Archives for January 2011

Action Opportunity: Pray for Democracy in Egypt

January 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Readers are probably aware of the civil unrest in Egypt and the people’s efforts to achieve democracy in their country. Egypt is not the other country making the new for revolution. Tunisia and Ivory Coast are others and there is speculation that demands for democracy will spread across the Middle East and Africa.

The WAVE Women’s Service Mission is organizing a prayer vigil this where WAVE readers join together in prayer for peace and democracy in the Middle East.

Please join us Tuesday evening, February 2nd at  8:00 p.m. in prayer, as families and individuals, for the Lord’s blessing and assistance of these countries in achieving what its citizens hold so dear.

We cannot help but think of the American legacy of revolution that achieved democracy for the United States. Our hearts go out the people of these countries who are in the midst of that struggle and in our prayers we include petitions for their safety and for their needs to be met as well as wisdom to act responsibly.

To learn more and to follow one Mormon who has lived in Egypt formerly, read at By Common Consent.

So again, please join together as fellow WAVErs in support of voice and equality for the people of Egypt, Africa and the Middle East on Tuesday February 2, at 8:00 pm.

It is our hope that our wave of prayers can help God’s will to go forward in these regions of the world.

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Mormons Making a Difference

January 28, 2011 by 4 Comments

I love hearing about Mormons who have felt inspired to create non-profit organizations, humanitarian  or advocacy efforts and I’ve been collecting stories where a member of the church sees a problem in the world, decides she or he can do something to fix it and goes about doing it. I find a great deal of inspiration in that. My guess is that these members of the church take seriously the baptismal covenant to “comfort those who stand in need of comfort” as well as the injunction to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause.”

In this post, I’ll be listing a few of the Mormons I know of who are making a difference in the world. I hope you will share me with other stories you are aware of.

Just this week, two bloggernacle blogs posted about such church members:

Mmiles at By Common Consent highlighted Liahona Children’s Foundation founded by Brad Walker.

At Times and Seasons, Adam Greenwood encouraged Mormons to support efforts to block pornography.

Here on WAVE, you have heard about Judith Dushku and THARCE-Gulu, a community center in Uganda to assist women in healing from the ravages of war and enslavement.

At Mormon Women Project, Vicky Dalia was interviewed about her family operated orphanage in Guatemala.

At Tiny Peaces, a group of Mormon women and men traveled to Central Asia to assist women and girls in obtaining education and becoming self- sufficient.

Women Doing More provides “opportunities for busy women to help the world in small and simple ways.”

In my ward, I have been impressed and inspired by one sister who coordinated a clothing drive after a natural disaster in the Philippines. Another ward member just moved to Kyrgyzstan as her husband studies Central Asian law.  And a neighbor is the founder of a non-profit organization providing maternal child health services in Kenya.

On the LDS WAVE board, we have Jessica who is on the board of her local hemophilia chapter, myself a co-founder of the international non-profit Solace for Mothers, Tresa and Elisabeth working with THARCE-Gulu.

Will WAVE readers be able to add themselves to this list? I hope so. Courtney is working on her idea to create a crafter’s guild of LDS women that will raise money to send to humanitarian efforts across the globe.

Tell me more. Do you know of other Mormons who are anxiously engaged in advocacy, humanitarian or volunteer work that is working to make the world a better place foe God’s children?

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Dr. King’s Unfinished Work: Fighting The War on Women and Families

January 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Though Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known for his work with civil rights and his “I Have a Dream” speech, he was passionate about two other issues: ending war through nonviolence practice and alleviating the plight of the poor through labor relations. In fact, he was speaking on labor relations the night before his assassination.

This morning, NPR’s Weekday ran a segment that highlighted his work and included many wonderful and inspiring quotations from his speeches on poverty. The last 15-20 minutes are recommended. I’ve quote some of it below.

One of his speeches, in particular, cuts across race lines and even gender lines to highlight a problem that Americans today are all too familiar with. Generally known as the plight of the working poor, Martin Luther King stated in a 1968 speech:

“There is the problem of under-employment and there are thousands and thousand, I would say millions of people in the Negro community who are poverty stricken — not because they are not working but because they receive wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the main stream of the economic life of our nation.”

Most of the poverty stricken people of America are persons who are working every day and they end up getting part-time wages for full-time work.”

This is still the case 45 years later. We are actually much more aware of this now since our economy has been impacted across the board. Just as Dr. King said, we have an awareness and sense of urgency about economic downturn when it affects the white folks too.

All too often when there is mass unemployment in the black community, it’s referred to as a social problem and when there is mass unemployment in the white community, it’s referred to as a depression. But there is no basic difference.

Millions of Americans, across the racial spectrum–White, Asian, Latino, Black–are underemployed or work very hard for wages that cannot sustain them or their families. With women receiving on average 77 cents to the $1.00, women, particularly minority women, are especially affected.

The wage disparity is just one way that women struggle in today’s economy. The book The War on Moms: On Life in a Family Un-friendly Nation describes the many public policies that undermine families and mothers as they work to provide for their children.

It describes how stay at home mothers are not exempt from being affected by these policies as many mothers are finding themselves needing to find work to supplement their husband’s incomes, or in the case of divorce and death, find themselves single mothers which is the single most determinant of children and women transitioning into poverty.

War on Moms is just the book that can give realistic preparation for young women preparing for motherhood in regards to economic and financial impacts of being a woman in the workforce, whether by choice or by necessity. And sadly, we see that many young women do have an awareness of these issues and they may find themselves discouraged from being mothers because of them.

Martin Luther King Jr. may not have called his unfinished work a fight in the War on Families but he could have. When the working poor are unable to make a fair wage, they are unable to provide for their families, regardless of race or gender though still racial disparities compound the problems. When parents cannot provide for their children, children are raised in poverty and the cycle is perpetuated. Dr. King realized in 1968 that fair wages or “full-time pay for full-time work” were needed to break the cycle. Today, it is still needed.

As Mormons, we believe that self-reliance is necessary for spiritual and temporal success. And yet, in the United States, we live in the most family-unfriendly nation in the developed world. There are policies that stand in the way of families working toward self-sufficiency. We can no longer say that people need to work harder and then they’ll be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Some are successful but yet many are causalities and given our covenant to “mourn with those who mourn” it seems inconsistent to expect the many to become the exceptions. Through advocating for family friendly policies, like fair pay laws, we can address, at its root, some of the causes of poverty in our nation.

War on Moms describes some of the ways that these disparities can be addressed. MomsRising.org provides a grassroots platform for women across the spectrum to advocate for policies that would alleviate the strain on the working poor. Their book The Motherhood Manifesto also highlights how policies in business and government can be reformed to address and prevent poverty and grant the dignity of which Dr. Martin Luther King spoke.

It cannot be minimized or ignored that racial disparities continue to exist in the United States. When working for family friendly policies, it cannot be just for the white, middle class families with a working father and a stay at home mother but  the needs of all races residing in our country must be address. The work of Dr. King continues and must continue until each person can “assert [his/her] dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.”

WAVE readers, what organizations or efforts are you familiar with that offers innovative and effective strategies for bringing people out of poverty in the United States? Particularly, are you familiar with efforts that address racial disparities separate or in addition to women’s issues?

It is the goal of the Women’s Service Mission to learn together on to effectively serve and assist others in their hardships. If you have knowledge of these areas, please share your experiences here. As always, if you are familiar with or care particularly about an issue that affects women around the world, please write and submit a guest post to: service@ldswave.org.


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Heather asks: How to serve on MLK Day?

January 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

Submitted by WAVE reader Heather Farley. You can find her blogging at Its All About the Hat.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. In 1994, Congress declared Martin Luter King Jr. Day to be a Day of Service.. Because it is a federal holiday, many people have the day off and can dedicate some time to serving others. Serving my community has been one of my top resolutions this year: I feel like I’m at a place in my life that I can really think outside of myself. I also want to set an example for my children. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time trying to complete that resolution. It’s hard to find organizations that will allow children to come serve alongside adults or have service opportunities during hours that I can find babysitters. I really want to be able to bring my children with me so they can be involved in the community at an early age. While putting together humanitarian aid kits is nice for FHE (and we have done that), I really want my children to meet new people and start feeling a sense of the greater community we live in.

So my question for you all is two-fold. First, do you have plans to join in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service tomorrow? And have you found ways to include children in serving? Please let me know!

Heather

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Cross Post Birth Around the World: Mother Health International in Haiti

January 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment
This post is cross-posted from Stand and Deliver, blog of Rixa Freeze, PhD., an LDS mother of 2 (and one on the way) who blogs about childbirth and maternity care. Her blog was recently named one of the Top 10 Pregnancy and Birth Blogs of 2010 by Babble Magazine.

On the anniversary of the terrible earthquake in Haiti that took so many lives, I want to highlight a non-profit organization dedicated to improving maternal and child health in Haiti. Mother Health International was founded a year ago today to “respond and provide relief to pregnant women and children in areas of disaster and extreme poverty.” It is run by a volunteer medical advisory board of CNMs, CPMs, OBs, and NDs.

Mother and baby at MHI

From the MHI mission statement:

We are committed to reducing the maternal and infant mortality rates by creating healthy, sustainable holistic birth clinics using the midwifery model of care with culturally appropriate, education for the health and empowerment of women. With every healthy birth there is a positive benefit for the communities that we serve and the world as a whole. Our ultimate mission is to empower and educate the local clinic staff, with gender equality, to become the health care providers for their community.

I wrote to Heather L. Maurer, Co-Founder and Executive Director, for more information about her organization. Here is a brief history of MHI:

Located in the country’s southern coast, Jacmel suffered extensive causalities as well as was left littered with crumbled buildings and destruction after the January 12, 7.0 earth quake. MHI founding members were part of a first responder team of seven medics, midwives and support staff, originally affiliated with Bumi Sehat International Foundation, who traveled to Jacmel, Haiti on January 28, 2010 via Santa Domingo, DR to offer disaster relief to women and children. With the help from private donations, NGO’s, nonprofit organizations and government organizations, the team was able to provide emergency medical aid, water and food to the women and children who survived the earthquake.

Shortly after arriving in Jacmel, the founders of MHI recognized the greater need beyond disaster and emergency aid and began the process to build a holistic birth clinic in the heart of one of the most under served areas in Jacmel, St. Helen Parish. On March 10, MHI officially opened our doors to pregnant women and started prenatal evaluations. A few weeks after the opening of the birth clinic, the first baby boy was born into the hands of a volunteer midwife, peacefully and healthy. Today over 400 babies have been born at our birth center and thousands of women have received prenatal visits. Midwives and OB/GYN’s come from around the world volunteer their time in the birth clinic. Our birth attendants are skilled at gentle birthing techniques intended to offer women a place of dignity in which to give birth, reduce pain, decrease interventions and cesarean sections. Our model of care incorporates traditional holistic midwifery care while respecting and embracing Haitian culture and customs.

Our plans are to build permanent structures to serve as our birth clinic and we are searching for a sponsor/donor. We are in immediate need for this as the demands are growing.

Mother Health International’s birth clinic in Jacmel has seen over 425 births since its opening in March 2010. It is housed in a 44-foot diameter (1,500 square feet) dome from Pacific Domes. The birth center has 9 beds.

Interior of dome
Dome at night

I love reading the employees’ and volunteers’ stories of their time at MHI. To keep this post from running too long, I won’t repost them all here. Please take the time to visit these links–I think you’ll find them as inspiring as I have:

For a feel of what it’s like to give birth at the MHI clinic, read Imaccula’s birth story or the story of MHI’s first set of twins. You can learn more about MHI at their website, blog, and Facebook page.

Eloufeine traveled 2 hours to birth at the MHI clinic.

If you like what MHI is doing, please consider donating to help keep the clinic operating. All money donated to MHI goes directly to maintain and sustain the birth clinic in Haiti; board members and directors work on a volunteer basis.

Filed Under: Women's Service Mission Tagged With:

Censored: Mormon.org Profile

January 11, 2011 by 6 Comments

Guest Post by Jenne in response to the WAVE Call to Action to post a Mormon.org profile.

One of the questions available for members of the church to answer on Mormon.org is “What do Mormons believe about the nature of God?”

My answer:

“Mormons believe that God’s nature is that of the perfect parent. One of the greatest doctrines taught by the LDS church is that we believe we are loved by a Father and Mother in Heaven. Together, they love us with perfect knowledge of what we need to lead us to truth. They are patient, gentle, kind but firm and fair. Heavenly Father is attentive to our prayers (check for yahrzeit prayer here) and send the Spirit to guide and comfort us. He also sends his Spirit to others who will be guided to help and give us comfort in our struggles.”

Over a month later, it was still pending review.

I didn’t like the quandary that put me in. I didn’t feel like editing my response by cowing to the textbook answer; and it’s not something that I could argue with anyone. After a while, It seemed pretty clear to me that it was not going to be approved in that form and I wasn’t going to be hold the why’s behind it.

I toyed with the idea of leaving the answer the same but adding a personal experience to illustrate how I came to this belief and why it is so important to me spiritually. In the end that’s what I decided to do.

I did later find out that there had been a technical glitch with the system and my answer was never reviewed. In a way it was fortuitous, as I was given the opportunity to further reflect and add more detail and personal insight into my answer. It was a blessing to me to be able to bear testimony of Mother and Father in Heaven and to share my experiences of how I came to that testimony.

I’m pleased to report that my expanded answer was approved and is now available to view on my profile.

Mormons believe that God’s nature is that of the perfect parent. One of the greatest doctrines taught by the LDS church is that we believe we are loved by a Father and Mother in Heaven. Together, they love us with perfect knowledge of what we need to lead us to truth. They are patient, gentle, kind but firm and fair. Heavenly Father is attentive to our prayers and sends the Spirit to guide and comfort us. He also sends his Spirit to others who will be guided to help and give us comfort in our struggles.

Though I greatly mourned my father’s death, I had not had a good relationship with him when he was alive. Finding myself fatherless with no knowledge of my Father in Heaven, I yearned to know a father’s love. At first I thought it was very strange that Mormons called God “Heavenly Father” all the time. Then it grew on me when I realized that believing in a Heavenly Father meant I could come to know a perfect father and given the hope of the atonement of Christ, my father could become more perfect than he had been in life. I learned that God is a knowable, loveable personage that broke down my misconceptions about a Christian belief in God. Learning about the Mormon concept of the nature of God helped me embrace Christianity because Mormons reject the idea that God is a spirit, without passions, without body or shape.

Already having a nontraditional past and understanding of religion but valuing “truth wherever it can be found” the concept of Heavenly Mother, too, resounded strongly with me. Most Mormons first learn about Heavenly Mother in one of the LDS hymns which reads “In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason, truth eternal, tells me I’ve a mother there.” This concept made so much sense to me, and, I expect, to others who are coming from a pagan, earth-based religious background or who are familiar with the history of goddess worship throughout the centuries of the world. Its wonderful to me that neither gender is pushed aside for the other, but male and female reign together as divine beings.

In knowing about the existence of a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father, I have a better understanding of who I am as a daughter of God. Though not much is taught about Heavenly Mother, I envision a womanly goddess who is capable, strong, intelligent and all-knowing, creative, hardworking and infinitely loving: the perfect woman and mother and equal to power and ability to God the Father. The vision I have of Heavenly Father is gentle, loving, compassionate, all-knowing, patient and sensitive: the perfect man and father. In both, I find the parents I need to feel loved, comforted, guided and supported. I am able to learn how to be a better parent and partner to my husband because of the example I envision my heavenly parents set for me.

I find this experience frustrating and confusing, though in the end, I was glad to have the opportunity to bear testimony of Heavenly Mother, whom I feel is missing from my spiritual life and understanding. At this point, I have to be content with the idea I have of her in my heart and mind and pray that someday she will be more knowable.  I have faith that I will see her just as Eliza R. Snow describes in her hymn: “When I leave this frail existence, when I lay this mortal by; Father, Mother, may I meet you in your royal courts on high?” Yet, it’s with a pensive wistfulness that I hope to know her before then. And I hope for a church that openly recognizes, celebrates, seeks information about and teaches of her.

Note: This post has been edited to remove suggestion that Jenne’s profile was censored without communication as to why her answer was withheld. A technical glitch had prevented review of her response.

Filed Under: HOPE Tagged With: , ,

Ask a Feminist

January 11, 2011 by 4 Comments

Dear Ask a Feminist,

I am fairly new to this Mormon feminism thing and am trying to find my footing. I have always had certain feminist feelings but have never allowed myself to explore them until recently. I have been sharing some of my feelings with my husband and for the most part he has been very open and understanding. In recent weeks I have become sick of sitting through lessons at church about men without any mention of strong Mormon women. (In our lessons on the prophets the teachers can’t even recall the names of their wives!) So, this last Sunday we had a Sunday school lesson all dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Half way through the lesson my husband leaned over and asked, “Did you notice this whole lesson is about women?” I smiled and said yes. When we got home I brought it up again and told him that I didn’t want to diminish these two amazing women but I wanted to point out that because of their strong faith, they were both given the calling to give birth to future male leaders of the church. I felt that the only time our church could ever hold women in high esteem was when they had given birth to someone important. This totally frustrated my husband. He couldn’t believe that I had pointed this out and got very defensive. I think he thought I was going to be so excited that we had had an entire lesson on righteous women. I was happy but I was also sad because it only pointed out to me that we cannot talk of women in any other circumstance than motherhood. For the record, I think Mary and Elizabeth were amazing women and they were given a most holy and high calling. But somehow I want more. Was my husband right to be frustrated with me? Am I just looking for the bad side of things or is there any validity to my feelings?

Sincerely,

Troubled

Dear Troubled,

I completely agree! I have felt very much the same way as you. Thanks for your question and participation. We really hope that we can be a place of discussion and support for like-minded women. As a faithful obedient LDS woman, I also had a very hard time taking the step over to Mormon feminism and didn’t really know where I belonged for awhile. For me, being a “good” Mormon meant that I didn’t really break any rules. I liked being seen and treated like a “good” Mormon and it was really hard for me to be seen otherwise. Despite not changing anything about my activity, behavior, or attitude, the moment I embraced Mormon feminism was the moment I started being seen as dangerous or that something was wrong with me. It’s been a long adjustment but I really do feel so much more authentic now. I’m less concerned with what other people think and my behavior better reflects my inner most feelings rather than social proscriptions. I loved your question and interestingly I have had a very similar debate with my husband. First, I’ll tell you about my experience then I’ll focus more on answering your question.

The debate between my husband and I started out as I complained about the lack of a whole complex female storyline in our scriptures. I was explaining that for so many of our male prophets and scriptural figures we have examples of them being good, bad, immoral, moral, obedient, disobedient, confident, unsure, respected, despised, happy, sad, etc. We see them make mistakes and have redemption. We see them change, a lot. However, with our few female examples in the scriptures they are either perfect or evil. It’s the old Madonna/whore complex where women are rarely portrayed as complicated people with a past and a future and the ability to change throughout. This is problematic because it is hard to relate to a uni-dimensional person. None of us are solely good or bad, we’re each a unique mix of both! How can we expect women to relate to the scriptures, even the few feminine examples, if they don’t represent reality? After this debate my husband assured me that we do to have a complete example: Emma Smith. We see her questioning marriage with Joseph and then supporting him, mourning the loss of her children and all her trials with faith, questioning polygamy but never denying Joseph’s prophetic calling, and ultimately aligning herself with a direct lineage succession of prophets that many ascribe as her downfall. Was my husband right? Partially. It is true that Emma is a complex individual female example that we have access to through the scriptures (but mostly through church history). However, did this one little example answer the main problem I presented: that we don’t have enough examples of whole women in religious text. No. Just highlighting this example did not change the current situation and in fact it negated the argument altogether. Instead of recognizing, acknowledging, and addressing the problem, my husband was more concerned with fact that there was ONE example. He was focused on the specifics of the problem, rather, they way I presented it: “but there is one example”, rather than the problem itself: “In the general scheme of things there are not enough examples”.

Having your husband recognize lessons that focus on women’s lives is fantastic, but it doesn’t solve all of the other offenses—that there is only 1 lesson out of 52 that use female examples, that the few women who are used as examples are typically highlighted only inasmuch as they are mothers and wives, that there are no female quotes in any of our manuals, etc. Think of how differently our lessons would be if the roles were reversed. Can you imagine if our manuals and scriptures only talked about men as often as we talk about women and mostly in the context of being fathers and husbands? Automatically everyone would recognize the fact that men are accessories to the real story— a story of women. Why is it so hard for people to see that about women? Similarly, it is difficult to listen to the barrage of male-bias all year and then have one lesson on women and have people say, “See. There are women in our lessons!” It is hard to describe why this is so hurtful, but it negates all of the other weeks, all the others lessons, all of the other problems. One example or one lesson does not make things equal. It does not undo or repair the damage already done. It is a great start, don’t get me wrong, and I appreciate that one example or that one lesson but it does not fix or make up for the great inequality that exists. It is difficult to be grateful for that pittance or lip service when you know that there is so much more to be done.

I don’t know if this will help but it reminds me of an analogy. Imagine if every week people were given a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Everyone loves vanilla and is happy with their ice cream. They don’t even notice that there are other kinds of ice cream because everyone is content. Everyone except you. You like vanilla alright but you know there are so many other flavors of ice cream. In fact you prefer other flavors and so you start noticing more and more each week when the only flavor that people are serving is vanilla. At first you are frustrated. It wouldn’t hurt anyone to have other flavors why don’t we just add more? When nothing changes you begin to get upset. You worry that the only reason we keep having vanilla is because the people in charge like vanilla. You fear that your kids are missing out on a variety of experiences, especially the ones that don’t like vanilla. Your frustration keeps building until you are actually mad. You begin saying things and even asking for more flavors. At first people just think you are crazy and should enjoy your ice cream like everyone else. Some people even wonder why it is that big of a deal to you, vanilla is what they grew up with and they are happy, why can’t you be? Others even suggest that you just stop eating ice cream altogether. To make you happy one week they mix in some chocolate sauce with the vanilla. Everyone is happy. “See”, they say, “we do have other flavors.” You want to be happy with the inclusion. It is a good thing. You want to encourage more. At the same time you want to explain that the chocolate sauce in vanilla ice cream is different that chocolate ice cream. You wonder why we don’t have chocolate every week or why is it okay to taste chocolate but not to really devour it or eat it regularly. Your friends and family are mad, “After all you’re fighting for flavor, you got what you wanted, and you are still not satisfied.” It is hard to describe to them that tasting something is not the same as being satiated by it. You want to explain that this isn’t just for you— that everyone is better off with more flavors. You want to scream that one step in the right direction is not the end goal. When the next week rolls around and everyone is back to vanilla ice cream it just doesn’t taste as good to you anymore and you wonder if you shouldn’t just stop eating.

This might have been a really silly analogy, but I just want you to know that you are not alone. Despite the name I don’t really have all the answers. We have such a long way to go. I’m just glad there are people out there like you.

Sincerely,

Ask a Feminist

Filed Under: Ask A Feminist

Call to Action: Participate in the first WAVE Blog Carnival

January 8, 2011 by 4 Comments

Last month, Aaron B at By Common Consent wrote about his experience becoming a Mormon Feminist. He then posed the question to readers: When did you become a Mormon Feminist?

Its a perfect question for our January Call to Action: A Blog Carnival across the bloggernacle where you and other feminists in the church describe what experiences lead you to embrace (or even reject) the label of Mormon feminist.

Here’s how the Blog Carnival works:

  1. Tweet or share this call to action and invite others to participate with you.
  2. Write a post on your personal blog or on facebook. In your post link to this Call to Action and tell your readers that you are participating in the WAVE When Did You Become a Mormon Feminist Blog Carnival.
  3. Link your post to our facebook page and/or share on facebook and Twitter.
  4. Comment below and share the link to your post.
  5. Please indicate if we have your permission to cross-post your entry as a HOPE Blog submission.

At the end of the month, we will link to the  posts that have been shared with us, as well as cross-post them to our HOPE blog throughout the year.

Other ways you can be involved in by placing the WAVE button on your blog showing your support and sympathies towards feminism and women’s issue in the church.

WAVE is the action arm of the bloggernacle when it comes to feminist issues. In order for our efforts to have effect, we rely on the support and cooperation of many who share our sympathies and values. Before we move on to calls to action with more far reaching effects, we need to know the interests and stories of those supporting us. Through your voice on the bloggernacle via your personal blog, guest posts to the HOPE blog and other sites, you are informing us where your interests and passions lay. As Ask a Feminist recently wrote: you create the goals for which actions we will take. Through answering the question, “When did you become a Mormon feminist?” we will begin to get an idea of what goals are meaningful to you. If you need some extra encouragement to join us, please read Winterbuzz’s recent post at Feminist Mormon Housewives: “Being a Brave Feminist.”

Now it’s your turn: When did you first become a Mormon feminist?

We look forward to your posts!

Submissions:

Heather at Its All About the Hat Vlogs her response.

Sara at SK{ru}SH: lists the times in her life where she became feminist.

You can read other stories in the comments of Aaron B’s BCC post as well.

LDS WAVE board member’s feminist journeys are posted on the HOPE Blog: Jessica, Caroline, Jenne, and Chelsea.

Submissions will continue to be accepted as you are able to finish your post. Please link in the comments or on our facebook page.

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