TBM women are hopelessly out of place in today's world. They may have had a better shot at life in the 1950s or earlier but most are painfully ill-equipped to function in the 21st century. Most have little to no post secondary education. In my stake, there are a number of women who left there husbands because of the husband's lack of belief in the Mormon cult. These women are struggling to make ends meet with no degrees or hobby degrees that do not provide a viable means to earn a living. They are left in a situation where they must rely on their ex-husbands and the church to support them.

Many of these women also struggle socially and or often socially inept. They shut down around anyone outside of their little TBM inner circle and are very passive. They look to their bishops and other male leaders to make decisions for them.

This is not a good situation for anyone even though those trapped inside of Mormonism cannot see the damage this situation does to women, men, and children.

Add in the women who stay with abusive or neglecting priesthood holders because of church pressure or because they can't support themselves and children. Then justify the situation with the glory of spending time & all eternity pregnant by the some exalted creep. The church really reduces women to chattel.

I had a friend like this - her husband was selfish and neglectful and insulting. I asked her why she put up with it and she said she got married before she even finished her associate's degree, had no way to make a living and didn't want to raise 5 kids by herself. So now she's raising 3 boys who are learning to treat women like crap and 2 girls who are learning it's a woman's role to let her husband walk all over her. I sympathize with her situation and blame the church, who taught her it was OK to get engaged to a guy she'd only known 2 weeks, not to worry about having a degree because it was more important to be a mommy and not to put off having children, so they had 3 kids before he finished his graduate degree and have student loans that equal a house loan (on a small house but still...)

I know so many Mormon women my age in this exact situation. It's so sad. Despite my regret having wasted my youth as a Mormon, I will always be grateful that I wasn't so entrenched that giving up my education ever seemed like a good idea.

I'm married because I want to be and that's the way it should be. I can also support myself and my 2 children if I ever had to (also had the wisdom not to have more despite the bs ward pressure) - so grateful.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2014 10:09PM by goldenrule.

or, (my case) when TBM women's income is sufficient/higher than males + doubting spouse = (church blessed) DIVORCE!

I used to think TBM women were especially oppressed, but then I realized that is an anti-women view. That assumes they are incapable of taking care of themselves.

Turns out we all find a way to survive, whether getting stuff on our own, or bumming off others.

Perhaps if these women didn't want to be in a tough situation, they could have not "left there husbands because of the husband's lack of belief in the Mormon cult."

If their husband was able to see the light, why couldn't they? They simply don't want to.

They assume, as do many women in today's society, that they can make such decisions and someone will take care of them, be it church, government or ex-husbands.

exmo59 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I used to think TBM women were especially
> oppressed, but then I realized that is an
> anti-women view. That assumes they are incapable
> of taking care of themselves.

I don't know about that. TBMs are all brainwashed and psychologically abused. Women just happen to also suffer from the fact that the system is also biased against them: a brainwashed TBM man is still able to function relatively well independently, but he's still brainwashed. A brainwashed TBM woman is discouraged from living independently. They're both brainwashed, but one is harmed by it in more ways than the other.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2014 07:53PM by schmendrick.

I don't think it's all that fair the say the church damages men any less than it damages women. It just does it in different ways. Remember men have to serve missions. They're taught masturbation is a horrible sin and forced to participate in priesthood ordinances every week as a youth. They're gifted with often low sex marriages and lots of guilt. I gave up most of my hobbies as a result of gospel teachings, because lets face it, almost anything guys like to do is against the gospel in one way or another.

I'm sure it's not any better for women. Just saying there is plenty of getting screwed all around.

I think there is some blaming of the victim here: women are blamed for allowing themselves to be oppressed.

From what I have read here and observed personally, the young lds women (and lds women in general) are now being targeted with an unprecedented level of brainwashing beginning in primary, but accelerating in young women's that the only acceptable role for them is marriage to a returned missionary and motherhood, early and often, for eternity. All of their talents and interests are sublimated into that one path. They are isolated from anything and anyone non-church related. Anything different represents a monumental failure on their part.

Is it any wonder they are unprepared to think for themselves or make their way in the world without their "worthy priestholder" to allow them to serve him and the church?

So, blaming the victim for being a victim doesn't do a lot of good. Helping the victim to understand her victimhood and how it came to be just might help her to start thinking.

I think the church opresses men and women in very different ways. Men may get more "power" in the church, but they miss out on other things like promiscuous sex, alcohol, watching sports on Sunday, etc. I think missing out on those things generally hurts males more than females. I know of multiple mormon men that got into a bit of a mid-life crisis when they realized how much they missed out on, and leave the church, probably due to a combination of that and also finding out it isn't true (in most cases the wife stays and wants nothing more to do with them). Often they move to a different country as well.

One big thing for me was serving a mission. If you're a girl you can get away without having to go on one, but with boys it's pretty much expected, and I desperately didn't want to do one (yet I also didn't want to disappoint so many people, and become a failure). That was a time in my life I really would have preferred to be female. But I agree women have huge challenges from the church too, but I think it's a very different set of ones to what males have.

But at least, when these Moron men have their "mid-life crisis," they are able to support themselves. In fact, after they dump their TBM wives and the church, they often go on to bigger and better things.


They even get to the point where they can watch the Super Bowl on Sunday and not feel guilty.


Their wives, on the other hand, brainwashed into passivity by TSCC and denied an education in so many cases, find that they cannot support themselves and their children, and do not have enough experience making decisions to take care of their families adequately.


For them, it's not just a matter of getting on with their lives -- they often lack even basic social skills, occupational skills, etc.

Your argument about men being pretty much forced to waste two years on a mission when women were not is a valid argument -- or at least it is for the women of past generations.


But for the girls of today, they will face all the discrimination that their mothers faced, all the lack of opportunity in the work place and in educational opportunities -- AND they will be forced into the mission field on top of that!


I really feel for this generation of girls...

So, you think men are just animals who have no morals and they would just rather run and do all sorts of wild things if not for the church? Wow, I had a much higher opinion of men than that. I didn't grow up in the church, but men in my life were pretty decent.

QWE - would you rather go on a mission for two years or bow down to some penis-holder for eternity?
Women are wombs with feet in TSCC. Men are powerful gods.
SERIOUSLY? sports on TV on Sunday? Alcohol? Promiscuous sex?

Being pinned down for eternity as a womb with feet is on par with missing out on watching TV on Sundays etc.? WOW!

Try not to be too hard on him. The church messed us all up.

verilyverily Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> QWE - would you rather go on a mission for two
> years or bow down to some penis-holder for
> eternity?
> Women are wombs with feet in TSCC. Men are
> powerful gods.
> SERIOUSLY? sports on TV on Sunday? Alcohol?
> Promiscuous sex?
>
> Being pinned down for eternity as a womb with feet
> is on par with missing out on watching TV on
> Sundays etc.? WOW!

QWE needs to work on that non mormon emotion called "empathy", figuring out that others have it worse than you. Golly gosh men didnt get enough casual sex.....what a total eclipse of the moon compared to women who are controlled by men their entire lives. And who are buried with a veil on her face, as god finds her face objectionable.

This is the situation I'm in. Now that I've left the church, I'm trying to figure out how to fit into the outside world. I'm pretty much starting from scratch. I'm way too passive, lacking professional job skills, and I need to figure out how to make non Mormon/non religious friends. And I still haven't figured out how to make coffee taste good.

It's hard, I know. I'm in my forties just trying to get an education while being the mother of teenagers. And the coffee thing is hard! The only drink I can handle so far is the caramel macchiato at Starbucks. But I'm doing it so I can ditch my Mountain Dew habit.

I started reading on this site around 2000. As a non mo, I found the stories written by women to be unbelievable....women encouraged by church idiots to stay in pysically abuse relationships because the jerk was a penisholder, or women who were told to marry gay men in order to save then. Jesus h Christ on a raft it was the 21st century and women were being instructed to live in the 1940s. The lds crutch is the most pitiful excuse for a "major" religion that exists, well except for scientologist freaks. How mobots can think they are admired for their idiotic beliefs is just laughable....jesus jammies, clueless pimply faced "elder" missionaries, dead dunking jews and other unwilling dead, silly masonic ceremonies, mittens romney, caffine and alcohol self righteousness.....plus all the prop 8 hatred....sorry mobots you are despicable not admired.

LOL mittens!

TSCC brainwashes both males and females with gender roles.

Men are taught that the sky is the limit, they should achieve as much as they can in terms of education and career. They are, after all, preparing for Godhood. They then have one hand tied behind their backs in the form of missions, early marriage and children. In most divorces they get visitation and must find housing that will accommodate weekend parenthood. They are saddled with child support and alimony.

Women are taught that their primary goal is to be wives and mothers. They must be prepared to sacrifice any success that they achieve in education or career in order to support their husbands goals and raise their children. Sometimes the result is a husband with an advanced degree and a wife who worked at the beginning of the marriage in order to put him through school. Combine that with a long gap in her resume while she stayed home to raise the kids and you have a woman who is not prepared to support herself.

In most cases if she divorces, she gets the house and primary custody of the children. Often the alimony and child support she receives is not sufficient to cover the expenses associated with the house. If she has small children, she can't make enough at an entry level job to cover the childcare she needs in order to work.

TSCC sets couples up to have a lose, lose, divorce. Because of that, many people stay in miserable marriages. I would love to see the results of a marriage poll among TBM empty nesters. I think the box marked "Enduring to the end" would have the highest response.

than the men and seem to run the place
The bishop's wife is studying for her degree in nursing
The bishop's counselor's wife is a high school teacher
and the young women president is studying for her bachelor's degree in education which augurs well for the girls she teaches

I dislike trying to paint the church as being much worse for one gender or another. I think both genders get fairly f*cked over in the LDS church. Certainly one difference is that some men actually come out on top (making money and gaining control over others) in the church and I agree that isn't true for almost any women really but then again, mormonism seems to work very well for certain types of women too.

With men, you are expected to:

a) have as many kids as possible with a wife who will never work leaving you to always shoulder 100% of the financial stress, often even after a divorce. Do not discount how stressful this can be or how damaging a heavy stress load can be to a persons mental/physical health.
b) always have a calling. Men do every calling the the church but young womens and RS, and they even have to participate to some degree in those. Face it, most callings in the church are just busy work. They come with no real power or influence so they are just one more item added to the load a man has to carry. On top of the mission I might add.
c) always lead, in everything. Some men revel in this, but I think a lot of men want an equal partner in life who can share the load and take care of things themselves. I wonder how many men, even mormon men, really want to have a brain-dead brood mare who brings nothing but a vagina/uterus to the marriage.

So, the church is really a bad deal for most men as well in my opinion. you are still trained to never question, always submit to "authority", marry and have as many kids as possible.
Sure you can have a career, but in the mormon church thats just so you can pay tithing, it doesnt get you out of any of the other sh1t they demand of you.

Being a man in the LDS church is a bit like being a "trustee" in prison. Its probably better than the alternative but its still waaaay better to just not be there in the first place and no one is happy to be in prison just because they get a few extra privileges.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2014 06:15PM by jesuswantsme4asucker.

I'm a woman and I agree that both genders get mind fucked, maybe in different ways, but pretty equal in the end.

How about porn and masturbation? That seems to be a male dominated mind fuck in the lds church. I hear almost daily about some marriage that ended because the husband was 'addicted' to porn.

No way in hell could I have handled a mission. AND even though I was one of those who "saved a gay"--talk about a mind fuck--being gay in mormonism. Oh my hell!

Cannot like this enough. I married my wife because she was strong-willed, independent and ambitious. After the wedding and our first child our lives became exactly as you lay out. She fell into deep depression and lost all interest in any advancement outside of being a good Mormon Mommy™. I tried to encourage open dialogue in our life decisions. I encouraged her to continue her education. I would add that I felt blame for many of the ills of our family because I was the one who was supposed to be leading our family by the priesthood.

Kids are misbehaving? Must be because dad forgot to lead us in family prayer this morning.

Kids don't know as much as they should about The Gospel™? Must be because dad doesn't have Family Home Evening® as often as he should.

Dad never gets us up for family scripture study.

Dad forgot to give the kids priesthood blessings before the school year, that's why they're struggling.

Dividing domestic chores equally became a challenge because I was always gone giving "service" or Magnifying My Calling™ in countless meetings on top of trying to advance my career to provide a better life for my family.

TSCC is bad for both genders.

I'm a woman, but I agree that both genders get mind fucked in the church, and it starts from birth with gender roles being strictly forced. It starts with a baby blessing where the boys get put in white suits, and girls get a gown. Non-Mormon families often have a christening gown that has been worn by generations of infants, regardless of gender. That's a tradition that you don't really see in Mormonism.

The men get screwed in the following ways:

1. Having to serve a mission. In other words, 2 years of hell.

2. The whole sexuality thing is really hard on men.

3. Having to give priesthood blessings to sick people, family members, etc. You are put on the spot but never are quite sure what exactly to say.