A dialog on women leaving the CoJCoL-dS

The New York Times recently published a piece on Utah demographics that included the following paragraph:

A 2025 comprehensive study by researchers at Brigham Young University found that, while a majority of older women stayed in the church, less than 40 percent of 18-year-old women did. (Men, on the other hand, stayed in the church at high rates with little generational difference, said Justin Dyer, the lead researcher.)

Jana Riess followed up with a piece attributing the attrition to “politics, purity culture and powerlessness.” Then Holly Welker replied with a Facebook post with her own alliterative response!

Here’s what a few of us on the MSP team have to say about it.

chanson: I agree with Holly’s analysis, particularly her fourth point on “Penny-pinching and party-pooping.”

It’s not just about having a reason to leave — it’s even more about not having a reason to stay.

When I was growing up Mormon, my favorite part was the road-shows and other amateur theatrical productions. The high point of my experience in Mormonism was playing Emily in a big stake production of Saturday’s Warrior.

Others mentioned fun activities, dances, basketball (which I actually played despite not being interested in sports), Boy Scouts (which I also sort of participated in, despite not being a boy…). Have they stopped all of those things? Do they not even do basketball anymore? What about the homemaking activities?

Donna: Yeah, I converted to Mormonism as a teenager largely because of those activities. While I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, reading the Book of Mormon didn’t do anything for me (snort). But that welcoming community gave me all kinds of spiritual warm fuzzies. (My mind jumps to those tearful testimony meetings held on the last day of camp and/or youth conference.) Growing up in the L.A. suburbs, we had road shows, dance festivals at the Rose Bowl, Mormon night at both Disneyland and the Dodgers games. Our stake dances featured local live bands and were so awesome that non-Mormon kids would show up. Later, as a R.S. sister, I attended some actually useful homemaking activities. I learned to reupholster furniture, can fruit, make jam, etc. In fairness, none of these activities ultimately convinced me to stay, given the LDS Church’s stand on social issues and, of course, the patriarchy. But I did really miss the community when I left some 30+ years ago. I don’t know what the heck the Mormon women stay for now.

chanson: Wow, those sound like fun! The sexism was always a problem (the boys always had way more budget than the girls…), but you could almost convince yourself it’s some sort of eternal principle if you at least do some fun girl stuff like making jam, decorating cakes, getting together for a quilting bee, giving each other makeovers at a slumber party, etc. I understand slumber parties are forbidden now.

Holly: I absolutely HATED playing church softball, which I could not get out of because my mom was the coach for our ward’s Young Women’s team. But I still spent a lot of time as a teenager hanging out at the church softball park during the summer, because it was a place to see my friends. (I don’t remember for sure, but I think there were games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings. Monday was for family home evening, of course, and Friday was for church youth dances.) Most stakes, at least in Arizona, had their own church softball park, which they paid to improve (put in bleachers and lights and a concession stand) and maintain. At some point that ended–my stake’s softball park is where they built the Gila Valley Temple, and with global warming, we now have nights in Tucson where it’s still 100F at 9 p.m., and it’s even worse in the Phoenix area (it always used to cool down as soon as the sun set). But it was such a clear message that the church wanted us to have good clean, wholesome fun and didn’t consider investing in our mundane happiness and well-being a waste of money.

chanson: A lot of people (like Matt Long, on Holly’s Facebook thread) argue that “at least we talk about Joseph Smith less and Jesus more” — and I agree that some amount of de-emphasizing some problematic parts (e.g. racism, polygamy) is positive. But if they just delete all of the unique doctrines — when they take an attitude that the more they’re like a mainstream Christian religion, the better — then what is Mormonism’s value added? Why not just attend a different Christian church? One that doesn’t make you pay 10% of your income, and one that has a prettier building that you’re not expected to clean?

Holly: Also a church that doesn’t make you spend your own money for the last two years of your teens so you can pester strangers on social media with this message: “Hey! Our church is just like yours–except it’s run by old guys in Utah, requires more work, has the most boring meetings imaginable, and will make you give up coffee, alcohol, and weed.”

chanson: Personally I thought a lot of the unique doctrines were a selling point, and I liked being part of a “peculiar people.” If they just delete everything, then, yeah, they definitely get rid of a lot of bad stuff, but it’s not clear if there’s anything left for people to connect with.

Donna: Something was definitely lost when the church tried to look mainstream. I remember sitting with a group of girls in Helaman Halls (BYU dorm), all of us in our PJ’s, discussing our eternal future. We get to have our own planets! Wow. What color would the grass be? The sky? Like the line from the musical, “Eternal life is super fun!” (Well, if you left out polygamy.)

I actually felt a little sad when, in the response to that musical, the church claimed they didn’t believe Mormons would have their own planets. I mean. What a ripoff! Especially now that the members have to clean the church toilets. And there’s no more roadshows or homemaking projects. Like the one where I made that adorable Christmas mouse I still love.

chanson: Yeah, I’ve always maintained that the most inaccurate thing about the song “I Believe” (from the musical) is the idea that a modern Mormon would loudly proclaim with his whole chest that he believes in the unique doctrines that we used to embrace. Ever since (I think) Gordon B. Hinckley, any discussion of Mormonism’s unique doctrines has been hedged with weasel-wording about how we don’t know about these “folk doctrines”, etc.

Even when I was a kid, the movement towards “correlation” was already working to marginalize any discussion of theology. Church was all about reading each other “lessons” out of these completely vapid whitewashed manuals. We discussed what our future planets and galaxies would be like on our own time.

As hard as it is to believe that the church is “true,” I think it’s almost harder to believe that it’s interesting — when the evidence that it’s not is right there smacking you in the face. I remember when I was a teenager that my mom would get the cassette tapes from General Conference and listen to them while doing housework. I remember thinking, “You’re a smart person — why would you choose to listen to this? Even if you have a testimony that it’s true, how can you possibly think this drivel is interesting or remotely edifying?”

Now apparently they actually have people recite conference talks verbatim at church, replacing a lot of opportunities for people to write their own talks. I seriously can’t picture myself attending such a meeting without wanting to go up to the stand to shake some sense into them. I guess it goes along with the “testimony glove” to tell you what you’re supposed to say in your testimony so that people don’t think they’re supposed to express their own thoughts and ideas. (Crazy testimonies — love ’em or hate ’em — at least they were interesting…)

Of course I’m sure that for a lot of people, the church’s move towards “check your brain and any creative impulses at the door” is actually a selling point. So it probably doesn’t explain young women leaving in greater numbers than young men…

Holly: Who? Who wants church to make them stupider?

Donna: Good point about “I Believe.” The talk about the fantastical bits of doctrine was always on the “down low.” I wouldn’t have gone up to my non-LDS high school friends and said, “Guess what! I’m going to have my own planet” — A la Elder Price in the musical. But we did talk amongst ourselves, and while many of us may not have taken the doctrine literally, it definitely lent a uniqueness to being Mormon. Also the conversations the craziness inspired! Like the one we’re having now.

Holly: I really appreciate this conversation. It has helped me articulate something important: “[Church softball] was such a clear message that the church wanted us to have good clean, wholesome fun and didn’t consider investing in our mundane happiness and well-being a waste of money.” The church today communicates clearly to its members that it finds them stupid and contemptible, and considers investing in their mundane happiness and well-being a waste of money. This is hardly surprising, given how much it values its real estate holdings, and it considers investing in the upkeep of its own assets a waste of money. It would rather have inadequate, incompetent, coerced maintenance of church grounds and buildings than professional, competent maintenance that it can totally afford and that doesn’t engender resentment and ridicule over its miserliness.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the most contemptuous and contemptible organization I personally have ever had the misfortune to belong to. Part of that is related to Christianity and its contempt for human beings: As I said in another Facebook post, “People are remarkably proud of worshiping a god who finds them too sinful and fallen to be allowed in his presence without someone being tormented.” The church also always made clear that it felt even greater contempt for entire groups of people: brown people, Black people, women, LGBTQ+ people, intellectuals, and apostates.

But for a really long time, it worked really hard to persuade its members that joining the church lessened how contemptible they were, and it did that through tying to make their lives materially better. It has totally given that up mission. Instead, it communicates to its members that it seems them as an exploitable commodity.

Donna: But back to Holly’s “penny-pinching and party-pooping.” I do think that the lack of activities and fun in general has contributed to women giving up the faith. Men, at least, still have the priesthood. Women get to…what? Share it with their husbands? Sorry, guys, that’s not enough. I at least need a quilting party or two. And if you expect me to clean the chapel, I believe the going rate is $100 an hour.

Holly: Remember when Russ Nelson said, “If we look to the world and follow its formulas for happiness, we will never know joy. The unrighteous may experience any number of emotions and sensations, but they will never experience joy! Joy is a gift for the faithful. It is the gift that comes from intentionally trying to live a righteous life, as taught by Jesus Christ”? For an entity that arrogates to itself the unique ability to provide human beings with joy, it sure works hard to be a killjoy.

It’s remarkable that anyone is sticking around at this point.