My mother’s surgery going so well has been a great weight lifted from the family. About a decade ago my father had the same surgery and it just about killed him. If my mother is best-case scenario, my father was certainly the worst. Botched surgery, negligent nursing, three blood transfusions, infection, more surgery, slow recovery and severe depression. It changed him forever.
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This week’s on-line essay is “Border Crossings” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. It can be found in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 27, Number 2, Summer 1994, p. 1-7.

Ulrich begins by recounting:

“It happened again as I was walking through the New Hampshire woods with a woman I knew only slightly. We had been chatting amiably when the words “Mormon feminist” escaped my mouth. From the expression on her face, I knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Mormon feminist! That sounds like an oxymoron!”< (more…)

I’m up way too late blogging (who me) but here are a few fem-themed links I found on a quick tour:

Mother Myth

What I’d Rather Hear about Women

My take on MIH

Protecting Our Sisters

Hi ya’ll,
I’m back and all went well with my mother’s surgery. Best-case senario! Yippee! And I got four whole days kid-free, hanging out with my sister and doing my mom’s makeup and eating out and sleeping in. Joy!

I wrote a really long post (the most brilliant post I’ve ever written in my entire life, it would have changed your life forever!), and then when I hit ‘publish’ it disappeared.

And I think the comments were broken all day today. Don’t know what the problem was, I think blogger was having the hiccups.

I’ve got to go and make dinner now, but I’m going to read through all the comments since last week and try to catch up tomorrow!

Julie in Austin has posted an interesting review of the book, “Women in Eternity, Women of Zion” over at Times and Seasons. The first comment she received seemed to indicate that Mormon feminists are generally not sincere questioners and deliberately exclude other women. In the spirit of non-poaching, you may want to go over and read this well-intentioned review and contribute something helpful to the discussion. I, being the “traditional-Mormon-woman- hating-feminist” that I apparently am, must go and prepare dinner while I help children with homework and music practice.

One of the things that I did to celebrate Easter this year was to buy a CD recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Up until recently, I still listened to the cassette version that a friend copied for me in 1991. My knowledge of this inspirational piece of Christian music was pretty much limited to the fact that I knew I liked it. However, listening to it and reading the liner notes (actually a small book) that came with the CD has been particularly instructive.

The recording that I purchased is conducted by Paul McCreesh, a talented and well-known conductor in the field of early music. This particular version of St. Matthew Passion represents a radical change in that it is the first to put the theories of Joshua Rifkin and Andrew Parrott – that single voice performance was the norm for Bach – into practice. These musicologists have endured a fair amount of scorn from other more traditional Bach scholars.
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I read the news again today, and once again felt like swearing. The whole Terrie Schiavo thing makes me want to spit bullets. Media circus. Polititians using a poor woman’s tragedy and family disagreement for political grandstanding. A private family tragedy turned into something too public, and thus even more devastating. It just makes me mad and frankly scared that I too might someday end up as a political pawn.

Anyway, in the midst of it all, I found this very intellegent comment on Times and Seasons by someone called Diogenes. Unfortunately, everyone over there pretty much ignored his/her comments and went on with the same old argument. So I’m reposting it here [with apologies to the original author] in the hopes that some of you might address them and add a little real LDS perspective to the voices out there.
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My mom and dad have an apartment just half a block from Temple Square. It’s a peachy location. I love it in the spring with all the flowers! How do they pack them in so tight? Except it’s not as warm in SLC as Boise so they may not be blooming yet. Darnit.

I probably won’t check back in until Monday but the other fmh-ers will be babysitting. If you have a minute or two to spare, I’d appreciate prayers for my mom. It’s just a standard knee replacement, but it’s still make’n me nervous.

Much love and peace for the Easter season . . . .

In the last few years, for the first time in my life I have formed close friendships with a couple of non-Mormon women. I was thinking about this yesterday and it gave me flashbacks to my youthful idiocy. Back when being around non-members made me feel uncomfortable and slightly dirty.

Yikes, it makes me all hot and blush-y to even think back on that, let alone write it down for all of you to read.

It’s true though. I wasn’t a bad person, I don’t think, I just felt so uncomfortable in any situation in which my view of truth was not supported that I avoided anything, and anyone, who might challenge me. Non-members didn’t talk right, they didn’t have the right focus, nor value the right stuff. Uncomfortable.
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Mom always taught me to measure twice and cut once. In the blog world this must translate into making sure you check every one of your links! (Thanks to Steven M. for pointing out the problem with the link to Dialogue). So here, with the very kind permission of the author, is “Dear Brethren” - Claiming a Voice in the Church by Carol Lynn Pearson.

P.S. If you happen to have a few extra dollars lying around, you might want to order this issue of Dialogue. The whole issue is focused on gender issues, including an interesting discussion of women in the Community of Christ (RLDS) church, sister missionaries, the history of exponent II and an article called, “Babies, Bodies and Birth Control” by T&S contributor Melissa Proctor.

“Dear Brethren” - Claiming a Voice in the Church
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March 17th was the anniversary of the founding of the Relief Society. It seems there wasn’t much mention of it around the Bloggernacle, including here.

About a month ago, our Relief Society President announced to the RS board, the plans for our Relief Society Commemorative Dinner. Each member of the board was going to be assigned a General Relief Society President, read up on her (with materials provided) and come, in character, and give a 3 minute address about each woman after the meal. I sat nervously waiting to get my assignment. Would I be Sister Smoot? Sister Winder? Eliza R. Snow? As Sister C. read through the names, I thought to myself, “Please let me be Emmeline B. Wells. Please let it be Sister Wells.” Sure enough, when my name was called, I was given a package of articles on the very person I had hoped to be. (more on this later) As I looked over the articles, I couldn’t help but wonder if a train wreck was coming.
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Just recently, I noticed that Heather P. linked to a post I made looking for essays written on the subject of Mormon feminism, or as I am thinking is more appropriate now, Mormon feminisms. It didn’t really go anywhere, so in my continued quest to read and learn more about this nebulous topic, I thought I would join in the established Bloggernacle tradition of starting a regular feature, linking to an on-line essay . The first essay I’ve chosen is by Carol Lynn Pearson called, “Dear Brethren” - Claiming a Voice in the Church.” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 36, Number 3, Fall 2003, p.201-206)
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I just read the most facinating book review on feminism and Islam on Salon.com that should be of some interest to FMH readers. Here the link to the article. [Note: if you don’t have a subscription to Salon, you’ll have to watch an advertisment to get a day pass. Not too big a deal.]

I’ve pasted in a couple of the introductary paragraphs below. Happy reading.

NO

“In her new book “Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam,” Asra Nomani, formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and an international correspondent for Salon, embarks on a demanding spiritual and physical quest to make peace with her Islamic identity and her place as a woman within the faith. Joined by three generations of her family — including her newborn son, Shibli — she journeys to Mecca to complete the hajj, the great pilgrimage required of all Muslims once in their lives. “

“Though Saudi Arabia is controlled by strict, Wahhabist clerics, Nomani encounters unexpected liberties in Mecca. The sheer number of people who attempt the hajj — more than 2.5 million each year — makes it difficult to enforce many of the restrictions that normally impinge on Muslim women’s freedom. At the Masjid al Haram, the most sacred mosque in Islam, Nomani walks proudly through the main doors beside her father — an act she realizes would be forbidden in her hometown mosque, where segregation between men and women is strictly enforced. And though she fears for her safety as an unwed mother in a country where zina, or illegal sex, is punishable by death, she’s surprised to encounter a supportive and complex spiritual community of pilgrims.”

“Buoyed by the kindness of her companions and inspired by examples of strong and daring Muslim women from the history of Islam, Nomani returns to America determined to address the inequities and abuse many women suffer at the hands of repressive fundamentalist theologians. She even takes the battle to her own backyard, challenging the leaders of her local mosque by refusing to submit to segregated prayer services and bigoted sermons. What begins as a simple act of personal protest ignites firestorm of dissent and controversy, and earns her both ire and admiration from the global Muslim community.”

Steve Evans over at BCC, organized a round table discussion on Women in the Church. I really enjoyed the diversity of responses at the time, and the comments from other readers are contributing to a good dialogue on this issue.

That is the Question.

Here are the facts:

1. I’m going to SLC next week (23-27, anyone up for a bloggersnacker?) and leaving the kids with their daddy.

2. Baby Brick just turned One on Sunday. So he can start cow milk.

3. He doesn’t take a bottle, and the sippy cup is still very messy.

4. I could take baby Brick, but I really don’t want to take him. Mom is having surgery and I need to take care of her (the excuse). And I really want to be away from my kids, all by myself for four whole days (the truth).

5. I’m not really ready to wean him. This may be my last, and that just makes me sad.

6. I have a really really great breast pump. (If you need one, let me know, it could be yours soon.) I could pump and dump in SLC and start up again when I get home.

7. Except this really is a good opportunity to go cold turkey.

What would you do?

Tanya Introduces herself this way: I’m the so-called “liberal feminist Democrat” in my ward (and stake, for that matter) and it was such a pleasure to come across your blog (thanks to the NY Times). In fact, you inspired me to start my own blog, particularly since blogging seems to be the wave of the future in publishing and I am an aspiring writer. I’ve written one novel (yet to be published) and am twelve chapters into my second. I’m happily married with two children and frustrated to be living in one of the few “conservative” enclaves in California. (more…)

There are just so many good things going on in the nacle today, I want to do some links.

First of all, visit Heather, the rectum, and the vomit, both must reads!

Then visit Logan at BCC and discuss working mormon (future) moms. There’s about a million things I’d like to say on that thread if I get some time.

Visit J at Splendid Sun to answer the question What is Mormon Feminism?

In honor of this egregious (anonymous) drive-by attack on my parenting skills:

I don’t want to sound insensitive, but I think you overreacted a bit here. Come on, only her arm was broken — she was not in a life-threatening emergency! Calm down. Worse have happened to other people.

I just had to link to to this Drive-by Mommy thread at Chez Miscarriage. It’ll kill you, Yikes! The follow-up is also really great.

Also, I want to thank everyone else for your kind words and your prayers. I know broken arms are a fairly routine part of life (well not my life before now, but people’s lives . . . you know.)

But still it means a lot to me to know that people were praying for my sweet little Blossom to feel better. I know these prayers have a lot of power and I truly appreciate them.

The codine was bad. We’ve had much better luck with ibuprophen. She’s a hurler anyway, she ralfs if she coughs, she up-chucks if she cries too hard.

I can’t believe how fast these kids bounce back. Today has been, “no, you can’t swing, no don’t jump off the couch.”

It unfolded like this. I was telling my girlfriends at that park about my morbid fear of water ever since I had children, when some mother yelled, “Is this your daughter?” and I looked up and she was crying. For a spilt second I thought her feelings were hurt, but then the air shifted and went taut and my walk turned to a run. And I heard, “her arm is broken,” and indeed it was hanging at the most unnatural angle.

Very, very, very broken. My friend took the two babies (thank goodness for friends) and I took some deep breaths hoping to collect myself to drive my screaming-in-agony child to the doctor without running into a telephone pole or a busload full of kindergarteners. I took her to a doc-in-the-box first, because it was just across the street and the ER was much further. I parked illegally right in front of the entrance and ran inside and it looked abandoned. “hello,” I screamed, “is anyone here? Hello?” The guy in the waiting room looked at me like I was nuts on a stick. “hello? hello?” about ten hours after I walked in the door and made enough racket to wake a bear in January, a receptionist saunters out, gives me a look and said, “Yes?” like I had disturbed her coffee break.
“Do you do broken bones here?”
“yes.”
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We’ve had several people mention that they’d like to discuss a certain topic or have already written something they’d like to share and since I’d love to see this stuff too . . . we’re going to accept submissions for guest posts.

(Idea stolen from Ebenezer at M*)

Write us a blog post and email it to feministmormonhousewives at gmail dot com. Put the title in the subject line and the content in plain text. No attachments please. Also tell us a little bit about yourself so that we know a little bit about your perspective.

You don’t necessarily have to be a Feminist, a Mormon, or a Housewife, but topics should reflect something that FMH’s would find interesting. In general FMH reflects the ideas of believing members, but those who are willing to respect our beliefs are also welcome to submit. Same deal for Feminism, we are willing to consider thoughtful interesting posts that reflect differing views if done in the right spirit.

I have no idea how many emails this will generate, or how many will reflect something we’ll be able to post here. So if we can’t publish them all let me apoligize up front. I could never be an editor or a capitalist because I just hate saying no to people, but I may have to. Eeek!

My four-year-old Blossom broke her arm at the park today. “The worst open reduction I’ve ever performed.” the orthopedest (sp?) said.

She’s okay, but still in a lot of pain. Vomit and tears and codine.

I’ll probably be MIA for a few days.

************************************************
Updated*

International Women’s Day.

Here are some good bloggernacle posts. From Explorations and By Common Consent.

I had it on my calender, and had thought I’d figure out something to do . . . but I didn’t. Shame on me. But then, what do you do with a bunch of toddlers to celebrate International Women’s Day? I think lessons on FGM and the depressingly low female literacy rates in Nepal would probably be inappropriate.

Over at this new blog called the Mormon Shadow, there this little paragraph about FMH, of which I’m going to post this quote:

I suspect that if these particular women met up with real feminists, they’d cower in the corner with their Book of Mormon, because they seem like pretty mild-mannered mommies to me.

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I’ve had a couple of people point out this article to me. (Thanks!)

I don’t have any time left for blogging today, however, anyone have thoughts?
Discussion?

So my four-year-old daughter, who shall be known as Blossom, has a stubborn desire to be a princess and marry a prince. (My two-year-old wants to be a puppy)(woof).

Blossom spends most of her time dressed in her beautiful pink frou-frou dresses. She bats her eyelashes. She tiptoes around in impractical shoes with feathers attached. With lots and lots of accessories.

I totally sympathize, I myself deeply regret my lack of opportunities to wear a tiara. And I wouldn’t mind it one bit if the dear husband would take to galloping about on his white charger.

Except . . .

Already, at four-years-old she has managed to correlate glamorous accessorizing with weak uselessness. Where does this come from?
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I was off at family stuff all day yesterday.
I just read through all my comments(63) from yesterday (I should be getting ready for church, but I don’t really need to wash my hair, right?). I hope to have time to reply to comments tonight.

What fun. I sorta wish I had a copy of the article, but by the time I got around to looking every NYT (all six of them) in Boise was sold. Anyway . . .

On average I usually get between 150-300 unique visits a day. My highest before yesterday was 629 on this day. Oh Controversy, Controversy. Although I should be able to count all these too, don’t you think?

Last week I had 1,209 unique visitors.

Yesterday 1,672.

Hi.
(waving shyly)

But I do wonder if there will be any long term increase. Maybe a little.

Oh, and I just found this interesting conversation going on at M*.

by Sumer

A few weeks ago one of my technical staff came into my office and the conversation wound its way to religion. He was surprised to hear that I was Mormon, because he had heard that the church discriminated against women. He asked if I was happy with it, and how other women in the church felt about not being able to fully participate (i.e., hold the priesthood). I really didn’t have much of an answer, and felt rather embarrassed to be publicly faced with the very issue I struggle with. I told him that there were many women who had issue with how the leadership of the church was currently organized, but there was enough good in the religion to stay.
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Hi ya. Here’s the article for those of you who came from somewhere else.

Update: Try here for the full article

Anyway, if you like a good poop story, try this one.

Or for something more serious and relgious and stuff, maybe this.

Navel Gazing Moment:
I feel like I just got my 15 minutes of fame. How lame is that? The most famous I will ever be in my life (NYT!) just came and will go and I’ll barely even notice. You’ll notice even less. Har.

My thinking still isn’t really clear on this issue, but I’ve been mulling it around for a while, and after Kristy’s Comment, I’m going to explore it a little in this post. Maybe you all have some thoughts too, that might spur me toward a more comprehensive understanding.

Kristy mentions that for most practical purposes she and her husband have equal spheres of influence within a Ward. So functionally, their roles are quite equal. I have to say that this mirrors my experiences for the most part. For all practical purposes, most Mormon men hold no more power over how a ward functions than their wives do, sometimes they hold less. So in many ways we (Mormon types) are all equally subject to an authority beyond our control.

Right?

So why is it any different for men to submit themselves to the authority of other men, than it is for women to submit themselves to the authority of (only) men? All of us (Mormon types) submit to the proper authority, And as Kristy points out, on a local level, on an individual basis, spheres of influence are fairly similar, so ultimately why does the gender of the authority matter?

The reason I think I am uncomfortable with exclusively male authority, patriarchy, is because of the weaknesses of each and every one of us. So here is my list of our all too human weaknesses that patriarchy is likely to exacerbate.

1. We are natural status seekers. My four-year-old does it. “Mommy, my picture is better than hers.” The eight-year-olds in my CTR8 Class do it. I do it. Sure I can make an argument that my purchasing decisions are based on aesthetics, but just as often, they’re probably really based on status consciousness.

Patriarchy, weather you agree with it or not, sets up a system that will naturally give status to some and not to others based on their gender. Very few of us are so free of status consciousness as not to be deeply affected by this in our gender relationships and concepts of self. On a macro and micro level. And it becomes so natural we don’t even notice. It imbues everything in a haze of status consciousness that we don’t even see.

2. We all are self-focused. This isn’t necessarily always a weakness. Our brains are only so big, and much of our brain power, by necessity, must be focused on our own needs. And it is fairly easy for us to understand and sympathize with others whose needs are very similar to our own. And value their needs as well. *That person needs/wants/desires the same things I do, therefore her needs/wants/desires are as important as mine.*

However, (as gender essentialists most Mormons will agree with me on this at least) men and women, for the most part, with many exceptions, but often, value/need/want/desire different things. Men are naturally not as likely to focus on women-centric things, they are not as likely to find them important, they are not as likely to assign them the same value as women do.

Patriarchy, will by its own weakness, despite men’s best efforts, consistently under-value the things women find important. Some male leaders will actively seek to avoid this; most probably never even think about it. Their own (male centric) values are such a natural part of them that they don’t even notice. If you’re used to it, your own prejudice is subtle if it exists at all.

3. And worse, even if our practical spheres of influence on a micro level, are often functionally the same, women are still not necessarily leading as we might do in a more equal environment. Women often see our own needs/values as less important. If we are constantly reinforced with images of man stuff having status, and women stuff having no status, then we start to believe that the man stuff is actually more valuable. We are more likely to work toward male-centric goals. Most women, if asked, would agree that garbage collectors should make more money than day-care workers. Because we do not value our own labor/values, our own nurturing— as much as we value (traditionally) male labor/values. There are a billion subtle examples like this.

I think I had some more stuff in mind, but it has fled. I’d be really interested in other people’s thought on human weaknesses that are exacerbated by even the most well-meaning patriarchal systems.

I decided to start another blog. I think when I first created this site I thought I could do all my writing here, but this seems to have become more about all of us and less about Me. So I’m making a ME blog.

Three Stinky Punks.

So it’s still not really about me, per se, but isn’t that typically woman-esque of me?

We are so thrilled today at FMH to have a celebrity guest post. That’s right, it’s Jerilyn! Just like Madonna and Cher, the one-name monikier is all the introduction she needs. Now my only challenge is to get this post past all the screaming teenage girls throwing flowers, chocolate, and recipies for fettuccine alfredo.

A while ago, we had an issue at the Chubby Girl Brigade that was
actually a great deal more serious than finding the perfect recipe for
brownies or what online store sells the best knee-high boots for thick
calves; We had a comment that included the word “masturbation.”

In the end, one writer quit because I refused to delete the comment
based on the fact that I didn’t feel it was used in a vulgar way.
Another writer quit saying we were becoming “too Mormon” because we
tried to discuss implementing some kind of comment protocol so we
wouldn’t have this problem come up again.

In addition, the first writer also felt that we should be using the
blog as a missionary tool, especially since our readership is largely
nonMormon. I disagree, unless we’re trying to get some of you tiny
ladies to chunk up with our recipes for Caramel Cheesecake and
Smothered Cauliflower, then by all means, let me give you the first
discussion for the Chubby Girl Brigade: How to Identify Superior
Chocolate (Hint: It doesn’t come from Pennsylvania).

So here’s the question. As Mormon bloggers, what is our responsibility
as far as maintaining a standard of decency on our site? While the
Chubby Girl Brigade has never been a distinctly “Mormon” blog (we don’t
really consider ourselves part of the Bloggernacle), the writers are
LDS and at times, write articles that mention that fact. Also, we have
family or ward members that like to read what we write (poor souls),
and while what we write doesn’t generally cross the line into the
eyebrow-raising territory, many times, the comments do.

(For the record, fully 95% of the comments are just fine. We have just
a couple of people who tend to post the kinds of comments that make us
a little nervous for our mothers to read. I will also say that since
the other two writers left, this situation has mostly become largely a
non-issue, but it’s still something that I think about everytime we get
a comment from someone who, in the past, has posted something of
questionable taste.)

Is it our responsibility to say, “we don’t tolerate that kind of
language around here” and edit or delete the offending comment or is it
better for us to set a good example and hope that others will do the
same? In the past, I’ve tried to joke about it by saying things like
“be good, my mom is reading!” or “that kind of talk is going to get me
a stern interview with my bishop, so behave!” and for the most part,
that works, but I fear for the day that someone says something that
does need to be edited.

And then, once I think about that, I realize that all I’m worrying
about is the same thing I worried about in high school: popularity.
What will they think if I tell them they’re out of line? Will they go
and tell all their friends or post it in their blog that I was a
prudish meanypants? Am I copping out by saying that the comments are
only a reflection of the commenter and not the writer, so I don’t have
to do anything about it? Is this an instance where I should “stand for
truth and righteousness” or is it a stupid quibble over some silly
words?