{"id":1799,"date":"2010-01-01T22:52:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T03:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2010-01-01T22:52:30","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T03:52:30","slug":"the-man-files-mormon-meets-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2010\/01\/01\/the-man-files-mormon-meets-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"THE MAN FILES: Mormon Meets Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"This month <\/em>The Man Files welcomes Sam Bullock writing his first guest post for<\/em> Girl With Pen. In this personal account, Sam explains what happened when his Mormon religion collided with feminist politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

My professor assured us there was no reason to fear The F-Word.<\/p>\n

I was taking Intro to Ethics at a community college where we were assigned to read An Invitation to Feminist Ethics<\/em><\/a> by Hilde Lindemann. It was my first experience with feminist theory.<\/p>\n

The book is a basic overview about sexism, gender roles, homophobia, neo-liberal globalization, and stories about gas lighting and rape. Unlike other books, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dismiss this one as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just another philosophy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t toss this book aside as I went about my daily life. It was consciousness-raising. Life-changing.<\/p>\n

From reading this book I realized I wanted the freedom to choose what made me happy. I didn’t want to be constrained by psychological factors that may have been the product of early\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand intense\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgender socialization. And I knew that women deserved the same freedom.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, these feminist arguments clashed with my worldview: I was raised Mormon. For Mormons, gender roles are divinely instituted (for the most part) and homosexuality is always a moral evil.<\/p>\n

In the Mormon Church, only men are allowed to have the priesthood. Women are effectively barred from positions of authority. No women bishops, no women apostles, no women prophets. Women can fill positions of leadership that are in line with traditional gender roles like young-women leaders, children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s group leaders, and relief society leaders (an exclusively female group).<\/p>\n

I was told that priesthood, the power to act in God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name, depends on individual worthiness. Every man can have it. The traditional Mormon rejoinder to any sort of criticism of this unjust stratification is that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153women can bear children.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 women can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t become priests because babies gestate inside of them? This argument is sheer nonsense.<\/p>\n

The sexism of the Mormon Church became more and more apparent. In one discussion about parenthood, I dared to suggest that I was willing to be a stay-at-home dad. I was instantly assaulted by thoroughly archaic views about women. I was told that women were more virtuous than men and this virtue would be lost in the cut-throat business world. Working women were destroying the fabric of society (I actually heard this more than once). Needless to say, I was horrified.<\/p>\n

At a different meeting, the discussion topic was female modesty and appearance. The bishop leading the group suggested that women needed to dress modestly because men couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t control themselves\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor something to that effect. Really? Huh.<\/p>\n

The bishop continued, saying that women should wear make-up because even an old barn could use a paint-job. The huge double standard leaped out at me. Male \u00e2\u20ac\u0153barns\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were not expected to paint themselves, so why should female \u00e2\u20ac\u0153barns?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

As the sexism became crystal-clear, I attempted to reconcile my two conflicting worldviews. I tried to rationalize away the sexism, making arguments like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Church isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready for gender-equality yet\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this sexist doctrine is not of God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I looked for support online and found it at various feminist Mormon blogs including Feminist Mormon Housewives<\/a> and The Exponent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enter California\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Proposition 8. Here, the second of the big offenders came into focus: homosexuality. In the Mormon Church, homosexuality is a sin. One can be an openly gay, but must remain celibate or enter a heterosexual marriage. Neither is a particularly happy option.<\/p>\n

When Proposition 8 (opposing gay marriage) was on the California ballot, Mormon Church leadership endorsed it, and encouraged members to aid in its passing. This led to call centers, special meetings, and Photoshopped pictures of Book of Mormon prophets holding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes on Prop 8\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs. Most disturbing was the rhetoric. We were told that homosexuals were like drug-users. Homosexuals were destroying society. They were corrupting our children, our freedom of religion, and our schools. Homosexual-equality was Satan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s idea, an attempt to lure people down the path of destruction.<\/p>\n

I am ashamed to admit that in high school I believed this nonsense. I distinctly remember telling a friend that I voted for Bush because he was against gay-marriage. I even wrote a letter to Bush celebrating his wise choice.<\/p>\n

But fast-forward and feminism allowed me to see the Church rhetoric for what it was: homophobic, fear-mongering attempts to maintain a cultural hegemony. I still rationalized away the homophobia as yet another doctrine \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not of God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That is, until I read about Stuart Matis<\/a>, a gay Mormon who committed suicide because of homophobic Mormon doctrine.<\/p>\n

I could see the suffering so clearly. I could no longer rationalize away the Church homophobia. A crack had formed in the edifice of my beliefs. Mormons were not inspired by God to pass Prop 8. There was no Satan, no tempter out there trying to trick me into believing evil things. This was merely the ultimate fear-mongering device, a tool designed to silence dissent.<\/p>\n

Into this small crack rushed my entire philosophical training, all of my religion classes, my ethics classes, and my critical thinking classes. I no longer saw any reason to believe that Joseph Smith saw God when he founded the Mormon Church. I no longer believed that Jesus was the son of God, or that God even existed at all. My beliefs were gone. I was an Atheist.<\/p>\n

I guess the message of this story is that feminism is undeniably powerful. It can alter consciousness. It can foster equality. It can even dismantle an entire worldview. And I would say these changes are for the better.<\/p>\n

Sam Bullock aspires to be an attorney with hip jazz-piano chops, and is a self-proclaimed feminist atheist.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month The Man Files welcomes Sam Bullock writing his first guest post for Girl With Pen. In this personal account, Sam explains what happened when his Mormon religion collided with feminist politics. My professor assured us there was no reason to fear The F-Word. I was taking Intro to Ethics at a community college […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1906,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21117],"tags":[245,21353,21433,49,57,21494,876,21612,21613,21716,1083,42,21766,1528,21789,21830,21857],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-man-files-2","tag-feminism","tag-feminist-mormon-housewives","tag-hilde-lindemann","tag-homophobia","tag-homosexuality","tag-joseph-smith","tag-men","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-prop-8","tag-proposition-8","tag-religion","tag-sam-bullock","tag-sexism","tag-sexual-freedom","tag-stuart-matis","tag-the-exponent"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1906"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}