Growing up in the church, men and women attend different classes in their teen years and beyond. Boys attend "Priesthood" and girls attend "Young Women's" until 18 and then "Relief Society" after that (think ~equivalent to a more structured FRG meeting, where childcare is provided).
The Young Women's program has a Theme which is recited at the beginning of the meeting each Sunday. The version I memorized as a child is different from the current one. The current one is far more reactionary about women's role and could be it's own blog post, so I'm going to quote the version I learned:
We are daugthers of our Heavenly Father, who loves us and we love Him. We will stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places as we strive to live the Young Women Values, which are:FaithDivine NatureIndividual WorthKnowledgeChoice and AccountabilityGood Works, andIntegrity.We believe that as we come to accept and act upon these values we will be prepared to make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exultation.
I was reminded of this theme this week, when a woman I went to school with at BYU reconnected with me on FB and promptly picked a fight with me about Rick Santorum, and one person's humorous take on the "Hey Girl" meme.
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| The image that sparked the discussion. Source: http://fucknoricksantorum.tumblr.com/ also good for other amazing examples of Rick Santorum's positions on women's rights. |
Our discussion, which was pretty ridiculous and not worth repeating, boiled down to her arguing that women are on earth to procreate and take care of men and babies. She feels it is okay to mandate this, because it's god's plan for women.
As you can imagine. I take issue with this.
When I was at BYU and still a practicing dyed-in-the-wool Mormon, I was given a Priesthood blessing that said I would have "a long and full career as a geologist." This is a big deal given the prevailing attitude in the Mormon church that women are here on earth to be wives/mothers and nothing else. Someone wrote into the BYU newspaper shortly after and proclaimed that it was foolish to educate women, particularly in math and science, because we were never going to use that education (wives/mothers after all) and we were taking up valuable space that men needed. So, being young and naive, I replied with a letter to the editor and explained that I believe (based on said Priesthood blessing, and just in general) that women should have the right to choose their paths. Some women aren't cut out to be mothers and forcing them to be is a detriment to children.
OMG, you would have thought I had yelled "Fire" in a crowded theatre. It was crazy. I got hate mail from professors at my home. I sparked a deluge of letters to the editor from students and faculty designed to put me in my place.
Why?
Because I dared argue that we should have the right to make decisions for ourselves and bear the consequences....you know, "Choice and Accountability." According to Mormons, before we all ended up on earth, there was a war in heaven over exactly this issue. Lucifer wanted to mandate that everyone had to follow god, be saved, and go to heaven. No sin= 100% success rate and very little learning for anyone. Jesus, argued that we should have the right to make choices and learn from our actions. He wanted us to have opportunities to screw up, repent, and do it better next time.
Does anyone think Lucifer's plan sounds an awful lot like Rick Santorum and other GOP's positions on "women's rights?" They want to force us to make the decisions they believe are right for us. They want to remove "choice and accountability." How exactly is this God's plan? Moreover, what is the obsession with forcing women to bring children into situations where their basic needs cannot be met? Why is every "life" in utero sacred, but once they get on the planet and are actually functional organisms, we disregard them? Is growing up in a situation where one is unloved and uncared for really beneficial to the people involved and later to society?
I wanted to ask my "friend" these questions, but she unfriended me because I suggested that all people had the right to make their own decisions regarding family formation. This is one of the reasons I left the church. I believe very strongly in our right to make decisions and our responsibility to bear the consequences of those actions.
Many Mormons have suggested that the priesthood blessing I received was wrong (which again, is a whole other philosophical ball of wax). Whether it was or wasn't, I argued then and I argue now that women should have the right to make their own decisions about family and career. If I choose not to "follow god's plan," the person I am hurting is myself, right? (One way ticket to outer darkness, here I come.) And how can god truly know that I chose him and his plan if I am coerced? S/he can't.
Ultimately, this is the core reason why I left the church. It isn't that I have done or have intention to do anything terrible (unless you count delaying off-spring to have my career). I firmly believe(d?) the things they preached, like "choice and accountability" and the "pre-existence/war in heaven" and I do not believe in being a hypocrite. I don't believe in "do as I say, not as I do, or even as I preach."
In a somewhat related thought, I am very grateful I left the church and became a milspouse. There was so much starkness, black/white, good/evil, etc that in order to maintain my identity as a woman with career aspirations, I had to carve out a separate space and treat them like "the other" as much as they treated me that way. If I conceded even a little bit on my desire to have a family one day, it was used as evidence that I was unnatural, and fighting against god. In leaving the church, I was able to put some distance between me and this worldview, but I was in a university setting, that was the opposite extreme...radical feminism (which means something very different than the GOP thinks it does). So, while I didn't have to fight the issue everyday, I definitely was still locked in a very black/white world.
Being a milspouse forced me into an intersection with lots of different people who have a broader diversity of experiences (more shades of grey) than I had ever encountered. I have met women who cover a broad spectrum between stay-at-home baby-maker for Christ to uber feminist (burn the bra) types. These milspouses have been instrumental in helping me define a new world view, where I don't feel threatened with lynching by women who are homemakers. Instead, I've developed a broad appreciation for the talents they are able to develop that I have to shelve in order to follow my career. They don't just stay-home, clean, and make babies. They're fierce. This has allowed me to create intellectual space to think about my work/life balance and consider having children. Still on the fence about it, but at least there is room to have a fence. I am very grateful for this opportunity for intellectual and emotional development. It's something that only "choice and accountability" could provide.
I realize there are many hot-button cultural issues that deeply divide America. I hope that some of these issues can be addressed by allowing women to make their own choices and deal with whatever consequences come. After all, isn't that what Jesus would do?
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