This dialectic follows in three steps. First, the outsider’s perception of gender roles in Mormonism, next the insider’s apologetic response, and third, the recognition of a disparate reality.
I-1.1. An outsider’s perception of gender roles in Mormonism Is Mormonism harmful to women?
In 1996, a Belgian Parliamentary Commission was tasked to investigate all minority religious groups in Belgium. Concerns for the well-being of the population had erupted in the wake of tragedies such as with the Branch Davidians at Waco in 1993, the Solar Temple fatalities in France and Switzerland in 1994, and the deadly sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo in the Tokyo subway in 1995. Private anticult associations, alarming media reports, and crime films with sinister gurus contributed to the cult scare. After a year of investigations, the Parliamentary Commission produced a list of 189 groups perceived as potentially harmful sectarian movements in Belgium. Immediately controversial, the list included the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association; but not the YMCA), anthroposophy (applied in Steiner schools), and the Catholic Opus Dei. “De Kerk van Jezus
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Christus van de Heiligen der Laatste Dagen (Mormonen)” was catalogued as number 52 on the list. In the sessions of the Commission, Mormonism had never been discussed, as the proceedings concentrated mostly on Jehovah’s Witnesses and on Scientology.
Following a recommendation of the Parliamentary Commission, in 1998 the Belgian government instituted a watchdog agency called Informatie- en Adviescentrum inzake de schadelijke sektarische organisaties (IACSSO),1 with a threefold assignment: monitor the phenomenon of harmful sectarian organizations, organize a documentation center for the public, and provide advice in response to governmental enquiries (Denaux 2002).
Coincidentally, the first formal request for an IACSSO-advice came from the Belgian Ministry of Internal Affairs pertaining to visas for foreign Mormon missionaries. In its answer, the Center claimed to have based itself on “official reports by investigatory commissions on cults” in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Canada. Since those reports “did not contain any negative elements” about the Mormon church, the Center concluded that the church did not present “a particular risk,” at least for the time being (IACSSO 2003, 40).
However, the Center’s one page advisory report also itemized the elements “that could lead to certain public controversies”: besides former racist doctrines, polygamy, and theocracy in the church’s history, and present-day alleged social control and fundamentalism, the report mentioned as another problematic item in Mormonism that
“the attitude towards women is not in line with the European and international trend towards equality between men and women.”2
Next IACSSO prepared a six page “information brochure” about Mormonism, available to the general public as part of its assignment to be a documentation center (IACSSO 2002). It mentions the following about the role of women:
Role of the woman: Although her field of activity can be extended to “social” tasks, the ideal is to raise and educate children. The woman is subject to her husband (who, for his part, is invited to a sense for moderation), whom she needs to have access to eternity. Working outside the home would be dangerous for her faithfulness to the teachings and to morality.3
The brochure does not refer to sources. The Center did not conduct any inquiry among Mormon women in Belgium to verify its statements. From its side, the Mormon church in Belgium did not counter the information IACSSO provided. Local church leaders deemed it pointless to become part of the many groups that protested their inclusion on the “cult
1 Information and Advice Center Concerning Harmful Sectarian Organizations (“Center”).
2 Original: “de houding ten aanzien van de vrouw ligt niet in de lijn van de Europese en internationale trend tot gelijkheid van man en vrouw.”
3 Original: “Rol van de vrouw: alhoewel haar werkterrein kan worden uitgebreid tot “sociale” taken, bestaat het ideaal erin kinderen groot te brengen en op te voeden. De vrouw is onderworpen aan haar man (die van zijn kant uitgenodigd wordt tot zin voor maat), die ze nodig heeft om toegang te hebben tot de
eeuwigheid. Buitenshuis werken zou gevaarlijk zijn voor haar trouw aan het onderricht en aan de moraal.”
3 list” or to start arguing with the bureaucracy over items of misrepresentation. Ignoring the conflict seemed the better option.1
Overall, the way Belgian authorities conducted their investigations into religious minorities and the complex consequences of their approach have been the object of several critical studies (De Cordes 2006; De Droogh 2002; Mine 2013; Morelli 2008; Saroglou et al. 2005).
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I use the IACSSO example as an epistemological point of entry, in particular because it applies to Mormonism in Belgium. The focus here is on perception, because the context, the choice of words, and the innuendos become divisive for interpretation and for how subsequent readers may process the information offered. It is also the first step in the suggested dialectic.
On one hand, there is a basis for IACSSO’s statements: the Mormon church is led by men, only men can be ordained to the priesthood, and the nuclear, heterosexual family is considered fundamental to society. There were periods in church history, in particular in the 1970s and 1980s, when some church leaders strongly pleaded for mothers to make homemaking their priority—precisely because most Mormon women, as part of the broader society, were involved in paid labor. The call was not to “stay home,” but to
“come home.”2 This emphasis on the family and on a mother’s primary role to nurture and raise children has always remained. Taken in isolation, IACSSO’s phrase that a woman’s “ideal is to raise and educate children” is correct.
On the other hand, by virtue of its governmental assignment, IACSSO aims at identifying “harmful sectarian organizations.” Hence, for its presentation of Mormonism, it hones in on traits of potential harmfulness by only selecting “controversies,” even if those belong to a long-gone era, such as polygamy and theocracy. The gender-related statements quoted above are articulated in such way as to portray a male-domineering system. Semantics matter for perception. The statement that the Mormon “attitude towards women is not in line with the European and international trend towards equality between men and women” implies that Mormonism maintains outdated inequality. “Not in line” with European standards leaves much to the imagination. If the Mormon husband, notwithstanding his commanding position, “is invited to a sense for moderation” towards his wife, it intimates he is not obliged to do so and can rule over her
1 I thank local church leaders for providing documentation on the Parliamentary Commission and the subsequent Center. At the time, they followed the workings of the Commission, collected documents, and counseled among them on the course to take.
2 As in a sermon by church president Spencer W. Kimball in 1977: “I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the café . . . Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them.”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mothers-employment-outside-the-home. Accessed March 6, 2020.
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without restraint. The wife, from her side, “is subject to her husband”—in the original Dutch is onderworpen aan, which has a connotation of coerced subjection. The statement that a woman needs a husband “to have access to eternity” implies a threatening dependency on males and the exclusion of salvation for single women. The comment on employment—that “working outside the home would be dangerous for her faithfulness to the teachings and to morality”—feeds the perception of a subservient, cloistered woman who, if she is allowed to go outside, could fall prey to infidelity and depravity.
Moreover, for quite a few outsiders, Mormonism carries a historic reputation of otherness, of an exotic peculiarity in the American West, amplified by narrative fiction and sensationalist reporting, with polygamy at its center (Givens 1997; Haws 2013). The imagery of enslaved women in debauched “Turkish-like” harems was at the center of the Orientalization of Mormonism in the nineteenth century and would last well into the twentieth (Heise 2013; Talbot 2006). Fundamentalist splinter groups that still practice polygamy in some isolated areas—the women with braided hair and dressed in pastel prairie dresses—continue to be portrayed in the European media as “Mormons.”
In a broader perspective, any patriarchal-defined religion where males take front stage and women seem secondary is prone to be the target of secular and feminist critiques of the oppressive nature of religion. Almost by definition, women are then perceived as the female subordinates condemned to domesticity whose main responsibility is to bear and raise children. They may also be considered victims of religious delusion and exploitation.
The brief IACSSO statements on women’s role in Mormonism seem akin to that portrayal.
I-1.2. The insiders’ apologetic response
But how would committed Mormon women react to statements such as IACSSO’s? The question brings us to a second step in the dialectic leading to the research questions. On one hand, Mormon women cannot deny that their church is a male-governed institution, that only men have the priesthood to perform ordinances, and that an emphasis on traditional gender roles permeates church rhetoric. On the other hand, it cannot leave these women unaffected when outsiders tie their beliefs and practices to sectarian harmfulness or to secular-feminist critiques of oppression. How would they typically respond to such claims?
A preliminary remark is in order here: the reaction of these committed women needs to be considered in the framework of Mormon history which made apologetics a second nature for many church members. From its beginnings in the 1830s in the eastern US, this new and proselytizing religion, with its original theocratic conduct and claims of exclusivity to truth, quickly became the target of harsh criticisms which in turn prompted energetic Mormon rebuttals. It resulted in severe conflicts, leading to the Mormons’
migration to the American West and their territorial seclusion during the nineteenth
5 century. But since the abandonment of polygamy in 1890, most Mormons have craved to be perceived as mainstream people. To improve its image, for decades the church has been investing massively in public relations and media efforts. It is therefore not surprising that parallel to the rise of feminist critiques a Mormon apologetic developed to stress gender equality. Since the 1970s church leaders multiplied their declarations to that effect—with the church website collecting significant statements by church leaders on gender equality.1 Apologetic websites from individual Mormons or from independent organizations also come to the rescue.2
So, when outsiders confront dedicated Mormon women with statements such as IACSSO’s on gender roles, these women will typically negate any discriminatory treatment—as I have been able to observe numerous times over the years in ecclesiastical, social, and educational settings. These women will point to the principle of “equal partnership” as the official church norm in marital relations. They will mention “free will” as a core concept in Mormonism and affirm their own willful acceptance of its tenets and practices. They will tell of their involvement in local church government and the positions they hold in the organization, including being asked to give public prayers and sermons (“talks”), and teach Sunday School lessons, also to men. They will indicate how church leaders encourage women to study and obtain degrees and how church programs allow women of all ages to develop their talents. To underscore their female prerogatives compared to other conservative denominations, they will mention that the use of contraceptives is allowed, that they are under no outsider oversight when it comes to the timing and number of children, that divorce and remarriage are permitted, and that abortion is authorized in cases of incest or rape, or when the life or health of the mother is in jeopardy, or when the fetus is known to have severe defects.
As to women’s employment—which critics see as a societal proof of equality—these Mormon women will state that paid labor outside the home is as usual for them as in society at large. The better informed among them will refer to data showing how comparable Mormon female employment is (Bernard 1990; Goodman and Heaton 1986;
Heaton 1992; Heaton and Jacobson 2015). For Europe, they may refer to a demographic study of French Mormon women which revealed that 75 percent of them are employed, including mothers with children at home, which is even higher than the French national ratio of 66 percent of female employment (Euvrard 2008, 441).3 The statement that for a Mormon woman employment “would be dangerous for her faithfulness to the teachings
1 See for example: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/equality-of-men-and-women. Accessed May 5, 2020.
2 One of the main independent apologetic websites is FairMormon, which offers an extensive section on women’s equality: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mormonism_and_priesthood/Women.
Accessed May 5, 2020.
3 The difference from the national average is explained by the fact that Mormons belong much more to urban areas, a consequence of the urban focus of Mormon missionary work. As such, the Mormon figures of female employment match general urban tendencies.
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and to morality,” such as IACSSO pretends, will be shrugged off as a nonexistent notion in Mormonism.
Concerning the dependency on a male for a woman “to have access to eternity,”
Mormon women will clarify that according to their theology “eternity” in the sense of resurrection and afterlife is a free gift to each individual. True, they will concede, the highest degree of exaltation requires “eternal marriage,” but to achieve that reward, the man is evenly dependent on his spouse in equal partnership. More interested outsiders may also be told about the Mormon concept of God as Heavenly Parents, with a Heavenly Mother next to the Father, and how Mormonism uncovers the feminine in the divine.
Deeper apologetic explanations will refer to Mormonism’s positive interpretation of Eve’s role in the Garden, where the woman takes the lead in order to initiate the “plan of happiness,” and to Mormon temple ordinances wherein women take an active priestly role.
When Mormon women have to acknowledge the exclusivity of the priesthood for males and the emphasis on the primacy role of women in nurturing and raising children, they will turn to terms such as “complementarity of male and female,” “distinct natures,”
or “diverse male and female functions.” They will thus adjust the defense in order to save the perception of equality, in spite of the obviousness of an essentialist gender ideology.
Justification is the underlying rationale of apologetics. Here semantics matter as well.
I-1.3. The insiders’ disparate female voices
Both the outsider’s criticism and the insider’s apologetic approach have one thing in common: they speak of Mormon women and of gender issues as if individuals and characteristics can be grouped into one category valid for all. In that sense both approaches are likewise prejudiced through their respective aims and generalizations.
The reality, however, is that with more than eight million Mormon women worldwide in 170 countries (the majority of them outside the US), the emic perspectives must draw on a plethora of personal experiences and insights in very diverse settings. This third step in the dialectic compels to look at multiple realities. When questioned outside of an apologetic context, and also anonymously in research, what do individual Mormon women say about their experiences, agentic behavior, and insights?
For the situation in the US, and particularly in Utah, numerous studies have analyzed these divergent responses of Mormon women, from various vantage points. I will review many of them in subsequent chapters. These studies are part of the broader field of women studies on gender and religion. They reflect, also among Mormon women, the often loaded developments in the field over the years—from (1) vindictive feminism trying to raise the awareness of the subordinate status of religious women, over (2) more critical analyses mapping the various types of religious women in their identities and gendered interactions, to (3) investigations into diverse forms of empowerment,
7 boundary negotiation, rationalization of contradictions, strategic compliance, emancipation, and inside or outside valorization of female identity. Nearly all of these studies on Mormon women since the 1990s come from academics with diverse bonds to Mormonism. Some are quantitative studies on population groups, revealing general trends. Most are qualitative studies focusing on small groups or even individual cases, sometimes with specific characteristics such as alternate spirituality, psychological needs, avowed feminism, or deep conservatism. The almost ubiquitous thread in these studies on the relation between religion and gender is the issue of agency, which is used to either resist, change, reinterpret, escape from, or deliberately defend and maintain the order of things. It is on this level of detail that perceptions need to be studied in order to problematize both critical and apologetic generalizations.