I’m a feminist. Not a bra-burning, perpetually angry feminist, just the garden-variety “equal pay for equal work, nobody grope anybody else in the workplace” kind of feminist. You know, the lazy kind.
Still, a feminist, is a feminist, is a feminist, which is why even I’m not sure how it took me so long to get flustered at the LDS church over its doctrines concerning women. I suppose I was fairly placated and passive until I started learning more about Brigham Young, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
I remember sitting in a primary class and asking why women didn’t have the priesthood. I received the very enthusiastic response “Because they don’t need it!” This idea was based around the belief of a woman’s divine status being obtained through bearing and rearing children. Here is the idea most of us were raised with (in one form or another) in the LDS Church:
By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. – “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”
This is a warm fuzzy replacement for a doctrine from Brigham Young that isn’t quoted in the 2010 lesson manuals:
“True there is a curse upon the woman that is not upon the man, namely, that ‘her whole affections shall be towards her husband,’ and what is the next? ‘He shall rule over you.” – Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, Sept 21, 1856