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Jan. 31st, 2009 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupSo feeling the opposite of good. Why do I live in Michigan, again? Cause I can't help but think that if I lived somewhere that wasn't so damn cold I'd feel better. Oh yeah, that's right, cause I'm a friggin' masochist and actually like it here. Ugh.
In honor of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baylorsr reading Twilight I think I'm finally going to sit down and type up my whole post about women and mormonism, or possibly mormonism and women. It's a complex subject that I find, in turns, fascinating, aggravating, and deeply distressing.
As always, these are my personal opinions and observations. Mileage always varies.
I'm not entirely sure where to start, so let's go ahead with some basics. The LDS Church does not have paid clergy, everyone in the congregation is expected to jump in and fill a variety of positions at any time. The leaders are also non-professional clergy which means they keep their day jobs and spend much of their free time ministering to various members of the congregation.
Actually, the best way I can think to describe all of this stuff is to do a compare and contrast with the Catholic Church. It's interesting how comparable the hierarchical structures and underpinings of these two churches are. Our congregations operate within set geographical boundaries much like the Catholic model and our leadership has to be ordained like theirs does. The big difference, however, is that where a Catholic priest devotes his entire life to the Church, eschewing all other connections, a Mormon bishop is a fairly typical member of the congregation who retains all of his other responsibilities during his service. Another key difference is that while a priest is the only person in the parish who holds the authority to conduct sacred ordinances, such as communion, baptism, and confirmation, in a Mormon ward every male member who is judged worthy can hold the priesthood and administer ordinances, some under the watchful eye of the bishop and some not.
So what does that all mean for Mormon women like myself? Well, women aren't able to hold the priesthood so women don't become bishops or administer ordinances or direct the workings of the ward/stake/church. Women do hold leadership positions in the Relief Society (the women's auxiliary of the Church, for lack of a better term), the Young Women's program (the organization for adolescent females), and in the Primary (the children's organization).
As you can see, just from the structure alone, the Church is very traditionally organized when it comes to gender roles. It's also very traditional when it comes to family, and by that I don't just mean its dogmatic adherence to heterosexual norms, but that it is the duty and obligation of every member to marry and reproduce. And it's not an overstatement to use the words "duty" and "obligation." Marriage and family lie at the core of pretty much everything taught in the Church.
It's no wonder so many Mormons cling to conservatism and the Republican party since so many of them view the morals and social order of the 1950's as something good that should be recreated.
As I'm sure you can imagine, being a liberal and a feminist in the Church is not always the easiest thing to be. I can remember reading a talk given by one of the big leaders of the Church and getting so worked up that I threw the magazine across the room in aggravation and disgust. And let's not forget the time in Relief Society when the lesson was based around a fairly controversial general conference talk which caused a discussion that left myself and at least one other sister in tears.
You see, while the teachings of the Church can be a trifle archaic, though palatable, some members of the Church can take things to unfortunate extremes. I have seen so many young women go through their adolescence so focused on getting married and having kids that they never take the time to figure out who they are for themselves and not just as an extension of their parents or boyfriends. There are people who glamorize marriage and child-bearing and then conveniently forget to mention how difficult both of those operations are. A lot of adolescent girls are already romantics and then society pressures them into marriage when they're eighteen or nineteen and they're not at all prepared for what really lies ahead.
The parts of Breaking Dawn (the last in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series) that I read told me a lot about the author that I don't think she intended to reveal. Suddenly I saw a woman who married before she knew who she was or what marriage really entailed, who got pregnant right away and hated it, hated everything that was happening to her body and was more than a little scared, but she couldn't admit those feelings, possibly not even to herself, because marriage and family are blessings and you should never hate or fear blessings.
Plus Renesmee is such a Utah name, you have no idea. And let's not even start talking about imprinting and One True Loves because when you believe in eternal marriage and family ideas like that get a whole lot more epic.
Thankfully, while I was growing up I had parents and teachers who weren't steeped in Mormon society. Where some people would teach that the husband is the Head of the Family I was always taught that marriage is a partnership between equals. The same expectations existed for me and my brothers, I was never cut any slack or held to a higher standard just because I was a girl. Going to college and going on a mission were commonly held goals in my family and we were never pressured to either date or to hurry up and get married.
Though not everyone is so lucky. I was recently in a meeting where one of the sisters, a girl a few years younger than me, spoke up with a concern about how she felt that she would make a good doctor and wanted to pursue that career but was worried that if she did so she'd screw up whatever future kids she might have. Those kinds of opinions run rampant in the Church, that if a woman gets "uppity" if she allows herself to become too eductated she'll damage her children or somehow become unfemale. The opinions aren't officially sanctioned or doctrinally approved, but they still get a lot of play.
So here I am, a single, independent, 29 year-old woman with professional and intellectual goals but not a lot of marital ones. Let me tell you, I have spent more than one Relief Society meeting rolling my eyes and getting in whatever pro-education/mission comments I can interject. But it's not all aggravating, I'd have changed churches if it was. It's just, on top of all of the pressures that women face in general society, all of the ways in which we have to prove ourselves over and over again, there's an added layer of Mormon societal expectations. And the older I get and the more single I remain the less I fit in any given congregation not because people are pushing me out but because there's just less of a place for me.
In sum: being a Mormon woman means generally putting up with archaic social norms. You also start holding to the hope that things will eventually make sense, someday. And while some people can be dicks most people aren't. Which is all a lot like being a woman anywhere else, I imagine, just with more Utahans.
That's not everything I have to say on that subject, I could probably write volumes on it. But I'll spare you all of that.
As always, feel free to ask questions freely, the more the merrier.
In honor of
baylorsr reading Twilight I think I'm finally going to sit down and type up my whole post about women and mormonism, or possibly mormonism and women. It's a complex subject that I find, in turns, fascinating, aggravating, and deeply distressing.As always, these are my personal opinions and observations. Mileage always varies.
I'm not entirely sure where to start, so let's go ahead with some basics. The LDS Church does not have paid clergy, everyone in the congregation is expected to jump in and fill a variety of positions at any time. The leaders are also non-professional clergy which means they keep their day jobs and spend much of their free time ministering to various members of the congregation.
Actually, the best way I can think to describe all of this stuff is to do a compare and contrast with the Catholic Church. It's interesting how comparable the hierarchical structures and underpinings of these two churches are. Our congregations operate within set geographical boundaries much like the Catholic model and our leadership has to be ordained like theirs does. The big difference, however, is that where a Catholic priest devotes his entire life to the Church, eschewing all other connections, a Mormon bishop is a fairly typical member of the congregation who retains all of his other responsibilities during his service. Another key difference is that while a priest is the only person in the parish who holds the authority to conduct sacred ordinances, such as communion, baptism, and confirmation, in a Mormon ward every male member who is judged worthy can hold the priesthood and administer ordinances, some under the watchful eye of the bishop and some not.
So what does that all mean for Mormon women like myself? Well, women aren't able to hold the priesthood so women don't become bishops or administer ordinances or direct the workings of the ward/stake/church. Women do hold leadership positions in the Relief Society (the women's auxiliary of the Church, for lack of a better term), the Young Women's program (the organization for adolescent females), and in the Primary (the children's organization).
As you can see, just from the structure alone, the Church is very traditionally organized when it comes to gender roles. It's also very traditional when it comes to family, and by that I don't just mean its dogmatic adherence to heterosexual norms, but that it is the duty and obligation of every member to marry and reproduce. And it's not an overstatement to use the words "duty" and "obligation." Marriage and family lie at the core of pretty much everything taught in the Church.
It's no wonder so many Mormons cling to conservatism and the Republican party since so many of them view the morals and social order of the 1950's as something good that should be recreated.
As I'm sure you can imagine, being a liberal and a feminist in the Church is not always the easiest thing to be. I can remember reading a talk given by one of the big leaders of the Church and getting so worked up that I threw the magazine across the room in aggravation and disgust. And let's not forget the time in Relief Society when the lesson was based around a fairly controversial general conference talk which caused a discussion that left myself and at least one other sister in tears.
You see, while the teachings of the Church can be a trifle archaic, though palatable, some members of the Church can take things to unfortunate extremes. I have seen so many young women go through their adolescence so focused on getting married and having kids that they never take the time to figure out who they are for themselves and not just as an extension of their parents or boyfriends. There are people who glamorize marriage and child-bearing and then conveniently forget to mention how difficult both of those operations are. A lot of adolescent girls are already romantics and then society pressures them into marriage when they're eighteen or nineteen and they're not at all prepared for what really lies ahead.
The parts of Breaking Dawn (the last in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series) that I read told me a lot about the author that I don't think she intended to reveal. Suddenly I saw a woman who married before she knew who she was or what marriage really entailed, who got pregnant right away and hated it, hated everything that was happening to her body and was more than a little scared, but she couldn't admit those feelings, possibly not even to herself, because marriage and family are blessings and you should never hate or fear blessings.
Plus Renesmee is such a Utah name, you have no idea. And let's not even start talking about imprinting and One True Loves because when you believe in eternal marriage and family ideas like that get a whole lot more epic.
Thankfully, while I was growing up I had parents and teachers who weren't steeped in Mormon society. Where some people would teach that the husband is the Head of the Family I was always taught that marriage is a partnership between equals. The same expectations existed for me and my brothers, I was never cut any slack or held to a higher standard just because I was a girl. Going to college and going on a mission were commonly held goals in my family and we were never pressured to either date or to hurry up and get married.
Though not everyone is so lucky. I was recently in a meeting where one of the sisters, a girl a few years younger than me, spoke up with a concern about how she felt that she would make a good doctor and wanted to pursue that career but was worried that if she did so she'd screw up whatever future kids she might have. Those kinds of opinions run rampant in the Church, that if a woman gets "uppity" if she allows herself to become too eductated she'll damage her children or somehow become unfemale. The opinions aren't officially sanctioned or doctrinally approved, but they still get a lot of play.
So here I am, a single, independent, 29 year-old woman with professional and intellectual goals but not a lot of marital ones. Let me tell you, I have spent more than one Relief Society meeting rolling my eyes and getting in whatever pro-education/mission comments I can interject. But it's not all aggravating, I'd have changed churches if it was. It's just, on top of all of the pressures that women face in general society, all of the ways in which we have to prove ourselves over and over again, there's an added layer of Mormon societal expectations. And the older I get and the more single I remain the less I fit in any given congregation not because people are pushing me out but because there's just less of a place for me.
In sum: being a Mormon woman means generally putting up with archaic social norms. You also start holding to the hope that things will eventually make sense, someday. And while some people can be dicks most people aren't. Which is all a lot like being a woman anywhere else, I imagine, just with more Utahans.
That's not everything I have to say on that subject, I could probably write volumes on it. But I'll spare you all of that.
As always, feel free to ask questions freely, the more the merrier.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 03:38 am (UTC)edit: It was very informative though. I'm always interested in reading up on the other flavors. My cousin-in-law is a committed Bible Student and I've always found it breathtaking to see how much Scripture she knows. Of course I shouldn't put you and she in the same room because of the feud between J-Dubs and MMs.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 10:39 pm (UTC)MMs, I like that, it makes me feel like candy (rather than Morons, which is rather less tasty). =D And I'd love to talk Bble with your cousin-in-law since I'm not really into any of that feuding that might exist.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 04:15 am (UTC)My newest roommate is a die-hard Molly Mormon, and she loves babies and wants to get married (she's also a nursing student, interestingly). We were talking about it once, and when she asked my opinion, I just said that I didn't like the role of mormon women and didn't want to be pressured into it. Let me tell you, all hell broke loose. She at last got up and left the room, saying, "I can't be in here right now, I feel like you're selling your birthright for a pot of porridge." Which was a very awesome analogy, but totally none of her business.
All that being said, I'm currently in a student ward where most of the girls are either architecture or engineering majors, and no one has any problem with that. BUT hardly anyone dates. Which just goes to show that mormon guys don't mind an educated woman, they just don't want to marry one. (Yes, I am just a little bitter about this.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 10:47 pm (UTC)And you wanna know the kicker? That lesson was given on Christmas Sunday. Oh yeah, awesome way to feel the love, you guys. Plus, the bishop "specially requested" that that talk be used. *rolls eyes even harder*
Re: your roommate. O.M.G. I agree, the metaphor's pretty kickin', but holy crap. What right does she, or anyone who isn't, you know, God or yourself have to decide what is and is not your birthright and whether or not it's being sold for a pot of porridge? If we were all supposed to act the same and be the same then things would've turned out a little different back in the day. And here I thought free will was a good thing and the WHOLE POINT OF EVERYTHING EVER. Mormon women have whatever role we want to have and if that doesn't meet the Molly Mormon "standard" then maybe it's the standard that needs to be rethought, not us.
*sighs* I've noticed that guys in general have a hard time dating intelligent, educated women. A lot of them are really caught up in the kinds of girls who need protecting or "saving." I can only hope that they get wiser as they get older. But, yes, I'll see your 'bitter' and raise you an 'old maid.' *rolls eyes so hard they fall out of sockets*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 01:57 am (UTC)My parents came up to Utah for the conference at which that talk was given. I opted to stay home and sleep through the Sunday morning session, and when they got back to my apartment, mom was all, "Thank you for not coming. Please don't listen to Julie Beck's talk, you'll freak out completely." Of course, it's just the thing they like to have the women listen to. *joins you in eye rolling*
And I think the fact that I'm just not Molly Mormon enough (or at all) is driving my roommate up the wall. I get lectures. Thus, I try not to engage her in conversation that often.