http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispa ... m_is_back/
On Thursday, I’ll be a guest on NPR’s Radio West with Mormon historian Claudia Bushman to discuss Mormon feminism.
Because, if you haven’t heard: Mormon feminism is back.
No, most faithful LDS haven't heard this stunning news, primarily because "feminism" isn't an issue for the vast majority of faithful LDS woman who are living the gospel and too busy, side by side with the men in their lives, enduring to the end to find any of this relevant.
Mormon feminism is not an oxymoron. Or an oxymormon, for that matter.
Oh but, it so patently is, if one means second or third wave feminism, the kind most people think of when they here the word "feminist" and the kind of political/social/philosophical views that most people associate with the term.
A Mormon feminist is a Mormon woman (or man) who believes that no human being should have lesser chances for a productive, healthy, fulfilling life because she happens to be born female.
This is the classic, textbook tactic of the sixties and post sixties progressive Left in defining, or rather, domesticating through nebulous obfuscation the real meaning and implications of feminist and other forms of leftist ideology. No one could object to Brook's gaseous, non-specific definition of "Mormon feminist." In the same way, few could object to, for example, "saving the planet" or being "anti-war," - until one becomes apprised of the actual philosophical and political content of such a movement or body of belief at a deeper and more detailed level.
Yes, oh, yes, we exist.
Yes, on the orbital fringes of the Church and well outside the boundaries of Church teachings.
And we always have. There have been Mormon feminists since the earliest days of the LDS Church’s founding in the 1830s. Take, for example, Emma Smith, wife of Church founder Joseph Smith, a woman of incredible strength and independence, a woman who organized and led other women in the Church’s then-independent Relief Society, and who seriously challenged if not openly rejected the innovation of the doctrine of polygamy.
Emma Smith's personal characteristics, laudable as they doubtless are, have nothing whatsoever to do with modern feminist philosophy as it developed and matured from the late sixties through the present, particularly in academia, where it is deeply ensconced in its most virulent, extreme, and anti-gospel forms (attending its anti-individualist, anti-democratic, anti-capitalist, anti-western, and indelibly totalitarian intellectual and psychological tendencies).
Like every world religion, Mormonism has a mixed record on gender. Over the years, we’ve lived through periods of expansiveness and retrenchment, including in the 1990s the excommunication of feminists and a renewed if not innovated emphasis on essentialist gender roles.
Translation: intellectual/philosophical apostates from the Church, when they reach a certain level of open, public hostility and confrontation with the Brethren, and openly teach against and criticize the church, its doctrines, principles, and spiritual legitimacy, are, as a last resort, separated from their membership so that, in time, a process of repentance can begin as well as to protect the rest of the flock from, in this case, progressive wolves wrapped in the very proverbial scriptural wool.
But our theology has some startlingly pro-feminist aspects. For example, Mormon theology holds that just as we have a Father in Heaven, we also have a Mother in Heaven, and that godhood belongs jointly to our Heavenly Parents.
Brooks doesn't explain how this is a "feminist" belief. Apparently, Brooks is of the feminist school of thought that believes in a mythological "patriarchy" that inheres in men qua men and sees woman qua woman as little more than beasts of burden and chattel domestic slave laborers, and hence, the slightest tinge of respect towards woman within gospel doctrine is seen as a "feminist" ray of light bursting here and there through the dark, Mordorian mists of patriarchal oppression (the default position of essentially all men, in an innate psychological, if subconscious sense).
Brooks quotes Brigham Young approvingly for his words about the value of woman, but misses the larger point that this is not "feminist" in nature but simply the teaching and perspective of the gospel on woman that is an inherent feature of the Church and gospel from its very inception, in spite of surrounding cultural trends.
In the late 20th century, it became taboo to talk about Heavenly Mother within orthodox Mormonism.
Utter nonsense. Although there is little direct discussion of Heavenly Mother (for what I believe are very good reasons, no doubt quite lost on Sister Brooks), there is no "taboo." Brooks made this up, and we need not pursue the issue too far beyond that point. I've mentioned Heavenly Mother numerous times in Sunday School, while teaching lessons, and in fast and testimony meeting, and believe me, Mormon leftists do not have special dibs on Heavenly Mother. Further, it was never taught and spoken of in the early Church with any degree of intensity or consistency, as it was never developed doctrinally beyond the fundamental assertion of the existence of a Heavenly Mother as an inherent and natural aspect of an eternal plan of salvation centered in the concept of divine family.
Mormon feminists restore her name to our speech, our thoughts, and the version of Mormon theology we are teaching our children.
Nice internal in-group mythology to keep the ideological home fires burning. I do suppose its necessary to construct an internal narrative such as this to soften the knowledge that one is a member of a tiny, isolated group of cultural Mormons who are existing on the outer fringes of the Church on crumbs taken from the secular table at which they are seeking nourishment.
That’s right: in Mormonism, God is a man and a woman.
Actually, God is a man - our Father in Heaven. He is sealed for time and all eternity to a woman, a glorified, perfected, resurrected being (Goddess) who is the literal Mother of our spirits. She is a distinct and individual being, and we do not, at this time worship her. We worship God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost; The Father directly, in the name of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Ghost.
"God," then is not both a man and a woman, but both
1. God, The Father, whom we worship and pray to directly.
2. The Godhead, or entire Grand Council of the Heavens as a united body.
LDS feminist woman ask, says Brooks:
"...why is the operational chain of command all male? What if women were systematically included in shaping Church operations like curriculum development, finances, even the keeping of membership records? What if our Church worked more like our actual Mormon homes and families do—where there is partnership and responsibility-sharing?
Because the Church and the government of the Celestial world is founded upon a patriarchal order. This is an eternal principle, it is a core principle of the restoration, it is fundamental Church doctrine, and the Lord will alter it, if he so chooses, if, when, and under what conditions he so desires. LDS feminists/leftists who see the gospel and relationships with men primarily through the lens of power and not through the prism of service and obedience, will not be the ones to alter such a foundational element of gospel doctrine, if it is ever to be altered.
Like all social movements, Mormon feminism has experienced cycles of growth and retrenchment. We’ve see many Mormon feminists and feminist-identified men discontinue activity in the institutional LDS Church after difficult historical episodes like the ERA in the 1970s and 1980s, the purge of feminists and intellectuals in the 1990s, and Proposition 8 in 2008.
In other words, some number of LDS leftists, at various points in time, who's first loyalty and commitment was to their own personal ideology, traditions, and perceptions of the world, abandoned the gospel when the moment, or moments of decision - to choose you this day whom ye will serve - was upon them.
Many others, of course, remained faithful.
But with every generation, new Mormon feminists are born: women who grow up drawing strength from a Mormon theology that gives them an image of their own divinity and that teaches them they are entitled to pray and receive their own answers, as well as from the examples of our pioneer foremothers.
The gospel teaches, and has always taught, that all human beings, male and female, adults and children, have such an entitlement, as they live worthily. Little has been said here that is not equally applicable to men.
Mormon feminists—like all people of faith—may have different relationships to the institutional Church over the course of a lifetime. But Mormon feminism isn’t going anywhere.
Translation: Mormon feminism exists on the outer fringes of Mormon culture and even father to the outer rim of gospel doctrine. It exists anywhere from an uneasy, tense relationship with certain core Church teachings that remains bridled and moderate, to walking on the edge of excommunication.
Mormon feminism isn't going anywhere, no doubt. But, at the same time, Christ is the "same yesterday, today, and forever," and his Church, guided by continuing revelation to living oracles, isn't going anywhere - for any reason - either. No thief can break through and steal. That is the ultimate reality.
The internet has been a major game changer for Mormon feminists. In past decades, “out” Mormon feminists were concentrated in geographical pockets in Boston, or Utah, or California, and those who became visible through their activism or writing became the targets of repression or excommunication.
Blah, blah, blah. The big, mean, white male church is out to get the courageous, indomitable, undaunted feminist revolutionaries struggling to bring equality and enlightenment to a repressive, bigoted, and politically incorrect church.
Cue the John Williams score...
That really changed with the advent of sites like feministmormonhousewives.org, which was launched in 2004.
I really have no idea how many LDS woman Desparatefeministhousewives.org, has ever reached, but the faithful sisters I've known for my entire life, in many wards and stakes, have far more important - and relevant - things to concern themselves with.
Our issues as Mormon feminists are expansive. Mormon feminists led the faithful opposition to Proposition 8.
No, Mormon feminists lead an unfaithful and rebellious secularist tantrum against the law of chastity, the teachings of the gospel on the nature, meaning, and purpose of human sexuality, and against the council of the Brethren and the standards of the Church.
We believe in dignity and equality for LGBT people, including our parents, brothers and sisters, and children who are LGBT Mormons.
So do I and the vast majority of Mormons, including the Brethren. But this has nothing to do with homosexual marriage and its cultural, moral, and political propriety.
Once again the Anointed try to take moral credit for something common to vast numbers of people outside their particular ideological template in an attempt to take a moral high ground that does not exist.
Mormon feminists are also concerned about the rising generation of Mormon women. There’s a statistic circulating on the Mormon grapevine that the LDS Church is losing a very significant percentage of young women members.
Yes, to ideological fashions such as feminism and other similar trendy generational distractions from the iron rod, and Sister Brooks is now in process of creating the conditions for the loss of even more.
It’s a good time to be a Mormon feminist.
Its an even better time to be a Latter day Saint