By: Joanna Brooks

Two years ago, I dreamed of taking a giant Mormon feminist roadtrip: connecting with Mormon women readers and writers throughout the great Book of Mormon Belt. I dreamed of meeting and hanging out with women just like you, dear FMHer, to explore what it will mean to be a Mormon woman in the 21st century. (more…)

This time of year is always difficult for me. Award season. And it culminated Sunday night with the Oscars.

A lifetime ago I was a secret dreamer and theater geek. I loved the performance, the creativity, the catharsis of portraying emotions, the connection I felt to humanity by exploring another person’s experiences. I got the plum roles I auditioned for, drama teachers and community theater directors encouraged me, it looked like I may just have a future in the theater.

But my parents were pessimists and worked hard to make me be more realistic. By the time I got to BYU I was so terrified of debt and school loans and an uncertain future, that I thought the only option was to leave college with a job. The only way to guarantee that was to study something useful, and since I don’t have a natural inclination towards math or science, I went for teaching. By my senior year I started to feel a little more brave, or maybe just felt that longing I couldn’t ignore, and signed up for some drama classes. I auditioned for a big play with the hottest playwright on campus and got the part, even though I was up against tons of talented and experienced people.

Then I had to drop out because I needed emergency oral surgery and my entire jaw was infected by a bad wisdom tooth. And then my college time was over.

I got married and graduated, and with a little more of my path determined, things weren’t so terrifying. My husband grew up in Orange County and his family has a bunch of connections to the entertainment world, so we decided to follow that longing again and move to California so I could get my chance. I was sure that I was being led to opportunity.

Then Bear couldn’t find work, money was tight, I got sick with a chronic illness that still rules my life, and I had to give it up again to keep my family functioning. I started working full time while Bear finished school, and then we started a nearly decade long fertility battle. From the very beginning it was obvious. Pursue the dream of acting, or the dream of a family.  At the time I didn’t mind all that much. I asked myself what I wanted my life to look like when I was fifty, and I saw myself wearing a floppy hat and gardening clogs, picking tomatoes to serve with dinner. I knew that if I could only have one, I wanted a family.

I still know that’s true. I spent Monday morning watching the Oscars I missed the night before, getting occasionally teary eyed and hugging my baby extra close. My hard won miracle baby. The baby I worked for for eight years. They baby I nearly died for. If I could only have one role, I chose right. It was all worth it for my family.

I just still get sad that I could only have one.

and I call myself a feminist…

I had no idea this day existed and thanks to the BBC’s World Have Your Say, I do now. With all the discussion ’round here lately, I’d say it was very timely-doncha think?

Question: Do you think we need an International Women’s Day? Why or Why not?

[ edit: It appears my blog sisters are familiar with this day and I must have been sleeping through the many posts touching on the subject in the past. See our archives for posts from Quimby and The Faithful Dissident and Artemis]

So there’s this one debate, you may be familiar with it . . .

One side of this debate says stuff like:

Feminists hate men.

Feminists attack men.

Feminists want to weaken men.

And I hear many of these same people saying:

Men only think (or care) about one thing.

Men  don’t have a strong moral compass and need women to (gently) guide them to do the right thing.

A man’s pride controls him, so don’t bruise it by being bossy.  It’s okay to get your way, just so long as he thinks it’s his idea and feels strong and manly about it. (more…)

On Friday I took my 3 year old to Day Out with Thomas. He loves Thomas the Train, so the tickets were his birthday gift last month. Since he is the recently displaced baby in our family, I really wanted him to have a special day of his own. We have been talking it up all month.

The day started with getting his three older brothers ready for school. All three faked different maladies to try to stay home so I would take them with me. We had headaches, legaches, armaches, you name it. Didn’t work. I loaded them in the car for school. We were almost there when my 7 year old says, “Mom, my eye is red and hurts when I open it”. As he was getting out, I said, “Show me your eye”. It was red! (allergies) So, I told him to get out, and I would bring him a Benadryl on my way to see Thomas.

What I should have done next was jump in the shower to get ready. What I did instead was sit down to read my email and FMH while I ate Cheerios. 40 minutes later, it was scramble time.

I didn’t have time to look for 3yo’s Thomas sweatshirt, so the dinosaur one had to do. I ran out of time to comb his hair. But, I did remember to put a bag of fish crackers and a small candy (for bribery) in the diaper bag. Our train ride was right around lunch time, so I knew 3yo would be hungry while we were waiting. As I was putting the baby in her car seat, she pooped. Of course. (more…)

Today’s guest post comes from our long time lurker and newish commenter Zaissa.

By: Zaissa

I have noticed a lot of talk lately about how we as feminists are supposed to rationalize certain parts of LDS doctrine and culture that seem to contradict feminism. It’s a dilemma I am facing on a new level as a mother.

Since the birth of my daughter, I have tried to make the church part of her life. Sometimes I have done so because I simply feel family pressure to “do the right thing” for her, and sometimes I have done so because I believe it can really be a source of peace and joy in her life. But most often, and the core reason I is that I want her to have the understanding of the LDS church and its culture from within. If she should reject the church one day, I can live with that. I just don’t want her to do it out of ignorance or apathy. I want her to know the church the way I do. (more…)

Not long ago a dear friend of mine flew to my part of the country with her mother, a recovering alcoholic, to attend an AA/Alanon retreat. They were staying a few hours drive away, at a beautiful facility in the mountains not far from here. We made big plans, and spent the better part of two days together. The first seeing the touristy things, the second just hanging around enjoying the views and the small town not far away. She told me, we can do whatever you like, but I really have to be back for the talent show - my mom is in it and I want to be there.

The talent show was oddly familiar - like an LDS talent show, but with different jokes; jokes I didn’t get. But there were musicians and singers, skits and comedy. Some people oozed with talent, others struggled to participate; a familiar pattern, if not a familiar content.

I sat there for awhile, enjoying some skits more than others, trying to appreciating the more lame attempts, clapping and laughing (when I got it, which wasn’t often). I was a polite audience member and very much an outsider. But then, about 1/2 way through the show a woman got up and did something that touched even my outside heart - she sang Amazing Grace, acapello, in the most heartfelt, authentic, genuine and completely credible way I have ever heard. It totally blew me away. (more…)

I got a new calling. I am now the Webelos leader. This is not a huge change (I was the Bear leader before). It is only significant because I don’t actually have a Webelos. I have a Bear and an almost-Wolf. So why was I called to be the Webelos leader? I think it is because I care about these boys.

I may have shot myself in the foot on this one (most of you reading this know how I feel about cub scouts, although I admit that I don’t hate it quite as much as I used to). I was at our Cub Committee Meeting, and we were doing den reports. The Webelos leader was asked to report on how his den was doing. He said, “Well, I only have one boy now”.

I practically choked as I sputtered out, “What about [boy A], [boy B] and [boy C]?”

“Well, they don’t come.”

So? They just don’t count? If they don’t show up to your meeting, you don’t have to worry about them?

The next thing I know, I am called to be the new Webelos leader. (more…)

I just came across this excellent article in Newsweek Magazine by Raina Kelley. She’s responding to Glenn Beck’s comments at the recent CPAC meeting and she brings up the importance of terms like “progressive” and “feminist” and how critical it is that we continue defend them because it’s just too easy for their meanings to change over time (as if we haven’t seen that happen on this very site!).

Here’s my favorite quote:

The slow degradation of the word “feminist” continues to be one of the most powerful weapons in the backlash against the women’s rights movement. How better to diminish the cause than to create an atmosphere where young girls believe that to be a feminist is to be a loser, where women feared that speaking their minds made them a bitch? It opens the door to tainting and tarnishing any issue, like the rape shield laws or the Fair Pay Act, that promised to make the country a better, safer place for females.

Discuss.

I’m currently in the middle of reading the book “Too Big To Fail” by New York Times columnist, Andrew Ross Sorkin. Despite a slightly overweening tone in recounting the personal lives of Wall Street financial titans (i.e., a squabble over which movie to watch on a transatlantic flight from Korea and the attendant implications for the winner’s career trajectory, and that Jamie Dimon ate tacos for dinner), Sorkin’s account of the ‘08 financial crisis reads like a political thriller, and is absolutely captivating.  When I read books about a current event, I then go back and try to read everything else I can get my hands on about what happened, which is why this upcoming Vanity Fair article about Lehman Brothers caught my eye. (more…)

Last night I took my kids out to dinner. In an effort to reconnect to the soon-to-be-a-student-again side of myself, we went to a place where I went all the time in college, a place where I always looked forward to eating, even when the crowds spilled out onto the sidewalk. At the time, Mexican food was a novelty to me; I’d probably only eaten at Taco Bell a half dozen times before I started college, and the one trip I took to Chi-Chi’s with my mom when I was in high school felt like the ultimate in sophistication. But this restaurant, with its never-ending bowls of hot tortilla chips, its shredded (not ground) beef, cute waiters, and fancy frozen drinks seemed one giant leap closer to authenticity than anything I’d had growing up on the east coast.

Nothing’s changed in the 13 years since graduation (well, except the prices, my husband and I used to be able to get two small dinners and water for $10 back then): the menu, the cute waiters (a generation younger, I’m old but not blind), the room with the cash register plastered with currency from around the world. We sat at the table where we ate before Preference in 1993, and I think the same collection of pinatas still hung over our heads.  The food, too, was exactly the same: the red (think Lipton) Mexican Rice, the ketchup posing as salsa, the pools of shimmering orange fat collecting between the enchiladas and the rim of the plate. (more…)

Dear fMh:

I’m having a problem and have been looking for someone to ask or some kind of on-line support group.I am the secretary in our ward’s YW program. I have two daughters in YW, and my younger daughter who is 12 has a beehive class that is totally dysfunctional (the counselor over beehives has admitted that all they do is talk and she can’t have an activity where all the girls actively participate together. My daughter has friends at school, but NOT ONE FRIEND at church.

How do other Mom’s deal with/encourage their daughters to go to church when the leaders recognize those girls who are either inactive, or the popular ones who excel at everything. I don’t see the point in going to my local leaders, because the bishop’s daughter is one of the worst girls. I don’t anticipate anything being made better by talking to anyone within the ward, but was wondering if this happened in other wards and how mom’s help their daughters deal with it.Hope you can offer some advice.

D. Smith
Texas

Listen here: Mormon Stories Podcast

By:Joanna Brooks

ANNOUNCING “OUR VOICES, OUR VISIONS: A MORMON WOMEN’S LITERARY TOUR,” MARCH 22 - 27, 2010

What does it mean to be a Mormon woman in the 21st century? Award-winning Mormon poets, novelists, memoirists and non-fiction authors from California to Canada will explore this question in the historic Our Visions, Our Voices: The Mormon Women’s Literary Tour, coming to university campuses throughout the Southwest, March 22 - 27, 2010.

Project founders Dr. Joanna Brooks of San Diego State University and Dr. Holly Welker of Salt Lake City have tapped into a range of denominations that share historic roots with the greater Mormon and Latter Day Saint traditions.

“This is about creating common ground,” says Brooks, a professor of English. “We want to create a space for Mormon women of diverse experiences and backgrounds to articulate the richness of our shared tradition and its futures.”

Featured readers include prizewinning poet Danielle Dubrasky, memoirist Kathryn Lynard Soper, Lee Mortenson, and novelist Zoe Murdock as well as emerging LDS and RLDS women writers.

Readings will be held at Claremont College, San Diego, California, March 22; Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, March 23; Southern Utah University in Cedar City, March 25; Utah Valley University in Orem, March 26; and the University of Utah in Salt Lake, March 27.

The Utah Valley University Department of English is sponsoring the tour, with additional support from the Claremont University Mormon Studies program. Audio will be podcast at mormonmatters.org. Women writers who want to contribute to the tour’s archive at the University of Utah Marriot Special Collections Library can bring their own writings to the readings.

Seattle Snacker - Saturday, March 6th — It’s not too late to R.SV.P.

Come one, come all, in the Pacific Northwest!

When: Saturday, March 6th, 7-11pm
Where: ErinAnn’s condo in Bellevue - RSVP for address and directions
What: A fun night of conversation, get-to-know-you games, and eating food.
What to bring: Yummy snacks! We ask only that they be non-processed. We’d love any desserts, main dishes, or anything else you feel like bringing, home-made or otherwise.

We’d love to see men and women alike, and you should come even if you are not a regular commenter here on fMh! ErinAnn’s kids will be asleep, so please find a sitter for any non-nursing little ones.

RSVP to fmhseattle @ gmail . com. Get back to us as soon as you know if you can make it, so we can get a good head count.

I’ve never been so happy to read a talk by Elder Oaks before.   Elder Oaks addressed students at Harvard Law School last week about “Mormonism 101″.  The focus of the talk was not upon personal revelation, but Elder Oaks offered an insight into the importance of personal revelation that made me jump right out of my chair as I read his words.  First, let me explain.

I’ve always been baffled by how Mormons reconcile the foundational principle of personal revelation with the behest to follow prophetic counsel (i.e., “Follow the Prophet!”).   It seems to me that when it comes to following the prophet (or other priesthood authority), personal revelation merely confirms what the prophet tells us what to do.   But this can’t be right, can it?  Isn’t personal revelation “personal”?   After years of befuddlement, Elder Oaks offered an analogy in this talk that makes all of this clear to me. (more…)

Purim is a holiday I learned about only after I moved to the East Coast, and now it’s one of my favorites.  Purim commemorates and celebrates Queen Esther of the Old Testament, who risked her life to save her people from an extermination order decreed by the evil villain of Purim, Prime Minister Haman.    Purim is a religious holiday for feminists!

I’ve heard Jews poking fun at Jewish holidays by summing the holidays up as: “they tried to kill us, we survived.  Let’s eat!” And in this tradition, Purim’s culinary contribution to the holiday feast is the “hamantaschen”, which are little pastries filled with fruit or chocolate and which, in English, mean “Haman’s little triangle-shaped hat (or pockets or purses)”.   Likewise, the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, is celebrated with potato pancakes, or latkes.

Hence, the Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, which began in the 1946 and is held annually at the University of Chicago, where Jewish academics debate the merits of the latke over the hamentasch, and vice versa.   Over fifty years later, the debate rages on. (more…)

Okay, can our lawyer-type readers provide some perspective on this bill which seems to criminalize miscarriage? Is that what it does? Can that possibly be, you know, legal? How can it possibly be legal to get an abortion at Planned Parenthood, but illegal to induce an abortion on your own?

(more…)

I like to read the Ensign. I read it every month (well, at least the parts that look interesting to me). Over the past year, I’ve been noticing things that appear to be progressive - things that surprise me because they aren’t what I would expect coming from the church.

Lately we’ve been talking a lot on FMH about gender roles, femininity, egalitarianism, healthy marriages, etc. These things I have read in the Ensign cause me to wonder if 1. the church is progressing away from rigid gender roles or 2. the gender roles the church currently outlines (as in the Proclamation on the Family) are not as rigid as our culture would have us believe.

Here are 5 examples: (more…)

So it’s true that we Mormons tend to get married young and have babies right away.  Also true that we are very much encouraged to live traditional gender roles, the women nurturing and domesticating while the men provide and preside.

We Mormons view marriage and family among our most important of spiritual undertakings (off topic, but boy howdy how problematic for Mormons who never marry).  So I guess we want to get started on that undertaking as soon as possible, and see it as ideal to live marriage out as traditionally as possible.  With the idea, I suppose that these things will make our marriages strong.

But I was listening to a report  (I think it was NPR but I don’t have time to dig it up) about how the most stable marriages, the marriages in which partners express the most satisfaction and happiness? The same people who are most egalitarian in their attitudes toward gender roles. (more…)