A Woman's Place- Part 4

 by Angela Felsted

I grew up in a home with three brothers, so I can attest to the fact that some teenage boys are resentful of the extra work that comes with having the priesthood. I’ve never been required to wake up at the crack of dawn for a church meeting, never been pressured to put my life on hold to serve a mission, nor was I taught the importance of finding a career that would enable me to support my future family. As a young woman, the emphasis was in becoming the kind of girl that would be worthy of a man’s protection through keeping my thoughts clean, my body covered, and my virtue intact. Why pursue a lucrative profession if you believe your future husband will take care of you financially; why go into a prestigious field like law if it keeps you from staying home full time with your children?

In the church we call men and women equals while proscribing them segregated roles. We preach that a mother’s work is as respected and admired as any man’s even though men who do my work (Stay-At-Home Fathers or part-time workers who spend more time with family) cannot be found anywhere in the paid church hierarchy. Because the truth is, men who succeed in building prestigious (non-nurturing) careers are the ones who are called as spiritual leader. The two counselors who advise the president of the church are perfect examples of this: Henry B. Eyring went from teaching at Stanford Business School in 1962 to working as President of Ricks College from 1971-1977, and Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who began flying airplanes for Lufthansa in 1965, was promoted to Senior Vice President of Flight Operations in 1992.

It’s only right that these men are admired for their ambition. After all, they are not mothers, called selfish from the pulpit for having the drive to pursue their careers. Authors such as William Bennett, who attribute the disintegration of stable families with the rise of feminism, would be hard pressed to find a better religious organization to model “The Path to Manhood” from. Mormons women are taught to value the home not only as teenagers, when temple marriage is held up as their ultimate goal but also as adults through sermons, lessons and pictures such as those found in the church’s newest publication, “Daughters of My Kingdom,” littered with images of idyllic family life: a mother and father singing with children around a piano, one photo of a family with six bright and cheerful kids, and more than one well-rested mother holding a calm and peaceful newborn.

This one-size-fits-all version of womanhood, advertised like a brand of designer tennis shoes, is isolating to those who believe in the doctrines of the church, but struggle with the womanhood/motherhood connection, or with an abusive spouse, or with the realization that raising children is a tiring job that depletes a person’s energy. The voices of these real women who have real needs are drowned out by the daunting image of the perfect female nurturer. And let’s be honest, new mothers are tired, not all kids are serene, most make messes, many of them do not listen—taking care of children, cleaning a home, doing laundry, and fixing meals isn’t just hard work, it can be tedious. Granted, there are those who enjoy these things, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s no ladder to climb in this profession, no reputation to build, no money to be made (unless you work for someone else). 

By highlighting only the most fulfilling moments of family life to its female population, the Mormon church is employing the same commercial techniques which Barber believes has infantilized the US population. There are three ways this harms women (and by extension families): first, it sets future mothers up for disillusionment; second, it creates an environment where those who feel marginalized cannot speak up without censor from their peers; and third, it establishes an unrealistic standard which makes women (single and married) think there’s something wrong with them when men do not propose, babies do not come, or having children does not bring them perfect joy. That last part describes exactly what happened to Lisa Butterworth, an LDS woman who went through her own period of disillusionment before starting the blog, Feminist Mormon Housewives: “I had entered adulthood, married in the temple, and arrived at my destination of perfect Mormon womanhood, but… here was doubt. All my years of faithful Young Women attendance had not prepared me for doubt. Except perhaps to instill the fear that doubt meant I was a bad person.”

Dr. Kent Ponder wrote a widely distributed study in 2003 based on nearly 300 interviews with LDS women called Mormon Women, Prozac® and Therapy where he pinpoints three harmful and often overlooked realities of the male-centric Mormon culture/church: it’s one-size-fits-all creed for women, the requirement that females obey men in authority from birth to death, and how women in the Church forfeit control of their own life choices.

Six months ago, I would have called that last one a load of rubbish, but I have since taken time to think back on the principles stressed in my formative years along with their impact on my choices as a young single woman and must admit that his statement has some merit. For starters, my decision to major in music rather than a practical, more lucrative profession was rooted in my belief that the patriarchal system would always be there to take care of me. And this is the belief that relieved me of pressure to support myself after college graduation when I moved in with my parents and worked a handful of part-time jobs: Jewelry Store Salesman, Switch Board Operator, Office Temp, Substitute Teacher, Free Lance Musician, and Private Music Instructor. By the time I married in 1999, I was a college educated women who had never gotten her own apartment, paid her own car insurance, owned her own credit card, or worked at anything other than a dead end job—but I was pure, completely devoted to the gospel, and looked on my leaders with a childlike faith that matched my childlike obedience.

In the church’s estimation I was a success.

A Woman's Place- Part 3

One of the first feminists in the history of the United States was John Adam’s wife, Abigail, who wrote to her husband on March 31, 1776 to ask him to give women a voice in the running of the new government: “If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

Despite her ultimatum, no room was made for “the ladies” in this new government. Wives back then were property under the law. Any land owned by a single woman was given to her husband when she married. John Adams sums up the commonly held beliefs of the day which allowed for the disenfranchisement of half the population to John Sullivan in a letter where he explains why women should not vote: “ . . . because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the great business of life . . . Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for domestic cares.”

The LDS church uses similar language to explain why mothers of young and school aged children are not permitted to hold paid teaching position with the Church Education System, why they cannot serve as temple workers, and why a woman’s only true authority is in the home.

In 1993 Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the twelve apostles had this to say about the roles of men and women: “Some roles are best suited to the masculine nature and others to the feminine nature. Both the scriptures and the patterns of nature place man as the protector, the provider. . . . Those responsibilities of the priesthood, which have to do with the administration of the Church, of necessity function outside the home. . . . The woman, by her very nature, is also co-creator with God and the primary nurturer of the children.”

After he speaks about how men are not to dominate their wives, maintaining their power only “by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge.” He goes on to say this about the role a woman plays: “This divine service of motherhood can be rendered only by mothers. It may not be passed to others. Nurses cannot do it; public nurseries cannot do it; hired help cannot do it—only mother, aided as much as may be by the loving hands of father, brothers, and sisters, can give the full needed measure of watchful care . . . . The mother who entrusts her child to the care of others, that she may do non-motherly work, whether for gold, for fame, or for civic service, should remember that ‘a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.’ (Prov. 29:15)”

Every so often, I feel like I’m living in a time warp. Has the rest of the world really moved on to letting females serve in positions of ecclesiastical authority outside the home—are their voices really heard and respected in matters once considered the domain of men? If you ask your typical Mormon woman if she is oppressed, she will say no! Absolutely not! The men in our church are taught to esteem the fairer sex, cherish womanhood, care for widows, protect their wives, and provide for the mothers of their children. They are trained from the tender age of twelve to help others by serving in the church.

At the time when many American men are starting their sophomore years at college, Mormon boys are encouraged to delay their education to preach the gospel in a place they’ve never been, among people they have yet to meet.

A few months after my future husband arrived in Mexico for his two-year mission, he was sent to a tropical region, where he slept in a humid room with no air conditioner, making trips to a cockroach infested outhouse in the dead of night. When the sun came up, it beat down with such intensity he shaved his head to keep cool, only to receive the worst sunburn of his life. To make matters worse, his Mission President assigned him a companion who, in the midst of talking to strangers and knocking on doors, badgering and begged my future husband to help him buy a donkey, after which he broke their one and only fan, destroyed all the lights, and began tearing the electrical wires from the walls in a fit of rage.

When my future husband mentioned these issues to the Mission President, he was told to suck it up and deal with it—a scenario which was repeated with another difficult companion a few months later, except that in the second case he was so angry and disillusioned he walked to the bus station with the intention of leaving. Torn between the conviction of his faith and the hell of trying to preach said faith, he found himself sitting alone on a bench on Christmas day bereft of friends or family when two complete and total strangers convinced him to go back and try again.

Is it any wonder with this kind of training ground, the majority of Mormon men value persistence and hard work? Is it any wonder that this particular religion has produced successful, influential leaders like Steven Covey, J.W. Marriot, and Mitt Romney?

Since marrying my husband, I’ve watched him help people move, visit the poor and depressed, give blessings to the sick, and offer our home as a place of refuge for a teenage boy kicked out by his own mother. I’ve watched my husband testify of the strength of his beliefs while struggling to sustain leadership which doesn’t always know better than to use guilt and toxic shame as motivators. Spiritual abuse is a problem in the church, and I’ve watched my husband get walked over time and again while feeling utterly powerless to protect him. So often when I’ve tried to defend him to leaders, I’ve had my concerns and suggestions dismissed right before said leaders compliment me on my compassionate heart.

The majority of LDS men I have met go to great lengths to pay homage to the women in their lives. They see these accolades of verbal appreciation as a form of honor, and often get defensive when a woman utters the word “oppressed” in regards to her place in the church. The problem with the O word is that it brings to mind images of workers weighed down under boulder-like responsibilities as a foreman cracks a whip to keep them laboring. Under this definition it isn’t Mormon women who can claim oppression, but the men who offer their bodies as stepping stools to lift their wives, mothers, and daughters onto a pedestal.