I didn't see this topic being posted; I think it's too good to miss. A devotional talk by Sister Dennis claimed that the church was second to none by giving women power and authority. The Instagram exploded with tons and tons of women in the church screaming "nonsense." Then many were deleted, and more complaints (I mean thousands). The church restored the messages and claimed it was a tech problem. Now a New York Times article addresses this issue and said no evidence about the tech problem. Someone is lying... guess who.

This just came after the church without warning or reason excluded women leaders on the stand in the meeting. Goodness.

See this clip for a quit summary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0w-HVhJMgA&ab_channel=AnalyzingMormonism

The Mormon church really isn't a very nice place for women. To be fair though, this world isn't most friendly to women. There's still a long way to equity.

Thanks for posting it.

This is very important to note and document.

No, this world isn’t friendly to women, but that is a side issue. On this forum, we can feel free to focus on the lies and hypocrisy you brought to our attention without the need to equivocate.

I saw this too. I'd like to know their definintion of "empowered" though. In what way exactly? In the church? In their homes? In the political arena? Control over their own reproductive system?

I used to work for a micromanaging Mormom boss who actually left a "to-do" list for his wife every day. I still cringe at the thought of that.

I'd love to hear from women who have an inside track on just what the male elders consider to be this empowerment for women.

I remember a comment years ago in which the Relief Society was described as being the largest women's organization in the world. But it isn't. A woman's organization is entirely controlled by women. The RS is instead an auxiliary of what is essentially a men's club. Ultimately the women have no say. They can be overruled by the men.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2024 04:02AM by summer.

Also LDS women don't "join" the organization. They are automatically added to the RS rolls when they turn 18.
It isn't a decision to join.

    In reading about the RS, I learned that if a MiaMaid has a baby and keeps the child, she automatically is moved from MIA to RS.  I suppose that at some point in the church's history, this happened to a Beehive...

    I like that ghawd is a ghawd of order.

Yes, I remember that happening. A teen who got pregnant (who was my seminary teacher's daughter) was pulled out from all her high school friends and was expected to attend RS.

Were the teen moms shunned by the RS group?

The girls who were a little older than me were exed for breaking the law of chastity. That was the stake president's policy. Save for a baby shower at a member's house, the pregnant teens were banished from all church activities. I finally crossed paths with one of them at a store years later when I returned from serving a mission. Her life was finally turning around because she became homeless (way to go for the family patriarch and priesthood holder).

She recognized me and I walked over to say hello. She told me that most members pretended that they didn't see her or know her when per chance meetings happened at the store. She thanked me for talking with her. I want to believe that her crappy Mormon family eventually reconciled~ why wouldn't parents want to love a grandchild?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2024 08:45PM by messygoop.

The girl I knew got looks of shame and pity by the righteous sisters. She moved away soon after this happened.

So....if women have power and authority and priesthood, can they have a meeting without needing a man to oversee them?

They used to be able to. The book about Joe Jr's wives, In Sacred Loneliness, recounts quite a few occasions, including women speaking in tongues. I wonder when that changed?

It changed the moment Briggy took over. He did have moments when it benefitted him to give women a bit of power, like voting rights. Just so long as they still did what they were told in the voting booth.

No, it didn't change when Briggy took over, at least not completely. The RS building that is across (what used to be) the street from Temple Square is a pretty substantial building, and that was paid for and build by the RS. They had dues, their own budget, their own magazine.

One time I was exploring in souther Idaho, near a thing called City of Rocks, due south of Burley, ID. It is apparently a world famous rock climbing site that technical climbers use for training. It is out in the middle of nowhere.

I came to a town called Elba or Almo, not sure which. The map said I was on Elba-Almo Road. I came to an intersection where there were only 2 buildings, both looking very 19th century. One was an LDS chapel, abandoned. The other was a RS building, also abandoned. Both were substantial masonry buildings - stone rather than brick.

I dearly wish I had taken a photo, but I did not. The road turned to dirt shortly after that, and there was no cell service, so I was driving out in the middle of nowhere by the seat of my pants, no map app. It took me about an hour to get to Snowville. For those of you who know where Snowville is, you can appreciate that I am not kidding when I say an hour west of there is indeed the middle of nowhere. I was lost, but knew if I kept heading more or less east, I had to hit I-84 at some point. I stumbled onto a valley where land was being sold to survivalists. There were widely separated trailers, and one permanent house, the only one that had electricity. The advertising billboard at the entrance advertised "excellent sight lines". That's code for it's easy to see anyone trying to sneak up to your place and shoot them.

I did not stop to ask directions.

I suspect Elba had once been a farming area, but it collapsed because there simply wasn't enough water to sustain farming. The farmers moved on, the two buildings were simply left. The wood buildings in town were either burned or cannibalized at some point.

So even in Utah and surrounding areas, the RS had substantial buildings of their own. When I was a kid, I remember the RS room in the ward house had upholstered chairs and not folding metal chairs like the classrooms had. The sisters bought those chairs with their own money. It was their room, not used for other purposes. I have no idea if that is still the case.

Wikipedia says that JoJu was pleased as punch to help set up the RS, in 1842.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_Society

This same article says that JoJu then shut down the RS, in March of 1844, because, "Emma Smith had often used the Relief Society as a pulpit to express her opposition to plural marriage.  However, several of the society's members and leaders were themselves secretly in plural marriages, including to (Emma) Smith's own husband...  These inner conflicts led Joseph Smith to suspend all meetings of the organization.

"After the death of Joseph Smith in June 1844, Brigham Young assumed leadership of the majority of Latter Day Saints.  Desiring to continue plural marriage, Young disbanded the Relief Society before leaving Nauvoo for the Salt Lake Valley."


From what I've read, not only on Wikipedia, the RS was autonomous until Priesthood Correlation struck the church, beginning in the late '60s, when I was called to be an EQP...  I apologize!

I appreciate your thoughts and you are correct, the last stripping of "autonomy" came about in the late 80's or early 90's. Prior to that women had more freedom within the organization itself.

However, I was referring to when women were stripped of the priesthood power. That did happen when Briggy took over.

I know in the 60s and early 70s no man eas needed for women's meetings although the full time janitor was usually in or around the chapel.

I love the point made on the youtube.com link about how the LDS church tried to say that the disappearing posts was because of an Instagram snafu and Instagram's response that it most definitely was not. Your former church just can't stop lying even when it knows full well that proof of its lies can easily be found and in real time.

The church doesn't care that non-mormons and exmormons don't buy their lies; those are not the people they're lying to...

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The church doesn't care that non-mormons and
> exmormons don't buy their lies; those are not the
> people they're lying to...

...and its leaders wonder why they have trouble getting conversions, especially from educated people...

A new videocast on mormonstories.org reaction to the recent controversy about women in the church is well worth a view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFQa-aXYGA0

Among the interesting tidbits I learned on this episode was:
Brigham Young actually had a feud with the Relief Society and disbanded it. (This is disputed by some historians online but I never learned about this as a member.)

Also, IMO the list of things that women CAN and CANNOT do in the LDS Church, as reported in the video, is a devastating of the Church's claims of equality for women.

I have been keeping up on this topic on a different site. I was in college during the Sonia Johnson incident and I was disturbed by it then and the church's attitude about ERA. It still enrages me.

The church treats women like servants and it hasn't gotten better, in fact it has gotten worse. For my own mental and physical health I have had to quit thinking about it or even care. Utah will never be a good place for women to be equal or excel.

Women have a choice--leave or stay. Take your kids with you and don't let them be indoctrinated esp. during the teen years. The church won't change but You can change.

Take your kids and leave.

Exactly. Just leave and ignore it.