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