Pieces of my Feminist History: Part 1 (Galdralag)

This is my second post in a series inspired by Zelophehads Daughters. For the introductory post, see here.

The first time I ever heard someone say "feminism is the F-word" was during my first semester at BYU. It was said by one of my roommates, a Southern Californian. She said it solemnly, and another roommate, also from Southern California, nodded in agreement.

It was a confusing moment for me - an instant of genuine perplexity. What on earth were they talking about? Was this a thing?

My previous introductions to feminism had been mild and frequent - ubiquitous even. I had grown up around a fair number of very kind, gentle, thoughtful men and women who all called themselves feminists. (I didn't conceive of "feminist" as a female-only descriptor; I had met many men - most of whom were happily married with children - who called themselves feminists, which is probably why I was so befuddled when I eventually heard the claim that feminists hate men, children, and families.)

Oranges on Sale, the Church is True!

Years and years ago, my sister was sitting in a fast and testimony meeting in her university Singles Ward when one of her good friends got up to bear her testimony. This friend was very emotional, and was clearly trying to express something very important to her, but what ended up coming out across the pulpit was the following:

"I was driving down the street thinking about how I wanted some oranges, and then the guy on the radio said that oranges are on sale. CHURCH IS TRUE!"

The announcement was met with the ringing silence that is standard in Mormon congregations - no amens, no affirming nods, perhaps a few quizzical but polite expressions. Afterward my sister asked her what she meant, and she explained that there had been a much longer, more complicated story in her head, but it had been mangled in the telling.

Since then, "oranges on sale - church is true!" has become a family expression for those moments when people announce a complete non sequitur as proof of the existence of God or the veracity of the Church. Sometimes we shorten it to "oranges on sale," as in: "Yeah, we just had an oranges-on-sale moment in Sunday School."

What about you? Do you have any family expressions for Mormon cultural moments? Please share!

Pieces of My Feminist History-Part 2 (Beatrice)

While many individuals likely encounter more homogeneity at BYU than they did in their hometown, I was exposed to ideas and backgrounds at BYU that I hadn't encountered growing up in Orem, Utah.  I had roommates from all over the country, including some who were more experienced or knowledgable about things (like intimate physical relationships) than I was.  So talking to and learning from my roommates was eye-opening to me in many ways.  I realized that there were lots of different types of Mormons and lots of ways to interpret Mormon doctrines and practices.

Mormonism in Academia in the Humanities ...?

I wrote this three years ago on my personal blog, before I had become much acquainted with the Bloggernacle. Given the consistent uptick in national discussions about Mormonism - including this recent very problematic blogpost in the New York Review of Books, to which Joanna Brooks has ably replied - I think it's become relevant again. 

I expected Mormons and Mormonism to be on the table (or the elephant in the room) throughout my tenure as a grad student in Salt Lake City. It seemed an obvious and inevitable part of the Beehive State, whose conservative politics and quirky American religion go hand in hand. I wasn’t surprised by the huge non-LDS/LDS rift there, given the Mormon political monopoly. But I was surprised to come to a liberal university in Texas for my PhD and have Mormonism brought up at least once a week in my courses.

Institutional Decision Making Ability and Why It Matters

Much of the discussion about women and priesthood on feminist Mormon blogs centers around women's desire to administer sacred ordinances, such as baby blessings and baptisms, to their children. While I sympathize with these feelings, I have never felt a need to participate in these ordinances. However, I do feel strongly about women's lack of institutional decision making power within the LDS church. The argument that I often hear is that women are consulted on every level, thus their voices are fully heard and there is no need for any change. However, I think there are at least three aspects of the current church structure that would likely change in significant ways if women were more involved. These areas include doctrine, policy, and issues of worthiness.

Limits of the Proclamation

My father is a physician. While I was growing up, in those years before the advent of the internet, he would keep many of his medical school textbooks at home. Always a bibliophile, from the time I could walk I would toddle over to daddy’s big books and pore over them, looking forward to the day when I could sound out the big words in the tiny font. At times I would see him, late at night, select one of these books off the shelf to review and prepare for a surgical procedure. The photographs in them were often quite gruesome, though, mercifully, they were always in black-and-white. I knew that I looked over his shoulder at my own peril; as a surgeon, he had no interest in hiding the workings of the human body – including what they look like during a laparoscopic procedure - from his daughter.

Pieces of My Feminist History: Part 1 (Beatrice)

I have been really inspired by Lynnette's post at Zelophehad's Daughters, and Galdralag's post that I wanted to add my own contribution to the series. Like both Lynnette and Galdralag, I feel that elements of feminist thought have always been part of my life. Much of it, especially the early thoughts, focused a lot on the way the Mormon Church framed the role of motherhood and my own struggles in whether I wanted to take on that role or not.

Pieces of My Feminist History: Prep (Galdralag)

At Both Sides Now we really enjoyed ZD Lynnette’s recent four-part series “Pieces of my Feminist History.” We will be adding more blogger’s voices and contributing our own stories to the series here. (Stay tuned for our first guest posts, coming soon!)

As I thought about my own feminist history, I realized that it likely makes the most sense in the context of my general history. Like Lynnette, there is not a time that I recall having a specific, discernible feminist awakening. Feminism was always part of me, and – as I have come to learn is not that common – it never occurred to me that feminism might stand in tension with the Church or the basic tenets of the gospel. In order to explain why, I wrote this post to give a bit more background on my adolescent experience as a Mormon girl in a small, decidedly non-Mormon community.

Are the blessings of the Priesthood available to all?

A couple of years ago I was in a Stake in which someone asked the Stake President why women didn't hold the Priesthood. He responded the every member, both men and women, have full access to the blessings of the Priesthood. Every member can be baptized, can take out his or her own endowments, can be married, and can receive Priesthood blessings. It seems like this argument has become more common within the church as it faces accusations of being sexist. For example the current Sharing Time manual has a lesson on the Priesthood titled "Blessings of the Priesthood are available to all." Equality is achieved, the argument goes, because everyone is enjoying all the benefits. I agree that the ordinances that the Stake President listed are available to all. However, I believe that there are additional benefits that come with holding the Priesthood that were not mentioned.

On Judging, Part Two

When I was studying the anthropology of Judaism, I spent some time reading the folktales of the Ashkenazi shtetl, the European and Eastern European Jewish communities that flourished for centuries until pogroms and racialized pseudo-science culminated in Hitler's Final Solution and the mass murder of much of European Jewry. These are the communities written about by Sholem Aleichem; the villages of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof; the people written of by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Scattered throughout the tales was a repeated reference to a mysterious group of characters, the Tzadikim Nistarim (Hebrew צַדִיקִים נִסתָּרים), the "hidden righteous ones" (also sometimes called the Lamedvavniks, or, roughly translated, "The Thirty-Sixers").