Why I Changed My Mind About Mormon Feminism

There has been a lot of commotion recently in my church. I would like to address how I feel about this commotion and how I came to be involved with it.

First, a little about myself: I’m Mormon. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). I grew up Mormon. I was baptized when I was eight years old. I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and I went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah for my bachelor’s degree. I was married and sealed in the Washington, D.C. Temple.

Right now is March 2014. November 2012 was the first time I really heard of this commotion I mentioned in my opening of this post. It was a commotion from women within my church. I suppose I had heard some of the complaints, none of which I felt were very valid nor applied to me. Women were saying they weren’t being treated fairly, that they weren’t being treated equally. Women were saying they wanted the Priesthood, the power of God to act in His name (this is reserved only for righteous, worthy men in our faith).

I was upset about this. The first time I heard a women desire the Priesthood, I was actually angry inside. And I had heard what “these women” had said about women like myself: looking down on me and judging me for not wanting to work but to raise a family. Or women judging my very best friend for marrying young and starting her family, rather than her career. Or women acting so self-righteous with their older, single status when a couple divorced after a few short years for marrying too young.

I was angry. I felt attacked at my very core, my very being, for my most sacred and precious beliefs about who I was; about my divine role as a daughter of my Heavenly Father. And it was during this time of anger toward these women, whom I did not know personally at all, that I stayed with my older sister. This sister is also LDS. She was married and sealed to her husband in the temple. She has two beautiful children. She and I had several overlapping years at BYU. She is my only older sibling. We are closer than close and I love and respect her dearly, more than I could ever hope to describe through clumsy letters and words on a page.

And then I found out.

She was one of “them.”

My sister. My love. My strength.  And she was against me.

We talked for hours. I had a distant Facebook friend, a girl from my childhood stake, who posted about a “Wear Pants to Church Day.” I was disgusted. I couldn’t believe people would make such a demonstration at church. I couldn’t believe they would tell me I was wrong, that my leaders were wrong, that my church was wrong, especially since they were supposed to be part of it! I felt defensive. I was hurt. I was angry. Tears were cried. Voices were raised. Feelings were wounded. But because my sister and I are, well, sisters, and because we love each other dearly, we didn’t give up. I don’t know that I could have continued talking that way with anyone else. Our conversations and emotions ebbed and flowed over several days. And I told her, with tear stained cheeks, how those feminist women had wounded me. Their words, like knives, that cut as they talked down to my friends and me about our personal life decisions to be wives and mothers. I told her that women could bear children, and that no man could petition to have children. I knew that was a physical thing, but I believed it was also spiritual. And that in the same way women could not hold the Priesthood, not matter how much they asked, no man could carry a child for nine months. I said that women had motherhood and men had the Priesthood. I actually said, Lord forgive me (it literally hurts my heart to type this), that those women should seek another church, where they could worship as they pleased. I said I didn’t want the duty that men had. And my sister listened. And my sister loved. And she told me how she felt.

I didn’t wear pants to church that December. I was mad about it. But I wanted to know what people were saying. I wanted to know why they seemed so angry toward God and our church. And why my sister was so involved and supportive. So I read. And I read. And I read.

And another month went by.

And I read some more.

And I prayed. I read my scriptures. I went to church. I was called as the Young Women’s President at my little branch. And my heart started to change. Here I was, teaching these young women, and I had to really think about what was best for them, how to teach them (we are so small I have no counselors or teachers, just me, in the whole Young Women).

And I prayed and I read some more.

I found out who “those women” from before were. I read their stories. None of them spoke down about motherhood. None of them were rude to stay-at-home mothers. Most of them were mothers themselves. None of them were angry about women who marry young. Many of them had married young, too. None of them wanted to be men or less feminine. Many of them love their femininity and love what it means to be a woman.

I read about their tears. I read about their hurt. I read about their sincere soul searching and aching hearts and spirits.

And while I didn’t see that women should be ordained to the Priesthood, I saw SO MUCH MORE. I saw women who felt as I did. I saw women who grew up wanting to canoe in Canada with their church group, as the young men did. I saw women who would have served a mission if they could have gone when they were 19, as the men did. I saw women who thought it wasn’t right for mothers with children to be denied employment as seminary teachers for our church. Things that I had always thought and always said. And I realized the very things that I was saying were the SAME THINGS the feminists were saying.

And then I realized it – I am a feminist.

I want equal value placed on women in my church. I don’t want to “become” a man. I love being a women and I know it is a divine role, just as my other feminist brothers and sisters know it. But I want my sisters and my future daughters and my young women of my branch to know that they are not valued less because of their gender. The problem is, I see these messages-without-words being hammered into them at a young age by our church. Do I think it is malicious or intended? No. Do I think that people are just people and can make errors and mistakes? Of course. But I realized that our church as an institution is not perfect and has a lot of room for growth and change, as it always has. It always has. It has changed and will continue to change, right up to the day that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, comes again to rule on the earth.

I realized that some people were left out from my church. Not purposely and not always obviously, but left out none the less. Women without children. Unmarried individuals over the age of about 26. People of color. People with various sexual orientations.

Some people say, as I once did, “I don’t feel marginalized. And I don’t treat other people that way. And if other people feel that way, it is their fault. They shouldn’t feel offended so easily when it is not intended.”

But what I didn’t realize was that by saying that, I was taking all the responsibility off myself for my fellow brothers and sisters. And isn’t that the exact opposite of what Christ taught? Isn’t that the exact thing he said not to do? He said to walk an extra mile, to give your coat and your cloak, to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. Not to only do that so long as you feel like you haven’t hurt anyone, or only when people deserve it, or to stop after you have tried once or twice (or any number of times).

And maybe it was my fault. Maybe I did hurt people. Maybe when I said women have Motherhood and men have the Priesthood, I didn’t think about women who cannot have children. And how even if you believe they can in the next life, how do they get through the next 50 years of their existence in this life? It was easy to write it off or say how they “should” feel when I didn’t know them. When I didn’t talk to them. When they were a nameless face on the internet or a story from a friend, I could rationalize away their pain. One of the hardest things for us to do as people to is to admit that we were wrong and that we hurt someone, especially when we did it while thinking we were doing what was right.

And I started to think about things. I started to read about the history of my church. And I read, from the mouths of our own leaders, about the changes that have been made. Everything from the temple ceremony to additional commandments to missionaries no longer being required to part their hair. And I realized that the church CAN and DOES change, even though God does not. And I realized that these changes come because people ASK. And that change doesn’t happen over night. And it doesn’t happen after one round of questioning. Sometimes it takes time and lots of dialogues and hundreds of prayers.

And I realized, suddenly, why I was so angry and defensive when I first heard these ideas. I felt they were a personal attack on me because I didn’t take the time to understand what was really being said. I saw a few Facebook statuses and read a few blog titles and thought I had it all figured out. And I also thought that the church didn’t and couldn’t change like it does.

And I realized, I wasn’t loving those men and women who were hurting.

To this day, I do not agree fully with everyone who considers themself a feminist, but I can honestly say, I do love them. I really do. And I would never tell them to quiet their questions, or to leave the church that I believe is the established Church of Jesus Christ. In fact, I learn so much from listening to the experiences and views of others. Even if I do not agree with their ideologies and perspectives, I grow and change and improve just from having open and honest dialogues with them.

And I do wonder why women cannot be more financially responsible in church matters. Or why they can’t make more decisions. Or why a mother cannot just hold her baby as it is blessed. Or why a woman can’t be the witness for a baptism or a sealing. Or why Achievement Days girls meet twice a month, but their male peers in scouts meet weekly. Or why women are only at some of the meetings for running the church, but men are at every meeting. Or why our separate General Conference meetings are not called the “Women’s Priesthood Meeting” and the “Men’s Priesthood Meeting,” and why both are not an official part of General Conference (just being in that Ensign issue for the month doesn’t make it official). Or why women are not asked to speak at the men’s Priesthood meeting. Or why the responsibility of being modest and chaste rests primarily with women, as many talks and sermons and lessons not only imply, but explicitly state. Or why Bishops and other men are not trained in counseling and sensitivity and abuse/rape before they take on the role of one who deals with and judges individuals in those situations. Or why women are not a set part of a disciplinary counsel. Or why a women can’t be a Sunday School President.

The list goes on, actually.

And I realized that Motherhood does not equal Priesthood. I realized that Motherhood = Fatherhood. That mother is a divine and sacred calling, but that father is also. Mothers are to nurture and raise children, but fathers are to do so also. Just as men are called to do work at church, women are too. Holding the keys to the Priesthood is not a prerequisite to service in the church. My question has never been if I am needed at church. I know I am. I know I have influences and abilities as a woman that are valued. But if Motherhood = Fatherhood, then Priesthood = Priesthood, where men are priests and women are priestesses. We are told as much is true. I would like the leadership to speak on that, to address that topic specifically. Just as Motherhood and Fatherhood are called Parenthood, and the mother and father have specific roles that cannot switch, I could see how really the Priesthood is comparable to Parenthood. That men and women are BOTH involved and BOTH have equally IMPORTANT roles, though different. And I do believe that is the case. So why not talk about it? Tell me where I stand as a woman. Expound more explicitly what I can do in terms of the Priesthood with respect to the power to act in the name of God as a child of God, NOT with respect to Parenthood or a husband. (I know we are told as women that we support the Priesthood, but this feels like telling fathers to just “support” mothers in their child rearing duties, while they in fact have actual roles in and of themselves, along with supporting the mother of their children.) Just because I don’t hold the Priesthood like a man does, why can I not make decisions about the church? Can a woman not also receive revelation? Just because I can’t baptize or give a blessing, can I not counsel and advise on sacred and important issues? And stop calling the men of the church “The Priesthood.” Some hold the keys, but they are men, they themselves are not the power of God. And let’s ask some more questions about Heavenly Mother. Let’s talk about what we do know of her. Let’s stop acting as if she doesn’t exist. Give women a gender-specific God role model to emulate. 

I digress. So there are issues and ideas and lots of problems that are out there with gender equality and devaluing of women in our church.

But people have questioned. And you know what, now women can pray in sacrament meeting (that’s right, they didn’t always). And in General Conference (it only took until 2012!). And women can serve a mission at 19 years old. And instead of having a Relief Society meeting once a year before General Conference, we now have a combined, General Women’s meeting, twice a year, near each General Conference session. And the temple ceremony has changed several times to be (a little) less man-centered in its language. And a new movie was made for the temple ceremony that better portrays the thoughts and feelings of our church’s doctrine in regard to our Mother Eve.

And so I too continue to ask, to question, to speak. Because I feel there is more room for change. Because some are left out. Some go unnoticed. Some hurt, and instead of mourning with them as we are instructed to do as Christians, people of my faith judge them and wish to cast them out.

And I wore pants this year, December 2013, for the second annual Pants Day. And I said I did this because, “I see you. And I know you hurt. And I hurt too.” I wore pants to show my support for all those who struggle to find a place in our church and our faith, who struggle to find truth, who are judged and cast aside, called apostate (and worse), who wish for change for a better tomorrow, for all the instances where people have been undervalued FOR ANY REASON. And it was my pledge to do my part to fix our broken places, to build up our weak areas, and to add space where there was none before in our church, so that all of God’s children may find our worship houses to be a safe haven and place of peace from the world. And I'll keep doing these things and I'll keep loving and loving and loving. Forever.