I haven’t finished Season 2, much of the reason being how difficult it is to watch these beautiful women support and celebrate the male gaze while pretending to be free-thinkin’, rule-bustin’ rebels while upholding every male-oriented norm. I wish they could see how much potential they have. Thank you for another insightful, smart article!
We women do this all the time. In my circle we rarely talk about our husband's or our marital relationships as in general it's taboo. If complaining or unhappiness with one's husband is voiced it is immediately followed with a litany of their good points or how it's not really a problem. I have done this myself so many times it's embarrassing. I have done it i(n the past - I've quit🙂) out of fear of being punished for it which is grounded in reality. Mostly from other women (I imagine this is from a fear of being punished from participating in what is seen as disloyalty). This is of course how much domestic abuse is hidden. However there are so many ways of undermining women that are embedded in men's consciousness because of societal conditioning that it is like the old metaphor - the onion and the interminable peeling back of the layers.
I couldn't finish reading this. So depressing. I see so much of this double standard. I am a Norwegian and thus come from a very non-religious progressive country so staying for months with a Mormon family was quite a culture shock but very interesting. There are many qualities to Mormon society for sure, but I did not notice how much women internalized misogyny there. It is very weird when you as a man have to try to argue against women eager to give you every possible reason why they should be valued less than you.
Living with a mormon family for months will give you infinitely more insight into mormon culture than TRHWOM or any article about it. Watching TRHWOM to learn about mormons is like watching The Three Amigos to learn about mexicans.
Oh, I may have misunderstood you. I thought you had a particular take-away from your experience living with them but then watched the show and gained additional 'insight' about them.
I think the phrase in your comment that confused me was "There are many qualities to Mormon society for sure, but I did not notice how much women internalized misogyny there." From this sentence, I understood that you lived with them and didn't see internalized misogyny. But then you seemed to imply the show clarified this and helped you realize that, yes, in fact there is internalized misogyny.
Just curious, what was your situation where you lived with a mormon family for months? Sounds interesting.
Okay, sorry this was sloppy writing on my part. I mean I already saw the internalization of misogyny there, but you know how you can have many experiences where only later you can actually connect the dots?
There are many past experiences I only fully understood in retrospect much later as I had gained more insights and perspective. To me reading this piece was more like simply getting a clarification and illumination of things I already observed in Utah.
Like the depth of the problem might have been staring me in the face, but I simply couldn't connect all the dots back then. You get fragments here and there that you cannot always make sense of until you piece them together later.
I very much enjoyed living with Mormon relatives. In fact I wanted to study in Utah because of that experience. And keep in mind I am a die hard atheist socialist. And they are crazy religious over there.
But I guess you could say I am someone always very fascinated by other societies and cultures. For me Utah was a unique experience. It was like being on an alien planet. Nothing. Just nothing was how I was used to. The way things worked. The way people thought. Their mindset. It was totally alien to me. But that also made it immensely fascinating.
I have talked to people in all walks of life, the super christian, criminals, drug dealers, feminists, white supremacists, you name it.
Mormons are generally very positive people, very hospitable, quite curious. Strong community spirit and very hard working, focused and dedicated. It is one of the few Christian denominations I have genuine respect for.
At the same time the things they believe in and some of their pratices are just really wacky and out of this world. But because so many are mormon in Utah all the weird stuff is normal. So you can be at a party, dinner or whatever and say something that is normal everywhere else in the world and you suddenly feel like you are this super weird guy who just said there are dogs living on Mars.
Visiting a mormon church is quite an experience. Everyone would come smiling, shake my hand and welcome me. But there is a strong stepford wives vibe about the whole place. You really do feel like you are in a cult. It is hard to not feel that they are kind of brainwashed living in an alternative reality.
I am sure I could have lived there for a couple of years doing my study and that I would have enjoyed it. But I do not think I could have ever settled there. There is a darker side behind the really smile pretty well groomed hospitable surface.
If you step outside their strict moral codes you'll quickly be shunned. And you cannot really openly talk about your beliefs because they simply are too far into the cult thinking to understand it.
For instance it was impossible for me to say straight out that I was an atheist because to them that was the same as devil worshipping. I think I got a free pass for many of political views because I was a foreigner. They couldn't exactly say that Norway is bad and run on the wrong policies.
But had I been American I don't think they would have tolerated my views very much. I think I would have been put in a box much quicker. I think mormons have learned to kind of tolerate that foreigner are different because well they serve on missions in other countries. They cannot go around passing harsh judgement on everyone around them because they are different.
"Taking responsibility for someone else’s choices by curating their environment so they won’t feel the discomfort from their choices… so they don’t have to experience their own consequences.”...Oh! That is how Felon47 suffered NO consequences for 34 counts!! With 53% of white women voting for him. No consequences - No Accountability and we wonder why the predation persists????
Was truly disturbed to see how all the women aided in Zac's ploy to isolate Jen from her friends so he could continue his tirade of abuse. I am so afraid for Jen, when she was sobbing after finding out she's pregnant I felt so horrible. That of course had to be part of Zac's plan all along--he is truly vile, evil, and frankly scary to look at!
And that scene with Taylor's family...if that were me I'd have gone no contact until they all apologized, especially her POS stepdad. Got my blood boiling fr.
I was SO disappointing in Jessi for how she treated Jen- especially since her and Demi were the ones leading the charge last season in telling Jen that her husband is showing signs of abuse. Ugh. It was awful to watch.
Such an important essay. Thank you for all of that emotional labor! Wow. It’s such a messy subject matter, and I too never want to call out women in high-control religion because we are victims of the system in every way. But internalized misogyny is powerful! And the more these conversations are laid bare, the better and safer women can be.
Yeeezus! I have not watched this show but it sounds like a horror. I have to admit, I had assumed that the couples who choose to go on this show, similar to the Real Housewives, were just a bunch of trashy, flashy narcissist attention seekers. To hear you say that you actually recognize some of these pathologies and culture/norms sort of rocks my world, and that's upsetting.
On this standing by your man and throwing yourself under the bus to salvage his reputation thing...have you read at all about Tim Ballard?? He's the guy who produced that Sound of Freedom movie and sold himself as some kind of saviour of sex trafficked children. Turns out he's a complete fraud, never rescued a single trafficked child, and used his charity as a way to sexually harass and assault all of the female employees and volunteers at his organization. Even the LDS Church kicked him out and he's under criminal investigation. Oh and of course, he's got 9 children and his wife is standing by him and claiming that it's all lies...almost a dozen women have come out with their stories about him.
Yes Tim Ballard has been a fascinating one to watch because only a few years ago- like 2020- alllllll the Mormon women were fan-girling HARD. I actually think his rise to fame was mostly due to women supporting him. So many people I know had his logo in their Facebook profile picture. I actually heard him speak in 2018 when I was still in the church and even I was like “Yes- This is the real gospel we need to get back to- none of this fake prosperity gospel nonsense.” My my my how he has fallen.
Oh I'm sure -- they thought he was saving children! And really he's a complete fraud and apparently a sex addict.
Also, I have a question if you don't mind. Do you think that the LDS religion has *always* been so sort of superficial and focused on appearance, or is there something they actually teach/indoctrinate to that effect? Or is it something more recent?
I certainly agree that the beauty standards and plastic surgery among LDS women seems to be an arms race and out of control here. I am wondering how much that might be related -- even if not consciously -- to the fact that there are, nowadays, a lot more single LDS women than men, because so many more men are dropping out? That plus the fact that everyone is married means that basically all of these wives know that if they lose their husband, they are totally screwed and extremely unlikely to be able to find another LDS man (or at least, not one they would want!). And impoverished, most likely. While he will probably easily find another woman to take up with, just based on the bad ratios (at least, to my understanding, and it's my perception that more young men become inactive than women). If that's the case, it somewhat explains why they are willing to make endless excuses for their husbands and enter into this beauty arms race where they're terrified of ending up single. They have to maintain his reputation and standing in the community or their life will be ruined too, essentially.
So I am wondering, was this obsessive focus on having to look like Jessica Rabbit and be a sex and domestic goddess something you saw, say, back in the 90s? Or is it a newer thing?
No, I think your original assumption about what type of people would go on a show like this was pretty accurate to begin with. Watching TRHWOM to learn about mormons would be like watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta to learn about people who live in Atlanta.
I’ve just had a go at the test. It’s made me think a bit, because I started off wanting to answer all the
Women are too easily offended
Women exaggerate problems they have at work
-type questions with an answer that meant “no more or less than men do”; got annoyed because “something in the middle” felt like saying I partially agreed with the statement; then reflected that in fact (on both of these above points) while there is a stereotype that women do them more than men, I bet the actual fact is that they do them much less.
I appreciate this perspective on the show. It would surely seem sleazy & off to me (Reality TV) but I may not be clear why. Even having lived independently, it's still hard for me to see a lot of the interpersonal dynamics clearly. Women have not obtained an equal status of respect with men. It's appalling & heartbreaking to me so many are not aware of the cost of trying to find happiness in a second class role. We haven't even worked out good balances of power yet, solutions sure & the hell aren't in going back.
Please do not label these women as co-dependent. I have not seen the show, but just from your description (and experience with similar cultures), many of these women are being abused and controlled.
It is a well perpetrated myth that abused women are co-dependent, when in reality their actions are based solely on their attempts to survive the relationship. This post by BTR that I’m linking below helps sort of the difference between co-dependency and abuse.
Also, why mention more than once “you’re not like other women” when it comes to reality tv? I’m not sure if that was some sort of sarcasm or satire, but if not, it seemed a form of internalized misogyny all by itself.
This is a great point. Thanks for mentioning it. It took me a long time to learn the difference as well in my own story after leaving my marriage and high-control religion. Saying victims of emotional abuse are co-dependent does perpetuate the shame and over functioning in believing we are broken in some way. We are literally trained to behave in ways that appear co-dependent but are truly survival.
It takes a lot of time to sort through all the lies you/we’ve been told about all of this. If they can label victims as co-dependent, then they can push the blame just ever so slightly away from the abuser/perpetrator…after all, if she weren’t so co-dependent, he wouldn’t do XYZ….
I haven’t finished Season 2, much of the reason being how difficult it is to watch these beautiful women support and celebrate the male gaze while pretending to be free-thinkin’, rule-bustin’ rebels while upholding every male-oriented norm. I wish they could see how much potential they have. Thank you for another insightful, smart article!
We women do this all the time. In my circle we rarely talk about our husband's or our marital relationships as in general it's taboo. If complaining or unhappiness with one's husband is voiced it is immediately followed with a litany of their good points or how it's not really a problem. I have done this myself so many times it's embarrassing. I have done it i(n the past - I've quit🙂) out of fear of being punished for it which is grounded in reality. Mostly from other women (I imagine this is from a fear of being punished from participating in what is seen as disloyalty). This is of course how much domestic abuse is hidden. However there are so many ways of undermining women that are embedded in men's consciousness because of societal conditioning that it is like the old metaphor - the onion and the interminable peeling back of the layers.
I couldn't finish reading this. So depressing. I see so much of this double standard. I am a Norwegian and thus come from a very non-religious progressive country so staying for months with a Mormon family was quite a culture shock but very interesting. There are many qualities to Mormon society for sure, but I did not notice how much women internalized misogyny there. It is very weird when you as a man have to try to argue against women eager to give you every possible reason why they should be valued less than you.
Living with a mormon family for months will give you infinitely more insight into mormon culture than TRHWOM or any article about it. Watching TRHWOM to learn about mormons is like watching The Three Amigos to learn about mexicans.
Which is exactly what I did? What are you even on about? I am simply relating the show to my own experiences.
Oh, I may have misunderstood you. I thought you had a particular take-away from your experience living with them but then watched the show and gained additional 'insight' about them.
I think the phrase in your comment that confused me was "There are many qualities to Mormon society for sure, but I did not notice how much women internalized misogyny there." From this sentence, I understood that you lived with them and didn't see internalized misogyny. But then you seemed to imply the show clarified this and helped you realize that, yes, in fact there is internalized misogyny.
Just curious, what was your situation where you lived with a mormon family for months? Sounds interesting.
Okay, sorry this was sloppy writing on my part. I mean I already saw the internalization of misogyny there, but you know how you can have many experiences where only later you can actually connect the dots?
There are many past experiences I only fully understood in retrospect much later as I had gained more insights and perspective. To me reading this piece was more like simply getting a clarification and illumination of things I already observed in Utah.
Like the depth of the problem might have been staring me in the face, but I simply couldn't connect all the dots back then. You get fragments here and there that you cannot always make sense of until you piece them together later.
I very much enjoyed living with Mormon relatives. In fact I wanted to study in Utah because of that experience. And keep in mind I am a die hard atheist socialist. And they are crazy religious over there.
But I guess you could say I am someone always very fascinated by other societies and cultures. For me Utah was a unique experience. It was like being on an alien planet. Nothing. Just nothing was how I was used to. The way things worked. The way people thought. Their mindset. It was totally alien to me. But that also made it immensely fascinating.
I have talked to people in all walks of life, the super christian, criminals, drug dealers, feminists, white supremacists, you name it.
Mormons are generally very positive people, very hospitable, quite curious. Strong community spirit and very hard working, focused and dedicated. It is one of the few Christian denominations I have genuine respect for.
At the same time the things they believe in and some of their pratices are just really wacky and out of this world. But because so many are mormon in Utah all the weird stuff is normal. So you can be at a party, dinner or whatever and say something that is normal everywhere else in the world and you suddenly feel like you are this super weird guy who just said there are dogs living on Mars.
Visiting a mormon church is quite an experience. Everyone would come smiling, shake my hand and welcome me. But there is a strong stepford wives vibe about the whole place. You really do feel like you are in a cult. It is hard to not feel that they are kind of brainwashed living in an alternative reality.
I am sure I could have lived there for a couple of years doing my study and that I would have enjoyed it. But I do not think I could have ever settled there. There is a darker side behind the really smile pretty well groomed hospitable surface.
If you step outside their strict moral codes you'll quickly be shunned. And you cannot really openly talk about your beliefs because they simply are too far into the cult thinking to understand it.
For instance it was impossible for me to say straight out that I was an atheist because to them that was the same as devil worshipping. I think I got a free pass for many of political views because I was a foreigner. They couldn't exactly say that Norway is bad and run on the wrong policies.
But had I been American I don't think they would have tolerated my views very much. I think I would have been put in a box much quicker. I think mormons have learned to kind of tolerate that foreigner are different because well they serve on missions in other countries. They cannot go around passing harsh judgement on everyone around them because they are different.
"Taking responsibility for someone else’s choices by curating their environment so they won’t feel the discomfort from their choices… so they don’t have to experience their own consequences.”...Oh! That is how Felon47 suffered NO consequences for 34 counts!! With 53% of white women voting for him. No consequences - No Accountability and we wonder why the predation persists????
How do you even stomach this show? I would be so disturbed watching these women get abused every episode.
Can’t say I recommend the experience.
Was truly disturbed to see how all the women aided in Zac's ploy to isolate Jen from her friends so he could continue his tirade of abuse. I am so afraid for Jen, when she was sobbing after finding out she's pregnant I felt so horrible. That of course had to be part of Zac's plan all along--he is truly vile, evil, and frankly scary to look at!
And that scene with Taylor's family...if that were me I'd have gone no contact until they all apologized, especially her POS stepdad. Got my blood boiling fr.
I was SO disappointing in Jessi for how she treated Jen- especially since her and Demi were the ones leading the charge last season in telling Jen that her husband is showing signs of abuse. Ugh. It was awful to watch.
Such an important essay. Thank you for all of that emotional labor! Wow. It’s such a messy subject matter, and I too never want to call out women in high-control religion because we are victims of the system in every way. But internalized misogyny is powerful! And the more these conversations are laid bare, the better and safer women can be.
Yeeezus! I have not watched this show but it sounds like a horror. I have to admit, I had assumed that the couples who choose to go on this show, similar to the Real Housewives, were just a bunch of trashy, flashy narcissist attention seekers. To hear you say that you actually recognize some of these pathologies and culture/norms sort of rocks my world, and that's upsetting.
On this standing by your man and throwing yourself under the bus to salvage his reputation thing...have you read at all about Tim Ballard?? He's the guy who produced that Sound of Freedom movie and sold himself as some kind of saviour of sex trafficked children. Turns out he's a complete fraud, never rescued a single trafficked child, and used his charity as a way to sexually harass and assault all of the female employees and volunteers at his organization. Even the LDS Church kicked him out and he's under criminal investigation. Oh and of course, he's got 9 children and his wife is standing by him and claiming that it's all lies...almost a dozen women have come out with their stories about him.
Yes Tim Ballard has been a fascinating one to watch because only a few years ago- like 2020- alllllll the Mormon women were fan-girling HARD. I actually think his rise to fame was mostly due to women supporting him. So many people I know had his logo in their Facebook profile picture. I actually heard him speak in 2018 when I was still in the church and even I was like “Yes- This is the real gospel we need to get back to- none of this fake prosperity gospel nonsense.” My my my how he has fallen.
Oh I'm sure -- they thought he was saving children! And really he's a complete fraud and apparently a sex addict.
Also, I have a question if you don't mind. Do you think that the LDS religion has *always* been so sort of superficial and focused on appearance, or is there something they actually teach/indoctrinate to that effect? Or is it something more recent?
I certainly agree that the beauty standards and plastic surgery among LDS women seems to be an arms race and out of control here. I am wondering how much that might be related -- even if not consciously -- to the fact that there are, nowadays, a lot more single LDS women than men, because so many more men are dropping out? That plus the fact that everyone is married means that basically all of these wives know that if they lose their husband, they are totally screwed and extremely unlikely to be able to find another LDS man (or at least, not one they would want!). And impoverished, most likely. While he will probably easily find another woman to take up with, just based on the bad ratios (at least, to my understanding, and it's my perception that more young men become inactive than women). If that's the case, it somewhat explains why they are willing to make endless excuses for their husbands and enter into this beauty arms race where they're terrified of ending up single. They have to maintain his reputation and standing in the community or their life will be ruined too, essentially.
So I am wondering, was this obsessive focus on having to look like Jessica Rabbit and be a sex and domestic goddess something you saw, say, back in the 90s? Or is it a newer thing?
No, I think your original assumption about what type of people would go on a show like this was pretty accurate to begin with. Watching TRHWOM to learn about mormons would be like watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta to learn about people who live in Atlanta.
I’ve just had a go at the test. It’s made me think a bit, because I started off wanting to answer all the
Women are too easily offended
Women exaggerate problems they have at work
-type questions with an answer that meant “no more or less than men do”; got annoyed because “something in the middle” felt like saying I partially agreed with the statement; then reflected that in fact (on both of these above points) while there is a stereotype that women do them more than men, I bet the actual fact is that they do them much less.
Very interesting article, thanks.
I appreciate this perspective on the show. It would surely seem sleazy & off to me (Reality TV) but I may not be clear why. Even having lived independently, it's still hard for me to see a lot of the interpersonal dynamics clearly. Women have not obtained an equal status of respect with men. It's appalling & heartbreaking to me so many are not aware of the cost of trying to find happiness in a second class role. We haven't even worked out good balances of power yet, solutions sure & the hell aren't in going back.
Excellent article!
It would be interesting to look at Kate Manne's concept of "himpathy" through this lens.
Loved this article!
Please do not label these women as co-dependent. I have not seen the show, but just from your description (and experience with similar cultures), many of these women are being abused and controlled.
It is a well perpetrated myth that abused women are co-dependent, when in reality their actions are based solely on their attempts to survive the relationship. This post by BTR that I’m linking below helps sort of the difference between co-dependency and abuse.
Also, why mention more than once “you’re not like other women” when it comes to reality tv? I’m not sure if that was some sort of sarcasm or satire, but if not, it seemed a form of internalized misogyny all by itself.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19Lo8jEFe4/?mibextid=wwXIfr
This is a great point. Thanks for mentioning it. It took me a long time to learn the difference as well in my own story after leaving my marriage and high-control religion. Saying victims of emotional abuse are co-dependent does perpetuate the shame and over functioning in believing we are broken in some way. We are literally trained to behave in ways that appear co-dependent but are truly survival.
It takes a lot of time to sort through all the lies you/we’ve been told about all of this. If they can label victims as co-dependent, then they can push the blame just ever so slightly away from the abuser/perpetrator…after all, if she weren’t so co-dependent, he wouldn’t do XYZ….
What chills me the most though is how the women allow the men to talk to them like they’re children.
I continue to be reminded why I don't watch reality shows (other than David Attenborough or Ken Burns and their teams).
What a great reflection on the show!