I wrote a post last week about a church video from the 90s that told me it was sinful to seek a career because I was a girl:
Don’t Gaslight Me – I Know What I Was Taught in Young Women’s in the 90s ^ Exponent II Blog
A number of responses admitted that while sure, the video itself was horrendous, not every girl growing up received that message. For example, some men explained that their sisters’ education was equally valued in their homes, and many women expressed gratitude for leaders and parents who had encouraged them to attend college.
They are not wrong, and I absolutely agree that I was encouraged to seek higher education. Going to college was never a question for my sister or myself, and three months after graduating from high school I was dropped off at my BYU dorm. No one ever discouraged me from becoming educated.
Rather, they discouraged me from turning my education into anything more than motherhood. Education was good, but getting a paycheck was bad. I was supposed to get educated, find a husband, and be financially dependent on him for the rest of my life. My education was exclusively to make me a better mother, not to give me skills to provide for myself.
Because of this, I knew long before I met or married anyone that my future husband’s education would take priority over mine. If we ever had to choose, he would get a degree and I wouldn’t. If only one of us could get a graduate degree, it would be him. If we were both working and he needed to relocate for a work opportunity, I would quit my job and follow him. And once we had children, it was without question that I would be the one to stop working while he continued building his career.
Getting an education as a woman was never controversial, but using that education to build a financially independent lifestyle was.
Our soon-to-be prophet Dallin H. Oaks is a complicated man on the topic of working women. His own father passed away and he was raised by a single, working mother. He was among the first to comment recently on Relief Society president Camille Johnson’s social media page, praising her for speaking about her career. His current wife Kristen was a single working woman until she married him at age 53. And yet, in a 2013 interview Elder Oaks said this about women and careers (at about the 29:13 mark of the video I’ll link below):
“I think that as young women have been encouraged – properly, in my view, to get an education and make plans to support themselves, that many young men have seen the accomplishments of the women in such a way as to be frightened of them. And I think that a woman who has prepared herself properly needs to be careful that she can communicate to a young man the fact that she’s willing to put that career aside, to be a Latter-day Saint wife and mother, and she can take it up later… I’ve had many young men say, “I don’t think young women today are interested in being married. I can’t find anybody because they’re all committed to their careers, and that does stand in the way of marriage, and it frightens off shy young men, for whom we should feel so sorry.”
Kristen Oaks also said (at about the 28:45 mark of the same video), “This is for young women right now, coming out of college…I think that women now are really worried about careers, and they feel they have to develop themselves, and I would just say to them, “Don’t get lost in that”. Because it’s awfully lonely when you’re 50, and all you have is your career – because I’ve done that.”
Mormon Channel Interview with the Oaks’
The message to girls and women has never been, “Don’t get an education”. Rather, it’s been, “Sure, get an education – but only to become a better future mother”.
24 Responses
I am a Gen X woman who grew up LDS in Davis County, Utah, and I agree 100% with this. The real “sin” for an LDS woman is independence. The real goal of the church is to uphold a (mostly Whyte), wealthy, hetero patriarchy. Women are kept from being spiritually independent and vilified for any dreams of financial independence. It’s all about supporting and upholding male centrality.
I (the author of this post) also grew up in Davis County! I graduated from Clearfield High School in 1999. Maybe we need a support group for Davis County refugees. 😅
CHS graduate too! 💯 confirm that these were the messages taught in the seminary building across from Clearfield High in the early 2000s. And I’d love to join that support group.
The amount of homophobic comments, bizarre doctrines and gender roles taught in the Clearfield High School seminary building is numbered in the millions, I believe. I accepted it all at the time, but now some of my memories from there blow my actual mind.
I have no idea if we were extra weird there, or if that was just normal for the time. Do you know??
I don’t know for sure but I think it was normal at least for this region. My friends in my ward who went to Northridge were also enduring the same indoctrination- it was for sure being taught on Sundays too.
It really does help to have others confirm the craziness. Sometimes I’ll think, “was I really taught that?” And the answer is always yes. There was little to no formal gospel instruction in my home. I know it all came from dedicated buildings- either church or seminary.
💯
Fabulous article, thank you Abby! Yes to Alysa in Wonderland! As Oaks centers his (male) argument around the “shy, young men, for whom we should feel so sorry” as his rationale for women not prioritizing their careers and future financial independence, he ignores the fact that it is women who have been taking the hit for decades. His insensitivity on this point is frankly, just lame. While I appreciate that Kristen Oaks does not understand the nature of this particular pain women have expressed, the lack of career progression, and I sympathize that her lamentation of being alone at 50 is real, this too is not a reason to not encourage women to pursue financial independence and career. As society has arrived at a better place which recognizes the value of egalitarian partnerships, their messaging and our church requires an update, a new lens and a whole new construct, one which does not center on the poor sod’s inability to get the girl, just because she is ambitious!
Very frustrated when my sweet hardworking husband couldn’t find a job that would support us. I knew I could find a better job, so I got a teaching credential which led to decent pay, health insurance, and a nice retirement. We both worked. Being a teacher benefited our kids. No regrets
This article is great. Send it to the Tribune so it can have wider circulation!
I had somehow missed that podcast with the Oakes. And, thus did not have to process the quotes you cite. Oh my! I agree with, and understand, what Sister Oakes was saying. It was thoughtful. But what Elder Oakes said was just horrid. A man afraid of women who are accomplishing things and may not be willing to put her education and career aside after marriage is NOT WORTH marrying. What else is he going to be threatened by? Any success of his wife? When she is a better conversationalist and people like her better? Sisters, run away from that man as fast as possible!
The statement quoted from “many young men” was the assumption by the young men that a woman with a career automatically doesn’t want marriage. Are they that blind? I taught law student women from 1989 to 2016. They were married or wanted to get married. They did not see a “false” dichotomy between marriage or career. Young men who think that way are better left to young women who agree. Educated, capable, employable women can do better than that.
With you, it is stunning that Elder Oakes now so vehemently endorses Sister Johnson and her highly-paid commercial litigation job. Shouldn’t responsible leaders, at least, acknowledge that they have unequivocally taught the opposite in the past and explain why they have changed their mind? This interview was in 2013. Then Elder Oakes interviewed me for a professor position at BYU in 1989. He said it was tolerable for me to take the job and continue to raise my three children, even though my husband had a lucrative career. His explanation of why that was OK is completely missing from his public statements since. No wonder young people are confused.
I had the experience where my parents wanted me to go to college, but then stop. Even before going to get my bachelor’s, he told me, “Don’t get too learned.” When I didn’t get into grad school, my dad told me, “women don’t need graduate degrees” and then later I overheard him say at a social gathering, “I expect all my sons to get graduate degrees.” My mom always worked part time and always mentioned that with the caveat that, “I do it because we need the money, if we needed the money, I wouldn’t work,” emphasizing that the ideal was SAHMing. It was weird, then, when I had my first kid and didn’t continue working (my job was not held for me after the baby), my mom was concerned that I was forcing my husband to do all the money-making and that I was putting undo stress on him by not working. No idea where that one came from! I was so surprised about that sentiment, considering all the other messages I received.
This rhetoric has caused me so much confusion and self doubt. As a Mormon woman who got married at 39 (and it wasn’t because I wasn’t interested in marriage) I definitely felt the pressure to stay flexible in my career obligations and even with 2 graduate degrees I still struggle to know how to translate them into a career.
The other unwritten bit is the church has no interest in supporting the women who don’t have a husband who can support them. Single women are often denied financial assistance even in tragic and unforeseeable circumstances. So plan on being financially dependent on a theoretical husband and if that doesn’t work out… why wouldn’t that work out? Why would a single woman ever have medical bills or lose a job or have their rent increased?
And if you’re following social media, you will know that a blowhard football player last weekend said THIS EXACT SAME THING at a Catholic university commencement. The speaker at the freaking GRADUATION specifically addressed women that it’s a “diabolical lie” that they should find happiness in career advancement, they are for sure actually looking forward to marriage and children. His wife’s life BEGAN when they got married! So wonderful!
So vomit inducing. Gross. And I say that as a stay-home mom of five kids.
Don’t EVER play small because lawyers (Oakes, C. Johnson, etc) tell you that that is the best course for LDS women. They benefit through your free labor in the church that is making billions off of your free labor and off of your financial donations. They don’t care if that creates hardship for your family. We live in a culture that blames poor people for being poor, without taking into account, the manipulation of the economy and the workforce that the wealthy Use to create Their wealth. When you are an adult, live like an adult, have education, use your education, create a livable income as best you can, and create your own retirement. I didn’t use my education toward a career, and I deeply regret it.
Also, the current push For church members to have more babies, and not limit their family to a small size, is white nationalism. They are afraid that in the US white people won’t be a majority and they find that scary. Oaks even told people to not worry about how It’s so hard to buy A home now, met harder than his generation. He is literally asking you to not worry about housing, but he has no plan to do anything to Alleviate the issue.
If you are a man who is intimidated by a woman who wants to truly be your equal, then we should feel sorry for you, but not for the reasons Pres. Oaks is thinking of. Women should never be afraid of being impressive, of being ambitious, of being intimidating. It’s a good way to scare off the losers anyway. 🙂
I don’t think that the current push for more babies in the church in white nationalism. That is too US centric. Birth rates are falling to very low rates all over the world. Even Xi Jinping the leader of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) wants women to have more babies and he is definitely not a white nationalist.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-25/fertility-rates-in-china-dropping/103654528.
South Korea and Japan are also trying to raise their extremely low birth rates with little success. Low birth rates means less church members and church birth rates have dropped a lot recently. They are concerned about the church not growing or worse shrinking.
Birth rates are falling everywhere and I think it’s because women are understandably not interested in a life of servitude. You mention China (where I live) where women are refusing to get married and have children because to do so makes them beholden to their children, mother-in-law, husband etc. That and the cost of raising a child is astronomical. When women actually feel valued and supported in their roles as mothers maybe they will have more kids? If church leaders want women having more babies (and I would argue this is none of their business) then they are speaking to the wrong crowd. They should start telling men to take on more responsibilities in their home and with their children. Some men do, but in my experience, the vast majority do not.
I don’t disagree. I agree. Pregnancy, childbirth and small children are hard very hard and pregnancy can be risky for health reasons. And someone who has not been a main primary care giver for years and years would never be able to understand this. I think this is why the British upper classes (Downton Abby types) all had nannies. I don’t have an answer and I agree telling women to just have more babies it not addressing our real concerns. Our society seems so unhealthy for everyone. Men do need to help more, and I believe it is changing slowly. I know a number of mothers with excellent well paying careers with husbands as stay at home dads (all non LDS though). Women are not meant to raise children alone its not how its supposed to be. I was just commenting on the reason why they were saying this. The number children of record have dropped significantly over the past ten years and this has the leadership worried. This graph is from 2021. The latest number for children of record is still about 95,000. So much lower than it was in early 2000s.
https://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2022/04/18/new-children-of-record-and-church-activity/
This is an interesting article about how motherhood used to be and still is in some places.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/12/01/1216043849/bringing-up-a-baby-can-be-a-tough-and-lonely-job-heres-a-solution-alloparents
I’m gen x and this is all the messaging I got growing up. I didn’t live in Utah, I actually lived all over the US, and my parents were first generation members. And I still was very conditioned to believe that stay at home is what God wants for his daughters and if I don’t I will ruin my family and anger God. The explicit and implicit messages of the health of the family resting on the willingness of the mom to stay at home with the kids was very, very real. I read ensign articles about mothers who went back to work and eventually tore the family apart with divorce. And yw lessons of your first and most important goal is to get married and have babies. Misogyny is baked right into the doctrine.
DHO is living in a fantasy world of his own making. His own mother was widowed when she was a young mother and had to work to support her family. I don’t ever remember him dissing her for being “a working mother” or saying that he suffered terribly because she did. Rather, I personally think that he was born inflexible and incapable of having empathy for others. I know his younger brother who is in many ways the 180 degree opposite of him.
As most mothers know your child comes into the world with their own personality. They are not “clay” that can be molded into the parent’s idealized vision of who their child “should be”. I’m an example of this point. My mother totally bought into the idea popular at the time in society and that church still embraces that you can mold your children into your own image which is a form of idolatry. She often complained that she KNEW the moment I was first put into her arms that I was an independent soul-like this was a horrible, shameful thing to happen. Throughout my first 18 years and beyond Mom tried to punish my independent spirit so that I would become more acceptable to her and to Mormon society in Utah. She failed miserably.
I think that DHO suffers from the same problem. If a person or group of people don’t fit his personal beliefs/narrative regarding how they should believe and act he will try to shame and guilt them into becoming his ideal. This is a belief, if not a doctrine, that the church continues to support even as modern psychology has proven that it is an extremely harmful, damaging belief for both the person who holds it and for the person the believer is trying to change. I saw this belief of DHO’s firsthand when, as a student at the end of his tenure as president of BYU, he gave his stamp of approval for LGBTQ+ students to be subjected to what can only be described as witch hunts to find them and subject them to physical and psychological torture in order to make them straight and therefore “acceptable” to the church and society. A couple of my guy friends were caught up in this ungodly situation and it very nearly killed them. Any respect that I might have had for Oaks beforehand quickly disappeared. The problem is that trying to force other people to change never works in the long run, especially when it is a physical trait that is inborn. It is an insidious form of control that is antithetical to the Savior’s teachings that every person is precious and beloved of our Heavenly Parents.
I was and continue to be one of Oaks’s “scary women” because I graduated from college and have had two wonderful careers plus also having a small family. If I had a dollar for every time that a Mormon man told me that I was too smart, too cultured and talented and too tall I would’ve become quite wealthy. Most Mormon men are terrified of strong, intelligent and talented girls and women. This speaks volumes to the way that most of them are being raised and indoctrinated by their parents and the church. Non Mormon or inactive Mormon men that I dated and have worked with have unfailingly treated me with great respect for the very reasons that Mormon men find me threatening. I married an inactive man and have no regrets at all. He’s never tried to make me into someone that I’m not. His example to our two sons has been wonderful. As a result both of them respect intelligent women and one will soon marry a college professor. I’m so proud of them.
I’m making it my personal mission to make sure that my five kids (and any others I can influence) don’t get sucked in by this harmful ideology. I got a degree and didn’t hardly use it, much to my regret. Raised in Utah County, being a SAH mom was all I was taught and modeled. Three of my four daughters are working in their chosen fields (the fourth is still working on her degree). Two have graduate degrees. So many of us have the same story. I hope we can encourage something different for our daughters.
Interesting how there are so many experiences… And they are diverse…
My parents met at Ricks College in the late 70s. She was the only woman in her pre-med program. Almost universally the guys she dated dismissed her stated desire to enter an MD program. My Dad was the one who said if she wanted to pursue an MD, he would support it.
Funny enough, I too graduated from CHS in 1999. I was involved the the engineering club sponsored by the physics teacher, Mr. Yahne. He did a wonderful job encouraging the participation of all the students in the engineering challenges we sponsored. My wife who graduated from CHS in 2000 has fond memories of participating the the card board boat challenge and racing across Willard bay. As an interesting parallel, she is also the daughter of an Engineer working for defense contractors center at Hill AFB.
My sister recently married at the age of 38. She has a BS and an MS in a STEM field, she is planning a PhD at some point. She has a well developed career and actually makes a little more than her husband. She recently gave birth to her first child and as her 3 months of parental leave is coming to a close she has confided in my that she is facing something of a crisis. She doesn’t really want to return to her job, she would much prefer to stay and care for her developing child, they could easily afford it on her husband’s job alone, but she fears that it would be almost wasteful of her education and career development.
Circling back to my mother, she didn’t end up with the MD. A year after my parents were married, I was born, and she decided to focus on her family. She ended up having 7 children.
When I was 14 she met in her best friend a mirror. A new boy joined my younger brother’s cub scout pack. He was the son of a successful MD. She and my mom were roughly the same age, her friend had the MD and two relatively young kids, my Mom didn’t have the MD but 7 kids ranging from teenagers to toddlers.
What a small world! Your name isn’t ringing a bell off the top of my head, (and I was just Abby Maxwell back then), but I definitely remember Mr. Yahne! (And “Ohiiiiiooooo University!”, and taking his shirt off to lie on the bed of nails and break a cinderblock on his chest. Ha ha! So many of us have the same memories!) Also, it’s our 25 year reunion this summer – or is it? Are we having one? Where’s Nick, our class president?? (I also wonder if I knew your wife if she was just a year younger than us.)
Anyway, thanks for the comment. Experiences are definitely diverse, even within the same community with similar undercurrents and teachings.
Really Old dudes who have lived in a bubble for the past 49 years where every financial need and want has been provided by someone else, are the least qualified to give anyone financial advice.