Last week we looked at some of the cool profiles on mormon.org that are part of a new effort to make members real and accessible for potential investigators. And we talked about the difficulties of giving members an open mic on some of the tough questions. This week let’s look at another tough topic: Women and the priesthood.
Posts Tagged ‘ feminism ’
Feminist Musings on the story of Jephthah
OT SS Lesson #19 You are going to talk about the Biblical Judges in this week’s Sunday School class, and the lesson’s got it pretty well covered (including a discussion of the Judge/Prophetess/Mother in Israel Deborah, yay!) You’ll have to let me know how your respective teachers covered her. But some of the Judges are peripheral and didn’t make it into the lesson materials. As is my wont to do, I’d like to investigate the marginal; the story that isn’t mentioned in the manual — that of Jephthah. Whenever I come across an odd story in the Old Testament,...
From Patriarchy to Eternity
I am going to put this as simply as possible, and let’s start with a definition. Patriarchy is a social system in which the father or eldest male is head of the household, having authority over women and children. Patriarchy also refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems. I know that this is a true definition, having found it on Wikipedia. However, if you disagree, scroll down and I will include definitions from as many dictionaries as I can google. Patriarchy by its very definition is not...
Twilight Poll: Anti-Feminism or Fanciful Fiction?
Because of the New Moon movie, Twilight is getting a lot of discussion in the media. Since the author, Stephanie Meyer, is LDS, a few articles have even taken a swipe at Mormon values, expressing the opinion that the unenlightened choices of the female lead are typical for patriarchal, female-disempowering Mormons. Read on, and then take a quick poll to share your opinions.
Romantic Paternalism
Mormon Matters welcomes our newest guest poster. Kate Kelly graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Political Science. She served a mission for the church in Barcelona, Spain. She is currently in law school at American University’s Washington College of Law, the only law school in the nation world founded by women. She has had a career of various and sundry amazing jobs. She has been a mortgage counselor, an interpreter, an English teacher and spent last summer in Manhattan working at the Center for Constitutional Rights, as an Ella Baker legal fellow. She and her nurturing,...
I Have Seen the Axe
Alice Walker, who wrote about the heartbreak of female genital mutilation quoted an African proverb in the beginning of her book Possessing the Secret of Joy: “I have seen the axe, and the handle is one of us.” Are women our own worst enemy when it comes to reinforcing stereotypes and norms that limit women?
Memo To YW Leaders: Thanks, But No Thanks
In our current callings, my wife and I spend a lot of time digging through Church instruction manuals. I teach both the 12/13 year old Sunday School class (weekly) as well as Elders’ Quorum (once a month). My wife serves as the Laurels adviser, and is responsible for teaching at least a couple of lessons per month. Nearly everybody who has served in a teaching capacity can point to some instance in which they have viewed the correlated manual as lacking in some respect, be it too bland, too overly positive in its historical view, or just plain out...