Since 1970: gendered tensions, controversies, and changes

3.4. Since 1970: gendered tensions, controversies, and changes

The past fifty years women’s issues have been at the center of much of Mormonism’s internal tensions and developments. Some of the respondents for my research experienced a large part of these controversies and changes from childhood on or from the moment of their conversion as teenagers or young women. Others are less aware of the challenging stages through which Mormon women passed in previous decades. For nearly all of my Flemish respondents, however, social media have led to a growing involvement with some of the controversies that stir political and feminist discussions among Mormons in the US. The worldwide, uniform digital reach of the church equally contributes to the real-time global village of Mormonism (1.5). The comments of my respondents, discussed in Chapter 7, reflect these connections and perspectives.

On an autoethnographical note, my own parents lived through all these years and were privileged witnesses of the tensions and developments since the 1970s. I became naturally part of it as I was growing up in the 1990s, with, moreover, a view on the situation both in Flanders and in Utah. Since 2000 I was privileged to be on the front row to observe the gendered tensions, controversies, and changes in the church.

Rather than organizing this subchapter as one main chronological sequence, following events year by year, I examine relevant matters by topic over the years. Summarized:

- The discovery of Mormon women’s past endeavors stimulated a surge of feminism and an awareness of the “messiness” of the past, which led to changing perspectives (3.4.1).

- The controversy around the Equal Rights Amendment, a major American political battle, had church leaders determine gender roles unequivocally. It had severe repercussions on Mormon social life, drawing divisive lines between a conservative majority and a small liberal minority. The battle around the ERA continues till today (3.4.2).

- The multiple identities among Mormon women, ranging from ultraconservative to the most liberal, express themselves in multiple ways, nowadays massively on social media (3.4.3).

- The battles over same-sex marriage, which raged over some 25 years, made the definition of gender roles a core doctrinal issue for church leaders, but in the long run led to major challenges and pressures to adapt policies (3.4.4).

99 - Two major media campaigns involving thousands of Mormon women illustrate the ambiguity of female roles in Mormonism, on one side a compliant representation of ideals, on the other the underlying frustrations (3.4.5).

- Finally, how have church leaders responded to feminist demands? To what extent are changes significant? (3.4.6)

3.4.1. The awareness of Mormon women’s past as stimulus for the present

Precisely in 1970, when correlation reached its apex and Mormon women’s organizational independence was thoroughly trimmed down (3.3.3.3), a new Mormon feminism emerged.

- Mormon women became aware of the involvement of their forebears in first-wave feminism. At first their approach had a definite feminist perspective in reclaiming past prerogatives (3.4.1.1).

- In the long run their studies also affected church policies on how history could be approached with more openness (3.4.1.2).

- Nowadays more sustained research reveals the complexities that still affect the position of women in the church today, but studies also view them in the larger perspective of women’s issues in the world (3.4.1.3).

3.4.1.1. The discovery of an empowering past leads to a burst in feminist scholarship

An important development in the 1970s was the discovery of the contributions of Mormon women in the decades before and after 1900. Ulrich (2010, 54) told how in 1970 Leonard Arrington, the “founding father” of professional Mormon history, drew the attention of Mormon women in the Boston area to the strong personalities and feminist endeavors of their nineteenth-century forebears in Utah. The discovery in Harvard’s Library of the issues of the Woman’s Exponent led to the launching of the feminist periodical Exponent II in 1974.

A broad unearthing of a forgotten Mormon past took place. The pursuit was part of a larger phenomenon of historical women’s studies with “a radical feminist orientation”

(Pettegrew 2018, 129). In her book The Flight and the Nest, Carol Pearson (1975) told how she received from her old “Aunt Mamie” boxes full of complete volumes of female periodicals of the 1880s till the 1910s, religiously passed on over several generations. She devoted her full-length book to the writings of “the Mormon women of the age of emancipation,” showing how these women published major contributions about gender equality. They even “had an advantage over many women of their day, for basic to their religious tenets was the idea of eternal growth and learning” (p. 55). In a 1975 Forum

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Address¹ on feminism at the Mormon Brigham Young University, Elouise Bell (1976) heralded Pearson’s book to reveal “a less known but intriguing chapter of our history,”

namely about “our pioneer foremothers” who “worked vigorously for women’s causes in those days and at the same time went about their work in building up the kingdom.”

The stage was set for a burst of feminist scholarship. Jean White (1974) explored the formidable fight Mormon women waged in 1894 and 1895 to get universal suffrage in Utah’s Constitution at a time when only two other States, Colorado and Wyoming, had such a daring provision. Claudia Bushman (1976) edited a collection of chapters on women in early Utah, written by mostly beginning academics who would become prominent scholars in Mormon women’ studies. Sherilyn Bennion (1976) documented how well-educated and strong-willed Mormon women published, for forty-two years (1877–1914), one of the earliest periodicals for women in the United States—The Woman’s Exponent—

and how they shaped their era.

The 1980s kept up the momentum. Carol Madsen (1981) analyzed how nineteenth-century Mormon women “planned, developed and implemented many of the specific economic, community, educational and religious programs” of the early church and used their “persuasive powers” to funnel male leaders to decisions. Hansen (1981) listed arguments from scriptures and Mormon history in favor of female ordination. Maureen Beecher (1982) celebrated the role of the “leading sisters” in the church’s first era. A landmark book was Newell and Avery’s (1984) biography of Emma Smith, wife of founder Joseph Smith, which laid bare Joseph Smith’s surreptitious polygamy—a page the official church history had kept under wraps. Newell (1985) documented the involvement of women in priesthood ordinances before it became prohibited in the twentieth century.

Toscano (1985; 1988) focused on the priesthood and temple privileges Joseph Smith accorded to women. Anne Scott (1986) contrasted the pre-1900 feminists with the post-1900 generation who accepted the reduction of their authority. Beecher and Anderson’s Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (1987) offered several chapters that highlighted the measure of equality and even empowerment Mormon women enjoyed or strove for in the nineteenth-century. Swetnam’s study (1988) of vernacular sources, gathered from troves of manuscript family histories, acknowledged that these women were no paragons of perfection: they were as human as any human.

Hank’s edited work Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (1992), which contained bold essays that challenged various church positions, made it explicit that the study of Mormon women's history was to be empowering to reclaim lost terrain. Besides the intellectual repossessing, some women also sought to revive the spiritual gifts Mormon women had owned in the nineteenth century (Barber 1992).

In the 1990s the historical study of Mormon women continued to bourgeon. For academic articles, the autonomous Mormon History Association with its Journal of Mormon

1 Forum Addresses took place every other week in a Tuesday morning venue for all students and faculty.

101 History and the independent journal Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought played an important role in disseminating this research. For books, Mormon scholars found a welcoming home with university presses form Oxford University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Utah.

3.4.1.2. The history of the Relief Society as a test case for transparency

Faithful church members who study aspects of the church as part of historical criticism usually try to strike a balance between what could be sensed as “unfavorable” findings and their allegiance to the church. It often leads to rhetoric tightrope walking. One example dealing with Mormon women is the book Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society, written by Derr, Cannon, and Beecher (1992) and published by the church’s Deseret Book. As scholars in Mormon women’s studies, the three authors had been asked to prepare the book for the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Relief Society in 1842.

Bushman (1993), who reviewed it, listed a number of controversial items where the authors choose to take (or in the editorial process were perhaps asked to take) the church’s official viewpoint. Indeed, as a tribute to the Relief Society’s 150 years a positive tone had to prevail. But taking into account how over one and one half century hundreds of thousands of Mormon women have served benevolently in the Relief Society, Bushman concluded:

One of these days, someone will write a history of the Relief Society from the outside. Objective and critical, such a study will trace the steady erosion of the rights of women and the increasing oppression of the Relief Society by the priesthood which has usurped their works, leaving Mormon women limp slaves in their own kitchens. Evidence for this interpretation certainly exists. But such a book will ignore the spiritual aspiration and the loving cooperation which have characterized the organization from the beginning and which are repeatedly brought to life here. When the two books are compared, Women of Covenant will be the truer one. (p. 159)

The pressure to be more candid about the past led the church to give more access to its archives. The church’s History Department took the initiative to digitalize and make available thousands of documents related to Joseph Smith and to publish many of them.

As such the Church Historian’s Press published The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (Derr et al. 2016). Published 24 years after Women of Covenant, the hefty book (767 pages) showed how the church had become more willing to recognize the reality of women’s past. The book is a major source to understand the “messiness” of early Mormon women’s history and the way later studies of that history have simplified it, sometimes to the point of distortion by sheer omission of

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certain texts and events. Such insights reveal the complexity of the past. In her review of The First Fifty Years, Morrill (2016) noted:

These documents make accessible details of women’s roles in navigating, even sparking, these times of transition—and they speak to questions about the priesthood and revelation that today’s church leaders and members are still wrestling with . . . These complicating documents invite us to delve deeper into the lived messiness of Relief Society history . . . Messiness shows up again in documents about women and the priesthood. The editors indirectly address oft-cited passages from Joseph Smith’s talks to the Nauvoo Relief Society about women and the priesthood. These are words that drive the debate in the contemporary church over women and the priesthood and that have been the subject of much historical disagreement. Did Smith intend to give the priesthood to women through the Relief Society? Did he turn the key of the priesthood over to women and give them autonomous priesthood authority? The answers remain obscure, as they probably always will. (p. 85–86)

Another example of the messiness of women’s history deals with polygamy and its entanglement in the early Relief Society. To minimize the weirdness of Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth century, or even to normalize it in its socio-economic context, church-loyal analysts typically referred to polygamous women who accepted the principle and even defended it in laudatory terms. But these cited voices date from the 1870s and 1880s. Unaltered primary sources, accompanied by documentary editing, are more revealing. At the time of the stealthy introduction of plural marriage in the early 1840s in Nauvoo, “wide differences in church members’ knowledge and acceptance of the new marriages fueled grave misunderstanding, speculation, and accusations that threatened the unity of the church and ultimately estranged many Saints,” as the primary sources show (Derr et al. 2016, 11). After Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, Emma Smith, Joseph’s widow, was still the general president of the Relief Society. In opposing plural marriage she ran into conflict with the new church leader, Brigham Young, who effectively suspended the meetings of the Society (Derr et al. 2016, 169–170). Such insights throw diverse light on gendered tensions and conflicts in church history.

3.4.1.3. From biographies to the larger field of women’s history

Studies on Mormon women continue unabated. Recent landmark biographies on Mormon women include women in plural marriages (Ulrich 2017), black Mormon Jane Manning James (Newell 2019), and female leaders such as Emmeline B. Wells (Madsen 2017) and Amy Brown Lyman (Hall 2015). Mormon women today can refer to this past for specific contributions in which they find arguments for contemporary application. Hence, their

103 continued interest in history as it provides present-day enlightenment. In 2014, reminiscing the start of Exponent II in 1974, Joanna Brooks remarked (2014, 4):

For Mormon feminists, now is the time to honor the forty-year legacy of this movement by taking steps to preserve and convey our own Mormon feminist history. Only by looking at our history can we gain perspective on our shared and individual experience and develop strategic insights to set priorities for our future.

A further step expands the perspective to inform larger historical narratives of religion, politics, and culture. Much of Mormon women’s history has, indeed, been limited to biographies, family histories, and the Mormon sphere without connecting it to the broader, national and even international women’s issues. Brekus (2016, 21) noted that despite impressive scholarship, “Mormon women’s history has not yet been integrated into the larger fields of either women’s history or American religious history.” By the same token, Brekus noticed, the major studies on American religion in general and religious women in particular have failed to included Mormon women in their approach.

An attempt to overcome this lacuna is the edited work Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography by Cope et al. (2017). The various scholars in that volume demonstrate how the experiences of Mormon women reflect universal female experiences and concerns, including the challenges of belonging to a minority, for many in the context of conversion, migration, and rebuilding identities and communities. Most of these aspects apply as well to my respondents.

3.4.2. The Equal Rights Amendment: divisive lines are drawn and remain today

The constitutional battle in the US around the Equal Rights Amendment or ERA has had a major effect on gender issues in Mormonism. It led to a stark positioning of church leaders on gender roles, to a rupture between Mormon conservatives and Mormon feminists, and to a fear for ecclesiastical retaliation against outspoken feminists. The consequences were far-reaching and continue to affect the church today. As recently as 2019, efforts to revive the ERA drew a negative response from church leaders.

3.4.2.1. The political stage and the church’s rejection

Since its inception in 1787, the US Constitution has been expanded by a number of amendments. In 1923 a new amendment was proposed, the Equal Rights Amendment or ERA to guarantee equal legal rights for all Americans regardless of sex. It took half a century before the US Congress approved it in 1972 in a simple sentence: “The right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Next the amendment had to be submitted for ratification to the individual States. A majority of 38 States—three-fourth of the total—would need to

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agree. By 1974, 33 States had ratified the ERA. Five were still needed to reach the target.

The State of Utah still had to vote. Initially, a majority of Utah lawmakers were in favor of the ERA as it was not yet embroiled in controversy. But on January 11, 1975, an anonymous editorial in the Mormon Church News condemned the ERA as a “unisex” law that would nullify “the fact that men and women are different, made so by a Divine Creator. Each has his or her role. One is incomplete without the other” (quoted in White 1989). That ecclesiastical warning was sufficient to shift the tide: a few weeks later the Utah legislators, who for the vast majority were Mormons, voted against ratification. The next seven years would be dominated by the battle to reach the 38 States ratification, with a major engagement by the Mormon church to thwart that goal.

3.4.2.2. The moral grounding of Mormon gender roles

Great controversies deliver strong official statements. Between 1976 and 1980 Mormon leaders, in trying to stop the ratification in other States, powerfully formulated arguments related to gender role principles. Those arguments and principles would come to dominate church rhetoric for the next decades, in fact up to the present in the subsequent battles against same-sex marriage. Together with other Christian-conservative forces, the Mormon church leadership engaged in the fight against the ERA, not as a political, but as a “moral issue.” In spite of the deep divide between Mormonism and the main Christian denominations, the common cause led to a strategic rapprochement with the “New Christian Right” and the “Moral Majority” as observed by Brinkerhoff, Jacob, and MacKie (1987) and Shupe and Heinerman (1985).

The First Presidency issued official statements on the ERA, one in 1976 and two in 1978.

The 1976 statement remained rather vague, but the 1978 statements were more specific, claiming that the ERA would “nullify many accumulated benefits to women in present statutes, such as those protecting mothers and children from fathers who do not accept their legal responsibilities to their families” and that it would cause “an increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities, and other concepts which could alter the natural, God-given relationship of men and women.”¹ The argument about homosexuality, Quinn noted (1994, 139), also exemplified the tendency of church leaders to view ERA-defenders as lesbian feminists.

Church leaders brought all the arguments together in the March 1980 issue of the church periodical The Ensign, at the time the ratification process reached a climactic end.

Though they affirmed basic equality between men and women and condemned injustices against women, church leaders claimed that the ERA would lead to “failure of fathers to care for their families, elimination of statutory protection for women and children,

1 The 1976 and the 1978 statements are cited in “The Church and the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment: A Moral Issue,” Ensign (March 1980). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1980/03/the-church-and-the-proposed-equal-rights-amendment-a-moral-issue. Accessed August 30, 2018.

105 problems resulting from women in the military, homosexual and lesbian activities, abortion, and similar concerns.”¹ Apostle Boyd K. Packer, in a public meeting with representatives from other religious institutions, viewed the issue from the high, privileged position women were supposedly enjoying and which would be lost through the ERA: “Many thoughtful wives haven’t the slightest desire to be reduced to equality with their husbands.” About the differences between men and women the influential apostle added:

A man, for instance, needs to feel protective, and yes, dominant, if you will, in

A man, for instance, needs to feel protective, and yes, dominant, if you will, in