I was active for a while on there before coming over here...same name even, if I remember right.
I got worn out with the stress. You're exactly right: it takes ALL KINDS of mental gymnastics to know all that and still believe. A lot of those women are "New Order" or hang in because of family. A few are out and open about it. Quite a few, though, hold on really hard to the aspects of the church they still cherish, and think that if they do there best to buck the trend and speak out about it, that they can make a difference.
If they can manage it without going crazy or getting exed, bless 'em, because I know I couldn't do it. At least they make a lot of people think about some hard things. I know I wouldn't have ever run into Women and Authority without them.
There are all these liberal cafeteria Mormon women who aren't afraid to admit that they don't like certain aspects of the church/gospel, even that a number of facts about the church make it look bad, but then they don't seem to have seriously considered whether that might mean that the church just isn't what it claims to be.
I can't help but wonder where the threshold for reasonable belief lies for them. Like, at what point do they say "Okay, this looks like it could have been a fraud". If they see that a so-called prophet committed spiritual abuse in order to coerce sexual relationships with teenagers and married women, and they think that was horrid, how can they not also think "Maybe Joseph Smith's word isn't so trustworthy?".
Also, I am sick and tired of Mormon defenders (such as a few on that blog) using charges of "presentism" to defend Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy. According to the standards of Joseph Smith's time, he was committing illegal, immoral acts. It is indefensible, unless you think that's how God works (in which case, you should get help). It makes no sense whatsoever to pull the "but the age of consent was different then" card, or anything related. Standards regarding adultery and bigamy WERE different then-- they were more strict-- that's why JS did everything in secret.
I would just ask why they think people wanted to tar and feather the guy. Stealing people's money through religious fraud was no more acceptable then than it is now. Committing adultery was no more acceptable then than it is now. Destroying a printing press exercising its First Amendment rights to tell the truth was no more acceptable then than it is now.
"Presentism" is just another one of those Mopological fads. It's target audience is TBMs who don't want to really think about the problems of Mormon history, but who need some kind of quasi-intellectual pacifier to suck on to make them feel like it's okay not to think about it.