Guest post from frequent commenter Margie
It’s September, and that means General Conference is almost here. As an active Latter-day Saint, I often find myself in March and September turning back to the Conference talks that moved me in the last few Conferences to prepare for the next. That maybe sounds disingenuous from an inside-edge member like me, but it’s true.
In the past five years, there is no single talk I reacted to more strongly than Sister Michelle D Craig’s October 2022 Saturday evening talk, “Wholehearted.” I admit at the time to being absolutely appalled by it.
I now think it is one of the most useful parables of the modern Church, and as clear a depiction of how patriarchy works as I have ever encountered. The stories we tell each other and the messages they convey, intentional or not, matter. And the story in her talk plainly illustrates how life works for those of us who attempt to function in the Church without access to its power structures. In other words, most members.
I’ll summarize the story here, but it really is worth reading the talk in its entirety.
Briefly, Sister Craig’s childhood family is having the house re-carpeted. Little Emily, seven years old, has fallen asleep, and the mother of the family asks Emily’s older brothers to clear the furniture, except the bed Emily’s sleeping in, out of her room and tear out the old carpet as she sleeps (she must have been a really sound sleeper!) so that the people installing the carpets will have an easier time the following morning. The boys follow their mother’s instructions but decide to play a prank on Emily. They write Emily a note explaining the family has moved and will write and let her know where they are in a few days. Then they leave the note and shut the door. Morning comes, and the brothers notice Emily’s not at breakfast. They find her shut up in her room, “sad and alone.” [1] She’s been crying in her closet, convinced the family she loved has abandoned her (and taken nearly all her worldly possessions with them, I might add). In Sister Craig’s telling, little distraught Emily then realizes if she had just opened the door that had been shut on her, ignoring the bewildering and painful evidence all around her, including the note signed from the family she loved and trusted, she would have known, among other things, heartbreakingly, “I really was loved.” If only she’d been just a little savvier. See, Emily? All on you, hon.
Notice the conclusion Emily draws from what happened: this whole thing is, if not her fault exactly, at least her responsibility. And that is precisely how the whole thing goes. The Parable of the Little Girl in the Closet illustrates at least five things I’ve found to be true of the way patriarchy works in the Church:
- However justly aggrieved you may be, however miserable you may feel, however poorly you have been treated, you ultimately must understand that in this system, you bear entire responsibility for resolving the misery inflicted on you with whatever limited and probably insufficient resources you have.
Let’s be clear about some things: Emily is a child, a young child with limited experience and understanding. She is entirely innocent. Her trust was abused, and her older brothers were the ones to blame. But in the logic of the parable, it’s on her to fix the situation. If you want to operate within the Church’s patriarchy, whatever discomfort you feel, whatever pain you endure, even and especially when the source of the injury is the system itself, your discomfort and pain are on you. You’d better find another gear, a different perspective, etc.—never mind that you’re innocent and unable to imagine a paradigm in which you can make your situation within the system tenable. Again, that’s on you.
- Individual actors in the patriarchy may or may not feel bad for their individual poor behavior, but there will be no systemic accountability.
In this story, the brothers, at least some of whom I assume were Aaronic Priesthood-age, appear to have been worried enough about Emily or guilty enough about what they had done that they went to up to check on her, but the story tellingly does not address any consequences for the brothers’ behavior. Was it laughed off? Ignored? Were the boys privately reprimanded? We aren’t told, and that, reader, is the point.
3. Many of the most damaging behaviors of the patriarchy do not come from a place of malice or intention to cause hurt. They are still hurtful and often even more pernicious as a result.
Emily’s brothers were having a laugh. In the back of their minds, had they really stopped to think about it, they might have realized that this wouldn’t have been funny to Emily, but they weren’t thinking. They were just doing “like older brothers sometimes do,” to borrow Sister Craig’s phrase. Boys will be boys, after all, and they really didn’t mean to hurt Emily. I mean, sure it happened, but like Emily herself said, she should’ve realized it was a joke. After all, they weren’t trying to be bad or mean.
That’s vintage power-privilege stuff, and definitely the way Church patriarchy operates.
I have seen so much harm done in my decades of Church participation without the slightest intention to cause hurt or offense. You don’t need to be privy to the workings of your ward council to see this; it’s a feature of the Church writ large. And then because no hurt or offense was meant, the possibility that hurt still might have been caused isn’t even entertained. In fact, I have seen men angry at the very people they’ve unintentionally hurt for suggesting that their offensive words or behavior, were, in fact, offensive and hurtful, and so the damage is compounded. Nobody feels better; everyone feels worse. In lots of cases, victims may blame themselves or question the validity of their own experiences (see Emily). Nobody improves, and the damage goes on unchecked. The collateral damage can grow if somebody else speaks up and takes the side of the aggrieved; leadership then targets them too. (Been there, seen that.)
4. Patriarchy’s purported systems of checks and balances will fail.
Patriarchy is supposed to work because it’s premised on the idea of leadership by a series of wise, loving fathers. But we acknowledge, at least theoretically, in our particular patriarchy that people are imperfect and make mistakes. But never fear!: If our bishop’s loving wisdom fails us, there is our stake president, if he fails, area authorities and all the way up to the Quorum of the Twelve, and the First Presidency, and then, since we—again, theoretically—acknowledge that they too can make mistakes, our elder brother and Savior, Jesus, and an all-knowing, all-loving Father in Heaven are at the helm. In both the story and in practice, this isn’t actually how the system works. The wise, loving father in this story is entirely absent except for a cursory acknowledgment, in the very beginning, of his existence: Emily’s “parents” were having the house re-carpeted. And that is as much as we ever see or hear of the loving, wise father whose purported role is to preside (whatever that means) over his family, which leads us to the mother in this story and the final truth the story teaches that I’d like to discuss:
- Do not expect to lead effectively as a woman in the patriarchy.
The mom in this story, the co-presider if we’re to take Elder Soares at his word (and I believe him to be sincere), gave her sons simple instructions. According to the current Church teachings, including the words of President Oaks, this is perhaps the one and only instance in which a woman really and truly presides over priesthood-holders: when they are her young sons, living in her home. And even still, things didn’t work out so well for Mom. Oh sure, the sons did what she told them to do, but honestly, it would probably have been easier for her in the end if they hadn’t done it at all, considering their little flourish at the end. I imagine she was helping little Emily process the trauma of this whole thing for years. The fact that it made a sister’s General Conference address is telling. And, as I said, this story showcases the one instance in which, perhaps, the patriarchy recognizes the authority of a woman over priesthood-holders, and it all still went south.
It is so much worse, so very much harder to try to “lead” in the Church’s systems as a woman. I have watched as a Relief Society President told a younger, far less experienced priesthood-holder point blank, that if he did X with regard to one of the sisters in the ward, the consequences would be dire and under no circumstances should he consider it. (She wasn’t asking him to do anything that violated the Handbook, if that sort of thing matters to you.) He did it anyway. The woman nearly died by suicide. We all have stories, and it’s been pointed out many times that women’s experience at Church is increasingly and jarringly at odds with their experience in “the world.” To be sure, patriarchy is everywhere, but navigating it is uniquely difficult at Church.
Given all of this, one might justly ask why a capable woman with plenty of options would choose to stay, especially when staying arguably props up a system that causes so much hurt. There are many answers to that question, including to conclude as plenty of us are doing, that there is no ethical way. Sister Craig’s story was a moment of reckoning for me because it forced me to examine just what it is that I am participating in, whose pain I’m colluding in.
And here is where I am now, and what I’ve decided: I stay because I don’t want Emily to be alone in her empty room, stripped bare by the people she had been taught to trust. I don’t want her to sit by herself in her bewildered pain and budding sense of betrayal mixed liberally with self-doubt. So I stay in the empty room too. I sit with her in the closet. I could go other places, but this is my house too and the house of my mothers before me. Emily is my people.
Sometimes, as Sister Craig reminds us in the opening words of her talk, it helps to know what to expect. But even still. It infuriates me that my only recourse is to sit and point toward the exit. I don’t want the little girl in the closet to have to go.
But I am a woman, and this is how patriarchy works, and Emily may well be safer and happier if she opens that door and walks out.
What do you think?
Can Sister Craig’s story be read as a parable of patriarchy and the modern Church?
Does the list included in the post resonate with your experience of how patriarchy in the Church has worked for you?
Are there other observations of how patriarchy works you can draw from her story?
Discuss.
[1] found “sad and alone”, unlike the girl in the illustration for this post. AI will not let one depict a sad girl in a closet, with all sinister meaning that might have.
Oh wow. This is heartbreakingly spot on. Especially this:
“However justly aggrieved you may be, however miserable you may feel, however poorly you have been treated, you ultimately must understand that in this system, you bear entire responsibility for resolving the misery inflicted on you with whatever limited and probably insufficient resources you have. ”
You are right. There is never any responsibility on the offender in the church, only blame for the victim, who is referred to as the offended. Even to be offended is understood as a defect.
‘And here is where I am now, and what I’ve decided: I stay because I don’t want Emily to be alone in her empty room, stripped bare by the people she had been taught to trust. I don’t want her to sit by herself in her bewildered pain and budding sense of betrayal mixed liberally with self-doubt. So I stay in the empty room too. I sit with her in the closet.’
I too, stay so that I can be the one with her in the closet, and I am finding that very quickly it gets to the point of ‘there she goes again’ when I speak up for Emily. Since, of course, I will never have an opportunity to teach a class, my only options are to speak up in class (and now with short classes, that will will harder) and testimony meeting. I wonder how long it will be before they stop me even from doing that.
First of all, your foot note shows how appalling AI is. It lets people show little girls naked and being sexually abused, but refuses a sad child hiding in the closet. Boy, that is patriarchy and my experience perfectly where it is more OK to abuse a child than for the child to be sad about it. (Because, yes, scared and abused children do hide in the closet and cry.)
Your first conclusion is spot on. In the church, it is always our responsibility to fix whatever is “wrong” with us even if what is “wrong” with us is perfectly normal and out of our control.
Look at LGBT. No, the church has no responsibility to look at its own doctrine and see that how you are born is not your fault. Or how LGBT people might fit into God’s plan, or *why* they were born that way because they just cannot think past their own life experience. Science established that being same sex attracted was inborn before I was in high school because I was TAUGHT in high school back before the flood (1969) that being homosexual was from birth and the person could not be “cured” and to try to “fix” that attraction only caused horrible emotional damage. But the church was still preaching that they were supposed to fix themselves and that it was their *choice* into the 2000s. When I was in high school BYU was using electric shock torture to “fix” the unfixable. That was still going on when Oaks ran BYU even though he lies and claims not. And still, LGBT people are entirely responsible to live their life just like a straight person who just never finds someone to love. Even when they DO love someone. And the self righteous, know it all, jerks at the top of the church are too self centered and heterocentric to even imagine what they would feel like if the church had forbidden them from sharing their life with the person they love. Nom they see in only about sex and not about love because they are not quite capable of love, only transactional relationships. (Don’t even start to tell me that Oaks or Nelson loved their wives or children because I don’t consider conditional “love” as worth much.)
That’s enough anger for a beautiful Sunday morning. I am going to go overdose on coffee.
If anyone has seen the incredible movie, “Talking Women” based on a true story of what happened to a church of Mennonites, this is basically the same dilemma the Mennonite women had: do we stay and fight for our rights in our community, or do we stay and forgive and move on, or do we leave. For me, to save my mind and self worth, to give my daughters a more hopeful view of God, I left and have never looked back. I realize and never presume to know what’s best for all women, but my daughters have never stopped thanking me, and the one who has stayed? She thanks me for letting her know that it’s her choice and her choice alone, nobody, no male leadership, just her and what’s in her heart.
In all fairness, I haven’t read her talk, but if I’m understanding it right, the prank was brutally unkind, thoughtless, and trauma inducing to that poor little girl, and should have been handled letting the boys know their behavior was totally unacceptable! It kind of brought to mind, Jesus overturning the tables at the temple. The vendors basically supporting the Jewish leadership that the custom of what kind of sacrifice you were able to afford was securing your approval of God, again letting the poor know that God cared about the type of sacrifice you offered, so they would never be worthy of Gods acceptance, angered Jesus to the point of whipping them and turning their tables over! So letting the girl in the closet know that God does care if she is hurt, undervalued, and scared, is letting her know how God feels about her.
Hi Everyone, and thank you for the thoughtful comments. E, yes. And it’s exhausting. It also makes a person question, “Wait. -Am- I the problem?” Even if metaphorically I’m seven years old, it’s on me. And I think that’s a message that a lot of us have internalized, and it’s a damaging one. I have seen women (and men) twist themselves into knots to try to explain to themselves why -they- are the reason the Church hurt them. No. The Church’s policy was objectively harmful. We should be able to say that, fix it, and move on. But that’s not how patriarchy works, in church or anyplace else.
lpf43, I feel you. People half roll their eyes in church whenever I open my mouth because everybody knows I’m just Liberal Margie. When I was in RS a couple years ago we had a lesson on this very talk and I said, “Emily was hurt. We should do better than to place the entire responsibility of moving on from the episode on Emily.” And the sister who was giving the lesson (and whom I really, really like) said, “Maybe. But isn’t that kind of the way the world works, and isn’t better to know that up front?” I have sat with that question for a while, because I am a pragmatist to my bones, and my friend giving the lesson wasn’t wrong. But that wasn’t at all the point in the talk, even if it’s a valid point overall. We do live in a patriarchal world (and a VERY patriarchal church), and it blows, but what are you gonna do? The answer is why we’re both still sitting in the closet together. I’m glad I have good company. 🙂
Anna, I hope the coffee was yummy and did just what it needed to do. I have mentored so many queer youth over the last twenty years. What the church says and does about queer people is enough to drive one to drink stronger stuff than coffee. And you are so right, so much of it, it seems to me too is a lack of curiosity–of imagination. I was lucky that despite a very orthodox upbringing, I had the right mentors at BYU (of all places) who led me to ask the questions and see things from my queer siblings’ perspective. But even entertaining a more nuanced policy toward our queer siblings has become a third rail in the upper quorums of the Church, I’ve been told, and likely will be for some time.
sasclas, that one looked really interesting to me when it came out, and I caught part of it on a plane, I think. I’ll try to seek it out. And brava for the way you raised your girls. I hope I can do as well by mine. Yes, I couldn’t quite get over the way Sister Craig leveraged the story rhetorically, until I realized that this is what we’ve been taught to do. “If you have a problem with the way things are, you are the problem,” could be the Church’s unofficial motto. And plenty of people would celebrate it as a good thing.
Sitting with your comments and getting word today that Nevada congregations (in addition to ones in Idaho) were given explicit instructions on how to vote for the abortion measure there, made me realize there is a sixth point that I would add. “Moral imagination is incidental to the work of the system and often absent from it.” Emily’s brothers may or may not have been able to imagine how painful this was going to be to Emily and/or all the potential consequences of their choice. But who cares? -They- thought it was brilliant. It feels to me that this is what’s going on with these area presidencies issuing these letters. Nobody loves abortion as an inherent good. I am not about to charter a bus and load a bunch of pregnant people in it to go get abortions just because we can. But wow, can I come up with hundreds of reasons why I, as a woman of childbearing age (barely, still) need abortion to be completely legal with as few unnecessary restrictions as possible. This is my life on the line. But were I to die because I couldn’t get a D&C in time, say, my guess is these same Brethren would say, indignantly, “Well THAT isn’t what we wanted!” Except, yep, it literally was. And I’ve known dozens of young women who’ve had “elective” abortions. If we really were opposed to abortion, we wouldn’t be cutting the social support programs that would have made motherhood a viable option for those women. They would have chosen the eventual baby, if there were any possible way to make it work. There isn’t. And that’s on all of us. Especially the men with power.
Sorry for the tangent, everyone. Sometimes it’s very upsetting to be a person with a uterus surrounded by people who haven’t had to think things through–or who have and have decided they don’t care.
I haven’t watched or listened to a conference talk in years, but that horrified me! And resonated with me so much. Even my own mother lectures me when I express frustration as a single woman in the church and the patriarchy. I definitely relate to poor Emily.
Thankyou so much, Marge, for bringing up the recent Prop 1 in Idaho that LDS Corp has weighed in on by telling members how to vote! (I didn’t know about Nevada as well lol)! I am livid that this is what “the brethren” have finally chosen to weigh in on!! Your analysis is right on, similar to the points Jim Bennett made very recently!
Why does the church only choose to weigh in AGAINST WOMEN, LGBTQ+, and BLACK people, both historically and recently? Am I wrong?
I find it traumatizing!!
I also thought Sister Craig’s story of the women who had to pull handcarts is a story of abuse. They suffered because of the men who created crappy un-seasoned wood carts, and leaders who didn’t allow sufficient supplies, and told everyone the lord would protect them even though they left too late!
Hi again and apologies for leaving the i out of my name in the last comment, all.
Stacey W, I find I have to be careful with Conference talks. Most of them just–aren’t very good. And some of them, to this day, surprise me in the degree to which they push my buttons. Occasionally, there will be a good one. I don’t listen live anymore, though. I have to read them once the transcripts are available. I am looking forward to Conference weekend, though. It’ll be nice not to go to church.
Loudly, you are not wrong. Culture war issues are so much sexier than, say, the poor. What I find kind of remarkable is how the institution always manages to be on the opposite side to the Jesus I learned to follow. And oomph, I hate the pioneer stories where we lionize poor judgment and the people who followed it–not that the people themselves had many good options at the time.
I am male and I left because I couldn’t handle how women and LGBTQ are treated. It’s easy for me to say, but I don’t think the church will change until women as a group say enough is enough and leave en masse.
In his “Generous Orthodoxy” podcast episode about the 2015 Princeton University protests, Malcolm Gladwell critiqued student activist tactics concerning the legacy of Woodrow Wilson. He argued that institutional change requires individuals to leave rather than merely protesting internally.
Another interesting anecdote- I know a female BYU alum of the year who’s spent significant time overseas doing charity work. She says women are often the most ardent supporters of patriarchy, especially those who get crumbs of power. As her bishop at the time I had to approve her receiving the award. The irony. I recommended to the stake president that we have a fireside with her as the keynote speaker. He decline because she’s too liberal.
Nice post and comments. It sure seems like every Conference there is a story or two told by a speaker that tells an entirely different story than the speaker thought it tells, even an ugly story like this one. You would think Correlation (or whoever reviews Conference talks before they are delivered) would catch this sort of thing. How on earth can a reviewer read a story about a terrorized little girl and say, “Yes, that’s the kind of thing we want the membership to hear and endorse.” Maybe they need a more diverse collection of reviewers to catch this sort of thing. Absolutely have some women pre-review these talks!
As for patriarchy — the problem is that it works for some people, some couples, and a lot of Mormons and Mormon couples. So we can’t just say “patriarch is evil.” What we need is for senior LDS leadership and “Mormon culture” to be more accepting of alternative family and social arrangements that work for other people, other couples, other institutions. And to give women a more equal role in LDS leadership. If they would just call a couple of women as apostles it would solve a lot of institutional problems (and women in the New Testament were the first witnesses of the resurrected Christ, so don’t tell me “we can’t do that, Priesthood, blah blah blah”).
Thanks, Margie. Well spoken.
Well, for anyone who hoped the letter from the Area Presidency regarding Prop 1 in Idaho was just a rumor, it officially is not. I attended my brother’s ward in Burley, Idaho, yesterday and listened to the first counselor stumble through the letter urging members to stand in opposition to Prop 1. He emphasized that the Church remains neutral when it comes to political parties, but chooses to speak out on issues it considers “morally significant.”
As Sam Brunson wrote about on BYC, it sure seems that what the Church considers morally significant is awfully narrow.
Western Christianity has had a centuries-spanning obsession with human sexuality. Rainn Wilson, in his interview with David Archuleta, called it “crotch Christianity.” Sometimes it really does seem that the things deemed important enough for the Church to take a stand on are almost always matters of the crotch.
“It was just a joke.”
“We were just kidding.”
Every time I see a variant of these phrases I think of a moment from a comedian’s routine (now I can’t remember which comedian – it’s been a while). The idea is as follows: Person pokes fun at someone else. The target feels hurt. The “kidder” gets offended and says, “I was just kidding (joking).” The comedian then said a phrase I have tried to use as a guideline ever since: “Then you don’t know how to kid (joke) properly, because we should both be laughing.”
I think the girl in the closet absolutely shows how the patriarchy works. It’s always the woman’s fault. If she is sexually assaulted it’s because she was wearing the wrong clothes, walking in the wrong part of town or at the wrong time of night, drinking, maybe even flirting (read-being polite). Want to be made angry by a textbook case of the patriarchy protecting men? Brock Turner. Caught in the act of sexual assault. Received a slap on the wrist punishment that was later reduced. Because the judge said that he didn’t want to jeopardize the guy’s bright future.
Thank you Margie for your analysis. i really enjoyed the way you broke it down.
Some great comments here. Trevor H, yes. Like the Aunts of Gillead, some of patriarchy’s most effective enforcers are women. I learned the rules not from men, but from other women, usually well-meaning women, women like Sister Craig. We tell ourselves that it’s okay because we have “influence” instead of power. And let me tell you, “influence” as wielded by some women is–really something. As to your other point, yes. As the years go by the decision to stay becomes more fraught. I do think there a real merits to the “there is no ethical way” argument. Jacinda Ardern made that argument pretty eloquently (and she was speaking only for herself) in the news recently. And yet there I was yesterday, playing the organ (badly), rehearsing the Primary Program. It’s what I do.
Dave B. many years ago I was tangentially involved in the under-the-hood process of General Conference. I’d see the talk transcripts early, and every so often there would be a significant change. The most significant one I ever saw was a sister whose talk contained a tirade against cosmetic surgery, and then we got an urgent updated transcript with that portion excised. But mostly? At least by the time we saw the talks, often a month or so out, very little changed. I am sure there was some real scrutiny before we saw them, but the big cosmetic surgery excision that came three-ish weeks before makes me wonder how much. And this was twenty plus years ago, and the process may be very different now. As for patriarchy being or not being evil–any system we use to organize ourselves is going to have its problems because humans have problems. Pretending otherwise is the real evil, maybe.
Todd S, first, I am a great admirer of your writing in this space. Second, “crotch Christianity” is fantastic and I hadn’t heard it before. Thank you! Sex sells, I guess. And we are going to talk, at length, about all the dirty, dirty, evil, evil ways other people do it–because… we are so righteous?
AdamL, thank you so much for your kind words. And the “Can’t you take a joke?” defense really does come apart in the face of “We should both be laughing. That’s, you know, how a joke works.” That’s wise. On the prevalence of patriarchy: Sometimes something I had long taken for granted will remind me how totally enmeshed I am in the wider patriarchal system and it will startle me like, “Wow. This is just the water I swim in, I guess.” Sometimes the hardest part is knowing, to paraphrase David Foster Wallace, this is water.
Thank you for writing this post. Your post helped connect the jumbled thoughts and feelings I have had recently (especially after this weekend). I have hit number 1 frequently, spending time and energy wondering if I have missed something or if I am the problem. Your addition of “moral imagination” in the comments is also spot on.
I know the focus is on the youth leaving, but as a middle aged adult it also rough.
Conference is right around the corner again? Ugh. I’ll probably end up doing what I’ve done during recent conferences. Only watch two of the four sessions (or did they flip-flop back to five again?) and only retain focus 40% of the time because conference dulls the senses beyond their breaking point.
Point is, I missed the talk you highlighted. Thank you for drawing attention to it. What a horrible story.
I sincerely wish we could have a conversation like the one we’re having here during priesthood lessons were we’re spoon fed conference talks to give everyone in the group an opportunity to gush over them.
One thing missing from the analogy that is a problem that’s present in the church is the brothers in the story holding the doorknob to prevent the door from opening and doing their best to muffle their laughter as their little sister desperately tries to open the door from the inside until the sister believes her parents also locked her in the room and eventually she gives up.
That’s the church I’ve experienced. We’re not even allowed to have the conversation to address the abusive things that occur. If this talk came up in rotation in Elders Quorum, the expectation would be to only make comments that highlighted how great the talk was. To make even light criticism of any of the utterances made in a general conference talk is to take a torch to any social capital you might have. We don’t have real discussions in church, it’s just a place to go to put your loyalties to the church on full display for your peers.
I just re-read Sister Craig’s talk. The OP is a creative extrapolation from that talk and is counter to much of what Sister Craig was expressing.
Also, I suppose some of what is described in the OP may ring true in this particular case or that particular case. But it is a terribly disingenuous to argue that the “church” is by definition this way. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it.
Maybe we need to turn to Christ for our world view and not the philosophies of men. I know I am being harsh, but this is a terrible way to live your life.
Hi again, all.
AO, thank you for that generous comment. I’m glad the post and comment resonated. It’s part of the reason I’ve enjoyed Wheat & Tares over the years, so many of the posts and commenters have given voice to exactly the thing I’ve felt that I could not quite pin down. Also, middle-aged adult solidarity.
Fred VII the way you expanded the parable–yes. That felt very real. I am so sorry that was your experience. And you are right: too often lessons become an exercise in class members displaying the extent of their church-brokeness. Pass.
I don’t think so…, welcome! Always good to hear a dissenting view. If I read Sister Craig’s talk at face-value, I think the message she wanted us to take away was “Focus on the things that -actually- matter. Emily always had a family who loved her. That should be what matters. She could have, in her pain, taken a very simple step and known that for herself. A brass serpent. She just had to look.” And I do think that is the message we get from the Church. It works for a lot of people. But I have known too many Emilys. When you’re alone in the room stripped bare, “Don’t worry, this doesn’t matter; if only you could do the right thing you’d see that” isn’t enough. Emily deserves better. And there are many Emilys.
Someone should bring this dumpster fire of a church talk to the attention of the author Freida McFadden.
I’m guessing that Emily is a grown woman now but I still want to make signs and protest at Conference – look for me wearing crocs and holding a sign that says “FREE EMILY.”
It feels like Emily has been maligned just like Lucy Harris, Symonds Rider, or any of our modern-day truth tellers i.e. Sam Young.
Hi Chet,
What a Wheat-&-Tares-appropriate image! Thank you for that. It made me smile. Yes, since Emily is Sister Craig’s sister, I imagine she is (at least) a middle-aged woman by now. And my best guess is that having the story included in a Conference address probably imbued it with some redemptive meaning for her. I hope so.
It was a helpful story for me too, but not in the ways I think that Sister Craig probably intended. But it helped me wrap my head around so much of what bothers me with (what is often) the state of things at church.
Cheers!
Margie: Fantastic post! Yes, I think you’ve hit on something very important. This is exactly how patriarchy works in the church (and everywhere). I was reminded of a situation that happened when I was in the MTC. One of the elders had a real temper, and when I made a comment he didn’t like, he towered over me (I was sitting at my desk) and yelled in my face, spittle flying, in a very menacing way while the rest of our district sat watching in stunned silence. He stormed out, and his companion apologized on his behalf for his behavior and followed him out. The next day, there was a visiting “leader” in our group, and he lectured about not being so easily offended and looking for problems where they didn’t exist, and minding your own business. Turns out this guy was a friend of the angry elder’s from his home stake, and he came in to defend him. After he addressed the group, the two of them were laughing in the hallway about these silly sisters who take offense at every little thing, and why were we even here, etc. etc. I hadn’t even made a complaint. He just knew he went too far, and his companion knew it, too. Cue the gaslighting!
And this story further reminded me of something that happened when we were moving and our second child was around that same age. When they walked home from school, they saw the moving truck in the driveway and assumed we all left without them. We were still there, in the house–I was on a work call at the time–and as soon as I realized they hadn’t come home yet, I found them crying on the porch and made sure they knew we would never leave without them. That’s our queer child, so when your story said Emily in the closet, and then the story itself, I couldn’t help but think that the more you feel marginalized, the more vulnerable you are to evidence that those fears are true.
Not to be that guy (who posts a comment twice in a row), but here goes. Jana Reiss just did an excellent article on how Mormons are changing over time, including a bit about former Mormons, and she ended with this: “Leaders want young women to get back with the church’s program for their lives (a program young women themselves never had a say in creating). Such predictable responses fully exculpate the institution of the church from sharing any fault. That’s not going to help. Although young women leaving religion is not unique to Mormonism, the problem is serious and complex. The church could begin with talking to women themselves about why they are leaving rather than assuming male leaders already know. ”
It’s so common in patriarchal institutions to refuse to admit wrong-doing, even if it’s accidental, and it just exacerbates the male fragility problem. If you can’t admit when you are wrong, you will never get better. It’s a system designed to keep men from admitting the consequences of their actions and from seeing the blind spots they have. That’s not how you create organizational strength. That’s how you lose the best people among you who are tired of this nonsense.
Hawkgrrrl, post three times! Ten! Your story brought to mind a story of my own. A long, long time ago, at least twenty-five years ago now, I was an undergraduate sitting in a BYU religion class. The BYU of the early aughts was not, I gather, like the BYU of today. I went to a comparative hippie commune, apparently. My professors were delighted to find students willing to get into it (“Does it matter if the Book of Mormon is an ancient text or a 19th century one?” “Were women called to Priesthood offices in the early Church?” “Let’s talk about the genetic factors that influence sexuality.” And my personal favorite, “You Mormons may never produce a truly canon-calibre artist, but it’s not because you don’t have art in you. Here’s what would need to happen” from a non-Mormon faculty member.) Anyway, this was a class about Section 132. While the professor of the class was far, far more conservative than I was (even then), he was delighted to play ball. I, with help from fellow female classmates, went through, in some depth, what we found objectionable and illogical. For the most part, the professor nodded along, “Those are excellent points, all of them.” I could tell a good 2/3rds of the class was into it. People in the back rows started waking up. Anyway, at the end of class, some dude who’d stayed quiet through most of class but whose face turned redder and redder as the discussion wore on stayed back. I am a slow packer, and as soon as the professor left the the room he cornered me and started…mmm… aggressively bearing testimony. “Sister, Brigham Young was a -prophet-! I want you to know that I -know- Joseph Smith restored the gospel.” It was a little scary. I smiled in that way that you do when you know you’re in trouble but are trying to pretend you aren’t so that he lets you go, and I said, “I believe those things too,” and slipped away. I didn’t tell the professor, but I also packed my things in the last five minutes of class from then on.
Also, this stopped me in my tracks: “I couldn’t help but think that the more you feel marginalized, the more vulnerable you are to evidence that those fears are true.” You’ve just done the thing! The thing where you’ve put into words something I’ve been circling in my own head for a very long time. Thank you!
And a million yeses. The system hurts everybody, including the people leading it. Hard to feel as sorry for them, but it’s true all the same.
(in response to Hawkgrrrl and Margie) I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed by the mental picture of a scared little girl literally in a closet. It hit a little close to home.
Former Nonbinary Sunbeam, yeah. The fact that the girl in this story was literally in the closet… it’s almost too tidy. And, I can imagine, definitely overwhelming if you’ve lived that reality inside our faith community.
I pray that if you go all day being brave
That you can go home, go to bed
Feeling safe
– Spencer LaJoye
Connections:
Michelle Daines Craig was released from her position in the YW General Presidency on 8/1/2023. Her just younger brother, Robert Merrill Daines, was made a GA Seventy on 4/1/2023.