Archives for October 2010

Why I Am a Mormon Feminist

October 12, 2010 by 7 Comments

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” –Micah 6:8.

I’m a Mormon feminist because I take seriously this verse in Micah.

In my mind, to do justice means to recognize the dignity of every human being, and to work towards a world in which all people, regardless of sex, race, or class, are treated with fairness, respect and afforded opportunities to progress and contribute. As a Mormon feminist, I hope for the day when women’s voices are equally included and valued in Church settings. I hope for the day when Mormon women have a greater sphere to act and contribute within the Church. I hope for the day when any vestiges of hierarchy between men and women, vestiges which linger in our Mormon practice, culture, and ideas, disappear. I hope for the day when Mormon women embrace their limitless selves without regard to any artificial or constraining ideas of what it means to be a woman.

For me, to act towards these ends is to do justice to my fellow human beings and to do justice to the vision which God has for God’s children. To do so, also, in my mind, is a living expression of kindness, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, who reached beyond the boundaries of his culture to love and include and feel the pain of those forgotten or despised by the rest of society.

As I journey forward as a Mormon feminist, I also hold closely to my heart that third requirement mentioned in Micah: to walk humbly with God. I interpret this to mean being open to God and the Spirit in my life. I am drawn to the concept of God working within me, working within each of us, prompting us to choose the better part, prompting us to love fearlessly, prompting us to look out for the concerns of the downtrodden, prompting us to recognize the divinity within ourselves and others. I love the idea of God helping us to transcend our petty selves, our narrow constraints, to reach out in radical fellowship to all.

Because I am drawn to these concepts mentioned in Micah, I am a Mormon feminist. It’s what I believe God wants me to be.

Filed Under: HOPE

Being Aware: Its Not All Pink

October 10, 2010 by 2 Comments

This was submitted by WAVE reader Jenni R. Brighton, co-founder of The Amethyst Network, a non-profit organization providing resources and support to women experiencing infant loss or miscarriage.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is a fact widely acknowledged in the media and everybody seems to get on board with everything from all-night cancer walks to facebook status games. My grandmother is one of those “1 in 8 women” who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, as are dear family friends, and I have joined those all-night walks and regularly remind my blog-readers to do their self breast exams.

However, October after October, I notice that the flood of awareness is decidedly (and almost exclusively) pink. It seems that we either overlook or are unaware of the many other “Awareness Months” going on in October.

Yes, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. However 1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage or infant loss, and 1 in 3 will be a victim of domestic violence.

But nobody talks about how October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, or Domestic Violence Awareness Month, even though both of those things are more common than breast cancer. About 1 in 20 women will be diagnosed with Gynecologic Cancers, and while the incidence rate is lower than breast cancer, the mortality rate is higher (over 1/3 do not survive). So shouldn’t we talk about that, since October is also the month of Ovarian Cancer Awareness and Uterine Cancer Awareness?

It’s also Lupus Awareness Month, and Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and SIDS Awareness Month, and Down’s Syndrome Awareness Month, and Celiac Disease Awareness Month, and Spina Bifida Awareness Month, but nobody seems to be talking about those either.

For more complete lists, see here or here. There are so many great causes to get involved with; let’s not fixate on just one.

While we’re on this topic, I’d like to put in a brief word about productive activism. I think that Facebook status games do not really raise awareness any more than the Farmville updates do. Think about how you would feel if it were you sitting in chemo: would you be more appreciative of a hand-knit chemo cap from a stranger, or of all your friends posting facebook status updates saying where they put their purses? What if your spouse was beating you? Or if your child had died? Wouldn’t you appreciate real support over passive games?

So I recommend posting a thoughtful (not copied!) message about an important cause. Blog about what matters to you and what you can do (or are doing) to help. Better yet, donate money or goods or time to an organization, and then post about what you did on your blog and share with others.

Are you involved in one of the causes observed in the month of October? What have you done to raise awareness, contribute to the cause or address these important issues impacting women and their families? How have you personally been affected by the October Awareness Month issues? Please share your experiences by commenting below or emailing service@ldswave.org.

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Advocacy Opportunity: Support the Paycheck Fairness Act

October 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Join with WAVE and MomsRising to tell your legislators that you want to see equal pay for equal work.

Just take 30 seconds to send a letter to your Senators with 1-click now:

http://action.momsrising.org/go/422?akid=2342.262765.EKgoNz&t=4

From MomsRising:

  • Data recently released by the U.S. Census found that women who worked full-time, year round on average still made 23 cents less for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. (This marks no change from 2008’s wage gap and amounts to nearly $11,000 per year in lost earnings).  And, the wage gap for women of color in 2009 was even more staggering than for women overall. When Black and Hispanic women work full-time, year round, they only make 62 and 53 cents, respectively, for every dollar their white, non-Hispanic male counterparts earn. [1]
  • Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report which found that mothers who are working in management positions earned 79 cents for every dollar earned by fathers who are managers, unchanged from 2000.  Further, in 12 out of the 13 major industries, fathers were more likely than mothers to be managers. [2]
  • Also last week, The Wall Street Journal reported: “…the pay gap could easily create a retirement savings shortfall of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Consider this example of a female and male manager, both 50 years old and looking to retire at 65.  She makes $81,000, he makes $100,000 in 2010, and each gets a standard 2% annual raise.  Not only will he end up earning more than $350,000 than she did over those 15 years, he’ll also end up saving 23% more for retirement– even though both contributed 10% of their income to their retirement funds each year and got a 5% average annual rate of return.” [3]
  • Earlier this week, Bloomberg News reported: “Women managers in finance, a group that includes bank tellers as well as executives, earned 63.9 cents for every dollar of income men earned in 2000, based on median salaries, according to Government Accountability Office statistics analyzed by Bloomberg. In 2007, the last year for which data are available, the figure was 58.8 cents. The 41-cent gap was the biggest in any of 13 industries surveyed by the GAO, and only two others had a widening disparity.” [4]

Sadly, this unequal pay is a contributing factor to why now a full 1 in 7 people in the U.S. live in poverty, [5] as well as to the fact that nearly 1 in 4 kids in our nation are experiencing food scarcity due to family economic limitations. [6]

In this tough economy, more and more families are counting on women’s earnings. Unfair pay practices make things even harder. The Paycheck Fairness Act would deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and barring retaliation against workers who disclose their wages to coworkers.

[1] U.S. Census Bureau and  NWLC: “State Wage Gap Data Show Little Or No Improvement from 2008”

[2] U.S. Government Accountability Office: “Women in Management: Analysis of Female Managers Representation, Characteristics, and Pay”

[3] The Wall Street Journal: “For Women, Pay Gap Means Retirement Shortfall”

[4] Bloomberg News: “Wall Street Says Women Worth Less as Disparity Over Pay Widens”

[5] U.S. Census Bureau: “Income, Poverty, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009”

[6] The Washington Post: “America’s economic pain brings hunger pangs”

MomsRising is also asking the question:

Have you ever experienced wage or hiring discrimination?  We’re pulling together stories of MomsRising members across the nation to share with U.S. Senators.  Share your story here (and feel free to share anonymously): http://action.momsrising.org/go/423?akid=2342.262765.EKgoNz&t=8

WAVE wants to hear too. If you write something to submit to MomsRising, share it with us here too. How has wage or hiring discrimination affected you as a Mormon woman?

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Call to Action: Celebrate the Diversity of Women

October 8, 2010 by 6 Comments

The purpose behind our next call to action is to send the message to Church leaders that we celebrate women, in all their diversity.

We need our leaders to know that we are inspired by messages of heterogenity, not homogenity; messages of diversity, not conformity. We want them to know that we embrace women, whatever their marital status, whatever their career path, whatever their ethnicity, politics or socio-economic status. The more types of Mormons the Church has, the healthier the body of Christ is.

Please email Scott Swofford at the Missionary Department at Church Headquarters to tell him why you appreciate the profiles of women on Mormon.org.

Scott Swofford, Missionary Department

Church Office Building
50 E. North Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150

Also, let’s show both the Mormon world and our non-LDS neighbors that Mormon women are not a monolithic entity. Create a profile at Mormon.org and identify yourself as a feminist, a progressive, a social activist, a libertarian, a birthing rights advocate, a survivor, a career woman, a visionary, etc. Whatever makes you the individual that you are.

Be open about the things that inspire you about Mormonism. Perhaps it’s Heavenly Mother, or the idea of the eternal progression of all humans, male and female. Perhaps it’s our feisty Mormon foremothers who fought for suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony. Perhaps it’s the idealism behind the United Order, that there be no poor among us. Check out this great profile of WAVE’s own Chelsea as example of what Mormon.org is willing to put up. http://www.mormon.org/me/28TV-eng/Chelsea

Please fill out a profile at Mormon.org. Go to http://mormon.org/create/ (Note that you will need your membership number.)

Please leave a comment or email us once you have completed one or both parts of this Call to Action.

Filed Under: Calls to Action

How I’m a Mormon Feminist

October 4, 2010 by 5 Comments

Just before the time when I needed to choose my educational path as a freshman in college, I was baptized and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As I embraced my newfound values, I found inspiration in the church’s teachings on families and how the answers to the problems facing society seemingly could be found in the gospel. Encouraged by the scriptures and the value the church puts on education “by study and also by faith,” I sought the answers from science and scholarly study and found that much of what social scientists have found contribute to happy and healthy families are also foundational teachings in the gospel.

BYU and The School of Family Life was the perfect place for me to understand this connection. There I was trained to become an activist for family friendly public policy and was encouraged to continue my scholarship and work.

When I had joined the church, my mother worried if her strong-willed and passionate daughter was up to the challenge of living the traditional role of a Mormon woman. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this stereotype did not always bear out in my observations of women in the church. At BYU, I found many examples of LDS women who were balancing the dual callings of mother and professional. I had hope and faith that the Spirit would guide me to the roles that I would play in my family and community though I did not understand how it would work.

As I came close to completion of a graduate degree, it was revealed to me in a blessing that the path I thought my life would take was different that what my heavenly parents intended. Just as I was expecting to hear counsel to be solely devoted to my family and raising my children, I was encouraged to continue my studies and activism. That was the last thing I expected to hear!

That blessing made me realize that I was going to be atypical in the church.  After a shocking birth experience where my right to informed consent was threatened and ultimately withheld, losing my job while on maternity leave and being thrown headlong into the Mommy Wars, I learned first-hand some of the discrimination and hurdles that complicate motherhood. I started to view family policy from the perspective of a mother and became aware that women’s efforts to provide for themselves and their families are still very much devalued in our society.

I was inspired to continue my work as an activist and found ways to work from home as a stay at home mother. In addition to completing a master’s degree with a child on my hip and another in utero, I collaborated with the non-profit, Solace for Mothers, to create an online discussion board for women who were struggling with emotional trauma caused by their childbirth experiences, and volunteered with the organization The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services to promote The Birth Survey, a consumer feedback website reviewing maternity care providers.

Currently enrolled in midwifery school and with plans to pursue a doctorate degree in the future, I find strength in the teachings of the gospel, the stories of women of the restoration and reliance on personal revelation.

Filed Under: HOPE Tagged With:

Advocacy Opportunity: Prioritize Maternal Health in Millennium Development Goals

October 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Giving life should not mean risking death. – Amnesty International

The goal of the United Nations Millennium Campaign is to end global poverty by the year 2015. In 2000, 189 heads of states and national representatives signed the Declaration affirming that we have the ability to “free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.”

The eight Millenium Development Goals (MGDs) are:

  1. End poverty and hunger
  2. Universal Education
  3. Gender Equality
  4. Child Health
  5. Maternal Health
  6. Combat HIV/AIDS
  7. Environmental Sustainability
  8. Global Partnership

A petition from Change.org is working to remind President Obama of  the United State’s commitment to partner globally to end poverty and specifically make global maternity mortality a priority. According to the framers of the petition:

“Women’s health is at the heart of all MDGs.

In Africa and South Asia, complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for women of childbearing age.

New data released in September 2010, shows a 34% reduction in global maternal death rates since 1990.  With just 5 years left to achieve the MDGs, we still have a long way to go to reach the global target of 75% reduction in maternal death.”

In fact, women in sub-Saharan Africa face  a 1-in-22 chance of dying from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. When all developing nations are assessed together, the odds are 1 in 75. According to newly released estimates on maternal mortaility in 2005, 536,000 women in the developing world die of maternal causes each year — a death every minute. And for every woman who dies, another 35 to 40 suffer debilitating injuries.

Only one in 17 births in Ethiopia is attended by a trained professional. For the poorest fifth of the population, such assistance is even rarer; fewer than 1 in 100 births involves a doctor, nurse, or midwife. These births often take place in rural areas that lack clean water and sanitation. If labor is obstructed or another complication arises, as happens in about 15 percent of all births, little can be done to help the baby or mother.(Nova Two Worlds)

To learn more about maternity care issues in developing countries, watch the documentary “A Walk to Beautiful” viewable on PBS.org

To keep up to date with the UN Millennium Campaign, find them on Facebook and join their email list.

The solutions, according to researchers are simple. For the cases of obstetric fistula experienced by the women in A Walk to Beautiful, only $450 is needed per patient. Education for girls and women is another answer. Experts at the World Health Organization, Population Reference Bureau, and elsewhere “point to education as a key way to address the abysmal state of maternal health in many developing countries. Education can ameliorate the root causes—poverty, the low status of females, and lack of understanding and access to reproductive healthcare. And educating girls and young women does more than improve the lives of mothers; it enhances the well-being of children, entire families, and broader communities.”

Maternal mortality is not just an issue in the developing world, but also one of concern in the United States as well. In 2006, the maternal mortality rate in the United States was estimated as 17 deaths per 100,000 births, higher than most other developed countries. It is also believed that the mortality rate is severely underreported in the United States and could be much higher. There is concern over the mortality reporting system and a call for more accurate reporting  measures to be in place.

WAVE readers are invited to add join with over 1,000 other concerned citizens in signing a petition to Congress to improve maternal mortality reporting and addressing the rising maternal mortality rate in the United States. Please also add your voice in support of global issues by signing the petition regarding the global maternal mortality rate and learn about ways that you can assist the UN in their goals to alleviate global poverty.

Thanks to the Church Humanitarian efforts, you can likely do this through your involvement with the LDS church and other volunteer efforts. If you are interested in joining with other Latter-day Saints to address maternal mortality, please comment below. If you are involved in or become involved in efforts to address maternal mortality on the national or global level, please share your experiences by emailing service@ldswave.org.

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Ask a Feminist

October 1, 2010 by 8 Comments

Dear Ask a Feminist,

I respect your position and thoughts about equality in the Church. I’m sure you have thought these issues through and have expressed yourself carefully regarding them–which in fact you do very well. I certainly agree with some of your comments–especially regarding the humanness of all of us who live and lead–whatever the position.

However, I do feel that some of your statements are confusing and difficult to reconcile and understand. I’m sure you are confident the Lord is guiding you in your personal decisions. I certainly do not question the process you have used nor the decisions you have made. It is your right within your personal calling and stewardship to come to such conclusions. You would have every right to be offended if someone tried to persuade you that “the many answers to (your) prayers, priesthood blessings and divine interventions” that confirm the Lord is directing you is a mistake and that in spite of your sincere and spiritual seeking of God’s guidance that you have taken the wrong course.

My question is that if you feel confident that the Lord is guiding you in your life and stewardship, why shouldn’t we feel the same confidence that the Lord is guiding our Church leaders (men and women), especially those we consider Apostles and Prophets in their calling and stewardship? I am confident that they would declare as you have that they have sincerely and prayerfully sought the Lord’s guidance in the important matters before them. If you feel confident in the inspiration you receive for your callings and stewardship, shouldn’t we Church members feel the same confidence in our Church leaders who establish Church policy and practices in their callings and stewardship?

Your extensive list of inequalities seem to be in the category of something other than “a few human errors.”

I sincerely do not want to come across as critical of you or what you say. I have no doubt of your sincerity and strong feelings, However, it is just difficult to understand and reconcile some of your statements. Even though you may not intend to, some of the statements leave an impression of superiority—that perhaps your inspiration is greater or better than others with a stewardship and responsibility of their own.

Thank you for listening and best wishes,

Left with questions!

Dear Left With Questions,

I appreciate the sincerity of your question and I think you raise some very good points. Just to clarify, I do have confidence that the Lord is guiding church leaders, especially the Apostles and Prophets in their callings and stewardships.  Also, I don’t think that my inspiration is greater or better than people with responsibilities and stewardships of their own.

I am going to answer your question two ways—the first will be practical and the second specific.

First, on the one hand, everyone receives inspiration and guidance for their lives and their stewardships. On the other hand, no one on earth is omniscient. Even our Prophets and Apostles rely on information given to them from Members of the Seventy who rely on information given to them from Stake Presidents who rely on information from Bishops who rely on information from Auxiliary leaders who rely on information from Home and Visiting Teachers, etc. What I hope to do is raise awareness of some of the benefits of having a greater incorporation of voices in these information exchanges. For example, in my profession as an anthropologist I often find myself in positions where my knowledge, be it cultural, linguistic, or practical could be useful at alleviating cross-cultural misunderstandings in church settings. Due to the church structure, I am often excluded from the very international interactions that I could be the most use to. I often feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I know that my knowledge has helped individuals, missionaries, and leaders in the past, but I do not want to be presumptuous or come across as superior by giving unsolicited suggestions. Nor can I assume that there will be a day when I will be useful to the church as a ________ (fill in the blank: mission president, area authority, etc).

Do I think my church leaders receive inspiration? Yes. Do I think all would be edified if they had more cross-cultural knowledge? Yes. Finding ways to increase the information that our leaders receive (i.e. cultural, feminine, racial, linguistic, etc.) does not negate their inspiration.

That is one of the goals of LDS WAVE, to benefit the Church by increasing women’s voices.

Secondly, our leaders can be inspired, guided, and directed in all that they do, but if there is a male bias in these channels of communication (i.e. the information they are given comes directly from men, who get it directly from men, who get it directly from men, and so on) we neglect a large and very important sector of our population. The best way I can illustrate the impact of this is through a specific example. On June 8, 1978 President Spencer W. Kimball and the Quorum of the First Presidency issued an official declaration that all worthy males could now receive the priesthood. Prior to this date all black church members, male and female, were also not allowed to participate in important LDS rituals, such as attending the temple, endowment, and sealing ordinances, etc. After this date men and women of all ethnicities had full access to these saving ordinances. However, you wouldn’t know this from the official declaration which was sent only to general and local priesthood officers, addressed only to the Brethren, and the revelation said that after “witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom the priesthood has been withheld, we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance….that every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows there from, including the blessings of the temple” (D & C: Official Declaration 2). There is no direct mention of women, no acknowledgement of their pleading and faithfulness, no declaration of their newfound ability to enter into the temple and receive the blessings of eternal salvation. In fact, women’s inclusion in temple rites was never officially stated; it was merely a byproduct, an assumption, an afterthought of the lifting of the priesthood ban. Are our saving ordinances different than yours? If we were “equal” wouldn’t women’s access to eternal blessings merit mention? This example makes me feel like I am less important, like my ordinances are subsidiary, like I am an appendage to a man with the priesthood rather than a complete person.

Do I believe that President Spencer W. Kimball was inspired in this revelation? Absolutely. Do I think that women would have been included in this declaration if there were more female voices in the channels of communication? Absolutely. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.

I believe that God uses all His children to bring to pass His work and not only His male children. Even without any major doctrinal changes, women’s voices could be utilized more. This would uplift, strengthen, and unify the Church in ways that we cannot even imagine. Everyone benefits from having a greater voice for female members of the Church. Everyone.

I hope you will continue communicating with me about this topic as I think your concerns are held by many. I appreciate your respect and heartfelt inquiry and look forward to this dialogue progressing.

Sincerely,

Ask a Feminist

Filed Under: Ask A Feminist Tagged With:
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