That's the loud and clear message from an angered Mormon woman (who understandably chooses to remain anonymous amid Mormonism's still intact and in charge Heir Club for Men).
"Natural Consequences"
by "Kristine A"
at "Wheat & Tares"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wheatandtares.org/2016/04/21/natural-consequences/amp/ (includes footnotes)
April 2016
"An over-arching sense of justice runs through Mormon beliefs. 'And thus we see' is usually followed by a nightmare scenario for those who weren’t listening to God in the first place. Our young women stand and chant a mantra every week that includes embracing the virtue of 'Choice & Accountability.' And if you paid any attention to the comments on Steve Evans’ post about BYU & rape allegations at BCC (which Mike Austin pointed to as to why more women don’t report their assaults, you noticed that quite a few members of the Church think being sexually assaulted is a natural consequence of breaking the Honor Code.
"Since medieval times women have typically been represented as two opposite tropes: either the virginal Mary or the temptress Eve (you should read more about this in Andrea Radke-Moss’ post on patriarchy at 'JI,' which you must read, if you haven’t yet). The notion has long been a part of any cultural psyche based on patriarchy.
"In our Mormon culture, it plays out in various ways. For this post, I’ll use the example of our modesty rhetoric. Two years ago, Elder Callister asserted, 'In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.' There’s a notion that 'If you dress like a lady you will be treated like a lady.' I’ve often heard it in Mormon circles as “If you want to be treated with respect, you should respect yourself with how you dress.' Implied in that statement is an approval for men to treat women poorly based on how they dress; i.e., 'You have also given up every right to complain if they don’t treat you with dignity' if your dress doesn’t meet some unnamed 'standard' that is different in everyone’s mind (see the leggings vs. skinny jeans pants debate).
"Based on dress, we sort women into a Mary/Eve dichotomy and then have implied approval to treat them accordingly. Culture is saying, 'This is your natural consequence for dressing like that/dancing like that/flirting with him/acting a certain way/etc.' Problem is, there is not one woman who is a Mary or an Eve. Every single woman (and man) I know is filled with a mix of good/bad, light/dark, and virtue/vice.
[*Note: Unfortunately, here comes some ingrained "modesty"-molded Mormonspeak]: "There could be a variety of reasons for a woman, for example, to dress less modestly. She may have problems at home & family or in their upbringing, she could be trying to get attention and have low self-esteem, or she may even just be wearing something they think is appropriate but you think isn’t (many times this is due just to how clothes fit curvy women).
"Secular feminists often argue that even if they are walking around naked, it is not reasonable that a natural consequence is sexual assault. In a religious perspective--regardless of the reasons someone dresses the way they do--why would we think that any person 'deserves' to be treated with less dignity? If we are all children of God, we all deserve to be treated as children of God, regardless of what we wear (or say or do or act).
"I just wanted to make a quick point about what the people speaking up on behalf of victims are attempting to accomplish. For too long sexual violence has been seen as a natural consequence for a woman’s small choices. What advocates are trying to do is shift the definition of natural consequence to the perpetrators. Instead of saying 'What did he/she expect?' when someone is assaulted, we should say 'What did he/she expect?' when they are punished for the assault. We aren’t saying there should be no consequences for actions; we just finally want consequences to be applied to the greater offense (and really if you understand the emotional/psychological effects of being victimized this way you wouldn’t want a victim to go through further trauma).
"Right now at . . . BYU, we have the unintended consequence of people being able to get away with serial assault by putting others in compromising situations (re [the] Honor Code). I understand people’s reluctance to give blanket immunity to anyone who reports an assault, but I also think we need to acknowledge that law enforcement often waives their right to prosecute smaller crimes in exchange for testimony against someone who has committed the greater crime. This is industry standard. Knowing what kind of uphill battle that would be, my ideal compromise would be to have the Honor Code office waive any investigation whatsoever on a victim, but to just place a warning on their file. Yes, we should be willing to set aside our ability to seek justice and instead show forth an outpouring of mercy. Radical stuff.
"PS: An important thing to note in this whole debate is that even in cultures where women are required to or choose to cover up a great deal, there is still an incredibly high incidence of rape and sexual violence.
"PPS: A next natural step for us to help correct this in our culture is to teach that sexuality isn’t to be feared, it’s natural and completely controllable. It is completely within every single person’s power to stop if they are told to stop – at any point. I know of a Mormon man who sexually assaulted someone I know in their youth said “I had come to believe the feelings inside me were an uncontrollable monster that couldn’t be stopped.”
"[One] last thing, I promise: Nany people are just confused by what the definition of rape is: They still think a rapist is only someone dressed in black hiding behind a tree that will jump out and get you. Most people are raped by someone they know and trust--and I’d argue that especially in Mormonism, many men who rape (emotionally, verbally, or physically coerce someone) don’t know that they have done so. So, the argument to start teaching men not to rape is a good one, especially because it’s been done in Canada, and it led to a 10% decrease in sexual assaults in one year."
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Apparently, Mormon apostle/blame-the-victim advocate Richard G. Scott didn't get the memo:
"The victim must do all in his or her power to stop the abuse. Most often, the victim is innocent because of being disabled by fear or the power or authority of the offender. "
"At some point in time, however, the Lord may prompt a victim to recognize a degree of responsibility for abuse. Your priesthood leader will help assess your responsibility so that, if needed, it can be addressed. Otherwise the seeds of guilt will remain and sprout into bitter fruit.
"Yet, no matter what degree of responsibility, from absolutely none to increasing consent, the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ can provide a complete cure."
(Richard G. Scott, "Healing the Tragic Scars of Abuse," LDS Church Semi-Annual General Conference address, April 1992, published in "Ensign," May 1992, posted on the LDS Church's official website,
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1992/04/healing-the-tragic-scars-of-abuse?lang=---------
Scroll forward a decade-plus: Is the Mormon Church still stuck in its blame-the-victim muck, or is it making long-overdue and meaningful progress from its prehistoric patriarchal days of holding female rape victims personslly responsible for being sexually assaulted.
"How Outdated Mormon Teachings Nay Be Abetting ‘Rape Culture’@
by Peggy Fletcher Stack and Erin Alberty
"The Salt Lake Tribune"
reprinted by "Religious News Service"
10 May 2016
"SALT LAKE CITY — Better dead clean, than alive unclean.
"That Mormon mantra apparently was ringing in a young Brigham Young University student’s mind in 1979 as she leapt from a would-be attacker’s car on the freeway.
"Being raped, the student believed, would rob her of 'virtue'--virginity--a prize she could never regain. Her life would be over, so why not jump?
"This message was preached--repeatedly by LDS leaders of that era and in a widely-read Church volume by President Spencer W. Kimball, 'The Miracle of Forgiveness.' It was encapsulated in a 1974 LDS First Presidency statement, which asserted that only if a woman resisted an attacker 'with all her strength and energy' would she not be 'guilty of unchastity.'
"It was taught to each new generation through the decades, often presuming rape was somehow consensual sex/-and placing much of the blame on women.
"Today, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes a healthier approach in its official pronouncements.
"Rape victims 'often suffer serious trauma and feelings of guilt' and 'are not guilty of sin,' 'Handbook 1' for local lay leaders states. 'Church leaders should be sensitive to such victims and give caring attention to help them overcome the destructive effects of abuse.'
"But old ideas can be tough to quash.
"In modern Mormon-speak, young women still are taught that 'virtue' remains nearly synonymous with chastity.
"Mormon women, especially at LDS-owned schools, continue to be bombarded with the notion that they are at least partially responsible for sexual assaults by what they wear or do, or how hard they fight back.
"Recently, several Brigham Young University students who reported they were raped were investigated by the school’s strict Honor Code Office for other violations leading up to their assault, such as drinking, staying out late or being in guys’ rooms.
"Critics such as Michael Austin, a Mormon and BYU graduate who works as provost and vice-president of academic affairs at Newman University, a Catholic college in Wichita, Kan., says colleges must reject some long-standing presumptions, including the belief that women are responsible for men’s sexual behavior, that they lie about their experiences to escape accountability or that they would always be safe if they simply obeyed church or school standards.
"Some Mormons 'came right out and blamed women for breaking rules,' he writes in a post for the LDS blog By 'Common Consent,' !with the clear implication that getting raped is the punishment they deserve because they are, you know, sinners.'
"More troubling, Austin says, is that such attitudes echo what young Latter-day Saints learn at church about modesty, sexuality and gender.
“'I can trace what my daughter is learning in Young Women'--the LDS organization for girls ages 12 to 17--'and what is playing out at BYU.'
"Double Bind
"Though Mormon teachings call on both genders to be chaste before marriage, too often LDS men and women hear different messages about sex, says Chicago-based Mormon therapist Jennifer Finlayson-Fife.
"Men are told they have a natural sex drive, which is inherent to being male, she says.
“'They are the actors in sexual situations, but they are also taught they can’t control it.'
"Women, on the other hand, get the idea that they may be sexual beings but don’t have desire the way men do, Finlayson-Fife says. 'Femininity is constructed as non-sexual.'
"They are the 'sober drivers' in these interactions, she says, 'more responsible for any sexual interactions by the way they dress, behave and setting limits on when to stop.'
"LDS women are expected to be 'nice,' !deferential' and “m'accommodating to men’s needs,! but also are responsible for 'fending off men’s advances,' the therapist says. 'It’s a double bind.'
"And, she says, these dynamics play out again and again in Mormon relationships.
"Consider the case of Meagan Leyva, a first-year student at BYU in January 2014 when she began seeing a 25-year-old returned Mormon missionary who attended nearby Utah Valley University and lived in BYU housing.
“'He had me over, late at night. We were messing around a little bit,' Leyva recalls. !It felt a little off, and I kept telling him, "I don’t want to have sex. I don’t want to have sex" . . . and then it was happening.'
"She felt 'violated,' she says, and yet also guilty.
"She was breaking Honor Code rules by being in his apartment, especially late at night, Leyva says. 'If I hadn’t done that, this wouldn’t have happened. So the blame sort of fell back on me. It felt wrong. I knew (what he did) was wrong, but I knew I was in the wrong, too.'
"'The Salt Lake Tribune' generally does not name sexual-assault victims, but Leyva agreed to be identified.
"By the time she left her attacker’s place, she says, it was 4 or 5 a.m.
“'It was January and freezing, obviously. . . . I was carrying my shirt and my bra with me. I was just wearing a sweatshirt I had worn. . . . It was snowing. . . . It just felt so ironic because it was so white and so pure, and here I was, not pure anymore.'
"Leyva says she didn’t report the assault to police because it wasn’t until months later that she realized what had occurred to her amounted to rape.
"Mormons are quick to blame the woman in encounters like Leyva’s, Finlayson-Fife says.
“'We want to look away from human cruelty. We want to believe somehow it was deserved or such women had it coming. . . . We want to think a woman like that had more control than she had. That makes us all feel better.'
"The Chicago therapist would like to see Honor Code infractions disconnected from sexual-assault allegations.
“'We want victims to come forward,' she says, 'and perpetrators removed.'
"In addition, Finlayson-Fife is adamant that Mormon views of repentance should have no place in a rape investigation for victims. Not all LDS bishops, however, understand the distinction.
"A Disturbing Message
"Spencer W. Kimball, beloved by many, published 'Miracle of Forgiveness' in 1969.
"The loss of chastity is 'far-reaching,' Kimball wrote. 'Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. . . . It is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.'
"In 1998, an 18-year-old Mormon convert in New York was raped by her boyfriend.
"The woman, who asked that her name not be used, was terrified that her Catholic parents might kill him if she told them. So she went to her LDS bishop, seeking money for a pregnancy test.
"He gave her the money--and a copy of 'Miracle.'
"The now-36-year-old says she was 'disfellowshipped' by the bishop, who had known her since her baptism four years earlier. She was forbidden from taking the sacrament, or Communion, speaking in church, serving in a Church position or performing temple rituals.
“'I was blindsided,' she says. 'I was a Molly Mormon. All I wanted was a beautiful white wedding and kids. The rapist robbed me of all of that.'
"The woman, who now lives in Salt Lake City, says she had trouble enough forgiving herself, but Kimball’s book made it worse.
"Such a misguided response to sexual assaults is still happening on Mormon campuses and elsewhere.
"Reversing Shame
"Austin, the university administrator in Kansas, insists it’s time Mormons reverse their use of shame.
"Shame is a powerful cultural tool to use in enforcing norms, he says, 'but we’ve made victims feel ashamed and not predators.'
"Instead, he says, men need to be 'shamed' for objectifying women, for refusing to be accountable and for any coercive actions.
"Retired BYU physics professor Kent Harrison, who has been working since 1979 to shift attitudes at his Provo school and in his faith, believes approaches to rape have changed over time.
“'My impression is that the old attitude--better dead than a nonvirgin--is mostly gone,! he says. 'But the issue of rape is still not talked about much in General Conference or on the Church website.'
"He would like to see more leaders in the Young Women and all-female adult Relief Society discuss sexual issues openly, especially as they address the Utah-based church’s expanding female membership across the globe.
"Even Mormonism’s most famous rape victim, Elizabeth Smart, had internalized feelings of self-loathing when she was routinely assaulted by her captor.
"Smart didn’t try to escape as a 14-year-old, she later told national audiences, because she felt like a 'chewed-up piece of gum; nobody rechews a piece of gum, you throw it away'--repeating an analogy she had heard growing up.
"The poised 28-year-old wife, mother and activist now knows that comparison is flawed--and that someone’s 'virtue' cannot be stolen."
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It seems like the more the Mormon Church tries to change its sexist-cemented spots, the more said spots remain the same.
Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2017 02:47AM by steve benson.