Women's suffrage and Mormonism
 

I've been arguing with some local yocals in an anti-Mormon thread on a politics board. The feminists seem to think that Mormonism is the worst thing since slavery. I pointed out the great irony that these feminists are badgering Mormonism, despite the fact that Mormons were among the first to give women the right to vote in America (in 1870) after which the US Government took that right away from Mormon women.

Giving Mormon women the right to vote in 1870 may have been a bit of a ploy by the LDS Church to show the world that Mormon women would not vote to end polygamy.

From wikipedia:
"...some early victories were won in the territories of Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870), although Utah women were disenfranchised by the U.S. Congress in 1887. The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by outsiders' belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of polygamy. It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women.[7] Other territories and states granted women the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th century, but national women's suffrage did not come until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1920. "

On the other hand, I think the Church was much more progressive, free, open (and unusual) in the 19th century. We were shut down in the 1800s for being too liberal. As a reaction to pressure, we ultimately became too conservative.

For women polygamy is the analog of slavery to blacks.

Would slaves have voted for slavery? It's an interesting question. Maybe it's different if you believe in it as part of your faith.

Except the Community of Christ, I wonder if Mormonism is the most feminist form of Christianity on Earth (considering heavenly mother and priestesses in the temple).

While Mormons do have several pro-feminist beliefs, they seem to mostly deal with posthumous things. If we, for just a brief moment, consider religions to be earthly organizations, Mormons aren't any better than any other religion, and their denial of positions of authority to women seems to put them about average (I don't know, as I'm not versed on the state of women in many religions).

Moreover, it's hard to argue that Mormonism is this beacon of enlightenment for women when they put up an Aunt Thomasin to speak in the last GC and say that women should all have lots of kids and abandon their career aspirations (today a substantial majority of admittants to elite colleges and universities are women), and laying a guilt trip on women who work full time.

I think Mormonism is pretty darn bad when it comes to women. In fact, I think my two oldest daughters, both of whom are on a trajectory to go to college, have received very confusing and negative examples and object lessons from Mormon acquaintances and family. It pisses a parent off to have to undo harmful effects of such disinformation.

And since you are both black and a woman, you'll know all about it, right? . . .

Yeah, I agree with most of what you said. But I think the primary source of confusion is culture, not religion, with Mrs. Sister Beck being the great exception.

I guess I should have said that Mormonism has the most theological feminist potential of any form of Christianity.

No. It's not. When I went to law school women comprised about 50% of most law schools. BYU was below 20%. There are many more Catholic and Episcopal and unitarian and mainline Protestant women who are in powerful careers. Of course, there are many more women in those religions who have now for generations broken free of the psychological hammerlock of their respective religions.

I still think Mormonism is a mixed bag of empowering women in some ways while also holding them back in others.

This speaks volumes.

http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/31228

This isn't even a close issue. The whole civilized world agrees with me that polygamy, like slavery, is a relic of antiquity and maximally oppressive of women. In fact, has polygamy ever not gone hand in hand with child sexual abuse? Incest as well haunts polygamous societies. Never in the history of the world has polygamy not been taboo in advanced civilizations with representative governments. It didn't exist even in the Roman Empire and one of Christianity's great contributins was to eliminate it in Europe among the erstwhile pagans. It speaks volumes that today polygamy is prevalent mostly in radical Islam and indigenous societies (aside from those disgusting Orthodox Mormons).

Volume II:

http://www.law2.byu.edu/admissions/p...vestudents.php

2007-2008 - 34% Women (click on Law School Profile)

That's the same as it was in 2001, and it's terrible. The national average is around 50%.

AH yes, why would the greeks and romans need polygamy when pederasts are accepted and even admired? Are you actually contending, btw, that the form and substance of polygamy practuiced by some tribes in EUrope is the same as polygamy practiced by early mormons?

I think you're splitting hairs.

You think women in law school is a good thing? To me, it's a form of idiocy, I wouldn't wish law school upon man, woman or child. Women in the LDS Church are smarter than men, they go to med school or they become metalurgical expert locators.

I don't think I am. I take it you find no difference?

Yea, what a horrible thing for a religion to believe...that women might just be better at raising kids than men are. What an insult to women. To give them such an important role in life. In fact, why should either parent stay home to raise the kids? Why not leave the child rearing to some complete strangers that run day care?

See, my point exactly. This is what mainstream Mormons believe. They're sexist, myopic, and ignorant when it comes to women.

Yeah, go live in Europe for 15 years like I did to...
 

see the ramifications of your view. To equate an understanding of natural differences (strengths and weaknesses) between men and women as sexist, myopic and ignorant means your ears and eyes are shut.

I heard the same crap being spewed by A Swedish coalition of feminists during the debates on whether Sweden was to join the EU or not. They had traveled down to Greece, Spain and Italy and their rhetoric was filled with the same finger pointing as yours. Oh how these Mediterranean women were oppressed having to stay home and take care of the children, having no college education, no careers, no opportunities to grow, blah blah blah.

The irony is that two major news agencies in Germany and Sweden actually spent some time interviewing women from the above mentioned countries and they were shocked that many of these Spanish, Italian and Greek women would actually point the finger back at the Swedes and claim that the Swedish women were the ones truly oppressed since they had to fill the roles of nurturer and breadwinner. They felt that the pressure these women put on themselves to replace roles that men had filled for so long only served to make them even more unhappy than they already were. These Mediterranean women were clear on how they valued themselves, and how important their role in the lives of their family and society were. The Coalitions work was actually hurt by this exposure, and they quickly disappeared from the media as their arguments didn't hold water. Imagine that. In socialist Sweden where Daddies can get time off of work to be Mr. Mom, and the state funded day care system has all but replaced the nurturing care of parents.

Sometimes when something has been working for thousands of years, trying to change it due to an overinflated ego of self importance and skewed perspectives on the worth of souls (money, prominence, worldly recognition), you have to ask yourself who the backward, myopic, and ignorant people are.

Blah blah blah. Don't come here citing hearsay studies without citation to support your crack-pot, fringe sexist theories. Ignoramus, you're in the stone age. More than half the population of elite colleges and graduate and professional schools are women. Women are holding their own numrerically and intellectually in the board rooms, faculties, OR's, law firms and labs of the most elite institutions in the West. Their kids have been growing up and attending places like Stanford now for 2-3 generations. Odds are our next president will be a woman.

I'd like to see if your hero Romney would spout this blather. He wouldn't because half the directors of corporations he's formed are women, and he'd be done as a candidate in one second if he did.

I have as little repsect for sexism as I do racism. I know hundreds of women who are great mothers and would disembowel you professionally in the blink of an eye.

From an anthropological perspective, the evidence does indeed suggest that men were the ones doing the vast majority of the hunting in hunter/gatherer societies. However, the evidence also suggests that the women were providing close to, and in some cases more than, 50% of the support. The women provided the stable, day-to-day food for the children, while the men were adventuring around and providing unpredictable bursts of healthy nutrition. From this perspective, the women were at least as important in providing for young as were men.

Also, it seems that men participating in the rearing of children would have become important fairly early in the evolution of Homo sapiens, and is likely the reason why our culture emphasizes marriage and monogamy so much.

To get to the point, recognizing differences between men and women is one thing; pigeonholing the sexes into roles based on one's short-sighted interpretation of these differences is another. There is no reason to believe that women should not participate in working for the material support of children, just as there is no reason to believe that men can not rear children as effectively as women. These concepts have been perpetuated by religion in spite of the best evidence.

It's been a long time since hunting and gathering was an imporatant means to sustenance for humans. In agrarian societies, and if people want to go back in history for precedent that's where most humans have lived in recorded history, women were at least as important as men for putting bread on the table, more so if the men thought their role was to be out hunting and making war all the time. Tacitus' The Germania or Tolstoy's The Cossacks provide good descriptions of this reality.

Ah bull crap. I am not a mainstream mormon as you would define them and I believe there are huge differences between men and women. I don't care how chubby you get and how you try to fix your man boobs, you will never look like my girlfriends.

There are always exceptions to the general rule, but in general to say women do things better than men and men do things better than women is not sexist. It is facing facts and as long as you are comfortable and allow for the exceptions, that position is not sexist, myopic or ignorant.

What is sexist is to give opportunities where none is deserved. How about Title IX or X. The one that says have the activitiy that provides all the revenue pay for the ones that don't.

I can't wait for the day when I take my sons to a ball game and some government agency insists I take my daughters to a ballet of equal value.

What's the point here? I've been saying in this thread mainstream Mormons are sexist. All you self-proclaimed mainstream Mormons are just proving sexism is a defining characteristic of Mormon culture. Sooner's original post raised that isse.

I've not said there aren't differences between men and women. Actually, what I believe is that some of those differences may make women better suited than men to the elite white collar careers.

That's true as well, but the issue at hand was sex differences, and the vast majority of human evolution has taken place in foraging/H&G societies, not agrarian ones. Either way, the point is the same. To try to support the church's position by pointing out sex differences (As DJRoss did) is silly according to the known behavior of humans of any period of time.

That might be a debate worth having. Tell me what you consider to be sexist. I am interested to know if I fit in your definition.

For instance I think Title 1X or X is stupid. If everything is to be so dang equal, why do we have womens and mens sports. Just have one college football, basketball, golf, etc. team. Why do we have to have one for each.

I think it's sexist to say women are better suited to be full time mothers, and that is their place, which is what two posters have said here. Such statements are not only sexist but openly disproven in every corner and at every level of our country's and Europe's commercial environment. Women today excel at every level, perform toe to toe with men, and there is no evidence (other than anecdotal) that children of working women are worse off. There's more reliable evidence that the average two hours a day small children spend in front of the TV is damaging to them. I know plenty of full-time working moms with great kids. Some have to work, in fact.

It all depends on the whole circumstances. What I oppose here is generalizations. I am not saying what women shoud do, contrary to Norcalcat or DJ Ross.

To say a womens place is in the home is sexist, I will agree. To say women in general are better suited to be full time parents as opposed to men, I just don't see how one could argue that. We probably wouldn't have to even argue it if full time Mom's were given the accolades they deserve.

If this weren't the case, I would argue that more kids, primarily minorities, wouldn't be on TV thanking their moms and grandmoms.

There is no reason to think that a woman entering medical school and a male entering medical school that the male will end up the better Dr.

ON the other hand, I think there is ample evidence that you could make a guess in general which gender would make the better stay at home parent and which gender would do better at sitting at a bar getting drunk.

Do you hate yourself? I can't imagine the motivation behind characterizing one's sex so poorly. I've known women who could drink me under the table, and I've known women that are way better with kids than me (Almost all of them in this case, as kids aren't really my thing). These sorts of generalizations are sexist and not supported by the facts.

You don't think there could possibly be any other reason why people say "Hi Mom" on TV?

I don't know whether you are joking or not. Therefor I don't wish to make you look foolish when all you were trying to do is add some humor.

Why don't you send me an excel file of those "hundreds" of women that are great mothers (that you actually know are great mothers and not relying on media hype if they are public figures), and who could disembowel me professionally in the blink of an eye. LOL what a joke.

Did you not pay attention over the past thirty years of the enormous push to get girls into college? How many programs or quota systems are there today that are actually geared toward men not considered minorities? How many of these women actually finish their schooling? How many actually continue on to careers opting to delay or eliminate family life? How many would have even applied to college if there had not been such a strong promotional effort to get them to do so? Now I am all for boys and girls attending college if that is their desire. I am all for both genders doing their utmost to educate themselves, but I am not about to support the kind of feministic platforms that are dominating higher education today due to the amount of sixties bra burners that now enjoy administrative positions on campuses today. Sad to realize that many of these die hards got where they were through politics vs. capabilities.

Are you like that Cropped Hair, loopy earring Haight Ashbury throwback that wept in front of Barbara Walters or was it Diane Sawyer when the a tight group of women considered as a golden generation decided to step down as CEO's, Partners in their law firms, etc to be stay at home mommies. They were all wanting children, having them and realizing that staying at home and nurturing them was preferred over any other choice. No discussion of Daddy staying home during this all important period in a childs life. This feminist hippy idiot was angered by their behavior. She ranted about how these women had a duty to set an example for girls to follow after and that they had set women back over thirty years. No joy or happiness for their decision to stay at home; only anger and bitterness.

Here is a nice article written by a woman, using quotes by women regarding this issue.

Here is amazing piece that really digs deep into the challenges we face due to feminism. Overcoming Motherhood

This is a must read. It is long, but it does an excellent job of revealing just road we have taken when we have worked so hard to break up traditional roles as they have been established over thousands of years.

BTW, my wife is educated, works out of the home (has her office at home), but travels as a CRA regularly throughout the United States to monitor various phase studies for pharmaceutical research. She loves her job and enjoys the flexibility it provides given that she can work from home. She decided to work only after our children began attending school. Why? Oh I don't know, maybe it had to do with the priorities of nurturing that she felt were so important. If you were to bark your feminist rhetoric at her, she would grin slightly, shake her head in wonderment at your ignorance, and than walk away. (She is conflict averse which makes sense since she is Swedish).

Look before you leap. The feminist agenda is counter to a society of values that strengthen a nation. Feminist agendas have nothing to do with equal pay for equal work. It has nothing to do with valuing each gender for what each brings to society.

No, I was being serious. Please make me look foolish.

The point is that what you consider to be "traditional roles" are nothing of the sort. They are recent cultural constructions. Your position follows decently from your premise; it's your premise that needs questioning.

In each of my posts I took great pain to talk about generalities and exceptions to generalities. You talk about women who can drink you under the table. How does your situation extend to all men and women?

I've read several of your posts. You lean to the feminine side. Therefor how can you use yourself as a comparison for most men and most women. Most men are not feminine. You may wish that was the case, but it isn't.

Note I didn't say anything about comparing women in general to the subset of feminine men, but to men in general.

Sorry for saying I would make you look foolish. I am trying to display my sensitive side so maybe we can discuss things in a more calm fashion in the future.

I wasn't using that as a generalization, but rather as a counter to yours. That should have been obvious. Why do you think I lean to the feminine side? Because I don't drink alcohol very often? I definitely have no desire to come across as macho, and think that many problems are caused by those who do have such a desire, but that certainly doesn't make me feminine. "Secure" would be a better word. For the record, I am a large, muscley guy with lots of hair. Perhaps my need to seem masculine is tempered by that fact.

I don't know if you drink alcohol often or not. Ok lets use another example.

If I said in general men are stronger than women and would on average win in a knock down drag out fight.

Now your counter is going to be. I know women who would kill me in a knock down drag out fight. That is why I think you lean to the feminine side. Despite your size and hair.

No, that's not true at all. I am the first to acknowledge that women's sports are boring because women suck at sports compared to men, and that there are very few women on earth who could take me in a fight. You're confusing vastly different things. A woman's ability or desire to get drunk are not based on physical stature, other than that women are generally smaller and therefore get drunk more easily. Your statement is completely baseless, as I have said nothing that would allow you to logically come that conclusion.

Do you live in a cave? More like it I think you're a clientless "consultant" schmuck working in his own basement (I only get personal with sexists and racists who vent their nonsense without factual foundation). Good thing your wife has a day job. Seriously, you are out of touch with reality; I'm sorry for you that you are so isolated whereever it is you subsist that you doubt what I'm saying about the millions upon millions of women in influential and important positions in this country.

That you think it's "feminist ideology" to say that women should be free to choose to work without being guilt-tripped by chavenists like you says it all. It seems this is only a debatable issue among Mormons. Two-thirds of the people my firm hires are women. Two thirds of the partners we made last year were women.

Your derogatory comments about alleged affirmative action for women are not only sexist, they're false (except at BYU it seems). Here is what's really happening all over the country, not just in the elite colleges but in all the elite fields:

"Few of us sitting around the table were as talented and as directed at age 17 as this young woman. Unfortunately, her test scores and grade point average placed her in the middle of our pool. We had to have a debate before we decided to swallow the middling scores and write "admit" next to her name.

"Had she been a male applicant, there would have been little, if any, hesitation to admit. The reality is that because young men are rarer, they're more valued applicants. Today, two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women. Demographers predict that by 2009, only 42 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in the United States will be given to men."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/op...=1&oref=slogin

The Hoover Institution article has nothing to do with what we're discussing. I bet you didn't even read it.

Are you serious, to quote you "a woman's ability or desire to get drunk are not based on physical staure," now this is classic, "other than that women are generally smaller and therefore get drunk more easily."

Reread what you said over and over again until you come to the conclusion that you just said women get drunk more easily because of their physical stature. (Of course we are talking in general terms here. I realize some women may be bigger in stature than you, but I assume most aren't.)