Mothers in Zion - why they're leaving

[Rosebud]

As the level of financial and employment abuse, all beginning with stay-at-home motherhood, is extreme.

But for some reason nobody seems to really care to do anything about it as long as the men keep controlling the money.

It makes for a hard life for women who have children to raise.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

As the level of financial and employment abuse, all beginning with stay-at-home motherhood, is extreme.

But for some reason nobody seems to really care to do anything about it as long as the men keep controlling the money.

It makes for a hard life for women who have children to raise.

Janet Yellen is the Secretary of the Treasury and formerly the Federal Reserve chairperson. ???

- Doc

[Marcus]

And the women who are still caught in the mental binds...

A telling observation.

...protect the offenders and ridicule the victims if they speak. Whatever happened to making women whole instead of simply offering the offenders grace and the women gags?

Another telling observation. Waiting for someone else to do the job of "...making women whole..." is a fool's errand. You can accept and ask for help, but in the end, you make yourself whole, no one else can do that for you.

---------------
But, back to the lds Instagram post. Here's an interesting review of the situation. I don't completely agree with the future effectiveness of voicing concerns, as this poster asserts, but they make some excellent points:

...Usually, Mormon polemics take place in Mormon adjacent spaces like podcasts and other social media accounts. Most non-believing or nuanced members probably think they are in the minority. There is not a public forum to discuss the policies of the church critically. These kinds of conversations usually happen behind closed doors, or during walks around the neighborhood, never in sunday school, and certainly not in the comment section of the official church instagram account.

BUT, this time was different. Thousands of Mormon women voiced their opinions about how they felt they have been treated unfairly, and the majority of people in the comment section agreed with them. This might be a brigading effect of post Mormon spaces, but the optics remain the same: the current policies excluding women from leadership decisions are the unpopular opinion in the main church - sponsored online space. Even more importantly, the social media team acknowledged the outcry, and said that they would report their findings to church leadership.

It probably would have been better for the church to delete the comments, and acknowledging the widespread indignation was probably one of the worst things that they could do. Now, nuanced Mormons know that they have a voice and a way to make their opinions known to the brethren, and that door cannot be closed. Furthermore, the church social media team has to be more careful about what they post: they now know that mentioning anything remotely controversial will probably result in more criticism of the church in the comment sections by their own believing members.

Most importantly, I bet that this whole saga will give confidence to nuanced Mormons to speak out more often. It is much easier to participate in criticism of your leadership when you know you aren't alone, and that is a big deal. I can't think of anything similar to this happening before today. I think this whole saga represents a tipping point in the balance of power in the church, and it isn't tipping towards bigotry.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... ial_media/

[Dr Moore]

Marcus, I personally know 5 women who commented on that post, where it was their first time vocalizing the deepest feelings of anger and frustration in a public forum. First time ever. I’ve spoken with 2 of them. They are shaking with a mix of overflowing rage and excitement about discovering a collective voice with thousands of other women who experience and feel the same way every day. Something big is happening.

The women of the church are realizing that, whereas individually they have no power to make their voices heard and acted upon in the church, collectively they DO have that power. And that collectively the church’s patriarchy is powerless to stop that collective voice from coming out. Think about it: over 12,500 comments are now sitting on the church’s own social media post. A post that claims women have superior power in the church, with thousands of actual, many active, women members calling BS.

I think it’s amazing. These aren’t pseudonymous anti Mormons. Many - most, from what I see - are real women, using real names and social media accounts, speaking truth to power in a public square, sharing and liking their articulate voices dissent, anger, frustration and overall fed-upness, with each other. Thousands within days. So viral is that for the first time, the church’s leadership quickly calculated a lower cost to keeping these dissenting, angry comments up than the cost of deleting them. The floodgates are open. I’m not sure we have ever witnessed anything quite like it in church history.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

That’s amazing. I hope they get the change they’re looking for.

- Doc

[Marcus]

Marcus, I personally know 5 women who commented on that post, where it was their first time vocalizing the deepest feelings of anger and frustration in a public forum. First time ever. I’ve spoken with 2 of them. They are shaking with a mix of overflowing rage and excitement about discovering a collective voice with thousands of other women who experience and feel the same way every day. Something big is happening.

The women of the church are realizing that, whereas individually they have no power to make their voices heard and acted upon in the church, collectively they DO have that power. And that collectively the church’s patriarchy is powerless to stop that collective voice from coming out. Think about it: over 12,500 comments are now sitting on the church’s own social media post. A post that claims women have superior power in the church, with thousands of actual, many active, women members calling BS.

I think it’s amazing. These aren’t pseudonymous anti Mormons. Many - most, from what I see - are real women, using real names and social media accounts, speaking truth to power in a public square, sharing and liking their articulate voices dissent, anger, frustration and overall fed-upness, with each other. Thousands within days. So viral is that for the first time, the church’s leadership quickly calculated a lower cost to keeping these dissenting, angry comments up than the cost of deleting them. The floodgates are open. I’m not sure we have ever witnessed anything quite like it in church history.

Thank you for the additional information, especially that these are actual Mormons for the most part, not post Mormons, etc. I am really hoping this helps them. I especially like the idea of a collective voice rising up. Once again, the tools of the internet are assisting (I'm thinking of the information dispersed on the internet as the first time) in creating an expanded venue for communication, and it is truly amazing to see it happen again.

[Kishkumen]

Marcus, I personally know 5 women who commented on that post, where it was their first time vocalizing the deepest feelings of anger and frustration in a public forum. First time ever. I’ve spoken with 2 of them. They are shaking with a mix of overflowing rage and excitement about discovering a collective voice with thousands of other women who experience and feel the same way every day. Something big is happening.

The women of the church are realizing that, whereas individually they have no power to make their voices heard and acted upon in the church, collectively they DO have that power. And that collectively the church’s patriarchy is powerless to stop that collective voice from coming out. Think about it: over 12,500 comments are now sitting on the church’s own social media post. A post that claims women have superior power in the church, with thousands of actual, many active, women members calling B.S..

I think it’s amazing. These aren’t pseudonymous anti Mormons. Many - most, from what I see - are real women, using real names and social media accounts, speaking truth to power in a public square, sharing and liking their articulate voices dissent, anger, frustration and overall fed-upness, with each other. Thousands within days. So viral is that for the first time, the church’s leadership quickly calculated a lower cost to keeping these dissenting, angry comments up than the cost of deleting them. The floodgates are open. I’m not sure we have ever witnessed anything quite like it in church history.

This is wonderful news. I am excited to think that the tide of women’s opinions in the LDS Church might be turning against supporting the patriarchy’s suppression of their voices and power. Too often many women in the Church have been complicit in their own oppression. Maybe the time has arrived when the majority will speak powerfully and publicly for equality.

[Dr Moore]

The story is summarized by the NY Times.

Fact checking with Meta, found there was no issue affecting comments. The church simply lied about taking comments down. (comments were eventually put back up)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/us/m ... aints.html

[Marcus]

DesNews has posted an article described as this,

The Deseret News has now published a new article about how women are too totally empowered and heard and valued in Mormonism. Blatantly transparent move to dismiss the views and feelings women have expressed no matter how much the author claims that isn't their goal.

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/03/2 ... int-woman/

The previous article desnews published about women in the lds church had comments closed when I last checked, so I was curious about this one, comments are allowed and I read this:

Great op-ed column. What many critics also fail to recognize is that the majority of Latter-day Saint men will never be called to a significant position of leadership either, and honestly I would be concerned about any man who aspired to it.

It also bears noting that men often serve in the church under the leadership of women. In my case, I served for five years in the Primary (children's Sunday School) organization under the direction of women leaders. I also served for a dozen years helping with Young Women's summer camps, again under the direction of women.

FULL. STOP. An lds man says he 'helped' with YW summer camp, "under the direction of women"??????

Sorry, no. That's propaganda. The reason he helped with YW camp was because lds women can't do anything alone. A priesthood holder (I.e. man) has to be there. The fact that women apparently now can exercise the priesthood on their own doesn't seem to have any practical application, at least not in the summer. Or at church. Or in the temple. Or anywhere, at the moment. Hopefully that can change.

Just to give an idea of how things are perceived, here's a current post at reddit, on r/exmormon, by a PIMO:

"Stake recently asked me (M47) to chaperone at YW camp. I haven’t been to church in 3 years. Wtf? (self.exmormon)"
submitted 1 day ago by Medical_Solid

Got a text from someone in the stake requesting I attend YW as a priesthood holder and chaperone, promising great blessings. I have problems with this on many levels:

I’m well past PIMO at this point, have not participated in any church activity since 2020
Same with my family
How desperate are they to enforce the notion that they just have to have a priesthood holder at events for women and girls? They didn’t ask for my wife and I as a couple—they just asked me.
Even if I did have a daughter attending YW camp, not sure how I’d feel if I found out they called up some random guy who hasn’t been to church for years but is still on the rolls, then sent him to a campsite with a bunch of teen girls.
Baffling. Funny that this comes right on the heels of the church’s disastrous post about women’s authority.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... one_at_yw/

The entire thread was great, but to go full circle back to the church Instagram situation, here is the best response on how the OP should respond to the stake leaders:

"Seriously? You'd rather have a known apostate there than trust women to manage their own activity? What if I *wasn't* a good guy? What about women supposedly having more power and authority in this church than any other religion? Stop treating women like children and leave me out if it."

[High Spy]

I get a 404 error on the link.

It is one of those subscription-only type articles, to encourage Tribune viewers interested in LDS Church news to pay up or leave.

MochaSoft Text Browser for iOS does the do.