No the church won't change for women. But that's the wrong goal.
Will the church change as a result of 15,000 women speaking out? No. But the women will.
Whew! What a week to be a woman in Mormondom!
Let’s catch everybody up. A brief timeline of events:
November 2023. Some wards in the Bay area of California had a decades-long tradition of having women leaders sit on the stand alongside male leaders1, but then an area authority came to visit and sent the women back to their families.2
When going to her bishop and stake president did nothing, Amy Watkins Jensen began a movement called “Women on the Stand” which has included a letter writing campaign, a petition that 3000 women signed, an Instagram account and five articles in the Salt Lake Tribune.3
On Dec 2, 2023 The Salt Lake Tribune published an article by Kierstyn Kremer Howes proposing that on March 17, 2024 women go on strike from church to see how wards would function without women.
March 17, 2024 was the 182nd anniversary of the Relief Society4 The church put out videos in celebration. One of which included the quote,
That little statement of inaccuracy might have slipped on by with no one noticing except that the church then posted it to their Instagram, causing over 15,000 people to comment, mostly women voicing their disagreement.
March 20, 2024 all those comments start disappearing, causing women to flock to the comment section and watch their comments be deleted in real time. Minutes later the entire comment section is turned off.
The women of Mormondom rise to action immediately gathering screenshots of now deleted comments, calling for the comment section to be restored. An hour later, it was. The church cited site-wide problems with comment sections on Instagram as the problem.
March 22, 2024. The New York Times comes out with an article entitled Does the Mormon Church Empower Women? A Social Media Storm Answers that highlights the firestorm of women’s pain and frustration with the church in that comment section.
In response the prophet granted full equality to LDS women. The end.
………. Just making sure you’re paying attention.
So what do we think? Was this week a success for Mormon women?
I would love to hear your answer to that question in the comments. Here’s mine:
That depends on how we measure success. If we measure success by the church making changes?
This week will likely not be a success. The church has an illustrious history of not changing a thing in response to women voicing their concerns.
But maybe they will finally be informed?
One go-getter of a commenter added this to the comment section:
There are 423 replies in response asking for things such as:
for women to be able to hold their babies during baby blessings,
for women to pray and speak equally as often as men in general conference,
having equal budgets for the Young Women and Young Men,
putting women on the stand,
offering women callings that don’t need priesthood keys (Sunday School president, ward mission leader, etc),
allowing women to give blessings of healing and comfort,
for the brethren to pray over women’s ordination,
being able to pray to or at least SAY “Heavenly Mother.”
What do we actually think will happen up in church headquarters this week?
A room full of 80 year old Mormon men reading feverishly, eye brows raised, heads shaking in dismay, “I had no idea! Just no idea!” Slamming their fists on the table demanding things change post-haste for Mormon women! ?
Excuse the snark. This is a ledge so many Mormon women cling to once their eyes are open to the inequalities they face in the church- that the brethren would surely change things if only they knew!
In 1979 Sonia Johnson said, “I could not bring myself to believe that President Kimball knew all I knew [about women] and was still doing nothing about it. I chose to believe that he was being so insensitive because he was uniformed.”5
In 1984 Vickie Eastman, after her feminist awakening said, ““I was aflame with hope for the future of Mormon women …. All we had to do was to make sure everyone understood, and a change would certainly be almost automatic! I threw myself into the effort…”6
Sorry to point out the raincloud over the “the brethren aren’t doing anything because they are uniformed” parade, but nothing in that comment section this week will be new information to the brethren.
In 2016 the women’s movement Ordain Women collected hundreds of postcards of hand-written stories from women and hand-delivered them to the administration building. They were asking for things such as: to hold their babies during blessings and allowing women to give blessings of healing and comfort.
In 2012 the movement “All Are Alike Unto God” wrote up a letter to the First Presidency and Quorum of the twelve with thousands of signatures asking for such things as: equal budgets for Young Men and Young Women and offering women callings that don’t need priesthood keys.
In 1979 Sonia Johnson collected hundreds of letters from women and delivered them to President Kimball asking for such things as: being able to speak about Heavenly Mother and asking if they would pray about women’s ordination.
THE MEN KNOW.
Women have been telling them for decades.
And these men have been actively silencing them for decades.
These aren’t just the same type of men that have silenced every single women’s movement in the church for decades,
THEY. ARE. THE. SAME. MEN!
Russel M. Nelson, the current prophet, was ordained as a general authority in 1971.
Protests for women’s equality since Russell M Nelson has been a general authority
Let’s go through just a few of the protests by women of the church that he has seen in his time in church headquarters:
On September 14, 1979 the Mormons for the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment7) hire a plane to fly over the conference center during conference carrying the banner “Mother in Heaven Loves Mormons for the ERA.” The Washington Post put the story on the front page.
1979. Dozens of women march from the State Capitol to Temple Square to protest Sonia Johnson’s excommunication, which was published in the New York Times, PEOPLE magazine and all major news outlets at the time.
June 6, 1982. Women chain themselves to a church meetinghouse in San Diego to protest the church’s secretive tactics to oppose the ERA and silence women in support of it.
1993. Between general conference sessions, hundreds of white roses were handed to the general authorities to protest the excommunication of six feminist LDS scholars.
December 16, 2012. The group “All Enlisted” organized the movement Wear Pants to Church Day, in what The New York Times called “the largest concerted Mormon feminist effort in history” where hundreds of women all over the world wore pants to church.8
October 7, 2013. 150 women were denied access into the Priesthood men-only meeting of general conference in a peaceful protest led by Kate Kelly and the Ordain Women movement.
These are just a few of the protests that major news outlets have covered, to say nothing of the thousands of letters sent, numerous books published, hundreds of articles written, millions of survey questions answered.
Women have been organizing, protesting, asking nicely, begging these 15 men for the bare minimum of equality for DECADES.
The concerns raised by the comment section this week will not be news to these men.
What have the 15 men changed as a result of these many letters, marches, petitions and articles?
Shockingly little. Not one of those bullet point requests listed above has been granted.
Despite women begging for decades, they still can’t hold their own babies while they are blessed9. Despite women asking for 200 years, the men still deny us the permission to say the words “Heavenly Mother” in a church meeting.
How did the church respond to Sonia Johnson, Maxine Hanks, Lavinia Fielding Anderson, Margaret Toscano and Kate Kelly when they asked for the exact things the women in that comment section asked for this week?
By excommunicating them.
If our goal is changing the church, history is clear we will be heartbroken time and again.
Remember Vickie Eastman who was sure change would be automatic as soon as everyone understood women’s inequality? After 22 years dedicating herself to raising awareness in 2003 she wrote,
“…the fight for women's equality in the Mormon church is over. Our efforts to change the institution have been almost fruitless. We haven't changed a thing; in fact, women's official status in the church is worse now than in the 60s and early 70s when we started. We have no hope left.”
Women fighting for change, please listen and learn from our Mormon feminist pioneers. Hope in the patriarchy granting equality for women is hope misplaced.
We may be handed a few crumbs (women can witness baptisms, pray at conference and unveil their faces in the temple), but an organization whose very foundation is patriarchal supremacy will never grant women equality10.
That said, I DO consider this week a success. A great success in fact.
Why this week IS a big success
While I did feel the need to rain on the “church will change” parade, please allow me to gently and consensually place my hand on the small of your back and direct you to another parade. One without rain clouds. One called “women empowering themselves without patriarchal oversight.”
I’ve been kicking my feet and giggling like a toddler with a lollipop all week. Why am I bubbling over with merriment when women are voicing their pain?
Because I’m watching women speak, connect and bond. I’m watching women use their voices. I’m watching them feel seen and heard. Some for the first time. For a truly unprecedented number of women to speak out on the church’s own platform. I haven’t seen anything quite like it.
When I spent the five years before I left the church trying to change it from within- did any meaningful change come of it?
No.
But what did happen was I started speaking out and finding other women like me. I went to a Mormon Matters retreat and felt seen and heard and accepted for the first time as a doubter. That experience lit me on fire.
I started using my voice more. I started writing essays and publishing them on Instagram. I found hundreds, then thousands of women with my exact same griefs and concerns.
Together we mourned realizing our decisions to get married and have kids so young wasn’t really our decision. We shared stories of being treated as perpetual children as adult women in the church. We rejoiced together in finding our own strength and our own power. We set ourselves free.
THAT is success.
By this metric, I think all those protests listed above were a success. Not because they changed the church, but because in speaking together, those women wiggled themselves out inch by inch from under the foot of patriarchal rule. Now they are free.
THAT is success.
This week I got invited to the 20th anniversary party for the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog. Through writing and expressing themselves, these women have found their own power.
THAT is success.
Yesterday I was part of a women’s panel on Mormon Stories with four other badass ex-Mormon women as we cheered on the women in that comment section.
THAT is success.
Each week in my spiritual direction sessions I get a front row seat to women loosening the chokehold of patriarchal rule and listening to their own inner voice.
THAT is success.
Perhaps this week enlivened renewed fervor for women to try to change the church. That’s fine. Let them.
The more they start using their voice, gathering with other women in safe spaces where they are free to express their authentic feelings without fear or apology, the more they will start to trust their own experience. The closer they will climb to their own liberation.
I wrote a poem for them. For us.
Steps for Success 1. Go for a walk. Greet each tree you pass, each shrub like an old friend who is delighted to see you. Feast on the oxygen those leaf friends gift you. 2. Don't beg men for permission to trust your glorious self. 3. Invite a few girl friends over for cheese and crackers. Deep belly laugh together until your cheeks ache. When the laughter dies down, say the thing that's been slithering around deep in your chest. Speak the fear, the shame, the longing. See it met with unconditional acceptance and understanding. Call this holy. 4. Cease contorting yourself into man-made boxes that were never built with you in mind. 5. Make a chocolate cake. Once cooled, poke holes in the top and pour warm caramel sauce on top. Slice some fresh strawberries. Cut yourself a generous slice. Pile the strawberries on the top in whatever arrangement makes you smile. Eat. Close your eyes and savor each forkful like its your first time tasting chocolate. 5. Prioritize your own inner knowing over the commandments written by men. 6. Instead of making dinner, order DoorDash. While waiting go to your bedroom, turn on your electric heating pad, slip into your bed with the heat pad on your back. Pull out that novel. Take a deep breath. Get lost in the worlds of fairies and dragons. 7. Stop waving your arms and tap dancing petitioning for men to finally see your inequality as a woman. 8. Walk your kindergartener home from school. Feel how warm his little hand is in yours. Once home, coats off, bend down and tickle him. Right on his stomach on his dinosaur shirt. Welcome the serotonin as it floods your system with his high-pitched giggles. Worship the precious millimeter gaps between his baby teeth. 9. Acknowledge each time you ask the question "What do I want?" for what it is: a great success.
Tell us- do you think this week was a success for Mormon Women?
The stand refers to the raised podium facing the congregation.
Which is how it is for most Mormon wards.
Mormon women’s organization
Source: From Housewife to Heretic
Source: On Being a Mormon Woman
A movement to include women in the US Constitution, that almost passed in the 70s, but wasn’t due in large part to a very organized movement against it by the LDS church. It still has not passed to this day.
Yes non-mormies, LDS women are approximately 70 years behind the times in that they STILL wear dresses or skirts to church.
Unless they have a very nice bishop.
Even if the absolute BEST case scenario happens and women get the priesthood for real, whose priesthood is it? Not Mary’s or Eve’s or Heavenly Mother’s. It’s Aaron’s. Melchezedek’s. Bestowed by Peter, James and John and Elijah. The power of a male God through men. The best case scenario is still patriarchy all the way down and patriarchy all the way up.
It’s been a week. Agree that this IG pushback isn’t shining a light on something the leadership doesn’t know, it shines our light right back on us. And shows us the immense power we already have and that I’m done asking for.
This is incredible, Celeste. It’s such a shame that when every LDS woman has her feminine awakening that she feels like she’s the first one. Our history has been hidden from us, but the internet and writers like you are changing the narrative. I loved the last section especially. So much hope for the women who are waking up.