Late at night after the Priesthood Session of General Conference in spring of 2014, I was simply too sad to sleep. It had been a rough day for me as an Ordain Women advocate. So at about 3:00 am, I wrote a post about how I felt called Rejected Offerings. That post received the most comments at the Exponent in 2014.
A few weeks earlier, Suzette had explained why she was coming to the Priesthood Session with Ordain Women in another of the most commented posts: Walking with Ordain Women … and the Church.
In early 2014, I wrote a two-part series about LDS Church discipline policies that disparately affect women. The first post was called Church Discipline: Women Disciplined by Men and part two was called Five More LDS Church Discipline Policies That Affect Women Unequally.
Later that year, those inequitable policies played out before our very eyes. When Ordain Women advocate Kate Kelly was called before a disciplinary council, I changed my blogger moniker from simply “April” to my full name “April Young Bennett” as a way of defying this attempt to scare and silence Mormon women. I explained in a post titled Will we be silenced again? Guest LoriAnn told us why she disagreed with Kate’s excommunication even though she was not an Ordain Women supporter in Ignoring Logic and the Misrepresentation of Ordain Women.
It was a discouraging time. Many Mormon feminists left the church and it seemed that lots of Mormons were glad to see them go but Melody wrote I Hope You Stay.
Some other 2014 posts that received lots of comments addressed church culture, such as Libby‘s post On the Subject of My Highest and Holiest Calling and Spunky‘s post The Mormon Messiah Complex and the Worldwide Church.
Others addressed church policy, such as my post The Mormon Underwear Monopoly and guest Frank Pellett’s post Give a Title to the Woman who Has a Mission President Husband—an issue that was in the news again just recently because we still haven’t resolved this.
This post is part of the Exponent Blog’s Ten Year Retrospective Series. This post links to the most commented posts of 2014. Check out the posts that received the most comments in other years and personal retrospectives by current and emeritus Exponent bloggers here.
3 Responses
Yes, 2014 was a truly tough year. It was followed by 2015 and 2016, two more tough years. We may not be starving on the prairies but we, too, haven’t had it easy. Will we find a promised land?
2014 was a tough year…I love seeing the variety of posts we had and just how much women and the priesthood dominated the discussions that year. Thank you for putting this together, April!
Yes, 2014 was a year of tears, but I love the strong writing by the strong women at the Exponent. Thank you for putting this together, April.