time he fell asleep on my shoulder, when I turned and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and with his eyes still tightly shut, he gave a broad smile.

I know, I mention his smile a lot. But take another look at that face. How could your heart not burst with joy every time you see that smile?

I never planned on being the SAHP, but I’m in awe at the experience. I knew I loved children, and would be thrilled with mine, but I never imagined that my heart would light up every time he turns his deep doe eyes to me. I’ve laughed more–deep belly laughs, the kind where you can feel happiness racing through your body and overwhelming any negativity inside; where you almost can’t breath–laughed more in the past few months than in the previous decade. From the beginning he touched me more than I could have believed. I usually don’t care for newborn infants, finding them dull for the first few months, until they seem to be more responsive. But Nibblet, with him I fell in love from the first moment I placed him on Luv’s chest, and he looked out, cooed, and gripped my pinky in his tiny, delicate fingers. It amazes Luv to hear I’m so grateful I have this opportunity to really bond with this precious, adorable little person. I already miss the tiny little helpless thing that he was, though I simultaneously love the baby he is, and look forward to the delights ahead as he becomes a toddler.

There is only one drawback to this job. His mommy wants it.

For the first few months that she returned to work, Luv would leave for her job in the morning with a solemn hug for Nibblet. “I wish I could stay home with you,” she’d lament. A sincere desire, with no intended malice I don’t doubt; yet still it pierced me. The shame loomed large over me. Had I not been so incompetent in fulfilling the providing role we both expected I’d soon take when we first got married, she would be able to be the full-time mother she had always anticipated she would be. She loves her career, but mother is what she really wants to be. I’m denying her that. And so I can’t quite relish the job as I’d like.

I feel guilty for preventing her from this opportunity. But I also resent feeling guilty. Why should I feel bad that she misses out on all those special moments? How many SAHMs feel guilty that their husbands miss out on those experiences? We live in a world of increasing egalitarianism (slowly, no doubt, but the change is coming). Men can no longer claim sole right to the workplace, the boardroom, the executive office. No longer are they entitled to be the ruler of his family, whatever “preside” might mean. Shouldn’t it work the other way as well? Why should women feel entitled to be the nurturer? Or do breasts truly invest one with the right of rearing?

1) What’s your fMh handle?

 

My handle is Lawyer Lady; I should have made it Captain Sparkle but it was a relatively new nickname for me when I started following fMh a few years ago and now I think I’m too well known as Lawyer Lady – for better or worse.

2) How do you relate to the title “Feminist Mormon Housewives?” Are you a feminist? A Mormon? A housewife?

I’m positive I have always been a feminist, even before I knew the term.  As a little girl, I did play with dolls, but I loved to climb trees, catch bugs and play in the mud, much to the dismay of my mostly traditional, conservative family members.  It just made no sense to me that I wasn’t supposed to like those things simply because I was a girl.  Over the years, I continued to do things that made some family members shake their heads like ride dirt bikes, play basketball and relish in action movies.  I was the first female in our extended family to go to college and the only one so far to get a post graduate degree.  This was seen a waste of time and money, because why would I need all of that to raise babies and keep house??

I converted to Mormonism at age 14 (13??).  And boy was I ever a convert.  I was the poster kid for Mormonism and did all of the “right” stuff – you know, I read my scriptures daily, wrote in my journal, did the whole fasting and praying thing, perfect seminary attendance, YW songs on continual repeat in my car, followed the WoW to a tee, etc.  The beginning of the end for me was my first trip to the temple.  That’s for another post, but let’s just say it started a truly sincere, investigative spiritual journey for me that ended in my complete loss of faith and subsequent transition to my new life, in which I have found much peace as an atheist.  But being a Mormon is part of me and it always will be.  It impacted me greatly and left me, on whole, a better, more well-rounded person.  And I love my Mormon peeps.

I’m not a housewife currently but was for 4 years between undergrad and law school.  I love my babies and spending time with them, but I prefer balancing that with going to school and having a career.  I don’t think it is the right choice for everyone, but it works nicely for me and my family.  Plus, I’m able to accomplish it semi-succesfully (maybe?) because I have a very feminist husband who does (at least) his fair share of child rearing and house work.

3) What does feminism mean to you? Or, what does Mormon mean to you?

Feminism, to me, means that one should not be pigeon-holed into certain roles or careers based on gender alone.  It means letting people have and make their choices (that don’t abridge or impose upon the legal rights of others) without being judged or look down on just because those choices are different than the ones we might make.  It is about equal dignity, respect and opportunities for men and women alike.

4) If we came to your house tonight, what would you serve us for dinner?

The fMh snackers can’t call me out on this because I did just serve them pizza (delivery too!) when we had the snacker at our house, but that was too many people for me to cook for on a work/school night!  I’m a wimp, that way.  Tonight, I’d serve you pineapple-teriyaki baked chicken and twice-baked potatoes with a side of squash and zucchini spiced up with rotel tomatoes.

5) What’s your favorite or least favorite church hymn? Why?

Well, I’m not a believer anymore, so the words of my favorite hymn don’t mean the same to me anymore, but I still love to hear  the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing “I Need Thee Every Hour”.

6) What is something you’ve done in your life that made you feel really great about yourself? Or made you feel really happy? or gave you a sense of pride in your accomplishments?

Probably, what has given me the biggest sense of accomplishment is recovering from an incredibly abusive childhood (Mommy Dearest kids ain’t got nothin’ on me and my brother J), breaking free from the stereotypes of my 400+ person hometown and getting a lot of education.  From a difficulty standpoint, going to law school and studying for/taking the bar exam (with very small children) is what I am the most proud of, as I honestly never thought that I could do it, much less do it well.

But what has made me the most happy (aside from parenting – that is normally omitted as an option), are my annual trips to Ayacucho, Peru.  I go there in the summer and work in the prison, Wawa-Wasis (government-funded day care programs) and afterschool programs.  It is a beautiful, peaceful place with a lot of opportunities to serve.  And truth be told, I think it heals and nurtures my soul more than anyone I meet there.  I am very grateful for that life-changing opportunity.

Thanks to everyone for including an ex-Mormon atheist on fMh.  You all challenge and entertain me daily.

By Steve P

Steve is an evolutionary ecologist and a professor of biology at BYU. He has written for many scientific journals in his field, as well as works of fiction and poetry, including his most recent novel, The Scholar of Moab. Steve blogs at The Mormon Organon, By Common Consent, and Our Mother’s Keeper.

As the island approaches, its beauty strikes me. Sitting low in the waters of the eastern Pacific, walls and buildings from the 18th century, mount on one side giving it a kind of old-world majesty and grace. The ferry in which we are plowing through the choppy water is filled with tourists taking pictures. Small fishing boats scattered in the water, bob peacefully as we pass. Az offers to take my picture and I hand him my itouch and he snaps a few pictures; I return the favor and take a few pictures of him with his phone camera. The island should not look so gorgeous. It should not be attended with the peaceful calm that the sea breeze and the tropical sun bring. Some of the horror of the place should scar the walls. In The Lord of the Rings, places where great evil occurred can be felt in the stones. There is taint that infects the very structure and substance of places where malevolent forces once raged. Not on this earth, apparently. Only my memory and the memory of those who have willed this place not be forgotten, pull the past back into these edifices. I noticed the same at Auschwitz this summer. Stone buildings and manicured lawns seemed so ordinary in the face of the horrors with which the place was assailed.

We disembark. We have to buy a ticket upon arrival that pays for the upkeep of the island. In dollars it is trivial and I gladly pay. We then turn up a narrow alleyway, surrounded by walls and buildings hundreds of years old. All along the way, people assail us on all sides trying to hawk wares, hustle a bit of pity for a coin or two. Az blows them off with ease. Being Sengali, he carries and authority that I, an obvious tourist and mark, lack. Then we are before the building. I scrutinize its features for some hint of spiritual stain but it seems like a worn old building, dusty and ordinary.

We pay a fee and enter. Az translates the tour guide’s words from French. This is where they kept the woman. A small stone room about as big as my living room. How many? 150. This is where they kept the men. This is where they kept the teens. This is where they kept the children. Here are the chains they wore. The horror is palpable now as history pushes itself into my consciousness.

“>

At last we walk down a corridor which dead ends above the ocean. The blue waves lick the edifice below. The ‘Portal of No Return,’ (pictured above) where men, women, and children were herded onto ships bound for the northern and southern continents of the Americas. People cut from their families. Sliced from their culture. Severed from their dignity. Raided from villages where they had lived peaceful lives typical of humans: lives of love, desire, trials, laughter, meaning. Here they left to become the property of others. Their lives end though it continues.

Now the historical taint of the place overwhelms me. My eyes fill with tears. But it is not the blight of the stones from which the place is built. It’s the stain of human behavior. The corruption of all I hold dear: freedom, spirit, dignity, love, family, the list goes on and on and the actions that happened at this place subvert them all.

But what was so disorienting was revealed as the tour continued. We learned of the bureaucracy attached. The records kept. The life of the magistrates who kept the wicked structures in place, who held dances above chambers where humans had been stripped of all that made them so. Structures were in place to pay the raiders, the captains and crew of the ships, the absurd rules of business that were held in place. Business as usual. Records of stock inventory. Documents of the sale and transfer of property. Taxes. Government regulations. The tick-tock of efficiently handling the logistics of the slave trade. Philosopher, Hannah Arendt captures this nicely in The Banality of Evil, where she documents the Nazi machine put in place to kill the Jews. How ordinary atrocity becomes when put in the context of ‘business is business.’ And of course, for the countries involved, it was a slave-driven economy. Without it the economy would have collapsed. We can’t have that! So we justify our actions. Rewrite our definitions of what counts as those worthy of rights and justice. What is astonishing is that many of those nations involved in this heinous trade never once considered the rightness of their action. It was assumed, post justified, and continued, until men and women of conscience arose and began to question these institutional entrenchments.

What evils are we now, in our age, missing? What remains hidden from our current societal practices that in retrospect will seem blameworthy? Slavery is still rampant, especially in the trade of women and children in the sex trade. There is the way we continue to treat those born in other countries whose poverty drives them to seek a better life. Don’t forget that some treat others who are different from them in whatever way that allows them to be defined as ‘other.’ There are many continuing problems. We continue to treat certain people and others as if they were lesser and unworthy of living the life we crave and carve out for ourselves.

I would like to point out one area of concern, because it is my area of study (maybe read “hobbyhorse”). An area of personal concern: climate change. Let me close speaking of it. I’m not comparing climate change to slavery, however; one is based on evil directed against other humans, the other on neglect—a large difference in my mind. I am drawing attention how tragedy goes unseen when economics becomes entangled with doing what is right.

I recently attend a lecture by Rob Nixon who has written a book called Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. The premise of the book is that we have become unattuned to aspects of harm that happen at spatial and temporal scales that are too large or too slow to be easily dealt with at human scales of attention. We are good at acting when there is a tsunami or an earthquake. Natural disasters can be captured in the sound bite of modern sensibilities. The travesties of war and riot can be captured in our typical thirty-minute news cycle.

However, slow violence, violence that creeps along, often is of less interest. Attention can wait. Like the fundamental changes happening on our planet due to anthropogenic-caused climate change. As an ecologist I am struck by the fundamental changes occurring in every ecosystem on the planet. Species are shifting in directions not seen in geological time scales, the ocean is acidifying, and extinction rates are at unprecedented levels. Of course, taking action will require fundamental adjustments to our economy. But we can’t do that. Can we? Shall we post justify, ignore the harms? Business as usual?

Stephen Carter is editor of Sunstone Magazine, and a seriously awesome dude.

I discovered Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours while I was an undergraduate and immediately fell in love with the beautiful prose and nourishing story. Then, while my wife and I were at grad school, the movie was released and turned out to be as powerful as the novel. (In my mind, this is a significant argument for the existence of a benevolent God).

But the movie fell off my radar for some years. We had earned our degrees, become busy with making a living, and then, to my complete surprise, I took on the role of stay-at-home dad to raise our baby daughter. I didn’t realize how drastically this shift had affected me until I watched The Hours again a few weeks ago.

Near the beginning of the movie, Laura Brown sees her husband off to work, peering through the front window as he drives into the morning. Then she turns around to see her four-year-old son, a beautiful child with large, soulful eyes, watching her. They’re both still in their pajamas, cereal unfinished; and I could feel the smothering weight of the coming day falling implacably upon them.

I, too, have a lovely child: her golden-red hair and fire sprite soul. For the past three years I’ve been basking in her beauty, watching as her small body grows and articulates with the world, as intelligence unfolds in her eyes and words. I count it as one of the great privileges of my life that I’ve been able to witness so thoroughly the developing miracle of this child.

This is pure life.

But then there are the hours—at least eight every day—when my child and I fend for ourselves: filled with long walks through the neighborhood, tantrums, meals, library visits, tea parties, apocalyptic messes, Dora the Explorer yell-a-thons.

I’d like to think that I have goals for the day; that I’m going to accomplish something. But I know enough now to understand that at the end of the day, my hours will be represented by a house and a baby that are cleaner or dirtier depending on how many pockets of time I could scrounge up. That my reward will be a moment to soak in the beauty of my child as she sleeps, to remember the small sublimities that punctuated this lumbering day, and then to get a little sleep myself—hopefully enough to see me through the next day, full of hours. And the next.

I look ahead and see seemingly infinite tracts of these hours stretching into undifferentiated days, rolling blindly into years.

A miracle at my side; white noise surrounding me.

By Brad Carmack

Brad is a California attorney. He also earned a degree in biology and a Master of Public Administration at BYU. Brad is author of “Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student’s Perspective”, available on YouTube and in PDF. A Director of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, he also guest posted at fMh last year: Reflections of a Mormon Feminist: the role of women and men in and out of the church.

“The Age of Men is over. The Age of the Orc has begun.”  – Gothmog (the elephant-man orc in Lord of the Rings)

Do you remember that line, right after the bad guys destroyed Osgiliath?  ‘Twas a sad day for Middle-Earth.  Sometimes I feel the same way about the gender binary (aka everyone is either male or female) in Real Earth. “The Age of Gender is over.  The age of Postgenderism has begun.”  In many ways, however, this straight Mormon feminist thinks the Postgenderism age will be a one-up on its predecessor– rather than analogous to an invasion of ugly orcs.  But first, let me build some groundwork.  I will:

1. Explain why the gender binary fails
2. Discuss the shortcomings of gender roles
3. Defend my view that Postgenderism will result in many genders, rather than no genders
4. Conclude as to why this is a good thing for Mormonism

*Heads-up: there’s a picture of a nude intersex individual below, in case you’d prefer to avoid it.

(1) Explain why the gender binary fails

Everybody is either a boy or a girl- this is a pretty obvious and common sense proposition.  Until you examine it closely.

Though I explore the gender binary in greater depth in other places (e.g. Why Mormonism Can Abide Gay Marriage, a narrated slideshow on YouTube, or my blog post All people are either male or female: think again), the basic proof is not too hard.  We make a snap judgment of a person’s biological sex based on appearance, and in almost all cultures map a gender onto the result.  However, anatomy fails as a biological sex discriminator: nature draws no black and white lines on the male-female axis.

Illustration: Let’s say you have Taylor (I use this name because I have both male and female friends named Taylor).  Taylor just turned 16, and it’s time to send Taylor to Laurel’s or Priest’s Quorum.  Where would you send Taylor if Taylor:

• A: has a penis and a vagina
• B: has a penis, testicles, and breasts
• C: looks like a woman; genetically male (e.g. Santhi Soundarajan- Indian champion runner that attempted suicide after humiliating treatment surrounding learning her intersex status. She has Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, with XY chromosomes but developed as female externally.)
• D: looks like a man; genetically female
• E: XXY genetically; physically appears male
• F: XXY genetically; physically appears female
• G: X_; appears male
• H: X_; appears female
• I: XX + translocated SRY; appears male
• J: appears female, has testicles where ovaries should be and doesn’t menstruate
• K: appears female; K claims to be male psychologically and spiritually
• L: penis and a vagina; L claims to be male psychologically and spiritually
• M: penis and a vagina; M claims to be female psychologically and spiritually
• N: appears male; N claims to be both male and female psychologically and spiritually
• O: appears female; O claims to be neither male nor female psychologically/spiritually
• P: has a penis and a uterus; menstruates through the penis

As you might imagine, there are a great many real members of our species who fit into at least one of the above categories (see Caster Semenya, Sarah Gronert, and this documentary for anecdotes).  We as Mormons assume a 1:1 correspondence of physical to spiritual gender (if that weren’t true, wouldn’t our opposition to same-sex marriage instantly vaporize?).  If indeed all people are either spiritual males or females as many Mormons conclude (one need look no farther than Boyd K. Packer’s 22 Jan 2012 seminary centennial broadcast @42:20 for an example), then this assumption is clearly unsustainable.  If we can’t even tell Taylor with confidence whether to go to Priest’s Quorum or Laurel’s, what’s the use of telling Taylor that marrying a man will result in Taylor’s excommunication rather than exaltation? What is the validity of claiming that all men must receive the priesthood to be exalted, if we can’t even tell whether or not Taylor is a man?

“But,” you might contend, “intersex folks are such a small minority- sure there are a few questionable cases, but that doesn’t mean the whole male/female system is a failure.” The border cases reveal the underlying truth we usually don’t otherwise think of, however.  Sex and gender are a photomosaic rather than a binary: for everyone.

As you get closer to a photomosaic, what was once clearly a specific image is revealed as a collection of constituent parts, each its own picture.  (Don’t blame yourself for being “gull”ible though, the vast majority of folks fit the stereotypes well enough to evade the radar).  Anatomical features such as genitalia, brain structures, and genes are a few of the underlying pictures.  So might be a particular individual’s placement on the dimensions of aggressiveness, verbal fluency, libido, sensitivity, nurturing style, and sociality.  Sexual orientation is another sub-picture: though you see a female from a distance, that particular individual might have a male-type sexual orientation (i.e. towards women).  And even that picture may itself be a photomosaic of several other dimensions, e.g. repulsion towards men, repulsion towards women, hyper vs. asexuality, direction of romantic/spiritual/sexual attraction, etc.).  The transgender spectrum also helps show us how little we understand human diversity in the gendered space.  Taylor Petrey’s excellent recent article, Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology, explores some of these themes as well in the “Eternal Gender” section (page 120).  Bottom line: a primary lesson of biology, that human diversity is made up of a vast quantity of overlapping bell curves rather than 0′s and 1′s, finds vindication at this level of inspection.

The only trouble is, Mormons make quite a lot of the gender binary!  Even fMh relies on a crucial discrimination between male and female (though I’ll concede “Mormon housespouses” doesn’t have quite the same ring).

(2) Discuss the shortcomings of gender roles

Gender stereotypes really are a disservice to everyone, since the majority of individuals are sexually dimorphic/atypical for their gender on at least one trait (be it affinity for sports, talkativeness, sensitivity, sexuality, etc.).  In my case, I’ve been accused of being too chatty, rather than the strong/silent type male stereotype.  What “girly” or “masculine” attribute do you have that’s atypical for your sex?  Have you felt uncomfortable when someone pointed it out?

When we look at a person, rather than first seeing an individual, we see either a man or a woman.  I remember talking to a man-turned-woman at an event in SLC last year- and despite my intense, intentional effort to perceive the individual as a person first (without the gender lens), my mighty struggle failed.  That very lens through which we see others blinds us to their individuality by imposing a pre-fabricated map of gender roles and attributes.  Thus, though some lenses are useful (e.g. the anatomy-based assumption of personhood is awesome, though it has a few flaws), the gender lens does far more harm that good.

Because I’d like to focus more on Postgenderism than on current gender issues in Mormonism, I’ll refer to my gender roles post for elaboration on the negatives of gender roles.  Briefly: the Family Proclamation’s emphasis on gender roles (e.g. men preside and provide, women nurture) evidences the importance of gender roles in Mormon thought.  The temple ceremony, priesthood exclusivity, and governance dichotomies clash with consensus contemporary notions of gender equality.

(3) Defend my view that Postgenderism will result in many genders, rather than no genders

George Dvorsky and James Hughes over at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies have an awesome article entitled Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary.  The abstract:

“Postgenderism is an extrapolation of ways that technology is eroding the biological, psychological and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory. Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology and reproductive technologies. Postgenderists contend that dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphisms are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Assisted reproduction will make it possible for individuals of any sex to reproduce in any combinations they choose, with or without “mothers” and “fathers,” and artificial wombs will make biological wombs unnecessary for reproduction. Greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality. Postgenderists do not call for the end of all gender traits, or universal androgyny, but rather that those traits become a matter of choice. Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression.”

The authors make excellent arguments about why technology will increasingly erode gender essentialism and the two-gender system.  I’ll focus on the example I’ve written about: same-sex reproduction.  A male couple possess all the genes needed to make a person (a cheek swab from me has all the instructions for manufacturing a human egg).  A mouse with two and only two biological parents, two male mice, is already out there.  An artificial womb is, like the Death Star, not yet fully operational (but close).  In coming decades, lesbian and gay couples will likely procreate on their own.  Human cloning and the ability to select the physical characteristics (sexual orientation, genitals, etc.) of offspring and self will expand the choices available to individuals and parents further.

Rather than eliminating gender, however, this change will more likely result in a Cambrian explosion of genders.  To the early student, there may be only two categories of literature: fiction and non-fiction.  The mature student realizes the plurality of genres- fantasy, historical fiction, memoir, tragedy, scripture, romance, diary, fable.  More seagulls are likely to appear as we inch closer and closer to the photomosaic!  Already we have some precedents to look to- Tetrahymena thermophila, for instance, has seven genders.

(4) Conclude as to why this is a good thing for Mormonism

There are many negatives in Mormonism that result from the mismatch of the gender dyad to the reality of human diversity.  One is opposition to same-sex marriage.  Robert George (a well-known conservative Catholic legal scholar), for instance, supported an opposition to same-sex marriage based on legitimizing only marriages between two people that have between them both a penis and vagina (don’t take my word for it- see his article, What is Marriage?, yourself).  It is long past time to put this type of argument to bed- and a proliferation of genders will help accomplish that ideal.

Other negatives, such as the lack of governance access to women, would probably evaporate in the face of a plurality of genders (the common denominator of personhood would level the playing field).  Family gender roles informed by unmerited claims about spiritual attributes (e.g. women are primarily responsible for nurturing) would disappear, to be replaced by free arrangements informed by the uniqueness of the couple and situation.  Priesthood and temple dichotomies would be reformed to reflect the realities of human diversity and our ignorance about spiritual gender.  The otherizing of intersex and transgender folks would decrease.  The atonement that unites Elohim, humanity, and all of nature would become more obvious as a plurality of genders helps us identify with non-sexual species.  The example of Christ would be recognized as a universal narrative, rather than a male one.  We would embrace the richness of human diversity, further realizing the ideal: “black and white, bond and free, male and female… all are alike unto [us]“. -2N26:33

“Postgenderism is a radical interpretation of the feminist critique of patriarchy and gender, and the genderqueer critique of the way that binary gender constrains individual potential and our capacity to communicate with and understand other people. Postgenderism transcends essentialism and social constructionism by asserting that freedom from gender will require both social reform and Biotechnology… biotechnologies, neurotechnologies and information technologies make it possible to complete the project of freeing ourselves from patriarchy and the constraints of binary gender. Postgender technologies will put an end to static biological and sexual self-identification, allowing individuals to decide for themselves which biological and psychological gender traits they wish to keep or reject.” – Dvorsky and Hughes

As individuals and parents become increasingly capable of selecting for the anatomical sub-pictures that underly our discrimination of who is male and who is female, the flowering of human choice and diversity will replace its narrow, gender binary predecessor.  The fall of racism individualized and equalized previously stereotyped members of racial classes.  Similarly, the fall of the gender binary will largely be a good thing.  Luckily for us, the Postgender future has already begun to dawn.

By: Ziff

Ziff blogs at Zelophehad’s Daughters, often about numbers-related stuff or silly stuff. He is a devoted reader and a big fan of fMh.

Number of times pornography has been mentioned in General Conference in the past 20 years: 128

Number of times rape has been mentioned: 4

I’ve been wondering recently why General Authorities spend so much time condemning porn use and so little time condemning rape. Porn use and rape seem like related problems: they’re sexual wrongs that men do to women. (I realize they aren’t exclusively done by men or exclusively done to women, but this is their most common variety, and that’s what I’ll talk about.) So why in the Church is there so much focus on one and so little on the other? Note that the counts above probably understate the difference, as rape has been mentioned three times in laundry lists of evils of the world and once as a circumstance under which the Church might approve of abortion, while porn use has often been discussed in much more detail.

Before I go any farther, let me warn you about what you can expect from this post. I have essentially no experience with either porn use or rape, so this post is entirely based on my own musings. Unfortunately, I’m afraid this may mean I’ll come across as being a bit cold, and likely that I’ll also miss major issues that are obvious to people who do, unfortunately, have such experience. Please forgive me for my tone and for my inevitable omissions in discussing such sensitive topics.

Thinking about the imbalance in how often porn use is condemned versus how often rape is condemned, I’ve come up with two lists of reasons. The first is a list of reasons why GAs might consciously choose to address porn more. The second is a list of reasons for the imbalance that might affect GAs without their being aware of it. Finally, as you might have suspected, I believe that rape should be preached against more often than it is, so I offer a list of reasons for my conclusion.

Conscious reasons for GAs focusing more on porn

1. Porn use is more common.

2. Porn use is on the increase. Again, I don’t have data, but I would be shocked if there isn’t far more porn use now than there was, say, twenty years ago, simply because the internet has made it so much more accessible.

3. GAs might view porn use as a gateway sin. That is, they might believe that men who use porn are more likely to go on to commit more serious sexual sins (including rape), but that men who don’t use porn are less likely to commit more serious sexual sins.

4. Like Jacob in the Book of Mormon, GAs might want to avoid discussing such a potentially difficult topic when addressing an audience that includes so many children.

5. GAs might figure that by preaching against premarital sex, they’re implicitly getting at rape as well.

I think #1 and #2 are almost certainly true, and therefore good arguments for preaching more against porn. The fact that porn is both easy to get and legal (in its more common forms) suggests that porn use is likely to be far more common than rape, which is difficult to do and illegal (even if a majority of rapes aren’t reported). Similarly, although I don’t have data, I strongly suspect that as the internet has made porn more accessible, it has also increased how many men use it.

I really don’t know about #3, but I doubt that the link is anything like this clear. If porn use were actually a gateway to more serious sexual crimes, wouldn’t there have been a huge increase in rape in the past twenty years as porn has become more accessible? Wouldn?t it also be the case that countries where porn is more available would have correspondingly higher rates of rape? I’ve seen Japan cited as a counterexample here: apparently porn is quite common there, but rape is infrequent.

For #4, I think the counterargument is pretty obvious: talking about porn in front of kids is no walk in the park either. In fact, given that GAs do already talk about porn fairly often, signaling their willingness to tackle tough sex-related topics in front of children, it puzzles me all the more that they pretty much never talk about rape.

Finally, for #5, this reasoning overlooks the fact that rape is likely driven by very different motives than premarital sex that is not coerced. The former is in many cases I would think an expression of anger or hate or the desire for power, while the latter is likely simply an expression of love. Additionally, rape is inherently wrong, while premarital sex is only wrong for being at the wrong time and/or with the wrong person. These dramatic differences suggest to me that preaching against premarital sex is not a substitute for explicitly preaching against rape.

Other causes of GAs focusing more on porn

6. GAs may blame women for rape, at least to some degree. I think this is evident in the excessive rhetoric on modesty they direct at young women with the rationale that women control men’s thoughts. It’s a short step from blaming women for men’s thoughts to blaming women for men’s actions. Their attitude probably shouldn’t be surprising considering the ages of the most senior GAs: they were raised in a time when blaming women for rape was probably typical.

7. GAs may not realize that most rape victims are raped by men they know. This is pretty speculative on my part, but if GAs are hanging on to the old belief that rapists are mostly strangers lurking in dark allies, they may feel like it’s hopeless to preach to such psychopaths. Again, given their ages, it wouldn’t be surprising if they believed this.

8. It’s a historical accident. Once porn was mentioned a few times in Conference, then there was an established narrative that men using porn fit into. Women whose husbands used porn felt (more) comfortable going to their bishops to talk about it. Stories could then seep up the chain to the GAs, giving them more examples to cite, and validating their choice to preach against porn. For rape, by contrast, there is no established narratives simply because it was never preached against in the first place. Women who are raped likely feel alone in their experience. They’re not likely to go to the police, for fear of being shamed. Not surprisingly, they’re also not likely to go to their bishops for the same reason. No stories seep up the chain to the GAs, and they therefore feel no particular need to preach against rape in Conference.

Reasons for focusing more on rape

A. Mormon women are particularly vulnerable to being raped. They are taught to be deferential and submissive. For example, here’s former Young Women’s General President Margaret D. Nadauld:

The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being tender, kind, and refined. But resisting rape requires toughness, and probably also coarseness and rudeness. Women who are taught that toughness is worldly and therefore wrong are women who are less likely to stand up and say no when their boyfriends or husbands are pushing them sexually in ways they don’t want to go.

This point was highlighted to me when I listened to Natasha Helfer Parker interview Jennifer Finlayson-Fife on Mormon Stories. Much of the interview is about Finlayson-Fife’s dissertation; for it, she interviewed 16 LDS women who were raised in the Church about their experiences related to sexuality and how the Church affected them in this area. Here is the specific point she made that got me to thinking about the problem of Mormon women being vulnerable to rape (starting at about 51:20 in Part 1 of the podcast):

Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Part of the radical feminist perspective is that we really set women up to fail in the sexual realm and to feel more devalued and undermined when they’re trying to both stay virginal and pure and then manage male sexual desires while being nice about it. Many of the women that I interviewed talked about that in adolescence as being very difficult to navigate, that they valued themselves as really nice girls, so to speak, and very wanting to not disappoint, and then knowing that he wanted to go further than she thought she probably should and not knowing how to refuse without seeming mean. So she’s trying to be both virginal and nice at the same time that his sexual wishes are putting her in a double bind.

Natasha Helfer Parker: How can I be nice and say no at the same time??

JFF: Right. And oftentimes women would not say no, and they would be nice, and then they would feel all the guilt and the shame and feel ashamed in their relationship with God and in their relationship with their bishop, and even with the boyfriend, feeling like ‘Now does he think I’m a slut because I was willing to do that much with him?’ And none of this was based in their physical desire, which is very sad. It wasn’t even like ‘I really wanted to do something, I did more than I thought I should from my own moral framework, and I therefore need to repent.’ That’s one thing. But to feel like the whole thing was around trying to take care of these competing demands, none of which is connected to your sense of self, is very sad for these girls, and was very fractious for them psychologically speaking.

NHP: They’re not taking their own desire into account. That’s not even the point.

I think it’s interesting that neither of them even framed this discussion as being about rape. It’s about women simultaneously charged with being nice and being sexual gatekeepers: rape and guilt are just the inevitable outcomes.

B. Mormon women are particularly likely to blame themselves for being raped. As I’ve already mentioned, there’s not much Church teaching out there on the topic of rape. A woman who is raped is likely to find only the old line of thinking popularized by President Kimball that a woman is better of dying than ‘allowing’ herself to be raped. She may also connect the dots as I did in reason #6 above, and figure that she must be to blame for being raped because of what she wore (or if she doesn’t do this, people around her may do it for her).

Both of these teachings are incredibly destructive. Women are not responsible to sacrifice their lives if attacked by a rapist. Women’s clothing choices are not to blame for rape. The last thing women who are raped need is a heaping pile of guilt to add to their pain. GAs’ choice to leave these teachings out there unrepudiated is a choice to let women suffer more. Even if they want to follow the typical Mormon path of letting old erroneous ideas quietly die rather than actively repudiating them, GAs could at least start by saying some more reasonable things about rape, like addressing it as a men’s problem (‘don’t rape’) rather than a wome’?s problem (‘don’t get raped’).

A related issue is that if GAs never explicitly tell men not to rape women, they make it easier for men to rationalize their behavior when they do. In most cases, it seems unlikely that men wouldn’t know that the Church condemns rape. But it’s also true that men must overhear some of the blaming modesty rhetoric directed at women, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they also connected the dots and figured that women they raped were at least partially to blame.

C. Rape is far more evil than porn use is. This is the obvious response to #1. A man who rapes a woman not only hurts her in the moment of the act, he also likely causes her to suffer for a long time afterward. Her experience of sex, which should be such a wonderful way to connect with her partner, becomes laden with horrifying associations. Her ability to trust other people will likely be harmed, making all kinds of social interaction more difficult. Her feeling of personal safety may also be reduced, restricting her ability to go to particular places or to go out at particular times. I can’t see that porn use is anything like as bad as this.

D. Preventing rape stops a lot more suffering than preventing porn use does. This is so because the work (and suffering) of a single porn actress can be used by large numbers of men, while each rape strikes a new victim. Another way of thinking about this is to imagine what would happen if GAs’ preaching could entirely eliminate either porn use or rape among Mormon men. If porn use were eliminated, this would be good for the men (and for their wives and girlfriends), but unless Mormons constitute a really large fraction of the market for porn, it would not noticeably reduce the demand for women to act in porn. If rape were eliminated, on the other hand, this would not only be good for men, it would be a great outcome for the women who would otherwise have been raped.

E. The harm caused by the threat of rape is easy for men, including GAs, to underestimate. While reading this MetaFilter discussion recently, I was struck by how this threat, and the threat of violence from men more generally, probably colors many women’s everyday experience in a way that we men are just not likely to grasp well. (Note: The MetaFilter thread is long and contentious and the commenters are often profane and vulgar. But I found the experiences many of them shared to be eye-opening.) Given how difficult it may be for men to empathize with women’s experiences of harassment and the threat of rape, and given that all GAs are men, it seems quite likely that they don’t take this threat to women as seriously as they should. It would therefore be good for them to correct for this tendency by taking rape and the threat of rape more seriously than they might otherwise be inclined to.

My conclusion is that GAs should spend more time in Conference preaching against rape, even if it’s at the expense of a little preaching against porn use. I’m interested to hear what you all think of either this conclusions or my lists of reasons. What did I miss? Or which items on my lists do you disagree with?

Matt Page (AKA Brother Matsby) is a freelance illustrator, graphic designer, and humor writer based in Salt Lake City. His work has appeared in the pages of the Monsters and Mormons anthology, on the cover of Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, and most recently he just finished designing the cover to Joanna Brooks’ The Book Of Mormon Girl. He is a semi-regular contributor at By Common Consent, and posts even less regularly at his own Mormon humor blog My Religious Blog . Look, he’s harmless. Mostly he just wants to be accepted. Also he’s looking for work, so it would help if you hired him.

by: Tristan Call

What can the anarchist labor movement teach us about solidarity in the fight against sexual violence?
Tristan Call

In part 1 of this piece, I introduced the Wobblies’ iconic approach to ‘solidarity unionism’, and ways that we can take the lessons of class struggle literally in the joint fight against sexual violence. In part 2, I look at two examples of the role of feminism in anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian struggle.

Rape survivors organizing against capitalism

Most of what I would like to say here is said better, and from experience, by Liberté Locke, a barista and organizer of the Starbucks Workers Union (IWW), in her piece “My Body, My Rules”. I’ll make extensive references to her account in this post, but it’s worth just reading it in its entirety first.

In my previous piece (Part 1), I argued that abusers often learn how to abuse by brutalizing women, and then afterwards branch out to brutalizing men. This is obviously overly schematic, but it’s one more reason why men might want to face down misogyny from the beginning instead of letting it take root – because it comes back to bite us eventually, too. It also helps us to understand oppression in its more generalized forms (i.e. modern capitalism), so we should pay special attention to the sexist or racist origins of some kinds of violence if we want to be able to achieve liberation for everyone. And that’s not a bad basis for ‘solidarity’ between genders in the fight against sexual violence even when we recognize that men and women have dramatically different experiences and risks.

I’ll begin with the ways feminism can help us develop a general theory of oppression.

Liberté Locke starts her essay this way:

I was raped by a boyfriend on August 18th, 2006. The very next day I held back tears while I lied to a stranger over the phone about why I was unavailable to go in that day for a second interview for a job that I desperately needed. When I hung up the phone I saw a new text message. It was from him. “It’s not over. It will never be over between us…”

The next day I went in for the second interview. It was inside of the Sears Tower Starbucks in Chicago. I took the train to the interview constantly looking around me and shaking. I needed work. I had just been fired from Target two weeks prior and had no prospects. I knew I would have to go through a metal detector in order to enter the building so despite every instinct in my body I did not bring a knife with me.

She got that job, and Liberté eventually became one of the most active and notorious organizers of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union in New York City. Where mainstream ‘business unions’ have decided that the high turnover and low-paying service sector is too difficult or unrewarding to unionize, the IWW is trying to fill the gap and support organizing among the ‘unskilled’ and low-wage workers that make up the majority of America’s postindustrial workforce (this is essentially the same thing that happened a hundred years ago, which was why the IWW was originally founded. With the IWW, Liberté fought for wage increases, health care, the right to organize, and an end to sexual harassment. But once a year, on the date of her hiring, she has

annual reviews where I generally get to argue with someone younger than me who makes significantly more than do about why my hard work, aching back, cracking hands, sore wrists, the bags under my eyes, the burns, the bruises on my arms, the cuts on my knees, the constant degrading treatment by the customers, the “baby, honey, sugar, bitch”, the “hey, you, slut…I said NO whip cream!”s, the staring, the following after work…I get to argue why all that means I’m worth a 33cent raise rather than 22cents.

Liberté says this annual review is the one reason why she still remembers the anniversary of her rape.

Ultimately, she argues that throwing an abusive boyfriend off your back and organizing at work are similar tasks, and carry similar risks:

After nearly six months of therapy we hit a revelation. He was always manipulative, always verbally abusive. He preyed on my self-esteem and wanted me miserable so that I felt I needed him. So I’d crave his approval and attention. The few days leading up the assault I had started standing up for myself, not taking his shit as much. Refusing sex when I thought he was being an asshole when in the past I would had caved even after he would insult me. My therapist presented the idea that he raped me because he felt he was losing his control over me. It was meant to break me…as you would a horse.

Through therapy I started to feel like I was worth something and that he was the sad loser. Not me. He wanted something from me and getting that something wasn’t enough. He wanted my spirit and body. Ownership over things uncontainable.

When I started to feel stronger and less afraid I really stopped being able to put up with rude customers. Not putting up with rude customers meant facing the bosses’ wrath when the customers complained which then meant I had to stand up to my bosses. Finally the real opportunity came and not wanting to live as a victim anymore took the form of signing a union card with the Industrial Workers of the World.

[...]

The bosses were very manipulative. Abusing you for many shifts in a row, refusing you breaks, calling you stupid, promoting people that sexually harassed you, giving you schedules that made sleep impossible, refusing raises based on petty things like whether you always remembered to wear the required black socks or cover your tattoos. Then when we started organizing they would do this behavior for days and suddenly throw a pizza party. The majority of workers would thank the boss and talk for weeks about how much they really cared about us. How kind they were. How lucky we were.

Suddenly all the abuse faded away and grudges were dropped. Bosses were welcomed back into group conversations and invited to baby showers.

I see no difference between this scenario and the boyfriend hitting his girlfriend in the face and then showing up with flowers & candy and the cycle starting all over again.

Boyfriends and Bosses

In his books Endgame and The Culture of Make Believe, Derrick Jensen writes about abuse. He draws from his own experience being beaten and raped by his father, and seeing his father do the same to his mother and sister. In Jensen’s books, “abuse” is a general term: it is what brutal cops do to people of color; it is what Coca-Cola CEO’s do to India’s aquifers; it is what Rumsfeld does to Iraq; it is what rapists do to women; it is what bosses to to baristas. The slippage is intentional, but it can be disorienting at first. After all, we live in a world (finally!) where a strange man raping a woman he does not know in a parking lot is called a ‘criminal,’ whereas a hedge fund manager whose home is financed by the clearcutting of hundreds of acres of Indonesian rain forest is ‘successful’, and a middle-level manager who tells a distraught employee to get back to work is ‘proactive’ and ‘effective.’ But Jensen’s Great Big Insight is that these are all forms of abuse. And, furthermore, that these forms of abuse are intimately related. They are related because abusers use the same tools to get away with exactly as much as they calculate they can get away with – and they sharpen those tools on women and the earth. As Liberté puts it, the purpose of organizing is to stop abusers’ “use of our bodies for their own desires”. And –I risk repeating myself– our job as men, if we don’t want to risk getting cut, is to stop the sharpening before it starts. Women carry the scars to tell us what the blade is like; when it is likely to strike; what we will feel when it begins to slice; and perhaps, how to fight back.

The Politics of Gender in Occupy Nashville

One axis of oppression is not more important than another.

But in the breathless post-2011 world, where for once class warfare might swing in the favor of the workers rather than the bosses, where even people that know better suspend their judgment and chant “we are the 99%” as though we really all were in the same boat, just because it makes such a handy slogan. . . in this atomized and until-recently-hopeless world, where we all crave a Big Movement that can make some Big Changes, it can be tempting to choose simplistic ‘unity’ over the more challenging road of solidarity.

First, I should point out that women have been at the forefront of Occupy Nashville since the beginning – facilitating, direct action planning, getting arrested, running jail support, fundraising, and everything else. It’s also worth pointing out that the consensus process Occupy is so famous for was developed by the pioneers of the Women’s Liberation movement; in many ways we are already, structurally, a profoundly feminist movement. That’s one of the reasons it has been so tragically ironic and disturbing that so much sexism persists in our encampments and working groups.

I’ve been operating in ‘activist circles’ for a few years now, and the misogyny I encountered while joining Occupy Nashville was a shocking reminder of how deep the wounds of sexual violence are in our society. In the fairly utopian activist circles I’m used to, fighting patriarchy is usually about making sure men don’t interrupt women or dominate the speaking time in meetings, but in the cross-section of broader society I encountered in Occupy Nashville, misogyny is deeper and more pernicious. I wasn’t ready to deal with the constant threat of sexual assault, the open and sneering dismissal of female occupiers as second-class, as hysterical, as bitches, and if they ever brought it up, as “femi-nazis” (in the most recent example I’m thinking of, the recipient of this verbal abuse was both female and Jewish from a holocaust-survivor family). Interrupting was just the tip of the iceberg.

We had a sexually-aggressive man living at the encampment, who was arrested during our battle to defend Nashville’s Legislative Plaza for free speech on October 27th and 28th. A woman confronted him and other men leapt to his defense; I found myself in a pizza parlor with a group of friends berating her for being too confrontational, insisting and that he was ‘a good guy’. She didn’t back down, and at some point the tension had mounted enough to spark a re-evaluation, and I realized that now could be my chance to do things right for once, after all the dozens of times I had gotten it wrong, been complictly or unwillingly recruited into the Brotherhood of All Men, stood with the abuser instead of the abused, and been called out for it. I told her she was right. I told the other men that she was right. In the end, we all agreed that he wouldn’t stop unless we stopped enabling him and covering for him. I include this story to point out that while the gender politics I’ve seen at Occupy Nashville are sometimes overwhelmingly bad, there is hope, and people are changing (though that change can be arduous and painful).

Occupy Nashville’s problem has not just been that women get abused there. More broadly, our problem is that when men and women call out that abuse, they are told that ‘that’s not what this movement is about’ and that feminism is a distraction from our larger goals, the goals that supposedly unify all of the 99%. While this kind of dodging doesn’t always fly, it works surprisingly often. When it does, the supposed nobility of the larger movement-at-hand acts as a free license for us to act out our internalized misogyny unchecked. That’s when, for all its sometimes-utility as a combative slogan, “we are the 99 percent” backfires. In those moments it becomes a tool used against women rather than a tool for inspiring democratic experiments.

On the many contentious email threads of Occupy Nashville, we are often admonished to ‘leave feminism out of this’; or, if the author doesn’t want the liability of being specific, just to ‘leave our agendas at the door’ and (it always seems to be white men saying this) ‘focus on our core issues’ – presumably, the twin goals of getting money out of politics and ending corporate personhood, rather than the issues of ending identity- or body-specific violence, like that against women, people of color, or people overseas. [I assume that other activists are familiar with these online flame-wars, but if you're not, thank your luck and read on.] While few if any of those people calling for feminism to be ‘left out of this’ in Nashville are anarchists, this is something in anti-authoritarian circles that we refer to as “manarchism” – essentially, the idea that your anticapitalist militancy is so badass that you don’t have to treat others with kindness or take feminism seriously.

Satire from the “Manarchist Ryan Gosling” Tumblr

Abusers are the 1%

There’s not an easy solution to this problem. Some say it is what tore apart the Black Panther Party and SDS back in the late 60′s, and even after the ‘successful’ Cuban revolution women have spent the last 50 years struggling to approach full equality with men. But how about we try this: if you’re an abuser, you aren’t with us. You may not be rich, but you’re on the side of the 1%. That’s because the tools you’re collecting, sharpening, and deploying are the tools that make inequality possible and durable; some bosses use those tools to entrench economic injustice and political corruption, and other bosses use them to make sure that women can’t leave the apartment after they get raped. If our goal is to experiment with democracy and create a radical alternative to the hierarchical government and economy that disregards the poor and powerless, feminism can’t be an afterthought. Let’s start there, walking with women like Liberté and the women of Occupy Nashville and learning from them how to identify the enemy and how to make him run.

[apologetic note: I've written this piece in pretty heteronormative language (I talk a lot about women and men, rather than about queer folks of all kinds). That's not because I'm intentionally trying to exclude trans or gay people from this discussion; I'm just still trying to figure out how to think and write about that aspect, and thought I would start with where I'm at now.]

This was the first post I wrote when invited to guest post for Manuary.

A couple years ago, I realized I know virtually nothing about my maternal Grandma. She grew up in Smithfield (Utah), lives in Ogden, has survived five husbands, had one child, and for most of her life has been only casually active in the Church. Fini.

Actually, this fact had been nagging at me for some time, but really came to a head when Grandma’s health take a serious turn for the worse. She had to stay in the hospital for a few days. She’s in her eighties, and while there has been no catastrophic problems, her health has been steadily declining for years. She recovered, but her health remained precarious. Mom, upon whom Grandma has become more and more dependent, moved her into an assisted living facility just over a year ago after Grandma fell in the bathroom and remained helpless for a couple of hours. The events really made me consider: was she going to die a virtual stranger to me? Don’t mistake me; I love her. She was always very warm with us when we were around, always smiling. I always enjoyed visiting her, as opposed to my much more formal, very severe paternal grandmother (her chosen title: she was grandmother, not grandma). But I don’t really know her. What part of me will be lost forever if I don’t know some of what makes her who she is?

I wonder if the developments in our modern culture have deteriorated the ties that bind the different generations. My Grandma is admittedly exceptional in this regard. My Mom doesn’t really know a lot about my Grandma’s youth, and Grandma has proven cagey in responding to my attempts to draw out some stories. But I think the general issue is not exclusive to my Grandma. As I talked with my wife about the things I didn’t know about my Grandma (How did she grow up? How did she meet her first husband—or any of them aside from the fifth, for that matter? How did she experience the major events of the twentieth century?), my wife began to realize that she didn’t know a great deal more about her grandparents than I did about my grandma. Like me with my Grandmother, she knew some of the specific facts about where they were raised and where they had lived, but little about their experiences, the stories that put flesh on the bare bones of facts.

Up until the early decades of the Twentieth Century, the means for transmitting information and cultural transmission were limited. Much of a person’s time was spent in the company of family and perhaps members of the community. A primary method of passing the time was the telling of stories. Whether preparing food, doing chores, relaxing, or celebrating, the older members of the family would pass the time by sharing their own experiences or those passed down from earlier generations.

Much has changed in the last hundred years. The proliferation of labor-saving devices and convenience foods have considerably reduced the amount of time we work together on chores. Industrialization and post-industrialization have increasingly reduced the potential for enterprises in which a family can work together for their economic support. Technology communication abounds, allowing us an ever escalating number of informational sources. Entertainment in all its disparate forms has burgeoned and become one of the dominant factors in modern life. With the ubiquity of mass media, there is precious little time when the air is not filled with music, television or radio broadcasts (or their new media equivalents). We have replaced the intimate stories of people we know with the typically more exciting and yet more distant stories offered in the mass media. In many households in western society, each member has access to media in their own rooms, further minimizing opportunities for family interaction (not to mention reducing popular alternatives for discipline—for what child is their room a punishment today?).

Make no mistake, I’m incredibly grateful for the modern communication advances. I’m an information junkie, to the point of overload. I’ve hundreds of items in my rss reader from knowledgeable and intriguing sources on world events, politics, economics, food, cooking, science, technology, and career development (graphic design and library science)—not to mention personal blogs which I consider meaningful. I likewise have dozens of podcasts on the same subjects. I’ve a list of over [seven]-hundred books I’d like to read, to which I add two more for every book I read and remove. There are a number of worthwhile movies, documentaries, and tv series I’d like to see. I could never willingly choose to give up all these media sources with which I expand my perspective and understanding.

But there appears to be a cost to this glut of information and media, and the atrophy of personal storytelling. Scientists have come up with a great deal of evidence that touch plays a crucial role in human development. The hormone oxytocin, released through physical touch, stimulates cognitive development in children, cements relationships, and increases intimacy (both sexual and non). I would suggest that the interpersonal sharing of stories may play a similar role within our families and communities. Those stories are more than just information; they break down emotional barriers, increase that sense of connection which is the root of intimacy, and develop the social adhesion which can make families and communities strong.They help grease the wheels of our social networks, easing the interaction of people and allowing groups composed of remarkably different individuals to act in unison for common and important purposes. Could it be that the reduced role of storytelling plays a role in the increased frictions of our society, the “breakdown of the family” about which so many are concerned?

Within the Church, we often hear about the hearts of the children being turned to their fathers, typically in connection with genealogical research and proxy temple ordinances. I think it means something much more broad. When I read the memoir which one of my paternal Great-Grandpas typed up, I felt a much greater connection to this man who was previously only a distant, slow-moving farmer in my mind. When I convinced by Grandma’s fifth husband, a Dutch immigrant, to tell me the stories of his experience in his homeland’s insurgency during WWII I was awed and humbled by this hunched old man’s courage and determination. They each became more human, and I grew to love them in a much more genuine love. Both men have since died, but I still feel a greater connection with these two men than my Grandma whom I still see on a regular basis.

Or did, anyway. I am determined to get to know my Grandma as a human being rather than just a title. Inspired by the NPR series Storycorps, I have been taking a digital recorder when I visit my Grandma. Through patient, persistent discussion, I’m slowly teasing out some of the experiences of her life; her feelings about church as a young woman, her time as a student at USU early in the century, her first husband, her recollections of WWII, her appreciation for Sunstone magazine (turns out I’m not the first family member to wander from Mormon orthodoxy!). I’ve been developing a much greater respect for this Irene Stam through our conversations. I’m uploading them to a family website so that my siblings can learn about their Grandma. I would like to plan to spend more time with other older family members. And I hope to establish a better balance between the tools of information and the opportunities for social connection with the various members of my community in my life.

Today I still know very little about Grandma’s life story. We were able to get her to speak a little more about her childhood in Smithfield, her first ride in a car, going to the Hyrum dance hall on a date, her time in college, her employer’s concern with her marrying a diabetic, his fears being realized when her husband died a couple years into their marriage. But we’ve learned about as much as we probably will; she continues to typically deflect questions, and while she’s doing fairly well now, a couple of strokes have made it much more difficult for her to talk at all.

by RAH – a longtime reader and commentor on FMH. RAH was a feminist long before Elisothel his eternal companion. A born optimist, he chooses to be a Tempered Radical within the Church on gender and other issues.

I want my wife to have the priesthood.  I really, really, really do.

I want to stand in a circle in front of friends and family, my hand on my wife’s shoulder and our fingers intertwined, to hold and gently bounce our newborn while giving her a name and blessing. I want my wife to feel that exhilarating and utterly terrifying moment when you pause then plunge blindly on with faith – hoping that your words might be inspired or at the very least pleasing to God.  I need her to understand with the understanding that only comes through the doing how these blessings are one part one’s own deepest desires, and maybe one part inspiration, and how you hardly ever know which is which. I want her to experience that moment when you think that your will just might intersect with the divine and the cosmic satisfaction when what you have crafted, however awkward or stumbling, feels deeply right.   I imagine us each giving our child separate blessings, our personalities and faith blending, complimenting and filling in the nooks and crannies left by the other.  Would there be a more beautiful symbol that this new life is not only a beautiful amalgam of our physical traits but also destined to be the spiritual fusion of our perspectives, faith, and beliefs?

I hear our children each vacillating, changing their minds – Mom to baptize, Papa to give the gift. No, Papa’s arms are strong I want HIM to baptize me. No wait Mom’s arms are strong too, but her blessings are always better.  Then I see my wife standing there waist deep in the clear blue water, dressed in white, her arm raised to the square with our beautiful daughter, her miniature mirror-image clinging to her.  The familiar words ring out strong and clear. A woman’s voice.  My partner’s voice.

Now I stand with my wife and lay hands on a sick friend and feel her faith meld with mine.  I anoint with consecrated oil and then wait with anticipation to hear the blessing that falls from her lips, glad to share the responsibility.  I long to hear her speak with “the power of the holy priesthood”, unabashedly and with full legitimacy in the eyes of God and our fellow Saints.

I cannot imagine a sweeter experience than asking my betrothed, the one person who understands me better than my own self, for a blessing when I am struggling.  What blessings could she call down on me from the heavens that no home teacher could?

I am sitting in ward council where I watch my wife presides with grace and humility.  I am proud to be known as the bishop’s husband, to see her on the stand waving at our kids. It has meant some lonely, busy nights taking on extra childcare and more of the household responsibilities than I used to.  But it is worth it.  My daughters and sons know that Mom is special, capable, important and that everyone one in the ward respects her. I know she looks down on the ward seeing the secret sorrows and triumphs that only a bishop sees and I love her for it all the more. I hope that if someday I am called to do the same she will share the wisdom she has gained.

Do these sound like unrighteous desires?  Wouldn’t our marriages, our families, our wards, our church benefit immeasurably simply from instantly doubling the priesthood available to us? Wouldn’t the world?  Wouldn’t we as a people be strengthened by increasing women’s authoritative and revelatory voices among us?

I know some will say that many of these things can happen under the status quo. My wife can pray for me and my children.  The Spirit can help her feel connected to a child’s blessing.  But as a man, as a priesthood holder, who has had these experiences can I say they are the qualitatively the same?  I have been the recipient of priesthood blessings and the giver. Sweet experiences all, but edifying in unique ways. I have prayed in faith for the sick, for a child, for my spouse.  Praying for a blessing isn’t the same as performing one with authority.  If it is, then what is the priesthood?  I know women are respected for the callings they so ably fill, but they can only gain from filling a wider set of roles. We can only gain from having women as our ecclesiastical leaders.

These are just hopes.  But vain hopes? A heretic’s hopes? Maybe.  Heavenly hopes? I desire to believe.

For those who cannot imagine these scenarios I say that until we can imagine them, open our minds and hearts to them, God cannot reveal them. So I dream.

 

By: Jacob Baker

Jacob Baker is a doctoral student in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University and an instructor in Philosophy at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. He blogs at ByCommonConsent.com and MormonPhilosophyandTheology.com.

Forgiveness is one of those inexhaustible concepts in the gospel that we could never possibly say enough about and always understand inadequately. (One of my other inadequate though sincere attempts to do so is here). The following is another take on another small, though significant dimension of forgiveness. As always, it will not be enough.

And saviors shall come up on Mount Zion…….

-Obadiah 1:21

The Way Back is a 2010 film that tells the story of several escapees from a Siberian gulag, along with a fugitive teenage girl who eventually joins them in their 4,000 mile trek to India. Along the way, they face freezing nights, starvation, dehydration, sand storms, and other obstacles.

The main protagonist in the story is Janusz, a Polish military officer. He is accused by the occupying Soviets in Poland of being a spy. Even after torture he refuses to concede that he has spied for Poland. His wife is eventually brought in. It’s clear that she has been tortured as well. Tearfully (and untruthfully), she acknowledges that Janusz was a spy. Janusz knows what she has just undergone, but he nevertheless accusingly responds to her, “What happened to you?” A cruel thing to say, for she knows as well as he what his fate would be now: 20 years in a Siberian labor camp. His wife is released and Janusz is sent to the camp.

Janusz’s determination to escape and his will to survive over the next several months is astonishing. It is his plan that allows him and several other prisoners to escape. His sheer will to continue on keeps many of them alive when they are about to succumb to despair and the elements. In fact, his determination seems off-kilter, superhuman, not entirely rational.

Mister is an American prisoner who escapes with the group. He had come to Russia with his son right before the war broke out. He is older, quiet, and bitter. When Irena, a fugitive teenage girl, eventually joins the group he softens somewhat. He becomes one of her protectors (others in the group are also eager to protect her, mostly, I suspect, because it makes them feel like men in an acceptable and dignified way for the first time in a long time). But Mister becomes essentially a father figure to Irena. When she succumbs to the elements and dies, her death affects him most of all.

In what is for me the most important scene of the movie Janusz is conversing with Mister. Mister had finally given up in the previous scene, telling Janusz to leave him, he was done. Janusz, of course, would have none of that and carried him to the next campsite.

Mister: I told you it would kill you.
Janusz: What?
Mister: Kindness. How long can you survive on mud and snakes? Just leave me here. [Mister gazes at Janusz, who has not responded]. You can’t, can you?
Janusz: You know, I may not even know your first name but I know your son’s name.
Mister: Irena told you.
Janusz: Yes. Can I say his name? David.
Mister: Saying his name won’t bring him back. What are you trying to do? Give me the will to live? Is that it? Stop me from giving up?
Janusz: Are you giving up?
Mister: In the camps some saw death as freedom.
Janusz: Then why didn’t you just kill yourself?
Mister: Survival was a kind of protest. Being alive was my punishment.
Janusz: Punishment for what?
Mister: I brought David to Russia.
Janusz: [With sudden realization]: And now no one can forgive you. And you can’t forgive yourself.
Mister: Irena told me that they tortured your wife. And she informed on you. They did the same thing to my boy. Then they shot him in the head.
Janusz: My wife is alive. She lived. That much at least I know. But she’ll never be able to forgive herself for what she has done. You see, only I can do that. She will be torturing herself, just like you. So you see I have to get back. I HAVE TO GET BACK.

Janusz continues on, walking, for a long time. 40 years. He can’t reenter Poland until Communism falls. He’s an old man when at last he steps through the front door of his wife’s home. Presumably, he doesn’t know if she’d remarried, had children, or if she’d even be able to face him at all. None of that matters. He immediately embraces her.

Janusz understood that he possessed an invaluable, unspeakably precious gift: himself, in all his flawed, loving, vulnerable, needy glory. His wife could conceivably find others to love her, maybe even those who had always loved her, over time–friends, family, perhaps even a new lover. This new man could give her children, care for her, desire her, forgive her for any hurt she might cause him, love her with his entire being. But he could not forgive her for what she had done with regard to Janusz, as unjust and understandable as the circumstances were in which she reluctantly condemned her husband. He would not be able to release her from the prison she had built around herself in committing an act which, for her, was ultimately inexcusable, no matter the context. Only Janusz, in his very person, possessed such a cherished and singular gift. Knowing this, Janusz’s quest for freedom was not something the other escapees could understand. When they finally reached India, they were sick and literally dying. Only Janusz insisted on pressing on, and left the others behind. He knew his wife’s personal salvation was at stake. Only his gift, from him alone, could end her suffering.

This is perhaps a vital element of forgiveness that we often overlook. Our behavior toward and our interactions with others becomes much more far-reaching and consequential when we realize that forgiveness requires genuine giving. And we hold a gift that was not of our own making, but is ours to give nonetheless: that of giving ourselves to those who are in exile, whether self-afflicted or imposed. And particularly to those who perceive we specifically have exiled them our worlds. There are people for whom only I can do this. There are people for whom only you can give yourself in a way that they can once again take a seat that is theirs and theirs alone at the Family Table.

Of course it will be immediately asked: what, then, is Christ’s role in this process? Forgiveness is not easy. Perhaps it is simply, in the end, impossible, at least if left to ourselves alone. In the scriptures forgiveness is usually portrayed as a triangular process: forgiver, forgivee, and Christ. Christ is never substantively absent from divine injunctions to forgive (2 Cor. 2:10; D&C 64:10; Luke 6:37; 3 Ne. 13:14; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13; D&C 82:1; Mosiah 26:29). We do not give ourselves alone or receive others’ gifts of themselves alone, except in the presence of he who gave himself to all. Perhaps it is Christ’s universal gift that allows us to see ourselves as gifts for others in need, and to have the capacity to receive others as gifts in turn. In any case, I hold the key to release others from bondage. Others hold the keys to my prison as well. And in the presence of the Savior we all feel or will feel the weight of the sins and pains we have caused ourselves and others, a weight that, hopefully, might motivate us to more authentically and frequently turn to one another more urgently in love as saviors. And maybe then we will finally see Zion.

Brad Kramer is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, where he teaches courses in sociocultural, linguistic, and biological anthropology. He is writing a dissertation on sacred language and intellectual property in Mormonism. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, three sons, and two daughters (both of whom, as it happens, slept in pink pajamas last night).

 

In recent decades, linguistic and other social scientific research has upheld and strengthened the proposition that children enter the world with a strong predisposition to learn human languages. Human children can do with remarkable ease something which no other species can do, despite the intense and sustained experimental training of scientists. Advanced primates and a few other social mammals are capable of acquiring competence in extremely rudimentary patterns of sign/object associations, learned through formal operant conditioning (either in the wild or with the aid of researchers), but this is not language. By contrast, very young children are able to acquire an immense and complex rule system as well as a rich and vast vocabulary at a time in their lives when they are cognitively incapable of learning even basic arithmetic. 

What’s more, they are capable of acquiring this astonishingly complex system of syntactic, grammatical, and lexical patterns without actually having any of it formally taught to them. Aside from a handful of word-object associations at the very earliest stages of language learning and the occasional formal corrections, parents and other adults do not come anywhere near teaching children language in the manner that, for example, second languages are taught.

Children do not learn the rich vocabularies and complex grammars that underlie linguistic expression and communication by rote memorization or through the patterns of reinforcement and non-reinforcement that form the foundation for operant conditioning. And they don’t acquire language by trial and error. For although some rote memorization, formal parental correction/instruction, and trial and error do occur, the fact remains that by age 3 or 4, cognitively normal children are capable of creatively forming sentences (i.e. forming sentences they’ve never before heard themselves) which accurately reproduce the grammatical sophistication and complexity of the language their caretakers speak, even if the caretakers themselves are not formally aware of the existence of the rule systems in question.  Children acquire communicative competence in their native language with utterly remarkable, miraculous, savant-like felicity that linguists, cognitive and behavioral psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers have attempted to account for for more than half a century.

What’s my point?

I don’t care if your 4 year old son grabs the stick and plays with it like a sword, and your 3 year old daughter plays with it like a fairy wand.

Let me clarify, beginning with an important acknowledgment. Sexual dimorphism—hormonal, developmental, neuro-anatomical, and behavioral sexual differentiation—in human beings is a very real, and well researched phenomenon. Boys and girls, men and women, are different. The differences in question are highly variable and fluid. Particularly in the realm of behavior and neuro-anatomical structure, the range of variability for females or for males is as vast as the statistically relevant patterns of difference between males and females. The three biggest, most significant patterns of sex difference are in reproductive anatomy (including secondary sexual development), body size, and (significantly) in what cognitive psychologists call *core gender identification*—one’s sense of oneself as being male or female.

Patterns of behavioral difference between males and females exist in all cultures, though the specific content of those patterned differences varies widely from culture to culture. In fact, one of the only cross-culturally universal behavioral patterns of sexual differentiation actually involves childhood play: toy and playmate sex preferences (there even seems to be some cross-species universalism here as indicated by research on non-human primates). But these differences involve a narrow set of behavioral patterns (girls typically do prefer dolls and boys mechanical toys, but for the majority of toys there are no cross-cultural universal patterns of difference) and they correlate in experimental research not with genetic sex but with hormones. Genetically female children whose pre- and perinatal hormonal environments were more typically male tend to make toy and play choices that correlate with male patterns, and vice versa.

Having said that, I return to my main point. Even very young children display behaviors that are strongly coded in their culture as masculine or feminine, and those patterns very often align stereotypically masculine behaviors with boys and feminine ones with girls. But the fact that your son prefers primary colors and swords and toy soldiers and your daughter prefers glittery pastels and fairy wands and my-little-ponies is not evidence of an innate, inborn, inherently male or female predisposition (much less an eternal spiritual essence) to prefer such things any more than their remarkable fluency in the English language indicates an inborn predisposition to speak English.

That children are capable of acquiring fluency in the complex social and cultural grammars and vocabularies of gender difference, that they are able to competently and seemingly instinctively make their gender identity legible to those around them is not at all surprising to me. But tiny speakers of English or Mandarin or Tagalog or Arabic acquire their mastery of the structural patterns and complex rules and units of meaning in their native language, not because they are predisposed to learn English or Mandarin or Tagalog or Arabic, but rather because they are strongly predisposed to learn Language.

As parents we can choose to teach and unteach, reinforce and challenge, cultivate or ignore behavioral expressions of gender in our children however we wish. There’s a lot of nature there, and there’s a lot of culture too. But an awareness of how astonishingly capable even our very young children are of internalizing and successfully reproducing incredibly complex and nuanced structural patterns and rules for social signaling—even (and especially) the rules we are not consciously aware of but nevertheless fluently deploy in our own lives—can only improve our ability to make such choices from as informed a perspective as possible.