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Exponent II

A feminist forum for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum

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The Exponent II Blog features posts relating to Mormon feminism. We welcome posts by diverse voices. Submit a guest post to join the conversation.

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pastel sweater drawing

Guest Post: My Pastel Cardigan

All of the women teaching in the [General Women's] broadcast taught exclusively about pastel cardigans. But they didn’t actually teach that. They said words like “obedience” and “duty” and “gift” and “Motherhood” and “covenant” and “highest and holiest calling.” It seemed normal enough to me. During the closing prayer, I snuck a glance at [our investigator] Diana. She stared at the screen head-on, unabashedly. “I thought you guys told me that God thought women were good for more than being birthing machines,” she said to us before we never saw her again.
Chad and Lori Daybell, Jodi Hildebrandt, Ruby Franke, Sterling Van Wagenen all had temple recommends

Does a Temple Recommend Mean You’re a Good Person? (Nope, So Stop Worrying About It.)

Lots of people who are terrible humans have had temple recommends. Is it really the best judge of what type of person you are?
Photo of the US Capitol at night from a distance

This Inauguration Day, We Need a Little Christmas

When I feel despair at the civil rights ground we’ve lost recently, ground that was gained through the work and sometimes blood of people like Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, I remind myself that even though things feel bleak, they are nowhere near as bleak as they were in Thurman’s time. Today feels dark, but it is not even close to the darkest days this country has seen. Trump and his ilk are a step back, but perspective shows us, and I believe Howard Thurman would tell us, we have a robust precedent for hope.
Rainbow flag painted on the ground in a parking lot.

Terrible Allies

Blog Home Mormon Feminist Blog

I Would Do Anything for God (But I Won’t Do That)

How can we evolve in our faith if we swallow these lessons of obedience without question? Why won't we wrestle with our history? Why won't we disavow, even apologize for, some of it? If we allowed this, then the fear and resistance around substantial change and new questions might lesson. Perhaps, then, we'd be ready for new revelation.

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BYU campus

Guest Post: Losing Our Agency as We Work at BYU

Recent [BYU] requirements to perform church membership in specific ways honestly remind me of Satan's plan to take away people's agency. I know families who are one sympathetic bishop's release away from disaster. I know people seriously considering career change and people who have already left. People are afraid to support their LGBT family publicly; I know people who have suffered career consequences for doing so. I know an employee with non-LDS family who was terrified someone would see beer cans in her garbage can and think they belonged to her. Faithful faculty members trying their best, even those who are quite orthodox, are afraid they'll be perceived as not being quite orthodox enough. And everyone is afraid to talk about their fears with each other or their leadership, not knowing who they can trust.
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My Story of “Radical Kindness” (And Common Sense)

My story of “Radical Kindness” is about “being kind to myself” in a foundational way.  Changing my narrative to be “kinder” to myself was both very, very radical (coming of age as a hyper-religious LDS female in the late 1990s), life-encompassing, and life-giving.
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7 Reasons Biblical Pharisees Would Love Latter-day Saint Garments

Jesus Christ denounced Pharisees for wrongheaded strategies that sound eerily similar to the garments mandate of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), especially in the midst of a recent retrenchment campaign by church leadership.
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I Don’t Want Kingdoms, Thrones, or Dominions

I don't want Joseph's definitions of power. I don't want the priesthood man's ideal of eternal blessings. I don't want kingdoms, thrones, or dominions.
Photo of Claudia Bushman alongside her aphorism "A record shall be kept"

Words to Live—and Quit—By (plus a GIVEAWAY!)

In her autobiography, Exponent II's founding editor Claudia Bushman provides aphorisms to live—and quit—by. Most famously, she affirms, "A record shall/must be kept." Enter a giveaway to win a copy of her life's record.
Items on a shelf: a picture of a dog and a dog collar, a piece of the Berlin Wall, a dish made of pine needles, a picture of RBG, a coaster with a kiwi on it.

A wrestle with God, and a last day

For years, blogger Heidi Toth has wrestled with questions she couldn't answer: How could she stay in the LDS Church? But how could she leave? Although the wrestle continues, she finally answered those questions.
Iglesia en Punta del Este in Uruguay by Sergio Arteaga

God’s Language

In the beginning, was it “the Word” or “el Verbo?” (John 1:1 / Juan 1:1) Does translation enrich or diminish meaning? 
Saint Peter Martyr Healing the Leg of a Young Man by Antonio Vivarini, circa 1450

Helping Youth Navigate LDS Faith and Reap Benefits from it

Mormon temple names

Of Ritas and Rhodas: Deciphering the Origins of the Women’s Temple Names

Like most members, I went in blind—it turned out the multiple temple prep courses did little to prepare me for what I was about to experience. I did have some vague inklings, I had heard whispers about a temple name, I thought it might have been the name I had had before I had come to the earth. I had hoped for something pretty or at least meaningful… maybe Esther or Lydia. 
Mormon Feminism and Fascinating Womanhood are part of me.

Am I a Fascinating Woman and a Mormon Feminist?

In the LDS church, as Colleen McDannell explains in her book Sister Saints, “Feminism is still a dirty word for many Mormon women." And I wonder why? I understand that everyone has different experiences and journeys and not everyone cares about the screaming silence in my veins, but why systemically fight it?
writing on notepad near water

“Faithfully Agitated: Stories from Everyday Saints who Struggle, but Stay”

"Aside from opening my heart to hear the stories of others, sharing about Sawyer-his death and his life- also allowed me passage into the deep, sacred waters where other people held their pain. But it also showed me a window into their resilience."
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Exponent II

Exponent II provides feminist forums for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum to share their diverse life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. Through these exchanges, we strive to create a community to better understand and support each other.

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