Which is more valuable: your “virtue” or your life? Unfortunately, some LDS girls are learning the wrong answer — and it turns out that that was the last straw that drove “Mr Deity” out of the church (h/t). Just get a load of the level of crazy obsession with “modesty” rules for girls. No wonder some reject the church-approved role of homemaker.
Jessawhy’s nightmare sums up the root problem pretty well:
I need a church where women are not only told that they’re valuable, but are ACTUALLY VALUABLE in making decisions that affect us all.
A recent example of the prominence and importance of men in the church involved the leadership change in my ward. One bishopric counselor who had been serving for less than a year was reassigned back to his semi-permanent calling of Scout Master. Apparently since he left, some of the young men had not acquired their Eagle Scout awards, and a more committed Scout Master was required. So, ward leadership was shuffled, an entire Sacrament meeting was devoted to this man and the new counselor. The importance of these changes were punctuated by the presence of the entire Stake Presidency. I was really upset and Mark asked me why. I said, “Would there ever be a young women’s calling that is so important that they would rearrange the entire Bishopric to make sure that the young women were properly staffed?â€
Actually, just read this play.
The unequal treatment of women in the CoJCoL-dS has its roots in the actions of Joseph Smith. (And women aren’t the only category getting bad treatment.)
In books, Doves & Serpents’ “Psaltry & Lyre” poetry series is now in print. There’s a new review of the Mormon Diaries. (BTW, I added four new books to the MAA Books website — see if you can find them!) And the fiasco of “The Not Even Once Club” continues — people are petitioning Deseret Book to remove this book from its catalog. (At the very least, they should think twice about their policy of putting anything written by Mormon royalty on the fast-track to publication.) Naturally, people are comparing this to Denver Snuffer’s book (which, yes, he was excommunicated over — leading to an interesting poll about what offenses should warrant excommunication).
In life journeys, Jen apologized to the people she converted on her mission, Monica remembers her past, and the overeducated housewife went skinny-dipping for the first time!
And let’s wrap up with fun and other random stuff: Happy Science Popularizer Day! Here’s a new hymn, a little joke, alternatives to sex, using algebra in real life, a perfect autumn day, the real problem with Miley Cyrus, a dialog making sense of God’s plan, and 50 random facts you probably don’t know that you don’t know.
And now I’m off to a comic book convention. Happy reading!!
Thanks as always chanson! Have a great time at the convention!
Ditto aerin, thanks, and tell us about the convention when you get back!
You are in luck — I’m already back! It was in Lausanne, two hours away by train.
It was super fun, and we each got a stack of comics!!!
Probably my favorite read-for-pleasure literary genre is personal memoirs in comic form, as you can see this part of my blog. My two kids love comics, too — and I think it helps them develop the habit of reading for pleasure. And my husband picked up a few albums to complete some of the classic series he’s been collecting (especially Gaston Lagaffe and also some Tintin).
thanks for pulling together my reading for the week dear Chanson. As always your dedication pays off for me. :o)
@4 Thanks!!
This was a really interesting week for women’s issues. That one-act play on fMh, in particular, is fantastic!
@3 comic memoir is pretty close to what you’ve done with your graphic novel. 🙂
@6 Thanks, but I feel like the artwork isn’t quite up to what I’d like it to be. I do intend to write a graphic novel at some point in the future, but it’s still kind of in the brainstorming phase.
(see: here for the novel)
One would think, because of the belief that rape robs women of their virtue, and the belief that virtue is more important than life, that Mormons would be trying to advocate for even stiffer sentensing for rapists than murderers. After all, a murderer only robs you of your life, whereas a rapist robs you of something even more important than life.
It would certainly be preferable to the seeming lacksidasical approach to rapists.
@8 & @9 Good point. Interesting that all of these lessons on rape are directed to the girls.
But, you know, it is actually quite possible to have a positive and effective rape-prevention campaign aimed at convincing potential rapists not to rape. A lot of the problem really is misinformation about what constitutes rape. Hence, a logical approach is to tell people: “Don’t Be That Guy”.
@8 & 9: I had a relative who worked as a public defender and a judge, and remember discussing with him the fact that at some point there were states that had stiffer penalties for rape than for murder. The result was that rapists just murdered their victims, since why not just kill the bitch too? Murdering her so she could never identify you made it less likely that you would get caught, and if by some chance you did, it wouldn’t result in a stiffer sentence–in fact, perhaps you could even plea bargain down to murder. Prosecutors figured out pretty quickly that it was a really bad idea all the way around.
Who’d’a thought it? The key to preventing rape isn’t to convince women that they should fear/mistrust all guys and feel like they need to always protect themselves, but to convince all guys that women are in fact human, not just life size blow-up dolls!
Brilliant SiOB, but you, unfortunately left out David Twede’s comparison between the Holy Ghost and Bastet.
I hope I did that link correctly.
@13 Thanks!
I don’t know how I missed seeing that one. I subscribe to his blog, but I don’t recall seeing anything from him in a while, so maybe I need to double-check that there’s not an error in my feed configuration.