I recently read an interesting article in the Atlantic. It noted a few key points about how men are impacted by the women in their lives:
- Male CEOs with sons (not daughters) pay employees less. Those with firstborn daughters pay all employees including women more.
- Men with daughters are less enamored of gender stereotypes and traditional division of labor.
- The most sexist men are those in traditional marriages with SAHMs at home.
- Men who work with women (in fields not dominated by men) are more egalitarian at home with housework, but interestingly men whose wives outearn them do less housework. [1]
- Oddly, men with sisters tend to favor traditional roles vs. egalitarian. [2]
Some objected that stating things in terms of how men were impacted by women was in itself sexist. Additionally, studies like this are always going to have exceptions.
My own anecdotal experience neither confirms nor contradicts these findings. My brother is pretty sexist from my perspective, but he has six sisters; he also has a stay-at-home wife and three daughters. My husband is not sexist, and he has 4 sisters and a daughter as well as two sons, but I’ve always had a career, and his mom worked in a career also, later in life. My dad, like nearly everyone in his age group, is quite sexist, and he has no sisters (one brother) and six daughters, but my mom stayed at home, like almost all women in their age group. I’m not sure where the cause and effect is. Two factors seem to be at play:
- Generational issues (my parents are one generation older than my in-laws)
- Whether the wife / mother works outside the home [3]
Additionally, my own perspective of how sexist others are is probably skewed. I’ve heard tales of sexism on the internet that far surpass anything I’ve seen in my own circle of acquaintance and seem the stuff of novels or Mad Men episodes. For example, the types of sexism I’ve seen:
- Assuming stereotypes about men & women are correct
- Strictly defining gender roles along traditional lines
- Expecting women to stay home to raise children rather than having a career, and seeing it as the woman’s duty
- Considering male children to be more valuable and necessary to the family’s legacy [4]
- Treating male children as more capable and responsible; having lower expectations for females [5]
- Suggesting daughters find a man to take care of them financially or otherwise [6]
- Assigning domestic chores like cooking and doing dishes to the woman as a default [7]
Despite what I see as sexist behavior, my mother never agreed with sexist attitudes; she was just used to living in a man’s world, something my generation didn’t have to do to the same extent. Her parents and their generation were even more sexist:
- Women weren’t allowed to wear pants to school. [8]
- Women were seen as irrational, needing a man to steady them from going completely bonkers. [9]
- Women didn’t need college educations; even though she really wanted to go, my grandparents wouldn’t send my mother.
- Men didn’t cry.
- Women couldn’t work once they got married, and if they worked before, the glass ceiling was at the secretarial pool.
- Nice girls didn’t, and it was their responsibility to keep the boys from going too far. [10]
In many ways, joining the church curbed some of these sexist attitudes, while fueling others. Important callings (president of all three auxiliaries at different times) gave my mother responsibility outside the home that used her talents, and church meetings kept my dad focused on trying to live the gospel rather than on his golf game, drinking with his buddies, or other time-killing, male-bonding activities. Women were encouraged to go to college, and my parents encouraged all their daughters to get as much education as we could, to the extent they could afford to help us. Drinking and smoking, two male-encouraged habits my mother disliked, went out the window. Men sharing their emotions was encouraged. While women being domestic was an existing norm, the domestication of men was a bonus.
Of course, the church, like my parents’ entire generation, is still steeped in sexism. We’re soaking in it. Conservative attitudes make it hard to shake. Deeply misogynist doctrines like polygamy make it hard to discard theologically. Unlike my mother, I don’t live in a world in which the options for women are limited, a world in which women will tolerate whatever treatment is doled out to them because they have no choice but to rely on men for their financial support. For that reason, the sexism that used to hurt women is now beginning to hurt the sexists.
While this is not treading new ground, my personal experiences are why I don’t see the sexism in the church as divine; it appears as cultural to me as the sexism my convert parents lived in. Imbuing it with divine will is what seems wrong-headed. Someone asked in an online forum if polygamy was the one great evil people couldn’t get over to get on board with the church. That’s a loaded question. Polygamy that’s left in the past is one thing; polygamy that’s still called divine will in 2014 is another. Saying Joseph Smith made a mistake implies that church leaders, even today, sometimes make huge mistakes and mistake their own wishes for God’s will. And yet not saying that is ten times worse.
- How do you see men being influenced by the women in their lives? What factors seem to make men less sexist?
- What residual sexist behaviors do you see in people around you?
- How does the church combat sexism, and how does it promote sexism in your experience? Has it made you or people you know more or less sexist?
Discuss.
[1] Maybe this is due to having a service do the cleaning. If not, grrrr.
[2] Unclear why those sisters didn’t pound more sense into them.
[3] And possibly if it’s a career or just a job to make ends meet
[4] This is the direct reason my parents had my brother. After four daughters, they were done, but when they joined the church they were told it was too bad they didn’t have a son to carry on the family name and priesthood lineage, something they hadn’t really cared about before. Their procedure was reversed, and three of us followed, my brother leading the way.
[5] Although my dad did expect me to know how to calculate a square root by long hand and to be able to explain how nuclear power works.
[6] This was why I was told I didn’t need a car when I was away at school, although my brother had one; it was suggested that I find some “nice young man” to drive me around. I talked them into it, though, with threats of lesbianism.
[7] although I see that in retirement, this has softened considerably in my parents’ marriage, as they do more housework side-by-side
[8] She did anyway, and got sent home for it.
[9] This patronizing assertion is enough to send anyone on a three state killing spree.
[10] This one carried over another generation, and was probably a good match with the church’s stance for my convert parents.
Wheat & Tares 
The research on how having a stay at home wife impact men’s attitudes toward women at work is some of the most interesting and best modern work on gender and work. A paper composed of 3 studies, using different methods, from experiments to panel data to field data was published in ASQ one of the top org theory journals. They actually have good evidence that shows men’s attitudes switch when their wife switch’s employment status using longitudinal panel data from the UK.
The mechanisms for why this is are interesting to think about. I don’t think anyone has done more than hypothesize what is actually going on. I need to write a full post on this..probably for Manuary…but I predict that sexism in the church will decrease in direct proportion to the reduction of female economic dependency in LDS marriages.
men whose wives outearn them do less housework.
I was going to say, “Not in my home!” but then I stopped to think, “I suppose it depends on how you define housework.” My wife is a teacher, both professionally and at church. She’s home more often than I am, so starting and rotating the laundry happens more naturally for her before I even get back in the evening (although I do it too). There are other things that we do ourselves, incident to owning a home, which I think many people hire out these days – minor wiring or plumbing fixes, patching holes in sheetrock, painting touchup, carpentry, and mid-level remodeling projects like our new kitchen tile floor. I do those; I grew up using tools and I have the talent and know-how to do that stuff as well as a lot of auto maintenance and repair. It ends up being pretty even, I suppose, even if I’m using a wrench more often than a mop.
I wish I could say that having women in their lives – wives and especially daughters – would help make men less sexist. However, to me it seems to be largely a function of how you saw your father and other major male role models treat women. My dad had a number of “equal” female friends, and while he and my mom didn’t have the greatest relationship, it wasn’t because he was trying to force her into traditional roles. For someone born on the cusp of WWII, he was pretty enlightened.
In addition, we can make a conscious effort to become aware of our biases and get better. For me, this has taken the form of coping with my cognitive dissonance when I violate old norms like “ladies first” – when I got off the train this morning, the upstairs people and the downstairs people were alternating going out the door (“zipper style”). That left me going ahead of a young woman rather than waiting and allowing her to precede me. My inner dinosaur was uncomfortable.
rah: “I predict that sexism in the church will decrease in direct proportion to the reduction of female economic dependency in LDS marriages.” I completely agree, whether I made this apparent or not in the OP. I also think we won’t see the big changes until the members of the Q15 have wives with careers or at least financially independent wives – a few have had mothers who were, and I can hear the difference in how they talk about women. I don’t believe daughters or sisters are enough.
When I was about 10 years into my career my dad said, “When are you going to quit and stay home to raise those kids?” I said, “Never.” And I haven’t. For a short while my husband did, but that was just because of our circumstances living overseas. It’s honestly not necessary for either parent to be at home full time in most cases. It’s fine for those who want to do that, but it’s not required. My mother was at home full time, and she was perfectly indifferent to our comings and goings. We fed ourselves, we played in the woods from morning until nightfall, and we entertained ourselves. Parents today spend unprecedented amounts of time with their kids. I probably spend more one-on-one time with my kids than my parents ever did. It’s another generational difference.
As I am the sister of hawkgrrrl my experiences with sexism are similar. One thing she may not have known is that our Mother didn’t know how to drive a car when they joined the church. Girls didn’t need to back in the 40’s I guess. Joining the church afforded her more independance and forced her to learn how to drive to fulfill her callings. The church was less sexist than the rest of the world in those days. Today the church seems more sexist than the world. I am constantly having to interject with suggestions for our young women to steer away from learning crafts and traditional stay at home Mom skills. My daughter wants to be a surgeon. I am encouraging her in that direction. She loves to cook but wants more practical lessons for the life she intends to lead. I do see a change in the demographics at church. Stay at home Mom’s are only the ladies who married doctors or dentists. The rest work. I have always worked part time until my divorce. Now that I work full time our family and how it functions has changed dramatically. I have to do all the household repairs, minor plumbing, yardwork,and the household chores. I was not prepared for these skills but I have my own electric drill, hedge trimmer, leaf blower, tool kit etc. I guess my idea of gender roles has finally caught up with the world. Why is the church still back in the 40’s? One more final note, my Mom called recently to inquire about my love life and her final comment was, “Find someone who is a good provider.”
It is rather interesting to me that what you’ve referred to as “sexist” roles are also stereotypes. While they might be true in some instances, they are not universally true.
And you’ve also left out the fact that some of those folks may have actually chosen those roles rather than just feeling forced into it.
I wonder how many women after doing all the work during WWII actually were happy to leave the workforce and stay at home and raise their children.
Nowadays, parents think nothing of institutionalizing their children on a daily basis to “fulfill” themselves. I wonder if someone should do a study on the long term effects of that. I realize though, like many studies, it will go either way.
My wife and I both work, and my wife earns twice what I do. I cook and do dishes, do laundry, manage finances, shop for groceries, and assist with childcare. I don’t clean (outside of the kitchen), do yardwork, or do home repair. I would like to be a stay-at-home dad but some dumb financial decisions in years past preclude that at the moment.
Perhaps related, I’ve almost always had more female colleagues and management than my wife, and I’ve generally been more satisfied with my job than she has. Dunno how that all factors into the OP.
Among the many reasons we love our ward is that exactly zero people have ever commented on our family arrangements. This was not true in every ward we’ve been in.
On a side note, footnote #6 is hilarious.
Footnotes are the best part of the blog post. Especially #9. The irony is killing me.
Former Sheep: I don’t think I knew that about Mom not driving. In some ways, she had these badass feminist views, but in other ways, she’s even now a complete product of her era. I suppose she’s just a very pragmatic person. As to this bit of wisdom: “my Mom called recently to inquire about my love life and her final comment was, “Find someone who is a good provider.”” apparently she has forgotten how that turned out the last time! Whatever.
Jeff: “I wonder how many women after doing all the work during WWII actually were happy to leave the workforce and stay at home and raise their children.” Obviously, no idea, but in the case of my own mom, she was always very sentimental about her office job she gave up to get married and proud of her typing, short hand, and organizational skills. It was never an option to stay in the workplace, but when they served a full time mission, she loved doing the office work there, and she kept the books at home as if it were a job. While she accepted the sexism, she talked about these things very differently than men do. She saw that these things weren’t an option for her, and while she didn’t lament it exactly, she pointed out just how very good she was at it.
Your question about how the Church promotes and/or battles sexism made me think about the lessons I heard in Church, at home and elsewhere. Almost without exception, my Church experiences only reinforced sexist attitudes and ideas. But, thankfully, I had strong female examples in my formative years, who empowered me to pursue an equal partnership in marriage and to continue my career even after my son was born. As a result, I would describe my marriage as wholly egalitarian. My husband and I both work, we both care for our son and the home. I couldn’t have married someone who didn’t want that kind of marriage. Among friends outside the church, none of these things even register as an issue. Everyone’s marriages and home life follow similar patterns. In my ward, however, my marriage and career choices have made me very much a outlier. I am the only woman with children at home who works full time. One sister, about my age (early 30’s) asked me recently “How do you work full time and keep up with the cleaning and housework?” Her assumption was, of course, that responsibility for those tasks would fall to me despite my other committments. She was shocked to the point of being speechless when I explained that my husband and I share housework. It was totally outside the realm of her experience to think that a man might operate the vacuum. In fact she said her husband probably wouldn’t help, even if she asked. I wonder about her family life growing up and the example she is setting for her own children. We are now at least 2 generations removed from the gender constructs of the early-mid twentieth century and yet, we still see the same ideas perpetuated throughout the Church. If the attitudes in my ward (far from the Mormon Corrider) are any indication of prevailing trends, I don’t hold out much hope of that changing anytime soon.
I would also point out that men were (and still are) under certain expectations put on them and cannot necessarily live up to their own potential either. So, what may be termed as sexist against women can be equally applied to men. Just because someone goes out into the world, gets an education, finds a job or career, does not mean that is what they would have chosen to do.
Interesting. I do remember when I found out my daughter was a girl, my boss stopped by my desk to say he thinks firstborn girls make dads better men; or was it men better dads? Both!
I can see men in my generation feeling the pull both ways, they know their daughters can accomplish anything and want to empower them; while clinging to the story of what they are “supposed” to do. I do think the church will be a wonderful place when these 30/40 yr old men take the reins :-).
I think the sexism in the church is so difficult to let go of because it’s benevolent. We are only doing this because we love you, honor you, etc. Truman Madsen’s daughter is in my ward and when I wore pants to church she made sure I knew she has never felt unequal, in fact men always stand when she enters a room and offer her a chair at church. She’s feels special.
I wanted to respond, but didnt, “screw the soft chair; I don’t want men to stand up when I enter a room – I want my voice to be equally listened when it comes to authority etc.” That damn pedestal gets me every time.
Jeff, you are right – mormon men are under an insane amount of pressure to provide for their families. When I had to get a full time job for a few years in virginia my husband was crushed, he literally felt like a failure; instead of feeling like a teammate that responds equally to trials and challenges that are presented. I’m still working on that whole both of us feeling like co-teammates, but it’s only been a year since he told me if a woman isn’t automatically nurturing that their job in this life is to become nurturing; and that women shouldn’t be politicians until all their kids have left home.
Jeff: Exactly! Sexism isn’t just negative for women; it limits everyone. I did point out in the OP that my parents are from the generation that says men don’t cry or express emotions. That’s the kind of limitation that most stoic men don’t state they regret, but the conditioning runs deep. “Not crying” fluctuates from being a point of pride to being an impossible requirement. Likewise, being a sole provider may be a point of pride at times and a recipe for resentment at others, even for the same person.
Since my OP was just sharing the personal examples from my own life, I can only say that I don’t think my dad particularly minded his given role (although I’m aware he wasn’t a fan of authority-questioning teenagers), but of course some men do. My mother did her duty somewhat indifferently without a lot of expectation for praise; if she felt resentment, she expressed it, and things changed. Fortunately for them both, they are pragmatic people with low expectations and a strong work ethic like many from their generation which makes them very compatible.
The post says women impact the thoughts and behavior of men. If so, how does that fit the modesty chant that “women are not responsible for the thoughts of men?”
Jeff asks, I wonder how many women after doing all the work during WWII actually were happy to leave the workforce and stay at home and raise their children
Probably quite a few. And probably quite a few were not. The point, I think, is to make a world where they can do whichever they prefer without people telling them which they must or ought to prefer, or what they must or ought to do.
Hawkgirl,
Definitely, we are the same page. I was trying to reinforce the implication of your OP in that regard.
As I recall the social science evidence from things like the GSS and other national surveys are consistent with your point that we parent much more time intensively today than was the norm when you or I grew up. Social expectations of what it means to be a “good” parent in terms of time with your kids are very high right now. Within LDS circles they can be particularly high. It is a self-reinforcing cycle of course. If that is how we define “good” parenting and cross that with parenting as the most important thing having a stay at home mom becomes a matter of neccesity for the righteous. More people do it and then the norms of how much time is required shift to become even higher and so on.
One interesting aspect about this is that it puts pressure on another fading Mormon norm regarding family-size. As “good” parenting is expressed through more and more ways that require one on one time and relationship building with kids, the harder it is to be a “proper” parent and have large families. I know I personally felt this way. As a young father of a growing family when I envision what it means to be a dad and the types of experiences and relationships I wanted with my kids, at some point the discussion regarding more children became not about money (we are very fortunate in our life circumstances) but time. I didn’t want to become the figure-head father that the kids know only when called into the office for an interview. I wanted to coach my kids soccer teams, take them out one-on-one, play with them, be there for the school stuff etc. Well, you can only do that with so many kids before you just run out of time and energy. And yes my expectations were largely set by watching the choices and realities of those around me and how I grew up etc. Today with 4 kids do I look around and my friends with 2 kids (the norm in my circles outside of Mormom circles) and see what they can do that I simply cannot or have to do spread out among two more kids? Sure. I love my kids. I like spending time with them and I wish I could spend time more with each of them, especially one on one. But I really did feel that one more kid would make it realistically impossible for me to be the type of parent I wanted to be to each of them. Could we have had more and been financially responsible? Yes. I am glad that this pressure has decreased in the church culture, even if it still nags in the back of the head.
And thinking about Mormon Mommy blogs, I can only imagine what it would be to be a SAHM and see that reality as what you wanted or were expected to provide as an ideal parent. The pressure! Even with generous financial resources at your disposal there would just be no time and definitely no time for even contemplating employment!
rah, that is a good point. I know I am sometimes resentful that as the 4th of 7 kids I rarely remember 1on1 time with my parents. I do believe they came to as many of my basketball games that they could, and I never gave them full credit for that.
But I compare the time my daughter gets with us, and at age 9 she’s probably had 10x more 1on1 time with parents than I ever did, hands down. Even my mom acknowledges that we basically raised ourselves at the same time telling me I don’t have what it takes to raise 7 like she did. ?
IDIAT: I can’t tell if you’re sincere or trolling – but I’m going to try to be charitable and assume sincere. Of course the circumstances of our lives influence us and shape the way we see the world. Having politically active parents, hunting/outdoorsy parents, all male siblings or all female siblings influence us. As does reading literature about the plight of the less privileged, it’s been shown to develop empathy. Circumstances influence us, for example boys raised in Hawaii are less likely to see women in bikinis as temptresses from the devil because they are raised in an environment where a bikini isn’t sexualized, but a normal part water activities.
That is wholly different that men telling women what to do, how to dress, and how to act to avoid biological reactions or any thoughts that go along with them. Being turned on isn’t a sin, dwelling on it is. Telling a YW she’s walking pornography 100% puts the burden of clean thoughts on females. Esp when God makes a variety of female bodies – I can tell your quite a few stories of psychological damage done to girls with DD chests by religious men.
“Deeply misogynist doctrines like polygamy make it hard to discard theologically.”
Misogynist? Clearly polygyny was sexist, but I’m not convinced it was misogynist, other than to many feminists sexism = misogyny. Of course, merely raising the point makes me a misogynist, let alone a sexist, to such a feminist.
I don’t buy the “Polygamy is sexist/I hate polygamy -> polygamy is evil -> polygamy didn’t come from God” logic. I realize that discussion is tangential to the thrust of the post, but the tangent originates in the post itself.
I’m glad for almost all of the changes in society that have allowed my daughters greater opportunities than my mother had, and I’m grateful for their increased opportunities at church as well. Although I believe many forms of sexism are wrong and contrary to gospel teachings, I don’t believe that sexism (ie., the idea that men and women are not equivalent) is essentially wrong, and that seems to be the foundation of a lot of feminist thinking: if it’s sexist, it’s bad. There’s a lot of evidence that God doesn’t seem to feel that way.
Furthermore, repudiating polygamy seems difficult theologically, since the natural house of Israel has one father and multiple mothers. Same with the house of Abraham. For your mainstream Christian, this may not present any sort of problem, but for Mormons who believe in sealing families through the eternities, it’s problematic. Especially since those were the models Joseph Smith pointed to when he re-instituted the practice.
Surely there are practices that could and should be changed in the church which could help us reach for Zion, but they should be discussed individual on their own merits, not judged good or bad on how sexist it is.
Martin: misogyny is defined as “reflecting or exhibiting hatred, dislike, mistrust, or mistreatment of women.” If you don’t think polygamy reflects hatred, dislike or mistrust, perhaps you can at least go so far as to see it reflecting mistreatment. If not, I suggest you read up on modern polygamist groups. They aren’t known for their empowerment and respect for women. For example, polygamy in Malaysia: http://www.wao.org.my/Polygamy_84_76_1.htm I don’t see how it doesn’t qualify as misogynistic when husbands can marry subsequent wives without the existing wives’ consent, as was the case in early Mormon polygamy and is still today in other groups with the practice. Polygamy is a man’s right, and a woman doesn’t in fact get a vote unless it’s a yes. You can call that something other than misogyny. Be my guest. A rose by any other name . . .
“I don’t believe that sexism (ie, the idea that men and women are not equivalent) is essentially wrong” Likewise, many whites did not see the harm in racism and felt that blacks were overstating their case. I am glad you see that more opportunity for women is a good thing. At least there is some common ground there.
Interesting post.
•How do you see men being influenced by the women in their lives?
I grew up with a SAHM, but she provided music lessons in our home in the after school hours, so I went off and played and entertained myself after school kind of like Hawkgrrl. She had her own money, though I don’t think there were ‘his and hers’ pools in the checking account. She was protective of my father and commanded our respect for his hard working ethic and commitment to church callings. She enjoyed friendship with us children tremendously and I remember the fun of spending spring break, summer break, and winter break with mom back in the days where dad seemed only to get one full vacation off per year. She had tremendous initiative and if she wanted to do something, she would make it happen.
I remember mom describing their cultural refinement lessons with such assignments as reading ‘The Scarlet Letter’ and the women of the church meeting together for weekday RS and weekday after- school primary and completely running the programs, as adult men would not be present.
I also remember mom speaking fondly of the bishop protecting mom’s position as RS president from becoming a ‘chore doer’. Apparently there were lots of women having babies at the time and not enough ward sisters to cook meals for all of them. The bishops answer (and this was in the 1970’s) was that the husbands would need to step up–after all, the women ‘did not get into this predicament by themselves.’ I would be surprised to hear that solution come from a Bishop today.
“Polygamy that’s left in the past is one thing; polygamy that’s still called divine will in 2014 is another. Saying Joseph Smith made a mistake implies that church leaders, even today, sometimes make huge mistakes and mistake their own wishes for God’s will. And yet not saying that is ten times worse.”
This was so very unfortunate. Anything the church does to combat sexism pales in comparison to what they did to promote it in the Nauvoo polygamy essay.
Martin,
Polygamy is by its nature structurally unequal. The women in the relationship are structurally equal to each other across many dimensions and it puts then in direct competition for resources such as time, intimacy, resources etc. It takes 2 seconds of reading up on the actual day to day practice of polygamy in the early church to see that even in the best of situations the inherent inequality in the relationship has huge negative consequences for women.
Misogyny – at least its most virulent forms – might be able to be avoided but there was plenty of it in the early church practice of polygamy.
Here for example is Erastus Snow expounding on some common doctrine taught in the church at the time. “Do you uphold your husband before God as your lord? “What!—my husband to be my lord?” I ask, Can you get into the celestial kingdom without him? Have any of you been there? You will remember that you never got into the celestial kingdom without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away,
and someone had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody will receive her as a servant.”
That statement is clearly misonygist and is rooted in seeing and treating women as less than full agents (ie not fully human). This wasn’t a one off. This was a common teaching during polygamist times and you can find many supporting quotes and sermons for Brigham Young and others.
As Hawkgirl points out that empirically it is impossible to find a single polygamous society where the polygomous structure does not create clear inequality in the status and agency of women. Our church’s foray into polygamy is no exception. Even casual reading of what the women of the time say about their experience in the system is enough to convince any reader that by in large they resented and acutely felt the interpersonal inequalities. Also, clearly the behavior of the men – apostles, prophets- whatever makes you shudder. And I am not saying they weren’t well intentioned or trying to follow what they perceived as a commandment in good faith or whatever. The structural set up of polygamy just is going to cause this.
Maybe you could imagine some “best of all possible worlds” where in the celestial kingdom polygamy will operate on some superhuman level of dignity, trust and equality. But then if you are willing to go that far, that arguement works for any system. Slavery? Sure if everyone was perfectly christian about it then it isn’t so bad and gosh durn it its justified because of choices in the pre-existance. It will be the system where people are *happiest* because *some people* are just happier being servants. Its just the bad slave owners that are the problem. Not the system! Yep, all things that were argued by christian’s to justify slavery. I am not equating polygamy with slavery just pointing out that imgained futured worlds of everybody acting perfectly can be used to justify almost any system (and has been).
Also just for your own education – sexism is not defined as “not thinking women and men are equivalent (ie the same). Its simply not its definition. And feminism isn’t the arguement that *all differences between men and women are socially constructed. No real feminist (except crazy ones that even most feminists role their eyes at) believe that. A basic definition of sexism might be: “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex”. Sexism is not affording women similar opportunities and status simply because they are women. This can happen consciously or unconsciously. The basic arguement that feminism is about arguing that men and the women are “the same” is a well-rehersed strawman arguement from those with political agendas. A basic level of reading balanced and thoughtful writing and discussion of sexism and feminism woud quickly make that clear. Sadly, the church culture has seemed to by into this particular strawman with a vengence, probably imported from the conservative political millieu that many Mormons swim in. its frustrating to see it be not just the starting point but sadly the endpoint of thinking around these issues for many mormons and many discussions within our faith community. We can do better.
I am glad that you are grateful for the expanded opportunities open to your daughters. A basic set of reading about the suffragist and other feminist movements would help you appreciate just how grateful you should be to many, many people who might make you uncomfortable. Its a messy history like any movement. It has extremists and moderates and status quo defenders. Its fascinating and worth knowing. It also worth knowing that despite the expanded set of opportunties open to your daughters they are likely to still have to deal with sexism on a regular basis. Hopefully they won’t hit the most awful virulent kind but it is a reality in the workplace. It is a reality in pop culture. It is a reality in civic life. And because it is a reality in the world we inhabit, it will be a reality in our own church. We can all do a lot to make this world a better place. We can do it within our own spheres. We won’t be perfect but that is never asked of us really. We are simply asked to care and do our best.
Hawk – I point out the mantra because in all the years I’ve been involved in YM and YW, I’ve never heard anyone say “girls/women are responsible for the thoughts of boys/men.” I think that phrase has been exptrapolated from cultural practices. But, I also point it out because it seems when feminist want to point to “positive influence” on men (ie, this post), then they’ll stand up and take credit for what they feel is the use of female influence to lead men towards egalitarian attitudes. Yet, when it comes to modesty, they won’t claim any influence at all. At any rate, as to working mothers – see LDS Gospel Library – Institute – Building an Eternal Marriage – Lesson 15 “Mothers Employment Outside the Home.” Is the lesson and quotes contained therein prophetic nonsense or still good advice?
Does no one tire of feminists constantly attacking men?
IDIAT: Wow, that entire manual is certainly full of bad advice from my perspective. Is God the micromanager here or is it someone below God’s pay grade? In particular, I think it’s remarkable that it attributes women being discontent in their role to social influences and “propaganda” when the whole manual is propaganda. Takes one to know one, I guess.
On the contrary, what I have heard through the years in RS is that there are many many women who only became a SAHM because they didn’t think they were allowed to make any other choice, and quite a few of them are depressed or full of resentment. Growing up in the church, I wasn’t unaware of the council that Pres. Benson and others gave. I did pray about it and make my choices accordingly, and I know many other women who did likewise and ended up in a career.
In my Singapore ward, there was one of these lessons in which SAHMs are meant to be congratulating themselves on their superior choices and decrying “the world,” and three of us who are career-women raised our hands and said we felt we had answer to prayer that it wasn’t required, at least for us, to stay at home, that we had much good to do in the world. Several women objected that they didn’t know we were allowed to question it, and they had made their choices not knowing they could make any other; they felt it wasn’t fair that they didn’t know that because they were unhappy now that this was their life and they had no options.
Thanks for the article link, which is a nice summary of research. And the delightful footnotes.
I was at a scientific conference with my husband a while back, and some of his female colleagues were surprised to learn that I was at home full-time with our kids. “But he has a reputation of being supportive of women in our profession, nobody would accuse him of being sexist!”
It was extremely frustrating to say the least. They couldn’t fathom the notion that he had so much respect for womanhood that he would support a woman in being a mother just as he would support a woman in a career of her choosing. The former is something sorely missing from many, many men today. I don’t consider them TRULY egalitarian unless they support both. Supporting women in doing traditionally male things is only halfway there.
Honestly, I don’t know any LDS families under age 60 that are “traditional” in the father-knows-best sense. Even if mom was at home for a season, her contributions were valued, she had as much say about family finances, and while housework was not divvied up in the same proportion if one was at home more, at the times when they were home together they were just as likely to be doing dishes or changing diapers.
I joined the church in the 1970s because of the radical teachings on equality in marriage.
I consider a lot of employers to be sexist/misogynist because they force women to play by the same rules as men–even though some feminists applaud the policy. It was a female provost who decided that all students at the local university have to attend full-time, slamming the door on full-time parents who want to take classes part-time only while their children are in school (of course now online education provides a pathway, but 12 years ago that was a harsh decision that hurt many women).
A lot of supposed egalitarianism is really just male-normative thinking that smugly claims the higher ground. It is incredibly sexist in my mind.
I think the church is a shining light in respecting the work of homemakers and mothers.
Hawkgrrrl, the idea that women didn’t know they had any other choice but to be SAHMs is so true and so sad. And, it goes both ways. Who is modeling alternate family choices to men of the church? What happens when men feel led to make a choice different from the Mormon norm? Surely few men could say they had a strong role model of a SAHD (or any other non-traditional arrangement) to look to. I would bet most men would say that they too didnt know they had any other options but those laid out by the church as “right”. The sexism inherent in our teachings about families and roles hurts non-conforming men as much as women. It makes me so sad.
There is really only one reason why the Church encourages(d) women to be SAHM. To raise their children. There is no evidence of a WW conspiracy to hold women back.
The Church regards the family has the most important unit on the earth, more important than the Church itself. And given that a huge demographic shift happened after WWII where extended families no longer lived together and older family members played the role of looking after the children while all able-bodied family members worked in the family business, someone was needed to raise the children.
Today’s worldly answer is to institutionalize children where parents pay to have someone else raise their children for them. All while they “find’ themselves and live up to their potential.
And while the typical model is that the Dad is the one to learn the living, I never saw the world “must” associated with the direction we been given.
Not all women back in the day got the message. They made a choice to work outside the home regardless of what was told to them. They were Doctors, lawyers, nurses, factory workers, administrative personnel, bank tellers, etc.
Most of the women in my family worked. They weren’t members of the Church, but they didn’t get the message.
If, in the end, we are afraid of exercising our own agency, what good is it having it?
I don’t remember there being a question on the temple recommend interview on whether mothers stay at home.
May the committee that came up with Lesson 15 in Idiat’s comment rest in peace (I assume most are long dead by now). I’m sorry, but as an active member since birth, SAHM of 5, that lesson reads as a whole lot of philosophies of men mingled with very little scripture. I wouldn’t want my sons or daughters picking up the damaging nonsense that lesson.
winifred,
I think everyone is tired of your dopey comments.
Naismith: “I consider a lot of employers to be sexist/misogynist because they force women to play by the same rules as men” I couldn’t agree more, and those male-assumed rules aren’t actually doing men any favors either. That’s why many countries, particularly Europe, Australia and NZ, have much more generous family-leave policies that apply to both men & women, giving the maximum possible flexibility. The US is very far behind in our thinking on this.
Jeff Spector:
“Today’s worldly answer is to institutionalize children where parents pay to have someone else raise their children for them. All while they “find’ themselves and live up to their potential.”
This is just ridiculous. Seriously. I am so damn tired of this argument. Ina addition to being incredibly insulting, it is patently false. Institutionalize children? Really? Do you send your children to school? Does that mean their teachers are “raising” them? Of course not. No more than my son’s preschool teachers are raising him. Utter nonsense. Furthermore,can you provide a single example of a person who is just off “finding themselves”? Every single person, male or female, that I know works primarily because they must. If they are blessed enough to work in a postion that utilizes their talents and helps them fulfill their potential, all the better but they would work no matter what. They need the money, or found SAH parenthood to be soul crushing or a million other perfectly legitimate reasons that cannot be reduced to willfully and selfishly neglecting their families in order to “live up to their potential”. Utter and complete BS.
The reality is that the “worldly” message I hear is: Do what’s best for your family. Don’t let others pressure you into something that is damaging to your family.” What’s the prevailing Church message? “There is only one right way. Your particular circumstances are virtually irrelevant. Anything outside the norm is evil and worldly.” I hear that over and over and over. It’s wrong, it’s damaging and it has to stop.
While I don’t agree mothers are wantonly dumping their kids off so they can find themselves, I know plenty of young mothers who have baby, then put baby in day care at six weeks old while mom and dad work 8 – 5. Then because of travel times, that translates into dropping baby off at 7:30 and picking up at 5:30. Then, once they do start school, the day care brings them to school in a 12 passenger van, then picks them up in the same van and keeps them until 5:30 again. Sending kids to school after they’ve had some fundamental time with mom or dad is one thing. (plus, you can’t beat the security of coming home after school to someone waiting for you). Separating oneself from children for 10 hours a day from six weeks on is quite another. I am the product of a school teacher mom and started preschool at age 3. But at least she was home right after school and holidays and summers. I do think there is enough wiggle room in church teachings for couples to adapt to their particular circumstances.
Hawk, thanks. I think you expressed some of the same thoughts I have, and my wife has also pretty much said the same thing as you.
From Jeff Spector’s comments:
and
Thanks for pointing this out. I whole-heartedly agree. I am the SAHH. We have already talked about it, and when (which always seems like if) we are finally blessed with children, I will be the SAHD. I have never had the church, or any priesthood leaders question this. But, what I have had is many members question the arrangement of our family. It might be that it is a fuzzy line as to what is the church in other people’s minds, but in my case I just see brothers and sisters who have one set of cultural expectations, and this same set of people likely only hear half of what is said in conference. What I hear from leaders is “do what the Lord guides you to do so you will do best for your family and situation.”
That said, it was nice to have it said even more plainly in the recent announcent concerning CES hiring.
Idiat,
That exact line of arguement throws so many families under the bus, primarily families without the financial option. You just told them, “Poor you, you are institutionalizing your kids and giving them a second rate family.” And for families that choose this for whatever variety of reasons they choose two incomes you are throwing them under the bus as well. Why? For what purpose? Do you honestly believe you are protecting their children from day care? Sorry you disapprove of these families choices, but what you are missing is a deeper respect for their agency. Maybe, just maybe they, like you, care about what is best for their family. Maybe, just maybe, like you they are following their own personal revelation or moral compass. Maybe one day you will be saved by the brilliance of a woman doctor leaving a legacy of service for her daycare fiend of a child.
Now I know I just put a pretty harsh spin on what you were saying, but it was for a purpose. The purpose being having seen so many LDS families hurt deeply by this (well-meaning) judgment swirling in the air around them. Of course, one counsels these families to suck it up and just let it roll off their back. They just have to, because your critique is a relatively moderate one from what they so often hear.
One story. I know a nice Mormon family with two educated parents. They began their family and were on the verge of making the normative choice of having the mother quit her job. However, the mother felt really strongly that she should not do this and so they continued on. It meant their first child and then second went to dreaded day care. As promotions came up which meant more reponsibility and longer hours still the prompting that she should take these career steps came. Confused she fought them. She was having things said like this to her personally and of course in so many of her ward lessons. It was exruciating. But both she and her husband felt they needed to walk this path. A year later, the husband was diagnosed with cancer. He soon couldn’t work. It was a long, expensive battle and he eventually died. Her job had had the better health benefits and because of those the family was left financially intact and she was now in a position to care for her children financially as the whole family went through the trama of losing their husband and father. She has often reflected on what would have happened had she been guilted into stepping out of her job completely or pulling back on her career. She felt the Lord had been preparing their family for this day, a day no one wants. And yet, she came so close, so many times to giving in to all the voices telling her that she wasn’t a good enough mother. That she wasn’t a proper mother to her kids. That she was allowing them to be raised by others. Her kids are fine.
This is, of course, a dramatic – if real – “exception” story. I have so many friends and peers raising their families in a two-income model – often by choice. I look at their kids who went to daycare and then to after school. I watch them juggle the demands of different jobs and make hard career and family choices. All in all, I find it really hard to see their kids suffering in any way. Their kids are wonderful. They are polite. They are smart. They are loved. We are far better off supporting and respecting the decisions of others – assuming they are coming from a place of good intention and love for their families.
Why is it that whenever people decry the choice to put children in day care, it’s always the mothers who must be blamed? Besides which, day care is not inherently evil; certainly a good day care is better than the care of mother Susan Smith.
The smartest 2 year old boy I’ve ever come across went to a great daycare school. After seeing him, I seriously wondered if my daughter missed out because I didn’t have her in daycare!
And it’s just common sense that women have to be able to take over as the provider for their family should the need arise–which is does. How many facebook posts there are where we are asked to donate to a family because they just lost their husband/dad. Our church tells us to be self reliant and to be prepared for life’s situations. That means education and job. Fortunatey, that daughter of mine did all right–she’s a dentist.
Sometimes I don’t mention it enough but I am a mormon feminist stay-at-home mom. Granted I also run our local library non-profit foundation . . . I’ve worked full time before and the mormon mommy guilt almost destroyed me, but it helped that all the atheists I worked for treated me with more respect and equality than I’d ever experienced and helped me discover my feminism. I was in virginia and the real thing that helped me let go of my mommy guilt was being surrounded by all these evangelical christian women working full time and raising the most wonderful, respectful, faithful children I’d ever seen. Who woulda thunk, you know? I was shocked. Maybe there are good moms that stay at home and maybe there are rotten moms that stay at home! Maybe there are rotten and good moms who work, as well. It was a beautiful moment to claim the ability to be a wonderful mother while working. Yep, I kicked trash at it.
My grandpa told me the reason there are problems in the world today is because women work. I don’t think he realized who he was saying that to.
Putting me in daycare for a few hours a week wouldn’t have compared to the suffering that was being dragged to three excruciating hours of abject boredom every single Sunday of my life. In all seriousness, though, it takes some balls for an advocate of the mormon church to claim that today’s working parents are “institutionalizing” their children. Mormons have perfected the practice. Three hours a week at church, three hours a week at mutual, five hours a week at seminary. And that’s not family time. Someone please give me a break.
a few comments:
*Being the parents of two daughters has broadened both mine and my husband’s perspective.very small example…I actually enjoy laundry, but when my daughters were teenagers my husband and I decided together that he should do his own laundry. We realized he needed to give his daughters an example of what they could expect from their husbands. I think tiny things like that make a big difference.
*I am a licensed daycare provider. The 15 children I have cared for over the years have flourished under my care. They go home at night to spend quality time with families that love them dearly.there are pros and cons to both daycare, and being home all day. I just chuckle when I hear daycare being described as unilaterally evil.
*most of my sahm friends drop off their toddlers at about 10 hours of preschool per week. I don’t understand why they say daycare is evil, but preschool is okay.
“Why is it that whenever people decry the choice to put children in day care, it’s always the mothers who must be blamed?” Silly Hawk, it’s because they’re supposed to be staying home raising their children while dad’s out working. 😉
For those unfamiliar with the Susan Smith reference, she is a South Carolina woman who drowned her own children. Obviously day care would have been a much better option for them than their stay-at-home mom.
“On October 25, 1994, Smith reported to police that she had been carjacked by a black man who drove away with her sons still in the car. For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for the rescue and return of them. However, following an intensive investigation and a nationwide search, on November 3, 1994, she confessed to letting her 1990 Mazda Protegé roll into nearby John D. Long Lake,[4] drowning them inside.[5] Her motivation was reportedly to be able to have a relationship with a local wealthy man, even though the latter had no intention of forming a family.[6]”
Of course there is also Andrea Yates, who drowned her children in a Texas bathtub. And just this week Ebony Wilkerson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for driving her van full of kids into the ocean. (Luckily all were rescued.)
Day care would have been a welcome option for children of these SAHMs.
#35 – A touching story. Which emphasizes WHY we’re taught correct principles and supposedly allowed to govern ourselves. It’s tough enough that this young mother felt prompted to stay in her career and contract out much of the child rearing but with her husband doomed by his cancer, it turned out to be the correct choice. I certainly hope that her fellow members didn’t judge her adversely at the time and if any did, that when they endured the tragedy of a serious illness and early demise of the father and husband that they were as quick to lend a helpin hand.
[How does the church combat sexism, and how does it promote sexism in your experience?] IDK that it does one way or the other. It teaches men to treat their wives, daughters, mother, sisters, and other female relatives or associates with gentlemanliness and respect. Whether all the knuckleheads hold the PH, myself included, get the message is fodder for discussion. The Lord doesn’t seek counsel from myself nor you regarding teaching the members how to get along.
Hawk, you’re not carrying a ‘chip’ on your shoulder, you’re dead-lifting a pallet load…
[Maybe this is due to having a service do the cleaning. If not, grrrr] If I want a maid, I’ll hire a service. If I want to get it on with the maid, I’ll hire a stripper that comes in a French maid outfit. Else I’m perfectly capable of doing housekeeping chores, and usually far more efficiently, having worked for a school district and having my own janitorial business while putting myself through school.
[Unclear why those sisters didn’t pound more sense into them] If I were to make an offhand commend about ‘pounding sense’ into my wife, the DV ‘advocates’ would jump on my case in a “New Yawk” minutes. Just sayin…
[And possibly if it’s a career or just a job to make ends meet] That’s a POV thing…my younger sis, who just turned 50, works the concession stand at Sam’s Club. Her hubby is a Sheriff’s Lieutenant, so obviously he pulls down far more coin. Whose job is more ‘valid’, once you take away the paycheck?
[This is the direct reason my parents had my brother. After four daughters, they were done, but when they joined the church they were told it was too bad they didn’t have a son to carry on the family name and priesthood lineage, something they hadn’t really cared about before. Their procedure was reversed, and three of us followed, my brother leading the way] If your parents went to all that ‘bother’ just to have the ‘Priesthood’ lineage continue, then I’d wonder why they let others direct their most personal of choices. Could it be that once they’d embraced the Gospel they were enamored of enlargening the brood, and IF they got a son, great? The fact that he has two younger sisters suggests that Patriarchy was no major influence in their decision regarding family size.
[Although my dad did expect me to know how to calculate a square root by long hand and to be able to explain how nuclear power works] My eldest, my daughter from my ‘flaming youth’, likewise got a degree in Mechanical Engineering, though after a year at Fresno State she elected to join her friends at BYU (she’d graduated a year early). I remain the lone Bulldog in a family of Cougars…sigh.
[This was why I was told I didn’t need a car when I was away at school, although my brother had one; it was suggested that I find some “nice young man” to drive me around. I talked them into it, though, with threats of lesbianism] What, Daddy couldn’t afford a T-Bird which he could threaten to take away if you had too much fun, fun, fun? I drive a Ford Focus which by the time my youngest turns 16 (she just turned 14) will be paid off and for her to drive…IF she behaves. My big sis got a new car when she turned 16, when it was my turn, I got help on a used Dodge Dart (which incentivized me to work construction until football practice started and earn enough to buy a ’70 Cuda with a 383 4 bbl)
[I see that in retirement, this has softened considerably in my parents’ marriage, as they do more housework side-by-side] One of the stressors in retirement is that a man, suddenly bereft of the daily grind, gets restless underfoot and drives his dear wife nuts. That’s why (1) I won’t retire altogether, even if alimony payments no longer keep me going to the salt mine…(2) My beloved Snips, being eight years younger and with her own demanding job, can jolly well continue to bring home serious dough while I putter about and free-lance. That’s the nice thing about having both retirement pay and the wife’s pay coming in; one can endure the ups and downs of going from one temporary gig to another, which most pay well if briefly.
[This patronizing assertion is enough to send anyone on a three state killing spree] “Everybody run, the homecoming queen’s got a gun”…WHY, pray tell, is female violence considering humorous? If I made jokes like that, there’d be a call to send the big boys in the white coats…
Overall, I’d say at it’s like the perceived attitudes about LDS members regarding black people. In the 1860’s, Mormons were considered to be “Negro”-lovers, in the 1960’s, bigots. “Yew-tah” was amongst the forefront of the women’s suffrage movement in the 19th century, and the spectre, not justified by actual numbers, of having all those polygamous wives voting drove many a ‘gentile’ to a frenzy.
During my thirty-five years as a member, I’ve seen the average family size get smaller while (1) more women with young children work full-time and (2) the divorce rate has soared. Ergo, socially we’ve become much more like the American culture that surrounds a great deal of us. Is is ok, or cause for alarm?
jennyinnc: Thanks for adding your comments about day care. I had several excellent day care providers we used over the years. They had teachers who were highly skilled and my kids loved getting to play, sleep and learn with their friends. It doesn’t change who the parents are. Kids can tell the difference between beloved teachers and parents. The mom is still the mom, and the dad is still the dad. My kids still view the Scottsdale Child Care and Learning Center with nostalgia and fondness.
You didn’t see me blame the mother if kids go to daycare. It is a mutual decision of the parents that drives it.
If both parents need to work to survive, that is one thing. And, there are exceptions to every rule, so we have to allow for that.
So interesting that some would bring up Susan Smith and Andrea Yates as a possible danger to a preferred scenario of putting kids in daycare.
We are really talking about the institutionalizing of children from infancy through the time they are enrolled in school. These are the formidable, bonding years. When parents elect to put their children in that situation, it is they, the parents, who miss out the most. Children are most adaptable to their environment.
You can defend the institutionalizing of those children at an early age if you want.
Hawk, it is kind of ironic that you would say that your kids look at their time in daycare with fondness. Why wouldn’t they? But you have a wonderful family who seem to have bonded real well. I am not sure others are so fortunate.
“That’s why many countries, particularly Europe, Australia and NZ, have much more generous family-leave policies that apply to both men & women, giving the maximum possible flexibility. The US is very far behind in our thinking on this.”
I joined the church in Europe, lived in South America, so I understand exactly what you are talking about and support such policies.
But I don’t think for a minute that it treating genders the same is treating them equally or egalitarian. It is nice when a dad can take time off to be with a new baby, but no father has ever been on bed rest prior to a birth, suffered complications from surgical delivery, spent weeks vomiting in early pregnancy (women used to die from it), or suffered with a breast infection. Sure, pregnancy and lactation is just a few years out of a woman’s life…but that can easily add up to decades for a Mormon woman having the number of children that she and her husband feel inspired to bring to earth.
In one department where I was employed, we hired two young faculty at the same time. Both had babies about the same time a few years later. But she was a woman who needed a C-section. The impact on their lives was very, very different.
I’ve read comments on this thread and in many others, and I’ve noticed a pattern; a lot of men deride the acuteness of trauma the church teachings have on women by pulling the ‘yeah well, you had your agency – the church doesn’t force you to be a SAHM’ line out.
I feel like this comes from a place of blessed ignorance; the consequence of having a church socialization represented best by comparing the YM lesson proactively titled ‘choosing an eternal companion’ and the YW passive corollary of ‘preparing to be an eternal companion’ (Manual 3). Oh sure, we know now God isn’t dictating to the curriculum department, but you don’t see anyone telling that clearly to the 13 year old that cries herself to sleep because YW lesson after YW lesson tells her that unless she’s a stay at home mother, she’s straying outside of God’s will.
I feel like comments, like Jeff Spector’s ‘you should have used your agency’, come from a place of not understanding how it feels to have burning desire for career, but be shut down mutual after mutual as you learn to iron shirts, make Modest Wedding Dresses out of toilet paper, repeat that your life purpose is to ‘strengthen home and family’, and are instructed that ‘no success can compensate for failure in the home’. You can only hear this thing week after week during your youth for so long before you internalize it. And, because you’re obedient and know ‘the natural men is an enemy to God’, you start to see that burning passion for a wholesome career as a worldly passion that you need to bridle, because you’re a woman. So you wrestle with that your entire life, you subvert your desire to do it, you perform well in school and try to mollify yourself by saying ‘at least you can teach your children, which is what it’s all about, right, right?’. You get married, you have 4 children before you’re 30, and the burning passion for a career has now smouldered a hole through your happiness. At this point, CES decided woman can have kids and a job with them and says the change is happening to make it possible ‘for families to decide what best meets their needs as it relates to mothers working while raising children’.
I dread to think how it feels to have had 8 children, one after the next, because the prophets told you birth control was of the devil, only for the church to back off that entirely and claim ‘it’s between husband/wife/God’. I imagine it feels how I feel about having a career, only more tired. The church is learning, as it has with things like birth control and interracial marriages etc, that they need to back out of these highly personal and cultural decisions, but int he process, they’ve screwed a lot of (women especially) out of their passions.
My point is, a woman has to ‘rebel’ against the church’s forceful admonitions in order to do what the church (and many people on this thread) are claiming you have agency to do. When you apply that behavioural pattern to, say, The Word of Wisdom, you have a problem. Hopefully you can see where I’m going with this, in stating how hard it feels as a woman to step outside what the church tells you to do and then have someone say ‘you had your agency’.
Well said, kc. And I’m sorry.
Concerning the ‘outsourcing’ of parental responsibility to daycare or preschool: just what do we think all of those maids and handmaids mentioned in the scriptures were doing, kneading bread and spinning wool into yarn all day? Unlikely.
kc: While I agree that men and women are socialized differently as youth in the church organization, and so it might be hard for someone like me, a man, to completely understand a sister’s experience during those years and in to adulthood, it is silly to think that men and young men don’t receive a similar socialization and cultural trainings, and therefore live with similar expectations, and might have to rebel against said instructions. Of course, if we aren’t prosperous, bread-winning men, we are also failures and disobedient. Or, so many would have us believe. So, some of us might understand how our sisters feel. Or we try to. I guess it comes down to the constant admonition to verify what our leaders, teachers, or councillors say. If the Lord disagrees or offers different advice, then anything anyone else will or could say is moot. I am also aware that this is likely not being taught as plainly or as often as it could/should be. There isn’t an easy answer to fix what was taught, often incorrectly, in the past.
I do think it is somewhat odd and a little disingenuous to say “When you apply that behavioural pattern to, say, The Word of Wisdom, you have a problem”, as that is also not true, despite what we might think. Not only am I the SAHH, against perceived culture, but I also have personal experience at ‘breaking’ the Word of Wisdom (as it is lazily taught in church publications, from the pulpit, including General Conference, or in Sunday lessons), at the express and plain instruction of the Lord (when I allowed Him to be my physician and not the world). Granted, I follow the Word of Wisdom as it is written, but totally contrary to popular understandings. Guess what, I have a temple recommend still, and I am still a member of the same church you are. Some friends, family, or church members might feel I am a rebel, but those that claim stewardship over me don’t. I expect that many times it is a fear of following the Lord, or fear of leaders/co-members judging us, that holds us back, and in this we express our agency either way.
When asked to marry Jodi, she made it clear that not graduating from university wasn’t an option. She was also clear that if she chose a career, or was directed by the Lord to work outside of the home she would. She grew up with the same talks, articles in church magazines, lessons in YW, weekly activities, as the rest of our sisters (including modest toilet paper wedding dresses and learning to iron), and yet came to different conclusions and made different choices than you and others in similar positions. Maybe some of the comments here are less a case of ‘a lot of men deride the acuteness of trauma the church teachings have on women’ than you might imagine, and stem from other, and actual lived experiences, that differ from yours. Maybe?
clarification: I am not saying that the way we teach isn’t or hasn’t been hurtful (it can be and often is), but concerning some of the comments, you seem to be painting with a very broad brush; the very thing you and many others critique the church for doing in regards to this topic.
Forgetting:
When I said ‘a lot of men’, I did so after qualifying the sample as being participants in online threads about this topic. Perhaps you misread my comment.
It’s not silly at all to believe YM don’t receive a similar socialisation to YW, it’s perfectly rational; just compare the YM/YW manuals through the years and then tell me how similar they are. The only similarity is a rigid gender role insistence (and I can’t imagine it feels good at all to be told you have to be a sole breadwinner) however, the mold is much wider for males than females since their future includes both fatherhood and career, and, notably, they’re not told what career to have and how to enact it. Women, are told motherhood IS their career, and only a cursory peep at the lds.org archives will yield truckloads of instruction on every angle of how to perform, from taking joy from making beds, to abstaining from birth control because it’s a tool of satan. The difference can be summed up (albeit reductively) in the odd semantics of that infernal primary song from April: ” A Father’s Place is to Preside/Provide” vs. ‘A Mother’s Purpose is to Care, Prepare”. If you see equality there, I fear there’s not enough room in this comment box to explain myself any further to you.
I stand by my WoW comment. It’s not a perfect likeness, but not for the reasons you give. When you follow the Word of Wisdom by literal interpretation or lazy mainstream understanding, you have doctrinal basis for doing that. There is plenty room for it; the D&C admits beer or wine, so one might drink those and feel completely comfortable saying Yes to temple recommend questioning about it. However, the only way you can get around the churches admonition to women about not being career oriented is by completely ignoring volumes of very hard talk about your purpose on earth, as a woman, as being that of a stay at home mum. You can pull the ‘the Lord inspired me differently’ card, absolutely, but in order to do that, you still have to deal with the fact you are diametrically opposing decades of prophetic instruction. For people like me, who God does not give spiritual instruction, you are left to rely on prophets as you exercise faith. I found your third paragraph baseless.
I’m not sure who Jodi is, but I’m glad she was able to have a strong spiritual witness that she she was an exception to what the prophet was instructing women to do/was able to take prophetic directives with less gravity than me. I mean that with absolute sincerity. I wish I had been able to do likewise.
Just one more quick difference between how YW and YM are taught, even now the manuals for the boys (the new manuals just published) are all about them teaching and leading. The girls are written so that the girls will “share” but neither “lead” nor “teach.” Girls are passive; boys are active. The correlation committee believes the incredibly dumb notion that biology = destiny. But these manuals are a huge step up from what was taught before, and they are more equal than they were.
One difference from before the mission age change is that YW were talk mission preparation and were told going on a mission was strongly encouraged, if not downright mandatory. In my experience, girls were downright discouraged from going on a mission. It was stigmatized as the purview of the spinster. I don’t think I ever had a single YW leader who had served a mission. When I chose to serve people said repeatedly “You don’t have to do that” and “Why? Why not just get married?” I realize that’s not still discouraged, but it often was back in the day. I never understood that.
I had a similar experience to Hawk, and believe that YW were discouraged from preparing to serve missions because they should be preparing for marriage (despite the church saying missions prepared men well for marriage). I suspect it’s because the church thought YW should really be married by the ripe old age of 21.
I want to amend my earlier comment of: “If you see equality there, I fear there’s not enough room in this comment box to explain myself any further to you”. What I meant was “if you don’t see this principle as problematic”; you’d have to be batty to see equality, but lots of people don’t see this sentiment as troublesome.
One last comment before I stop blabbering all over this thread:
Forgetting mentioned how someone called Jodi went through all the same SAHM-focussed socialisation I did, but unlike me, she picked a career. I feel like it’s coming with a bit of implication that I had as much agency as Jodi, but made a bad choice (and am possibly trying to scapegoat the church). Maybe this is true, but if it is, and women really are that free to choose between gospel instruction and having a career, why all the focus on obedience to the gospel and constant reiteration (directed at girls as young as 3, in primary) that a woman’s place is in the home?
Ack sorry, I lied, THIS is my last comment: I should add that I met with my bishop when I was 20 to see what I might do to prepare for a mission, and he said he wasn’t going to have that conversation with me because I had a great boyfriend, and if I turned 21 and was unmarried and still wanted to serve, he would talk with me then about it. This was in 2005. I would class that as ‘being discouraged from serving’.
kc is right that it used to be common practice, and perhaps even policy for bishops to determine if a woman had marriage prospects before considering her for missionary service. Women with boyfriends were often told they needed to just get married instead, even if they felt it was their call to serve and that it was their answer to prayer. My own bishop did not discourage me personally, although I had a serious boyfriend at the time. But it was probably about a 50/50 split according to my friends.
kc: I might have missed your qualifier, I am just as flawed as the next person. So, I am sorry if I raised hackles.
Jodi is my wife, I don’t know how that one (using her name online) got past my once over to check the spelling and grammar. Got past her too since I had her review it as well, heaven knows I need all the help I can get when I type on a phone. So, if it’s cool, just call her my wife, then she can stop being ‘someone called Jodi’. Of course, I did mention that I asked this person to marry me (shrug).
Perhaps with that in mind you can understand that this isn’t just some random person I brought up, and is in fact someone I have spent the last two decades having long and in depth talks about this. I don’t speak from ignorance. It seems though I would be best if I leave it at that. We will likely just speak past each other at this point, since it seems my comment lacked the nuance (I was more aimed at it isn’t the church actually teaching this, and it isn’t the gospel either, but humans with cultural values, yes even the prophets) I hoped for (as usual).
Hawk, ” I also think we won’t see the big changes until the members of the Q15 have wives with careers or at least financially independent wives – a few have had mothers who were, and I can hear the difference in how they talk about women. I don’t believe daughters or sisters are enough.”
“Of course, the church, like my parents’ entire generation, is still steeped in sexism. We’re soaking in it. Conservative attitudes make it hard to shake.”
Since the Q15 are chosen from the 70’s/area presidents (although theoretically could be the general membership) I see the vast majority without wives working outside the home. Additionally, I see that the 70’s/ area presidents by and large hold onto these same conservative and sexist attitudes. Promotion to higher leadership practically requires such normative thinking Admittedly there are exceptions but those are few. Do you see a majority of Q15 wives with careers in the next few generations or within our lifetime?
I also appreciate you made the distinction of career vice job as the two get lumped together in these discussions but have significantly different impacts.
“Promotion to higher leadership practically requires such normative thinking” Unfortunately, I see this as equally true. The other norm that this creates, thanks to our economy, is that only those who are wealthy enough to support this kind of lifestyle are eligible for these higher ranks, and basically, it’s the same problem we see among corporate executives: ignorance of problems that don’t affect them, and an unhealthy dose of victim blaming. “People who aren’t wealthy made bad choices, and that’s why they struggle,” rather than the empathy and ability to welcome those whose choices differ from our own. We keep doing what we’ve always done, so we’ll keep getting what we’ve always got.
Forgetting says in #49, it is silly to think that men and young men don’t receive a similar socialization and cultural trainings, and therefore live with similar expectations, and might have to rebel against said instructions.
Well, sure they do, as kc rightly points out. They’re all socialized to expect that Forgetting will have a career and KC will stay home with the kids. Is that not clear?
Look, folks, darn few of us ever really rebel against our early socialization. It’s immensely difficult, and even those that do often take years to work up to it. “Blaming the victim” of socialization for not exercising agency to buck a system that claims a divine mandate is the worst form of avoiding the discussion. It’s dishonest and facile.
On another tack, Hawk points out in #54 that ” it used to be common practice, and perhaps even policy for bishops to determine if a woman had marriage prospects before considering her for missionary service.” True that. (Hawk and I are almost of an age, although I’m sure she wears it better.) My wife served a mission and had no problem doing so, but only because I was already in the mission field.
In fact, we were endowed on the same day – me in Chicago, she in Provo – in 1987. This was shortly after the Church changed policy, in a letter from the First Presidency read over the pulpit, to allow adult women to receive their endowments even if (*GASP*) they weren’t about to be married or leave on a mission. Sister Iconoclast’s bishop refused at first to give her a recommend, as she had no definite mission plans and I had my call. She told him to go look up the policy, and he called SLC, and they told him it was OK for her to go to the temple if she was worthy and willing.
Change comes slow.
“Look, folks, darn few of us ever really rebel against our early socialization.”
If this were true, then our church would not have so many first-generation members:)
I’m not saying it is easy–many of us make great sacrifices to become LDS–but I don’t think that the number who change from what they were raised can be characterized as “few” either.
Especially when the church leadership itself is encouraging us to reconsider our socialization. I have heard Elder Holland say at least three times in various settings that he wished he had done more hands-on involved in changing diapers etc. and praised his sons who did so.
And the reality is that socialization is not the same in every part of the vineyard. When we lived in South America, kids routinely started school at age 3, making a lot of discussions on institutionalization moot. When I was in North Florida in the early 1980s, I had a paid job and three little children, and when I was given a stake calling, the presidency blessed me that I would be able to meet all the demands on my time–nobody called me to task because of the paid job. One Sunday I was in the stake offices sending a fax, and a group of High Priests was meeting in the High Council room. The stake patriarch, who was one of the most conservative men you would ever meet, was going on and on about how good it was for women to return to the paid workforce once their mothering days were done. He said that even if she didn’t make much money as a secretary or whatever after buying a second vehicle, she would be happier and have fewer aches and pains.
I’ve been in wards that included families with full-time dads and earning mom, and the guys had responsible jobs in the ward; I am not aware of anyone putting them down. When my daughter went on her mission in the early 2000s, everyone knew that she was going to marry someone after her return; he went to the temple with us, and was at her calling and release and high council report.
I love that the church presents being a mom at home full-time as an option, because otherwise I would never have considered it. It was not on my radar, as it is not for most of my younger colleagues. They also firmly believe that you can’t have more than one child.
There is a lot of socialization out there, just in various directions than some experience.
Naismith:
” “Look, folks, darn few of us ever really rebel against our early socialization.”
If this were true, then our church would not have so many first-generation members:) ”
There is no parallel there, unless the first-generation members you’re talking about came from homes where they were socialised into singing about the follies of Mormonism from the age of 3, attended multiple meetings a week that reminded them Mormonism wasn’t an option according to a compelling belief system that otherwise resonated with the individual, and then made crafts to really drive home that point.
Also:
“The stake patriarch, who was one of the most conservative men you would ever meet, was going on and on about how good it was for women to return to the paid workforce once their mothering days were done”
I think this proves the point KC and Hawk are making, if we find it noteworthy when a conservative, high-up priesthood leader makes concession that it’s good for a woman to return to work, after her mothering days are done. I feel too tired to really address the problems embedded in the never-ending conflation of ‘mother’ with ‘woman’, but it’s there in that statement if anyone wants to unpack it.
Also, the church doesn’t present SAHM’hood as an ‘option’, until very recently it was One True Course.
“Also, the church doesn’t present SAHM’hood as an ‘option’, until very recently it was One True Course.”
It still is, and will be as long as the Proclamation to the Family is held up as the definitive statement on gender roles and familial relationships.
My older son is on a month-long ‘sabbatical’ from his job, taking “Daddy” Leave to hypothetically bond with his infant daughter. All well and good. Can only say that though he DOES keep up with the house, that projects heretofore considered ‘doable’ (like getting his old pickup suitable to pass ‘Smaug’) aren’t getting done. He’s finding the little darling to require quite a bit of attention. Is this all bad? Probably not, for though he has well participated in her upkeep thus far, as well as household chores, taking it on while mother works a bit more (to make up for what the family leave pay lacks), he likely appreciates more his wife’s role.
Last night, I’d picked up some parts and tools that I’d left at his place for a project of mine own. Just as my youngest (14 y.o.) and I got home, and I was ready to put up some shelves, I get a frantic call…a plumbing mishap (undersink fitting blew out) and a howling infant were fraying his nerves. So off the teenager and I go, back across town to give him a hand…my daughter to mind her niece, and the two of us to clean up and commence repairs. The main service provided, besides “Servpro” and “Ace Plumbing”, was to still be “Dad” and to show by EXAMPLE how to maintain “cool” in a moment of “crisis”. The sink is now repaired, and the kitchen sanitized, and hopefully the frazzled young family has gotten caught up on their sleep…while Grandpa throws back another Red Bull and goes back to the daily grind…
“There is no parallel there, unless the first-generation members you’re talking about came from homes where they were socialised into singing about the follies of Mormonism from the age of 3, attended multiple meetings a week that reminded them Mormonism wasn’t an option according to a compelling belief system that otherwise resonated with the individual, and then made crafts to really drive home that point.”
There absolutely a parallel there, and to accept only Mormon-centric socialization is a bit narrow-minded, neh? As someone who attended Catholic schools and mass every morning, I absolutely was socialized into thinking that any other church would leave me in a deep black pit. I had a visceral reaction to the thought of joining any other church. And yet I was able to overcome that socialization, which was the point.
“high-up priesthood leader makes concession that it’s good for a woman to return to work, after her mothering days are done.”
First of all, please note this happened in the early 1980s. The couple had married in the 1940s, a time when there was strong socialization in the US, even outside the church, that women shouldn’t work. And it was an example of him overcoming his socialization.
“Also, the church doesn’t present SAHM’hood as an ‘option’, until very recently it was One True Course.”
So I guess I’m gonna go to hell for not following that? Look, I would never dismiss the experiences of others or disbelieve that what they report happened. I totally believe it when people say that they were discouraged from serving a mission, etc.
But please understand that not everyone experiences the same thing throughout the worldwide church.
Right after my baptism in the 1970s, I attended BYU. My first semester there, the campus paper had an article about Sister Mary Anne Wood on the law school faculty. She had been hired with two pre-schoolers and they had another child that year. The article was about how she and her husband (also faculty) had a nursery connecting their offices and he watched the baby while she was in class, etc. They had been interviewed by Marion G. Romney, who had a reputation for being conservative, but he was very positive about them both teaching at BYU.
I had a neighbor who helped her husband study for the LSAT exam. She went ahead and took it, but did not intend to apply for law school until their children were older. Sister Wood visited her, invited her to apply to law school, convinced her that it could be a family friendly career that would allow her to set her own hours, etc.
At the same time, I got to hear from women like Ann Madsen, Sandra Covey, and Sydney Smith Reynolds who opened my eyes to the value and potential of being a mom at home for a season. Having been employed fulltime and an active member of NOW before my baptism, full-time motherhood was something I had never considered.
So yes, it was presented to me as an option.
Making broad declarations about what “the church” does makes it sound like those of us with different experiences are stoopid, and your experience is the only one that matters.
Naismith:
Hawk’s comment remains correct, few of us do rebel against our early socialisation; you appear to be one of those few. The link between ‘first-generation converts’ and ‘rebels against early socialization’ has less causation that you’re granting it, however, perhaps due to your life-course.
Your point of the high-up priesthood leader in the ’80s was not overcoming his socialisation; the church has emphasized women being stay-at-home-mums, not stay-at-home-empty-nesters. You said the priesthood leader said it was good for a woman to return to work after her mothering days were done which I just don’t see as contrary to his socialisation.
You appear to disbelieve that the church presents/presented SAHM’hood as the One True Option. They didn’t condemn those who rebelled against that to hell, rather strongly appealed (with a hint of Slippery Slope) that such a rebellion would lead to divorce or children with wonky morals. Those who rebelled are characterised as shameful, ‘worldly’, and less interested in protecting their children from evil. I could go on but I’m depressing myself. If you feel I’m exaggerating, please read this https://www.lds.org/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mothers-employment-outside-the-home?lang=eng and then have a gander at some YW manuals on the sections dedicated to women’s roles, marriage, and homemaking.
This is not just a personal experience, unless the YW, RS, and CES manuals are to be considered such.
I am glad you were privileged enough to meet the women you did. Not very many women are able to go to an institution of higher education that provides the unusual context of opportunity for women to walk that line between self-fulfillment and ecclesiastical obedience, in a religous culture that emphasizes conformity.
A bold statement perhaps, but whilst you felt like SAHM’hood was presented as the non-status quo option, I believe most LDS women who had lessons from the manuals, view careerhood as the deviant option.
I apologise if anything I said implied I thought others were stupid, I certainly don’t think that, but I think given the tomes of religious curriculum, it’s naieve to believe SAHM’hood isn’t presented as God’s default role for women. When I reference ‘the church’, I am primarily talking about the curriculum they mandate teaching because I believe that’s what the church considers the mainstay of Mormon religious education/socialisation.
I should probably wait until I wake up to write things on the internet. Sorry for the atrociously incorrect spelling