This month, December 2022, marks the 30th anniversary of the groundbreaking book edited by Maxine Hanks, Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism. The book includes essays by some of Mormonism’s top writers, scholars, and thinkers about issues of women and the priesthood, Mother in Heaven, women’s interactions with the institutional church and male hierarchy, and other feminist issues. It includes excerpts from both historic Mormon feminist discourse and modern discourse on the divine feminine. It is an essential text for feminists, scholars, and people interested in Mormonism and Mormon women. Recently, Signature Books released Women and Authority as an e-book available on Amazon.
To celebrate this significant anniversary, I asked some friends to write a message to Maxine or share what this book has meant to them.
Judy Dushku
As a founding mother of Exponent II in 1974, I cheered when Maxine’s book was published. I had written a paper on Mormon feminists of the 19th century, which became a chapter in our book called Mormon Sisters, edited by Claudia Bushman. That early edition was first published in 1976, by Emmeline Press Ltd. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, largely because no LDS Church affiliate would publish it. One response we got was, “Deseret Book wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.” Yet here was Maxine Hanks writing a whole anthology featuring papers, books, speeches, and diaries by many of the same women we celebrated in our book, and Signature Books was doing it. We were so glad to know that the sisterhood was national—even global.
Heather Sundahl
I first “met” Maxine in the fall of 1994. We both belonged to ELWC, Electronic Latter-day Women’s Caucus, which I believe was the first online Mormon feminist forum. I was a 26 year old just out of grad school and while I knew a smattering about feminist theory, I didn’t know much about the women’s movement in my own community, but I gathered that many of the members I regularly chatted with were part of the “who’s who” of LDS intelligentsia. I met Maxine a few months later on a trip to LA. We met up at Lori Winder Stromberg’s house and I was immediately struck by Maxine’s warmth and lack of pretension. Is this the Maxine who wrote that book about women and authority that caused such a stir? I could not imagine why our church would shun someone who was so clearly on a pilgrimage for truth.
We have stayed in touch over the years, and I am always reminded afresh of her bright mind and true heart. When I began working with Exponent II in Boston, of course they all knew Maxine and spoke of her many contributions to the cause. Now back in Utah, when I attend events having to do with Mormon women and history, Maxine is there. I come back to Women and Authority and marvel that it is still so poignant and powerful. I marvel at Maxine’s humility in returning to a church that felt so threatened by her work that they excommunicated her. She is a gifted scholar, a true disciple, and I am honored to call her friend.
Jeanine Bean
My husband, David, introduced me to Maxine in April 1993. We were in the Bay Area attending our very first Sunstone Symposium. David and Maxine had served in the same mission together in Florida. I liked her the second I met her. Unfortunately, I met her after her session, but we bought the book and brought it home (without an autograph—something I still need to get…) The following September she was one of the September 6. Over the next few years when attending the CA Sunstone symposium, we would ask those running the symposium if they had updates on Maxine, but never got any meaningful information. In 2010, we attended our first Utah Sunstone Symposium. It was the last session and I was sitting in the back of a packed room. During the Q&A a woman raised her hand to make a comment and I knew it was Maxine. I remember silently tearing up in my seat as I waited for the session to end to approach her, not knowing if she would even remember me. She did remember me and we talked together with my husband for the next hour. Since then (until the pandemic hit), I made a point to meet with Maxine at least once a year when traveling to Utah. We have had many hours of deep discussion. She has provided me with such knowledge and perspective over the years as I’ve wrestled with my faith and my place in the Mormon religion. I have read and reread Women and Authority many times during the last 30 years. It has been both a balm and a frustration. The essays have given me hope, increased my self-worth as HER daughter, and have helped me realize the importance of the feminine divine in my life. The essays have also frustrated me when I think of what the world could/should be if we would only embrace her. SHE holds an important key in its healing.
The value of Maxine’s friendship, wisdom, and writings have been an integral part of my religious education and spiritual development. I will always be indebted to Maxine.
Caroline Kline
Women and Authority was my very first introduction to Mormon feminism. I found the book in the library when I was a second-year graduate student, and I was blown away—utterly blown away—by it. I had no idea there was a community of Mormon feminists, let alone Mormon feminist academics who wrote, theologized, and tackled difficult topics with such boldness and clarity. I had no sense of the history of Mormon feminism, and the lengthy historical excerpts gave me an understanding of how Mormon feminist thought developed over time. Women and Authority changed me forever. Because of that book, I finally knew that I wasn’t alone in my questions.
Nancy Ross
I turned 13 the month that Maxine Hanks was excommunicated and heard my parents speak about the collective excommunications in hushed voices. I grew up with Women and Authority on the family bookshelf and a stack of Dialogue magazines in the basement. I went to high school in New Hampshire and I was blissfully unaware of the problems in Mormon history, even as I was observing gender double standards and gaps in funding between Young Men’s/Scouting and Young Women’s. Eventually I would go looking for answers and analysis and Women and Authority was one of my first stops for information and resources as I sought to better understand the relationship between my experiences and Mormon history. For me, the book held both sadness and solace. My most memorable moment of discovery in that book was reading in a footnote that Joseph Smith had a shared vision of Heavenly Mother as part of the Divine Family, and that bit of knowledge was comforting for a long time. Women and Authority remains an important resource for those seeking answers about women, history, and theology in Mormonism.
Jody England Hansen
This book was such an important part of my journey in writing and speaking about spiritual and faith experiences. I can’t remember exactly what it was that prompted Maxine to ask me to contribute to Women and Authority. I think she had heard me say something at Sunstone, or another gathering. But she was one of the first people, other than my dad, who valued my words enough to encourage me to write about them and submit them for publication. So I wrote several short pieces about some blessing experiences, and some spiritual feminist experiences, and sent them to her. She included them in Women and Authority. My contribution to this book is my first published work. I am so grateful to Maxine for being one of the amazing women who encouraged and helped me discover and practice using my voice—my words as a part of my own journey and also as I seek to make a difference for others. Thank you, dear Maxine.
EmilyCC
In 2001 when I was a divinity student studying feminist hermeneutics, I relied heavily on Maxine’s Women and Authority. While many of the articles were already published in Dialogue or Sunstone, it was so handy to have my copy with all my notes and all the authors’ footnotes to continue my research. It was a unique combination of primary sources and scholarly work that had not previously been done to that degree on Mormon feminism. It gave our field gravitas and was a handy primer I often gave as a gift. I have led so many workshops and discussions using that book, and my heart broke a little when I lent it to a friend and never got it back. Women and Authority had a profound influence on the women of my generation.
Kristine Haglund
My copy of Women and Authority has been dogeared, loaned to friends, dropped in the bathtub, thrown across the room, set on the teacher’s table during a Relief Society lesson as a mild act of protest, cried on, and consulted on innumerable occasions of distress, delight, and deliberation. It is one of my dearest treasures, though still less dear than my long friendship with its author.
Let her work praise her in the gates!
Danielle Calder
Maxine, you are a badass and an inspiration. I admire your strength, your bravery, and your craft. Thank you for your contributions to our community. We benefit daily from your contributions to Mormonism.
Emma Tueller Stone
I’ve found it difficult thinking about the importance of Women and Authority because, in both my academic work and my personal life, the revelations in this text have become my default understanding of my faith. Thirty years on (and having been raised by a Mormon feminist mother who read this book in her own time), I’ve grown up in a world where we know that Eliza R. Snow was called a “prophetess,” that Mormon women cared about women’s rights, and that God is a Mother as well as a Father. My own research would make very little sense without the foundation that Hanks created in this text. And while I am intellectually aware that this book was groundbreaking, it feels almost more important to acknowledge that, now, many of these ideas feel like second nature.
In short: Maxine Hanks gave us a world in which Mormon feminists can simply assume that women had (and have!) authority within our faith. I cannot imagine my life without it, and I am viciously grateful for her work.
Millie Tullis
When I set out to write on gender in Mormon history and folklore, I found Women and Authority fast. When I grabbed it off the shelf in USU’s library, I was amazed at how well-read this copy was. The cover was soft and well-creased from the dozens of readers who had come before me. In fact, the book looked about ready to fall apart. I started to read, but didn’t finish the intro before I realized I needed to buy my own copy. This was a book I needed to mark up and dog ear; this was a book I needed to permanently have on my shelf. I bought one of the handful of physical copies remaining on Amazon and loved every chapter. I find myself constantly returning to Women and Authority in my footnotes. This was the book that made me want to enter the conversation. Or, this was the book that introduced me to the conversation I wanted to enter.
https://exponentii.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Picture-23-scaled-1.jpg Stevenson
My new copy! Thanks for all you’ve done, Maxine! Congratulations on the anniversary.
April Young-Bennett
Women and Authority is one of the first books I read when I became active in the Mormon feminist movement. It inspired me to work as an advocate for women’s ordination and other woman-friendly church policies. I have referenced it often. It was such a privilege to come into the movement with such a wealth of resources already there at my disposal.
Katie Ludlow Rich
When I decided to pursue Mormon Studies and pivot from reading books and articles to writing them, Maxine Hanks was the first person in the field to tell me that my work was important and valuable. It meant so much to me to have her encouragement and support. Like many others here, Women and Authority was foundational for me in understanding the arguments and issues of Mormon feminist theology. So many of the issues in that book are the same key issues today. On several occasions, the book has acted as a compass and signpost helping me think or write through an issue. Its importance cannot be understated. Thank you, Maxine.
5 Responses
Wow! Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Katie for compiling these accolades for Maxine Hanks and her work. How have I never read this? I will buy the book right now.
Gosh, I’m overwhelmed by this gorgeous tribute to the book on its 30th birthday. Katie, thank you for connecting all these voices in an essay, what a perfect way to honor the book and feminism itself — by bringing women’s voices together to empower and inspire one another.
W & A was a Christmas gift to Mormon feminism, in mid-December 1992, and a watershed moment, the best and worst of times– inspiring readers to trust their own connection to God and voice, and triggering a Purge in Feb. 1993 that lasted all year, and all decade, causing 5 authors’ excommunication and 1 disfellowshipment. Yet progress always comes at a cost, it arises amid opposition, and its truth manifests amid contraries.
I’m particularly honored to see this tribute appear in EXII–a major inspiration for and a contributor to W&A. EXII was an unexpected find on the shelves of Ricks College library in 1976–a comfort and refuge at a time when I felt like the only feminist in the church. Seeing the funky art and feminist headlines on EXII, I knew I’d found my own kind, I wasn’t alone.
Dear Judy Dushku is a mentor mother, whose essay “Feminists” in Mormon Sisters was the only work I could find in the 1980s that discussed and owned the F-word. I felt compelled to excavate and validate our own home-grown Mormon feminism; and without her essay, giving me precedent and courage to move ahead, it would
have been far harder and scarier. I could point to Judy’s essay and say, “See, I’m not the only one.” I felt protected by her voice. And thanks to her and her generation, we are not alone, we are EveryWoman.
In 1992, I wanted to legitimize Mormon feminism because women at EXII and Sunstone and Dialogue and MERA had exerted for decades to speak and validate feminist voice, yet were isolated. Mo Feminists had a room of our own, but we needed a discourse of our own…and networking and sense of belonging. That was my goal with W&A– to demonstrate the scope of Mormon feminism, past and present, as far larger than anyone had realized; and to move Mo Feminism from the margins to Deseret Book…which it did, and it continued to be sold there even after the Purge, although it was sold under the counter then…but it persisted.
Adorable Heather Sundahl was one of our beloved young feminists in the early 1990s, at ELWC and Sunstone. Heather radiated light, beauty, love and energy as only young feminists could. I instantly loved her bright soul and sincere heart, she is as real as they come, and she has continued to mentor so many other young feminists (who now are as Heather once was, and as Heather now is, as young feminists may become…) She still heartens me every time I see her, and I feel mentored by her these days. I was astounded when she made Latter-day Feminist Saint candles. I wanted one, so she made me a Magdalene candle (my matron saint). I feel sanctified by Heather.
Beloved Jeanine Bean, who married my District / Zone Leader from my mission (the kindest ZL I ever knew), is a sister and friend. She and Dave were worried about me when the purge emerged, they kept contacting people to check on me. I loved them for that and for embracing me like family. It feels like home whenever they visit SLC, we spend hours catching up. Little-known fact, I wanted to dress in drag like an Elder for the Lakeland Ward Halloween party in 1979, so Dave my ZL loaned me his men’s missionary jacket and nametag, so I could be ZL for a day. He and Jeanine are the best people. J, you radiate the spirit of the Mother.
Precious Caroline Kline, I met at Sunstone 20 years ago, when she walked up and introduced herself. She was so present, aware, alive, radiant, she glowed. I knew she was going to make a major contribution to feminist work. Watching her path has been inspiring as she’s wrestled with and mastered the academic discourses and tools to produce her own feminist work. It’s so gratifying to know that W&A introduced such a fine mind to Mormon feminism, Caroline has carried the work forward in new ways in the best of feminist scholarship.
Sister Minister Nancy Ross has always felt like both a feminist daughter and feminist mother, an old soul, wise beyond her years. Watching her find her feminist voice in writing and organizing, with FMH and OW, has been deeply inspiring, and her integrity heartening. Her spiritual formation and evolution to Elder in the Community of Christ has been confirming of women’s ministerial paths. She is a fearless pioneer in the best sense. When she led the closing devotional and prayer in the Tabernacle as a CoC Elder, at a Mormon history conf, I cried, thinking, Mormon women have arrived.
Soul Sister Jody England Hansen, was literally the first person I met at BYU in Provo, Utah in 1980, fresh off my mission, I was feeling lost, not sure I wanted to be there, but Jody was a sure sign I wasn’t alone at BYU. Her powerful spirit and presence radiated real soul, and she has inspired me ever since. When I was collecting personal voices for W&A I knew I had to include her experience with the Mother and blessings, it was such a rare feminist testimony in those days. I’m humbled that Gene and I were the first to urge Jody to write. Her father and she are family to me. I’m honored that W&A was Jody’s first published work, may she write until the fullness of women’s priesthood returns. She embodies it already. I still need regular doses of Jody in my life, 42 years later.
Dearest Emily Clyde Curtis, such a precious feminist daughter, so real and vulnerable and wise. I’ve watched her evolve for two decades, aware of her voice via EXII then finally getting to know her at Harvard. Her capacity for diverse realms of learning, training, education and vocation is amazing — from writing to mothering to grad school to chaplaincy to ministry to therapy and healing. She embodies the best of feminism, and the mentoring of her feminist grandmother Aileen who showed us how to trust ourselves, and her feminist mother-in-law, Betina, who showed us how to heal, ourselves. Em, I will gladly replace your lost copy of W&A.
Brilliant Kristine Haglund is another young feminist I’ve known, admired and loved for three decades; we both speak close reading and a-theology. I’ve watched the depth, quality and erudition of her scholarship mature from ELWC days in 1993 to BYU in 2003 to HDS in 2006 to Dialogue in 2010 to biographer this year. Her sharp wit never misses a paradoxical moment of penetrating insight mixed with humor; and her feminist resilience in life and work is a marvelous work and a wonder. Her grace of a life well-lived in spite of any challenge has inspired and encouraged me personally (along with her shoes, which I will envy into eternity).
Brave Danielle Calder has badass courage herself, equal in strength to any of us in the 1970-1980s. She has heard the personal and collective voice of Our Mother speaking to her children and taken it to the next level, without fear or hesitation, on line, in mass. I am in awe and so grateful for young women like you who will take us all the way to the promised land.
Insightful Emma Tueller Stone, the niece of my dear friend Diane (whom I met at BYU’s 7th East Press in 1981), poignantly honors her feminist mothers, aunts, and mentors by bringing home the realization that feminism is now the norm, thanks to those who went before. She witnesses that feminism has come to fruition as a given, a starting point for her generation, which makes our past efforts so worthwhile. I love hearing her say that W&A demonstrated that women have authority within our faith. I saw this in the 1970s and I still see it today. I love that feminist theology is the “default understanding” of her faith. She reminds me of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s wish in EXII so long ago, “May her tribe increase.”
Inspiring Millie Tullis, I live to hear young voices like yours translating the present, so vibrant and alive. Thank you for your beautiful words about the Introduction. Writing it was a painful experience for me, b/c. I had so much more to say but had to cut it way back for space, and I had to throw it together in two weeks because I ran out of time; working on all the other articles and sections, I didn’t leave time enough for myself to write my own Intro, so so my first draft went to press, warts and all. I cringed every time I read it afterward, wishing I’d been able to revise it adequately for print. I’m thrilled that W&A made you want to “enter the conversation” — that’s exactly why I compiled it.
My Friend Rosie Stevenson, whose quiet presence has always felt so reliable, grounded, and self-empowered, always feels like a smiling goddess reminding me, there’s no need to worry or fret or rush about — our divinity and validity simply IS. You are one of those rare feminists who would not need to say a word, to convey the most profound truths, since the message is already present in your being. Yet I’ve been grateful for your words as well, an extra bonus.
Our Undefeatable April Young-Bennett, thank you for your words, it’s gratifying to know that W&A shaped and aided your own work as a feminist and as an advocate for women’s ordination. Your words have inspired me countless times and comforted me more than you could know. Your writings have always been so conscientious, thorough, and deeply-considered, they hint that our work in the past did what it was trying to do — inspire and support future women to find their voice and convictions. I’m so glad our resources were there for you and Kate and Joanna and others at OW.
Dear Katie Ludlow Rich, what a blessing it’s been to get to know you, and your work, via the MHA and Kathy Shirts. I love your energetic grasp of historical texts and your verve for confronting the truth, and documenting it in new and deeper ways. I’m ecstatic that I was the first person in the field to tell your that your work was important and valuable, and I was right… it is. I’m always here to cheer you on. It’s sad but true that the issues in W&A are the same key issues today. So I’m glad it’s been there for you. That was its purpose. Thank you, Katie.
THERE is a discussion group on LDS feminist theology
in Women & Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (for 30th anniversary)
which is being hosted by Jessica Woodbury, in a 3-part series, each meeting
will discuss the 3 sections of the book.
Join us for the Online OR the In-person discussion group.
PART ONE — W&A Introduction & Section 1 (first 4 chpts)
ONLINE: 7 pm Wed. January 25, 2023 Log on and join us!
IN-PERSON: 10 a.m. Sat. Feb. 4, 2023 Sandy, UT RSVP to Jessica Woodbury
https://www.facebook.com/jmwoodbury
ONLINE Discussion Zoom Meeting
Wed. Jan 25, 2023 7 PM Mountain Time
https://zoom.us/j/6188934542
Meeting ID: 618 893 4542 Passcode: 026634
PART TWO & PART THREE — coming in February TBA
On-line Zoom Book Club
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbEV4cCVlIkskyUBNdpN1IrTUvUl2-47pejgWUFDTusQFi5g/viewform
In-person Sandy, Utah Book Club
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbEV4cCVlIkskyUBNdpN1IrTUvUl2-47pejgWUFDTusQFi5g/viewform
The google doc links Maxine shared above do not work, but if you are interested in joining us for either zoom or in-person discussion groups around the book which will likely be taking place in February, March and April, then please submit your email through the google form below and I will share further information.
https://forms.gle/B5jXfoQhVUhKeBfb6
How do I find a copy of Maxine’s book?