Agency in the outside valorization of female religious identity

2.5.1. General background

The previous section described how researchers have investigated the inside world of religious women. A different perspective emerges when religious women present themselves openly to the outside world. A literature has thus emerged where women from mainly “misunderstood” religions tell about their experiences in a mostly constructive mode, without hiding the challenges. Bullock (2002) brings voices from Muslim women in Canada, focusing on women’s thoughts and experiences in wearing the veil. Hamdan (2009) extended this to their life stories. Zubair and Zubair (2017) gave voice to Muslim women at higher education institutions in Pakistan. Mossière (2019) reported the discourse of young female converts to Islam and young Pentecostal women. In a related vein, Bomhoff et al. (2019) honor the leadership of women rabbis, pastors, and ministers.

Another level of outside valorization is reached when religious women get involved in national and international fora and organizations, either on the left or on the right, on issues such as social justice, abortion, or immigration. In order to defend conservative causes, in particular around “family values,” the Christian Right has been particularly active in this area (Buss 2003; Wilcox 2018). In Europe the phenomenon is observed in the

“global right” and “antigender campaigns” (Koettig, Bitzan, and Peto 2017; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Paternotte and Kuhar 2018; Peto 2016).

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2.5.2. In Mormon studies

At various times in church history, Mormon women have been intensely involved in public debates regarding their standing as Mormon women or as women in general. In the 1870s and 80s their defense of polygamy and voting rights attracted surprised attention (3.2.3). In later years their involvement with the suffrage movement continued unabated (3.3.1.3). It was only in the 1970s that their next, massive involvement, at the instigation of church leaders, thrust them publicly on the conservative side in the battle against the Equal Rights Amendment (3.4.3.2). I refer to academic studies on those periods in the related sections in Chapter 3. As for the more recent period, to what extent do studies contribute to the public exteriorization of contemporary Mormon women’s convictions and way of life?

The Claremont Graduate University, which hosts a strong Mormon Studies Program, has as one of its endeavors the “Mormon Women’s Oral History Project.” The project collects personal stories from a wide range of Mormon female interviewees in order to cover as many variables as possible (Bushman 2013). In Mormon Women Have Their Say, Bushman and Kline (2013) edited a first result of the project, with thematic chapters on personality, fertility, singlehood, motherhood, adversity, “womanliness” in physical and spiritual attributes, church callings, revelation, missionary work, agency, patriarchy, and Heavenly Mother. The analyses by various experts use excerpts from 117 interviewees’

contributions. All of the topics are “inside” items, but now clearly situated within the general realm of Women’s Studies and available for interreligious comparisons.

A 2012 academic conference on Mormon women took “agency” as the basic notion to frame the discussions. It led to the edited volume Women and Mormonism (Holbrook and Bowman 2016). The chapters on contemporary women extend to women of color and women outside the US, including Europe, and tackle issues such as activity rates, gender roles, cultural differences, interfaith relations, and the tension some Mormon women feel between satisfaction and discontent. The last chapter, by Bednarowski (2016), substantiates the exteriorization by a study of where Mormon and Roman Catholic feminists have joint concerns.

The church itself, through the Church History Department, has also been conducting oral history projects. Inouye (2016) reported on the results of over 140 interviews with Asian women who emigrated to the US and Canada and are Mormon converts. The analysis of their experiences reveals how much native cultural paradigms take precedence over norms emanating from “Salt Lake.” These women not only joined the church “on their own terms,” but they also maintained many of their own cultural priorities which enabled them to form their own Mormon community clusters. Inouye addresses the reality of this diversity as more than half of Mormons live outside the US, but extremely fragmented—”a collection of small pockets of believers who do not speak each other’s language . . . The women in these Mormon units all participate in a complex

69 church community shaped by local norms and subject to constant negotiation” (p. 242–

43).

Outside of scholarly purposes, year after year, are the numerous books on female ideals and values marketed by the church-dependent Deseret Book and by small publishers targeting a Mormon audience. Many include women’s life stories. Women are mostly represented as strong and faithful, happy in the gospel, and fulfilling sacrificing roles to sustain their husbands and to serve in the church under the direction of the priesthood.

The independent “Mormon Women Project” also gathers this type of material (McBain and Allred 2013), including “tales of return” of women finding their way back to the church.¹ None of these publications or websites, meant to be faith-promoting, aims at sociological analysis. Conversely, other anthologies candidly reveal the challenges, conflicts, and personal dramas Mormon women can experience (Welker 2016).

As to the involvement of Mormon women in movements or organizations with outspoken leftist or rightist leanings, I found no scholarly analysis yet of such involvement. On both fronts, some Mormon women are active though, visible to the world through websites and conferences (3.4.3.2 to 3.4.3.5).

Relevance for my research

Most of the topics Bushman and Kline (2013) focus on in Mormon Women Have Their Say are amply recognizable in the lives of Mormon women in Flanders. Inouye’s analysis (2016) highlighted the impact of regional and cultural variables in smaller Mormon clusters, such as those found in Europe. The “faith-promoting” life stories actually convey a warning: when I read the interview with one of the women I happened to know myself, it was immediately clear how carefully the interviewee answered in order to match the expected template and how she avoided or minimized problematic aspects. For my research, the methodological approach was to make sure my respondents would not be restricted by similar expectations.

Only a few questions indirectly probe outside valorization:

Q.R.08 – Can a Mormon woman adopt different identities, for example, one for church, one for home and one for work?

Q.R.42 – In your contact with non-members, do you quickly say that you are a member of the church, or do you prefer to keep this discreet?

1 https://www.mormonwomen.com/. Accessed February 27, 2020.

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