For me, the word “feminism” is a community-building word, a clarifying and liberating word, a word that explains so much of my grief and confusion in the LDS church and brings me into communion with others who are also aching and questioning and creating. It’s the word I use to explain the time I wept in my bathroom after reading an Ensign article about “Women in the Scriptures,” the hope I had as a little girl in a Book of Women to compliment the Book of Mormon, and the search I undertook to find Heavenly Mother. For me, Feminism is an ache for the silenced women in history, it’s like they are all inside me, pumping my blood and screaming their silence, screaming for me to speak and listen.
However, in the LDS church, as Colleen McDannell explains in her book Sister Saints, “Feminism is still a dirty word for many Mormon women” (199). And I wonder why? I understand that everyone has different experiences and journeys and not everyone cares about the screaming silence inside my veins, but why systemically fight it? Why halt representation and stories and theology creation? In my mind, feminism is just asking for equal space in a system of men.
In the 1970s, my grandmother, an Equal Rights Amendment activist, was asked by her bishop to choose between her good standing in the church and her political affiliation with the ERA movement. She chose her good standing in the church and my aunt says that a spark went out inside my grandma. But the bishop’s message was clear: Feminism or Mormonism. She had to give up one to keep the other. This was not the case with all Mormon bishops, some feminists celebrated their Mormonism and Feminism; however, during this time, church leaders distributed anti-feminist pamphlets and organized anti-ERA meetings and conferences. Feminism became a dirty word within the LDS church, an anti-family and anti-marriage word.
In Fifty Years of Exponent II, Katie Rich and Heather Sundahl mention writings from Mormon women during this time. In one such document, a Mormon woman expresses surprise “at the intensity and hostility [other] Mormon women” showed concerning equal rights. “These meetings and anti-ERA literature circulated in Relief Societies pit homemakers against feminists” (28). This hostility and division surrounding feminism in the wards and stakes of Mormonism centered around “protecting” the family and marriage as defined by the LDS church leaders.
In the 1990s, my mom was in a book group of powerful Mormon women and one of them, a BYU professor, was excommunicated for her feminist writings. This woman served as a beacon to all of her former students and friends on what happens to feminists in Mormonism: you can’t have both. Well, unless, maybe, you’re an undercover feminist? Hiding in a marriage with a family and aren’t too loud? Maybe I can have both?
Recently, in preparation for a comedic skit, my friends and I read Fascinating Womanhood. The author, Helen Andelin, is a Mormon woman who first published her book in 1963 and sold over 2 million copies. This book is “designed to teach women how to be happy in marriage” and seemed like the perfect content for a skit at a Mormon Feminist retreat. Granted, my friends and I laughed till we cried reading passages out loud in our one-room cabin. However, I’d found this book on my grandmother’s shelf and I found her in the ideas of the text. The juxtaposition of my Feminism with the femininity described in the book was hilarious . . . and tragic. I found not only my grandparents and my parents in the pages, I also found my husband and myself.
Fascinating Womanhood prescribes “femininity” as the balm for a husband’s unhappiness. Andelin describes this femininity as a “fundamental law” and outlines a woman’s role in marriage. This role is to be “child-like” with “dear little whims, and caprices.” It explains that a wife must have “girlish trust in” her husband and make obvious “her absolute dependency upon others to provide for her.” The whole book is a guidebook for women on how to make a husband feel like the “superior male.” It’s the antithesis of feminism.
And this, I think, is what the church is protecting from feminism—the superior male. This type of marriage.
And as I laughed irreverently while preparing for a Mormon Feminist skit designed from a Mormon femininity guidebook, I had to face the reality of the paradox within myself: I’m a Mormon Feminist and a Fascinating Woman. Like the women before me.
Even though I had never previously read this book, it described my anti-feminist marriage. I’d never once acknowledged, chosen, or examined the fascinating woman inside me. I didn’t even know she existed. But there she was, trained by this book’s ideas that demonize working women, suggesting that “gone is the luster, the charm, the poetry that says ‘she is a phantom of delight’” when a woman works outside the home. A book that infantilizes both men and women, and condones a relationship built on pretending, blame, and avoidance of emotion, communication, and vulnerability. This book is an anthem for upholding a strict gender binary, a society where men and women are enabled by each other.
This is a whole other blog post, but everyone loses in this marital system built by patriarchy. In the book For the Love of Men, Liz Plank, after much research, declares that “Patriarchy kills men, too.”
And now I think I understand why feminism is a dirty word for many members of the church. Because it is an anti-marriage, an anti-fascinating woman word. It has the potential to disrupt everything. It’s not just about making room for women. It’s about redefining masculinity, too. It’s about relationships. It’s about re-writing the scripts of how humans are in relationship to each other. It’s about throwing out these ancient and modern gender binaries. It’s about freeing everyone from stifling roles. I’ve been so naive, thinking I could protect my marriage from feminism. Thinking I could be a Fascinating Woman and a Mormon Feminist. But just like my grandma and my mom, I can’t. Because I think that one of the silenced women screaming in my veins is me.
*Read more about Mormonism, Feminism, and gender roles at the Salt Lake Tribune.
Photo by Elias Maurer on Unsplash
10 Responses
The long conditioned patriarchal wife in me is real and haunts me also. Love this post and your writing. This cabin experience sounds like fun.
With your reading/writing specialties, you’d make a good Exponent editor!
Solidarity. Thank you. For years I have thought that feminism was ruining my marriage . . . and now I realize why. Thank you for the encouragement!
If you can’t be both, what is the road forward? I am not a Mormon, but these issues are pertinent beyond Mormonism. I’d like to read more from you on this topic.
What a great question. One I have been grappling with. For a long time, I just wanted to go back to the hierarchical, role-playing marriage I had where I managed my husband’s emotions, where neither of us shared our needs or vulnerabilities because I was always pre-emptively fulfilling his and erasing mine — marriage is so much “easier” when only one partner’s needs matter . . . But I can’t go back. My husband and I were both desperately lonely and depressed. Maybe I will write a blog post about this but I think the road forward is developing emotional maturity: I’m learning to discover and voice my needs. I’m learning that it’s okay to disappoint my husband (I don’t need to manage his emotions for him.) I’m learning to have compassion for the fascinating woman inside me who desperately wants to be adored. I’m learning how to manage finances (I opened my first bank account at age 37!), apply for jobs, sit and read without guilt (why is this still so hard?), ask for help, etc. And my husband is learning to express and feel his emotions in a healthy way. He’s learning to listen to me. . .
Please tell me how to find the Ensign article about Women in the Scriptures. I’m so curious when it was printed, who wrote it, and what they said.
I was attending the Disney YSA ward in Orlando in 2001 and the Bishop’s wife/RS President felt “inspired” to spend 20-30 minutes every Sunday teaching us from the book, The Fascinating Girl. I left class crying so often, feeling I could never be that version of womanhood and didn’t want to.
Okay! So, I just went down a rabbit hole searching for the Ensign article (because I was so curious about it too!) and I finally found it! It’s fascinating re-reading it ten years later and honestly, it’s not a bad article. I used to read the ensign every month. I loved reading the articles. But I remember being a young mom, dripping with babies, and I read the caption on the front of the March 2015 issue: “How the savior blessed women of faith” and I was elated. Like SO SO excited to read this article. I carried the ensign around with me all day, hoping for a quiet moment to read it, and when I finally did during nap time, I just started sobbing. I didn’t really understand why. But looking back I see why. It had something to do with my hope of reading a woman’s perspective, a faithful woman’s life because I was desperate and failing and I just needed to see that women were loved, but in the article, I only saw women used as a foil for Paul’s message. The article isn’t about women at all. It’s written by men, for men, about men and using women to do it. Anyway, here is the article: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2015/03/the-saviors-respect-for-women?lang=eng
And that is so wild! In 2001?! I am so so sorry. I’m glad your body recognized that that book did not include you. Bless you.
I joined the church in 1967, at age 25. Fascinating Womanhood was one of the first LDS books I purchased and read, lapping it all up. I was married and a mom, but very independent and capable on my own. I didn’t see the dissonance of this scenario. I’m 83 now and boy do I see ALL of the dissonance at every turn. I’m trying to sort through my feelings and it is rough.
Wow! Thank you so much for your comment, Pat. There is something so enticing about the messages in Fascinating Womanhood and I think I will be sorting through my feelings until I’m 83 as well. . .
“And now I think I understand why feminism is a dirty word for many members of the church. Because it is an anti-marriage, an anti-fascinating woman word. It has the potential to disrupt everything. It’s not just about making room for women. It’s about redefining masculinity, too.” – Lavender
I agree AND there is an additional threat to church culture because the power/authority to define what “feminine” and “masculine” mean. centered around individuals, not roles and functions. The 6 statements listed above frame “a woman’s work” and “femininity” as the foil for a necessary foil for masculinity.
So if you as a woman aren’t “reverencing his position” (or even worse – challenging him for the reverence of position of leadership, provider, protector), providing “enough” admiration (whatever that means – it’s not exactly measured out like a cooking recipe here), “excel” aka surpass his abilities (why is it a competition?), being “dependent enough” (which is a problem – studies show that men divorce women with chronic health problems much more frequently then women who divorce men over chronic health problems. So if you are a women – you can be “dependent – but not too dependent” on a man)., “trust him” (aka trust his judgement and not call him out on crap), and be “feminine” (which seems to be tied to “pretty” and “young-looking”).
And yet, because we work at being “enough” – reverent enough, admiring enough, just enough skill and ability gains, reliant enough, trusting, and “feminine” – we set everyone up for uncomfortable catalysts for when we are becoming more honest, more challenging, and calling crap out (maybe gently, with a raised eyebrow).
We also give them non-verbal permission to “not be us” females – to lean into being irreverent towards us, to expecting our quasi-faked/hopeful admiration, to not picking up additional skills and processing in the “a woman is better than me at this thing” arena, and to put everything on them (or have them feel more that experience).
In high school, my best friend and I found a copy of Fascinating Womanhood at her house. Someone had gifted it to her mom at some point years ago, and her mom wasn’t a fan of the book but never got around to throwing it away. We thought it was hilarious. I remember that the word “competent” was treated like a dirty word and there was a bunch of stuff about how women should use spoons because forks are too masculine? Or maybe my memory made that part up because surely thousands of people wouldn’t buy such nonsense?