As someone who deconstructed Mormonism, I remember feeling horrified to learn that so many spiritual gurus I was looking through had a history of affairs and treating women poorly and some even going so far as to put it into their own theology for personal justification. It’s really difficult to come from a religion that persisted through the 1800s due to the sacrifices of its women to uphold their families while their husbands slept with dozens of other women and not want to hold others to a different standard. Mormonism makes it even more difficult as they’ve attached that sacrifice into its theology of the afterlife and you’re left wondering if your personhood really matters at all.
I hear this concept outside of Mormonism too, this idea of “I’d love to have a wife too.” A lot of apologists move towards the “I would want someone to help with the kids/home” too as a good reason for polygamy’s existence. Even outside of polygamous theology, I’ve heard from women in my own office at work that they’d love to have a wife just to have someone help take care of things while they are off in their careers as well. I know I would accomplish more of my personal goals too if I had someone who took care of maintaining my home’s efficiency, planning and cooking meals for me, and transporting my children to appointments. I constantly remind myself though that I’d be taking away someone else’s personhood in order to uphold my own and I cannot bear the hypocrisy. I think a lot of these heroes tend to outsource the necessity to be good to their families in an effort to be successful (and that it is essentially socially acceptable to be an absent father) which they then use as validation for their negligence and abuse.
Male theology really fails in its empowerment of women and recognizing women’s unique individuality outside of womb-bearing.
I am hoping as we push forward and women have more spaces of power outside of the home that more heroes will learn that being successful does not need to exclude treating women as individuals and not as slaves to husband, home, and children.
Amen amen amen. Thanks for typing all this out Michelle - it’s spot on. Wouldn’t we all “like a wife”? Sigh. So much of our world is built on the invisible labor of women.
As someone who deconstructed Mormonism, I remember feeling horrified to learn that so many spiritual gurus I was looking through had a history of affairs and treating women poorly and some even going so far as to put it into their own theology for personal justification. It’s really difficult to come from a religion that persisted through the 1800s due to the sacrifices of its women to uphold their families while their husbands slept with dozens of other women and not want to hold others to a different standard. Mormonism makes it even more difficult as they’ve attached that sacrifice into its theology of the afterlife and you’re left wondering if your personhood really matters at all.
I hear this concept outside of Mormonism too, this idea of “I’d love to have a wife too.” A lot of apologists move towards the “I would want someone to help with the kids/home” too as a good reason for polygamy’s existence. Even outside of polygamous theology, I’ve heard from women in my own office at work that they’d love to have a wife just to have someone help take care of things while they are off in their careers as well. I know I would accomplish more of my personal goals too if I had someone who took care of maintaining my home’s efficiency, planning and cooking meals for me, and transporting my children to appointments. I constantly remind myself though that I’d be taking away someone else’s personhood in order to uphold my own and I cannot bear the hypocrisy. I think a lot of these heroes tend to outsource the necessity to be good to their families in an effort to be successful (and that it is essentially socially acceptable to be an absent father) which they then use as validation for their negligence and abuse.
Male theology really fails in its empowerment of women and recognizing women’s unique individuality outside of womb-bearing.
I am hoping as we push forward and women have more spaces of power outside of the home that more heroes will learn that being successful does not need to exclude treating women as individuals and not as slaves to husband, home, and children.
Amen amen amen. Thanks for typing all this out Michelle - it’s spot on. Wouldn’t we all “like a wife”? Sigh. So much of our world is built on the invisible labor of women.
Unfuckingbelievable (and somehow also completely unsurprising)🤯