Seeking the Invisible Words of Invisible Women
The likelihood a Mormon woman will have her words recorded is in direct proportion to how emphatically she holds up the patriarchy.
I left the church in the spring of 2020 during the height of COVID isolation. This was nice because I could wear my new tank top and sip my overly sugared vanilla lattes while reading up on Buddhism in private, but not so nice because I had a lot of time on my hands to fret about the future.
Up until that point, the crystal ball displaying my future was clear. I would raise my four kids. I would persuade them to go on missions, study at BYU and get married in the temple. Eventually I would be an overworked grandmother. I would go on senior missions with my husband.
It wasn’t an all together bright future, but at least it was clear.
But with this one decision to not go back to church, I had irrevocably shaken the ball up. It was now aggravatingly foggy.
I hate it when my crystal ball goes foggy.
In the church I was surrounded by women who were living the life I saw for myself. I could see each next stage displayed by women around me.
In my years as a progressive mormon, role models were more difficult but not impossible to find. I clung to the words of Carol Lynn Pearson. Imagined a future in the church like hers.
But now that I was leaving? Where were they? These women who had left the good ship Zion? I could listen to Mormon Stories and hear the tales from one, two or three years out, but I wanted to see the women who had left 30 years ago. 50 years ago.
“What are their lives like now?” I wanted to know. What lessons would they have for their younger selves? What various stages did they pass through?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know any woman who had left the church 40 years ago.
Not one.
When I looked into my future, I just saw …. a void.
Which Women Have Their Words Recorded and Collected?
An unfortunate truth: men’s words and stories are way more likely to be recorded than women’s. This is true throughout history both in the world and in the church, but let’s talk about in the church.
The blue lines represent talks from men during the past 50 years of General Conference. Those teensy weensy red lines? Those are the women’s talks.
Carly Bingham posted this image to Instagram and Joni Newman responded:
From the jump, women’s words and stories in the church are microscopic compared to men’s.
Another unfortunate truth: the likelihood a Mormon women will have her words recorded is in direct proportion to how emphatically she holds up the patriarchy.
We can divide up which women are most likely to have their stories written down and shared by three tiers:
Top Tier of Visibility: Agreeing with and sustaining the male leaders
In the book Saints, which was handed out to every church member, we have the words of Jane Manning when she praised Joseph Smith, Eliza R Snow when she praised Brother Brigham1.
On the rare occasion women’s words are shared in talks, in lessons, in conference, they are only quoted when they say, “Yay prophets! Yay husbands! Yay patriarchy!”
And the women who get promoted to the general leadership of the church? They are the ones mostly likely to use their words quoting men.
I can’t help but draw a parallel to The Bechtel test here. The Bechtel test is a metric to measure female representation in media. It’s simple: are there two women speaking together about something other than a man?
Why is the Bechtel Test important? Because when females’ only words are about men, it erases their full humanity. It turns women into cartoons whose existence only matters because of her connection to men. When movies fail the Bechtel test they fail to show women as full autonomous humans with their own interests, passions and lives aside from their relations with men.
No General Conference has passed the Bechtel test. The Book of Mormon doesn’t pass the Bechtel test. It’s incredibly rare for a sacrament meeting to pass the Bechtel test.
In the church, women’s words are only shared when they speak in support of men.
When I hear the women leadership of this church speak, I hear echoes of inadequately-written female characters who only exist to support men- like Kitty Oppenheimer, as depicted in the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer, who when her husband admits to cheating on her, replies with concern for how the affair will affect him and his career. Who only gains the spotlight when she defends her husband in court.
When the previous General Relief Society president, Jean Bingham was asked from a female member- ‘what do I do when priesthood leaders dismiss me as a woman?’
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She responded: Pray for the men. Love the men. Support the men. Blame yourself. Never criticize a man.
It sounds like a joke. Like a man wrote that script. But honestly what else could she say? If she dissented or disagreed with the men, her voice would be silenced. Her seat of power taken away. Her story erased.
Her voice being heard at all is entirely dependent on her support of patriarchal rule.
Second tier of visibility: Disagreeing with but still sustaining the male leaders
Our next tier is comprised of the progressive women of the church. Our Mormon feminist pioneers.
Their visibility is a significant step down from the top tier.
My two most popular Substack articles are both about the invisible history of Mormon feminists2 precisely because their words and stories are hard to find! They are not common knowledge even to those who grew up all their lives in the church or are well-versed in church history.
It’s insane the lengths the brethren go to silence progressive women. Excommunications, home visits from apostles, conference talks and leadership trainings forbidding the mention of a female deity.
Nevertheless, if you are willing to put in some digging time, there have been many efforts through the years to collect and share the words of Mormon feminists:
To name just a few.
However, to have your words collected in these spaces, you do need to maintain some allegiance to the church and the brethren.
Third tier of visibility: Disagreeing with and not sustaining the male leaders
Which brings us to the least visible group of Mormon women- those who outright do not sustain the brethren or the patriarchy.
When Chelsea Homer was an active member, she wrote two articles for the church about remaining faithful even when your husband leaves the church.
The very day that Chelsea went on the Mormon Stories podcast and outright voiced her dissent, the church deleted her articles and made her words invisible.
Even though in those articles she did faithfully affirm church teachings, just the risk that someone could read the article, google Chelsea’s name and hear her words post-religion was enough for the church to erase her words entirely.
The publishing industry provides another case-in-point for the invisibility of the third tier.
If you want to publish a book as a faith promoting member of the church, you have multiple publishing houses to pitch to: Deseret Book, Shadow Mountain, Seagull, Cedar Fort, Covenant Communications.
If you are a progressive member and wish to publish a book, your options are more limited, but there is some space carved out. Thank goodness companies like Signature Books and By Common Consent Press are fighting the good fight to publish these much-needed words.
But if you have left the church and wish to have your words about the church published?
Most likely you are looking at either self-publishing or going with a publishing company with no connection to Mormonism. Unless one of the progressive LDS publishing companies is willing to take a chance on you.
Which means that these books do not have the cohesive collection that publishing houses provide.
I, along with three other incredibly talented ex-Mormon poets3 are facing this conundrum right now. We are ready to publish 100 of our poems in a collection called Beside Herself.
It’s tough to appeal to publishing companies unaffiliated with Mormonism since our poems are all sprinkled with very Mormon-specific references such as:
“O My Father. The only hymn that hints at Her is named, of course, for Him.” and
“now out I live not-in-darkness but Life.” and
“My mother should have known I would hate covering my face… This God will not look us in the eye.”
We’re pursuing some options of formally publishing, so hope remains, but the lack of space carved out for words like ours is frustrating.
Why does this happen?
There are a few obvious reasons a comprehensive collection of the words of radically dissenting women who leave the church does not exist:
Ex-Mormons are not a unified group. It is our past we have in common, not our present or our future. We are all over the spectrum when it comes to why we left the church, what we believe now, our political affiliation, etc.
As an active LDS woman, no way would I have sought out or even wanted to hear the words of an ex-mormon woman. I had way too many judgments and stereotypes for that. Why would I listen to someone who was deceived by Satan? Who just wants to complain? Who is angry all the time? These women were not idols to me, they were cautionary tales.
If an ex-mormon woman does want to gain the attention and trust of Mormon women to share her story, the level of deference she has to pay to the church to even gain a listening ear is simply not worth it.
Even in the months and sometimes years after leaving the church, the aversion to the “angry ex-mormon” stereotype is so strong that ex-mormon voices are often heard as invalid or unpalatable.
For many ex-members, no longer speaking about the church is in itself an important re-claiming of self-hood and autonomy. They don’t have interest in sharing words of wisdom about their experience that won’t be listened to anyway.
Ex-mormons who DO share their stories years after they leave are inevitably faced with waves of criticism from all sides: “you leave but you can’t leave it alone.” “Move on already!” “How embarrassing you are STILL talking about this.”
So what’s the solution?
I have no idea.
It may sound like I’m leading up to something here- like an announcement I’m starting a podcast of post-post-Mormon women. But I’m not. I’m sorry.4
I’m just here to say… what a bummer.
What a bummer we don’t have more words collected from women who left the church decades ago. What a bummer those who dissent have their words erased. What a bummer Mormon women on the brink of leaving stand on the ledge and see nothing but a void if they jump.
I met with my spiritual director yesterday. I was questioning why I keep talking about this stuff. I definitely have not been immune to the criticism “you should move on.”
My spiritual director sat there a minute, then looked at me and said, “But you love Mormon women.”
Oh. Yeah. Her words struck me right in the chest. I do love them.
Even though they don’t want to hear from me.
Mormon women raised me- my grandmothers, my aunts, my Young Women’s leaders, my friends’ mothers. It was into their arms I ran each summer when I came home from college. Mormon women taught me to cook. They cared for my children. They love my children.
I do love Mormon women.
It’s because I love Mormon women that I will never stop rooting for their liberation.
And when they didn’t praise the brethren? Well, those quotes are not collected in church books.
The Never Ending Story of Mormon Feminism and No the Church Won’t Change for Women. But That’s the Wrong Goal.
When my Never-Ending Story of Mormon Feminism first came out, Mormon feminist pioneer Sara Hanks reached out and we Marco Polo’d back and forth for a few weeks brainstorming just such a podcast project, but ultimately neither one of us had the desire to stomach through the words of women who came close to full sovereignty but then inevitably had to say, “but we sustain the prophet.” We wanted the stories of post-post Mormon women 30 years out- but where would we even find those?!?!
I was commissioned by Deseret Book in 2021 to create a video course about meditation for their Seek online Courses. In 2023 I announced on my podcast that I had gone through a “Faith expansion “. I didn’t say I had left the church and I didn’t speak negatively about the church but I did say my expanded beliefs included the idea that there is more than one path to God. Without notice, my course was completely removed from their Seek Courses website and is no longer available for purchase. I’m the only course they have silently removed. I was erased. This is still happening. It sickens me how any voice can be erased let alone the voice of women.
I think one reason why we don't know the stories of women who left 20 or more years ago is because they went on to live full lives and didn't look back. Perhaps their time in the Church became the least interesting thing about them. They swam great distances, became priests, led organizations, climbed mountains and studied the deep sea. We who are in the the thick of leaving and its many immediate ramifications have trouble seeing this future for ourselves. But learning the stories of all kinds of women (thank you Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls) has helped me start creating a vision for my future. Maybe it would be nice to have a wise post-Mormon grandma lead the way but I think she knows that we have to find our own way. And as you say, trust our own inner knowing. There is no one path, only our own.