It seems like we talked about this just last week! But I guess it’s only natural that finding ways to support and strengthen mixed-faith families is one of the central concerns of our community. (Not that shared faith makes marriage easy or anything.) Sometimes you have the joy of discovering that your friend made a similar faith journey, but you can’t usually count on it. Reaching across faith lines is hard, so it’s likely you’ll have some strained discussions ahead. Possibly involving your underwear. And how do you teach kids your values without seeing families as instruments and children as products?
Religion often focuses on sex, yet sexism is about power — who gets a little, how it’s exercised, and how it gets abused.
Atheists put up a cool new billboard in Salt Lake City (not this one)! Congrats, and don’t forget to do some humanitarian work as well, not to mention your community responsibilities. In other news, there’s some disagreement over LDS church history and doctrine. Leaving the fold often leads to changing your look and fun new questions! So why not share your experience with others?
And let’s close with some cool Mormon material culture to remind you to contribute to Sunstone! Happy Sunday! 😀
Speaking of material culture, what do you make of this?
Why are Mormon kids flying a rainbow flag on a pioneer trek?
Very interesting!! I hate to jump to conclusions, so it’s hard to know exactly what to make of it…
Chino — BTW, that’s a great new set of sidebar headlines!
Regarding the D. Todd Christofferson talk:
When that talk was given (back in 2006), one of the bloggers of Outer Blogness (whose blog has since disappeared, sadly), wrote an excellent piece about it. He argued that that talk would likely be stepping stone out of the church for many people (kind of like the more recent BKP talk that deconverted Invictus Pligrim).
It’s astonishing that he could praise a guy who stood idly by for a year, letting his wife iron his and his five sons’ shirts, knowing that the task caused her intense physical pain. It’s hard to comprehend what was going on in that guy’s head, that he could watch her go to the bedroom and cry from the pain, and not immediately think of perhaps learning to iron his own shirts. Or, if he’s afraid of making her feel inadequate [though, really, no human should be made to feel her worth is dependent on her ability to iron], he could suggest it as a learning experience for the kids: “These boys will be going on missions some day, and will have to iron their own shirts — they should start practicing now!”
Hey, thanks for noticing. 🙂 Todd’s dumb talk put me in turbo exmo mode. And it’s got me thinking about how much I disagree with Kristine Haglund about this, esp. her assertion that “exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism”:
I don’t think she takes into account how conditions on the ground have changed in recent years. She contends that exiters lack leverage vis–vis the institutional church “unless you belong to a large, identifiable cohort”… to which I’d simply reply: The Washington Post links to our exmo projects just like they link to the Bloggernacle. At some point, I expect she’s gonna have to admit that we qualify for “large, identifiable cohort” status. In the meantime, BCC can keep pretending we don’t exist by banning and ignoring us, but the only thing that accomplishes is warping their own view of the situation, and we’ll just keep adding to our numbers and raising our visibility and developing exactly the kind of leverage that Haglund wants to suggest will always be beyond our reach.
From that Washington Post piece:
We’re here. Update your assumptions.
Back to the subject at hand.
Crap like this pisses people off, Todd. So, thank goodness for insider critiques that hold you accountable. Behold the awesome power of this highly productive mode of Bloggernacle criticism:
*eyeroll*
By the way, Todd, I asked Jesus what he thought about your story, and he said he’s waiting for you to ask him yourself. Directly. Something about some bet he’s got going with Matt and Trey.
I know what you mean about the assertion that exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism. Considering how unresponsive the hierarchy is to criticism, it’s hard to judge whether this mode is less productive than any other.
If nothing else, it’s a productive mode of remaining sane, judging from the patronizing climate expressed in the article you linked about Mormon men waiting longer to marry, worrying church officials:
So, to recap: According to the old white men in charge, men just want to have fun (and marriage is a drag), whereas women don’t want to have fun being single and generally enjoying the carefree life with their friends.
Is that true of Mormon women? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But coupling this with the ironing story above, is this the kind of self-worth assessment that you want your daughter to learn and internalize? Kinda makes that exit door look awfully tempting…
I’m not convinced that the hierarchy is unresponsive to criticism. Such an admission strikes me as little more than acceding to bought-and-paid-for framing in the absence of a strong grassroots counter-narrative. And admittedly, I’m stumbling toward a thesis here in this extemporaneous threadjack, but one thing I’m fairly certain of is that this supposed absence is already a historical footnote. The current reality is that the counter-narrative is alive and well and the popcorn-worthy spectacle of Bloggernacle apologetics is mostly about the inability of the best Mormon minds to silence the annoying beep-beep-beep on the radar screen of a host culture that takes an increasingly dim view of racism, sexism and homophobia. That said, it’s probably too early to expect ‘naclers to acknowledge that exmos are bravely volunteering to fly some of the most dangerous sorties. So it goes. While we’re capturing their kids, they’re consoling themselves that “we don’t know why” there’s such massive disaffection/desertion under way. From one parent to another, I remember what it was like being a teenager in an LDS home and it’s the feigned ineffability that grates the hardest.
It’s an interesting thesis, and I wouldn’t call it a threadjack. Actually, I was going to suggest that — since it’s not possible to comment on the sidebar headlines directly — people should consider the latest SiOB to be an open thread where any of the Mormon news can be discussed.
Or maybe not. I tend to agree with your argument that…
Seriously. Exit = sanity. Amen.
At some point, constantly culling the headlines for “Mormon” news becomes a fool’s errand (as if I’d left my Weltanschauung to loiter on the sidewalk outside my favorite club, people-watching in wait for some eye-popping, paradigm-shifting late arrival).
It’s the same rabbit hole that Josh Marshall has explored over at TPM by following the scent of every insane bunny vying for the GOP nomination. At some point, the realization ought to kick in that you’ve spent the better part of your God-given cerebral capacity chronicling the comings and goings of damaged people.
Not that Kaimi is damaged. Or Kristine. Or Cheryl. Or Joanna. Or John. Or any number of admirably lucid Mormons too numerous to mention. And especially not any of the regulars here at MSP, but seriously… the fascination is unsustainable. At the end of the day, it’s a creaky model that I’d be better off forgetting until next summer when we rendezvous for Sunstone.
Here’s what bothered me so much about Christofferson’s talk. The obvious solution is for dad and the boys to do the ironing. OTOH, I can see that the idea that she was taking care of and serving her family could have been an important part of the mom’s self-image, so dad wouldn’t want to just take over.
But Christofferson never even mentions the obvious solution. He never says anything like, “Of course, we could have done the ironing, but….” The idea that dad could have ironed — or the idea that that was the obvious solution — never seems to have occurred to him. He just treats the idea that women are supposed to iron for men as the natural order of things.
@9 — What the…? Are you suggesting that a man could iron his own shirts, even if there’s a woman living in the house with him…? Kuri, that’s crazy-talk!
😉
@4 & @6 — I do have a bit of an objection to Haglund’s claim about the irrelevance of leaving:
As a person who left as a young person “in the transition from youth programs to Relief Society,” I feel so important knowing that Haglund thinks my exit was one of the ones that “matters.” (Go me!) But seriously, the three categories she mentions are people going through transitions, many of whom will simply leave for their own personal reasons.
The folks who leave after establishing a Mormon family are the people who have the most invested in the CoJCoL-dS, and who have to make huge sacrifices when they leave. They’re the folks who don’t leave unless there’s something really wrong, and they’re the solid foundation members that the CoJCoL-dS needs most.
If watching such people leave “simply doesnt matter” “for the institution,” well, that is already a glaring red flag that there’s something wrong with the institution.
When I first joined the church, one of the neighbor families was an older LDS couple. They were around 60, I suppose, and their children had all moved out. I was was talking to the woman once, and she said she had to leave because she needed to iron her husband’s shirts. She said he had 30 shirts, so it would take awhile.
It was a definite WTF moment. First, why in the world did anyone need 30 shirts? (All white, I imagined — at least, I’d never seen him in any other kind.) And second — and double-plus WTF — why doesn’t he iron his own shirts?
I’d never imagined there were people who lived like that.
Kristine’s argument is crap, an attempt to justify staying in an institution that she knows oppresses her.
There was recently a discussion on the fMh facebook page about women explaining to their young daughters that they can’t have the priesthood, and trying to deal with the confusion and hurt the daughters feel. As distressed mother put it, “I’ve accepted injustice, but why should she?”
Why should she? And can Kristine Haglund really tell that daughter that she should stick around because exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism”?
At some point, women who stay active Latter-day Saints face the proposition of thinking less of themselves, or thinking less of their leaders–if they are strong enough to make that choice. I actually think most of those who stay end up thinking less of both themselves and their leaders. Todd’s mom didn’t think much of either herself or her husband. She was surprised by his belated kindness and didn’t believe in her own right to ask others to do work for themselves that would spare them suffering.
And Kristine Haglund thinks we should tell our daughters that opting out of that is “not a productive mode of articulating criticism”?
Oh, and this from Kristine:
Since the category “post-mission men” ultimately includes most LDS men, and since many “pre-mission men” are included in the category “young people in the transition from youth programs to Relief Society or Elders Quorum,” what Kristine is really saying is that “women’s departures don’t matter” and are not a productive mode of articulating criticism.”
Though they might matter if A) we could get enough of them to do it and B) women mattered in the LDS church in the first place.
And it’s not like staying is really proving itself “a productive mode of articulating criticism,” or people like Kristine might have actually made some improvements that would do something to stem the exodus of young LDS women at the rate of 80%–behold, that ever so unproductive mode of registering criticism.
In my comment above, I was giving her the benefit of the doubt that she meant men who just finished their missions since, as you point out, otherwise it means men’s departures matter and women’s don’t. But I’ll grant that maybe that really is what she’s saying.
That is an excellent observation.
Also, I don’t quite agree with her whole theory that “the church has an unbreakable monopoly.” She seems to be arguing that if you believe in Mormonism, then you believe that only the church itself has authority, so even if you disagree, you’re still stuck. I’d say it’s possible to believe in the Restoration and still question whether the CoJCoL-dS has the authority monopoly it claims to have.
However, it’s true that the strong belief the infallibility of the CoJCoL-dS + the observation that the top leaders are often very wrong leads people to question their beliefs at the very core. I don’t think her interpretation of the interchangeability of Christian sects is quite right (Ms. Jack, perhaps you can comment on that…?), but it’s likely that the CoJCoL-dS is producing a disproportionate number of atheists (compared to other religions) because of its strong authority claims. (eg. it’s harder for Mormons to say “That one leader is dead wrong, but my core beliefs are still true,” than it is for mainstream Christians to say the same.)
@Kuri
God forbid that a wife iron her husband’s shirts. She certainly wouldn’t do it because she loves him and wants to help him or some kind of ridiculous reason like that. Because in a marriage everyone knows that the secret to success is that you take care your own needs without a thought of the other person’s needs.
The reasons why I donate to Dialogue, Sunstone and Dehlin Enterprises are admittedly somewhat convoluted but ultimately defensible, in my view. If that’s a discussion anyone here would be interested in having, let’s go (and as long as you’re here, Holly, are you suggesting there’s a case to be made for defunding one or all of these projects?).
dpc — You’re alive, after all these years!
Seriously, though, that’s great if she wants to iron for her family. Full disclosure: I do all of my family’s laundry. However, if you read the comments carefully, you’ll see that that’s not precisely the problem.
Besides that, I think you have it a little backwards:
The critique wasn’t that she was selfishly thinking of her own need not to be in pain instead of thinking of her husband’s need to have ironed shirts. The critique was that the husband was so focused on his own need to have his shirts ironed (without being bothered to do it himself) that he failed to consider the needs of others. (Hey, a guy could do something out of love for another, too, couldn’t he?)
i’ve supported such projects with my money and my writing. As long as they’re venues where people who have left or never been Mormon can talk about Mormonism, I will continue to support them. If any of them ever make activity in the COJCOLDS a prerequisite for publication, then I’ll be done.
But I do have a friend who insists that going to Sunstone or subscribing to Dialogue is about like continuing to hang out with active participants of the KKK. OK, he says, maybe it wasn’t your choice to be raised in the KKK. Maybe you want to explore how being raised in it scarred you. Doesn’t mean you should fraternize with those who still put on white sheets or take seriously their defenses of white sheetism.
It’s a position I’ve argued against–I don’t think supporting a forum ABOUT Mormonism is the same as supporting Mormonism. But he does.
I have a friend who insists that if I’m going to pester folks about religion, I ought to make a special effort to try to be friendly about it. Otherwise — per my friend’s bizarre logic — why bother?
@21 — I’m all about civil dialog, but I don’t get that logic either. There are so many different possibilities — I would never claim that there’s one canonical “right” approach.
chanson — I can only be lazy for so long. I’m glad to know that you are still around, though. I appreciate this post because I have been thinking deeply about social relationships and religious faith a lot recently. I believe there is a correlation between relationship difficulties (marital or familial) and leaving one’s religion. I don’t think that the one necessarily causes the other, but there is, in my mind, a definite link. And one day I will actually write a blog post that sets out my reasons why I think that way
dpc — cool, I look forward to reading it! As I’ve said in the above post, strengthening one’s relationships through a major change (like leaving ones religion) is a central concern for our community.
@22 — My reference to my (imaginary) friend was tongue-in-cheek. For all the Sturm und Drang that’s apparently part-and-parcel of discussing Mormonism, I really don’t get why we have to be so mean to each other.
Maybe because we all succeed fairly well at emulating a father who subjects his children to tests they can’t pass, banishes them from his presence when they inevitably disappoint him, expects them to be enthusiastic about the ritual execution of a brother, plays favorites with apology, and withholds from them access to their mother for reasons no one can explain.
We’re taught that being like a cruel, nasty deity is the height of righteousness. In many regards what is remarkable are those occasions when we manage to better than the god we were taught to worship, not those occasions when we imitate him far too well.
Holly- If I’m going to fit Sunstone into my schedule, I need assurances that MSP is going to run our own panel. What you just unloaded in that comment of yours is exactly what I don’t have patience for.
I think it’s not unreasonable to imagine that they’ll allow an MSP/Outer Blogness panel. It’s just a question of submitting one and negotiating it.
My proposals are nearly done, though they might need a bit of work before submitting them…
Your proposals rock, chanson. I’m cool with sexy, and demographics, and meta … what I’m not cool with is self-marginalization … it’s been done before and I’m not keen on conjuring up the latest iteration of that phenomenon.
The ironing shirts example was unfortunate because it brought in a scenario from a past age to an audience not really equipped to understand the context.
Back in the 1950s women ironed shirts. It was part of what they did. And they didn’t have wrinkle-free shirts like you do today – so yes – they really did need to be ironed. And men really did need a lot of them – because that’s all men wore to the workplace in those days. And if you keep wearing the same ones over and over, they get ugly yellow stains around the collar and armpits.
And if a man tried to tell a 1950s wife to “take it easy” and do the ironing for her – some might have taken him up on it. But an equal number would have been utterly humiliated and felt like failures at their own sphere in the world.
See?
Modern solutions don’t always work the way you planned when you lift them wholesale and chuck them back a half century as a proscriptive remedy.
I agree that USE of the example in the 21st century was unfortunate and sent some wrong messages. But that’s no reason to bag on the couple featured in the talk.
I wonder, Seth R., why your keen insight hasn’t managed to trickle up to Todd’s level? As far as I can tell, the bulk of Bloggernacle objections to the BOM Broadway musical are mostly coming from a place that misunderestimates just how powerful an effect the white-shirt-and-tie motif has had on the uninitiated/unchurched masses. Is it their fault for finding it odd or your fault for not bothering to switch up the wardrobe during the past 50 years?
chino @29 — That’s why I proposed two panels. One where we can talk about our own goals without (the usual) having the faithful frame the discussion of what “apostates” are like, and another where we’re discussing our place in/with the greater Mormon-interest community.
Seth @30 — Great, I get it was the 50’s, but the talk was given in 2006 to give an example of manhood for 2006. I’m with Kuri @9, that the key problem was that there wasn’t even an acknowledgement that it might have been possible for him to iron his own shirts. A little aside like “Sure, this sounds crazy today, but it was the ’50’s, so…” or “Ironing was one task that Mom had always taken a special pride in…” would have gone a long way. Just so that we’re not left with the impression that “Of, course, it goes without saying, that, as a woman, Mom would have felt incomplete at the very hint that she wasn’t up to ironing her husband’s and sons’ shirts…”
And, honestly, defending this anecdote — which has to be one of the most misogynistic stinkers to grace conference for a decade — gives the impression that no matter what the GAs say, no matter how obviously wrong, you will simply knee-jerk battle any criticism of it.
Good grief Chanson.
When did this automatically become “one of the most misogynistic stinkers to grace conference for a decade”?
It’s a story from the 50s that a guy didn’t have the self-awareness to contextualize for everyone, tinted by his own leftover attitudes about sex (which many disagree with).
That last statement honestly, gives the impression that the folks here have a knee-jerk urge to see the worst in anything coming from the LDS Church. Your rhetoric is a bit over-the-top here.
Misogynistic my butt…
Chino, I have no idea what you are trying to say there.
@33 Well, I haven’t been following conference that closely. Why, you have some examples to beat this one…?
I don’t know Chanson.
Honestly, I’m just a little surprised at the use of the word misogynistic here.
Sure… I guess you could make an argument that it’s a bit misogynistic… I guess…
The same way Pride and Prejudice could be termed “misogynistic” if you were so inclined to boil down the matter to one aspect. Or the same way stories of any American woman doing household chores in the old days could be labeled “misogynistic.”
I guess Little House on the Prairie might count.
But really, I think this rhetoric is more than slightly over the top.
@34 — Right back at ya’ … Or maybe you could bother to explain exactly what threw you for a loop?
Seth — If you’d like to go on record as claiming that it’s somehow “over the top” to find that there’s something very wrong with using this anecdote to illustrate true manhood in 2006, that’s fine. I’m perfectly happy to agree to disagree, and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
Chanson – then I guess I’ll leave it there. I don’t have much more to say on the topic anyway.
Ahhh, nevermind. Here’s the gist, Seth R.:
You admit that “The ironing shirts example was unfortunate because it brought in a scenario from a past age.”
My point was that nearly everything about Mormon culture reminds almost everyone of a “past age”…
Honest question: Do you really think your church is doing your growth prospects any favors by insisting on a uniform that is quickly becoming North American shorthand for “deluded” and “naive” ??
Oh, I see.
I had nothing to do with my comment but was just method for bringing in another trivial gripe about the church.
Got it.
Seth R.: In all seriousness, is there any point that I could offer up as a suggestion that you wouldn’t interpret as griping?
If not, why should I bother with your inveterate moaning? Seriously. Do you really think you’re doing right by your faith with this routine of yours?
I read Kristine as referring to the exit unto itself being useless. Not necessarily everything that comes after exiting, or the whole state of ex-Mormonism.
On the point of ironing in the 1950s, what comes to my mind was Julianne Moore’s character in The Hours, an example of a 1950s (lesbian) woman who felt domesticity and motherhood were her duties (and would not have wanted her husband to venture into her roles), but couldn’t articulate why somehow these roles weren’t enough.
CB, That’s up to you and the acceptance committee next year. Sunstone doesn’t historically mess with panels once they’re accepted, but they do sometimes ask for revisions to proposals that are unfocused or unlikely to attract an audience or unsatisfactory in some other way before they accept them.
So if you want to run your own panel, submit a strong proposal, find all the speakers yourself ahead of time and include their names and bios with the proposal, and do it early enough that everything can be decided and arranged before you buy a plane ticket.
Because no one can give you any assurance about what will happen with your panel before you submit the proposal for it.
Right, she’s saying it doesn’t give you real leverage to change the CoJCoL-dS. Of course, most people don’t leave in hopes that their exit will change the CoJCoL-dS — they leave because they’ve given up on the organization. If the institution then views it as irrelevant that so many would-be-devoted-members are headed for the exits, then, I guess, it’s mutual.
I was a licensed attorney making more money than my then-husband, who was also an attorney and a very independent woman. With all that, the church indoctrination runs so deep that my ex still said to me one day, with a perfectly straight face, “If you loved me, you would want to iron my shirts for me.” I laughed, thinking he had been joking, but he had been serious. I had to explain to him that if I love him, I might be willing to iron his shirts for him, at my discretion, even though I hate ironing, but ironing does not equal love and love does not equal ironing. I never ironed anything for him again, even though before that time, I would always ask if he needed anything ironed while I had the iron and board out when I was doing my own ironing. The fact that he did not reciprocate didn’t necessarily bother me because I knew he hated ironing even more than I did and it took him 10 times as long (as the oldest daughter in an LDS household, I had done all the ironing for a family of 7 for over a decade), but that I was supposed to love doing it as a wife was too much.
Well Chino, I really do think the whole white shirt thing is an unutterably trivial and stupid complaint against the Church.
I thought so years ago when Steve EM would always gripe about it on 9 Moons, and I still think so.
I actually think the white shirt, tie and slacks routine is a very, very good idea if you are sending out a missionary force actually. I kind of laugh at the suggestions that come up every once in a while suggesting a more “casual Friday” (aka – I want to look like a homogenized loser) look.
You should have seen how WE dressed in my mission when we were on our “Preparation Days” and allowed to dress how we wanted. Believe me – we looked pretty awful. Our moms would have been appalled at our lack of good taste.
Ever watch “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?”
Yeah – we would have been the appallingly dressed schlub BEFORE all the experts were done with him.
The missionary uniform ain’t broke. Please DON’T “fix” it.
It burns me up that the Church changed its missionary policy and no longer requires elders to wear hats. I’m with you Seth, if the missionary uniform ain’t broke, then leave it alone.
Talked to a guy last week who almost died of sunstroke on his mission because he was not allowed to wear a hat. Of course he applied sunscreen, but he’d sweat it off after a couple of hours. An obvious solution (one with no just immediate but long-term ramifications for his health, given how nasty skin cancer is) would be to wear a hat–but that was absolutely not permitted.
So yeah, the uniform definitely ain’t broken, and don’t need no fixin, not from nobody.
sorry, make that “not just immediate”