Where are the Mormon women?

Most people who know me (in the online sense, not the biblical one) know that I enjoy frequenting the interfaith blogging circuit, including:
Less often, I also check in on:
And there’s a common theme I’m noticing.
Mormon women. Where are you?
We seem to have plenty of Mormon men commenting, ranging from NOMish to Liberal Mormon to the TBM apologist  and everywhere in between: BrianJ, The Red Dart, shematwater, Rob Perkins, Jared, Seth R., Eric, faithoffathers, psychochemiker, Alex T. Valencic, Tomchik, Mephibosheth, and aquinas.
I’ve long observed that, in general and across Christianity, men seem more interested in discussing theology, church history, and apologetics than women. In spite of that, we still have a number of women commenting from the evangelical and/or Protestant worldview: me, Sarah Taylor, Jessica, NChristine, Stephanie, Whitney, and Gloria. (I’m not sure if Katyjane considers herself Protestant, but she’s another non-LDS Christian who deserves a mention.)
Katie L. is LDS and comments, but she often defends or agrees with the evangelical view. Lisa is something of a wildcard with her RLDS/Community of Christ & evangelical history plus her current ties to mainline churches. kew, Nicole/that1girl, and Alisha regularly comment here at ClobberBlog, but only occasionally do they appear on the interfaith dialogue blogs I listed above. And of course, some of the Mormon women from Feminist Mormon Housewives sometimes comment here as well.
(BTW, there’s nothing wrong with the posting habits of any of the men or women I listed above. These are observations, not criticisms.)
So again, I wonder: where are the Mormon women? They do occasionally show up for a few comments on the blogs I listed above, but they typically only stay for a few responses to their comments before disappearing again.
I asked a similar question a few months ago at MormonDiscussions.com, where critics of Mormonism heavily outnumber apologists. The most common answer I got: Mormon women aren’t used to being confrontational or aggressive. Most of them need a sheltered environment that favors their worldview in order to survive in a debate. The ones who are confrontational and aggressive and start thinking critically about apologetics and doctrine tend to grow disgruntled with their status in the church and spiral out into liberal Mormonism, NOMism, or leave the church altogether.
Is that true? I’d like to think not. I’d like to find a more positive answer for the data. Ardis E. Parshall, Julie M. Smith, Naismith, much of the crew from Zelophehad’s Daughters, and a lot of the women of fMh are all good examples to me of faithful Mormon women who are able to think critically and hold their own in a debate. That’s not the issue here.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that the lack of Mormon women engaging in apologetics, debate and dialogue with members of other faiths does seem to say something about Mormonism’s fairer sex. I’m just not altogether sure what.
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If I have failed to mention any significant bloggers or commentators in this post, please forgive me. It does not mean I do not like and/or admire you, it just means I suck.

Comments

Where are the Mormon women? — 33 Comments

  1. BTW, I’m not trying to snub the ex-Mormon women who comment on those blogs (chanson, Hypatia, and Katyjane herself is ex-Mormon). But for ex-Mormon women to be active in dialogue and debate kind of fits the “Mormon women need a sheltered environment or they spiral out into apostasy” thesis.
  2. I’m tempted to believe this is more an issue of sample size: take a small enough sample, and you’re bound to find anomalies of disproportion. The problem is that to test my hunch, we’d have to take a larger sample, so it’s almost a tautology.
    “Mormon women aren’t used to being confrontational or aggressive. Most of them need a sheltered environment… The ones who [do start thinking]….”
    LOL! Because of course anyone who thinks at all about Mormonism will quickly realize how false it is! Right? /eyeroll
    I’m not going to say that the people you’re quoting are idiots, but I will say that their reason is idiotic.
  3. BFF ~ I’m not going to say that the people you’re quoting are idiots, but I will say that their reason is idiotic.
    I don’t disagree. The forum often functions as a place where critics vent about Mormonism, and even I’ve let my darker feelings come out there from time to time. I think my honest question quickly turned into a “why Mormon women suck” fest.
    But as far as sample size goes, I’m not just thinking of the interfaith dialogue circuit. I’m thinking of my experiences interacting with Mormons for almost twelve years now. Like I said, women in general seem less interested in discussing theology & apologetics, but LDS women seem even less interested than usual.
    Church history may be the exception. I do feel like I’m more likely to see LDS women writing inJournal of Mormon History than evangelical women writing in Fides et Historia. I may have to look back over my old issues and check.
    Are my experiences wrong? Have others had different experiences?
  4. Jack, I can see the reasoning behind the hypotheses as to why there are fewer women. In my real life acquaintances, there are also fewer women than men in academia, which is where I have learned to question and investigate. Many of the more doctrinal posts I read are written by (male) academics. If I had had children as an undergrad and become a SAHM, I don’t think I would have explored the same blogs that I now read.
    I don’t read the interfaith blogs because I do not want to be a representative of Mormonism. Now, I know correlation does not equal causation, but I have less faith in the Mormon church since I started reading so many (LDS!) blogs in the past six months. But it is the religion of my husband and family, so I don’t want to burn any bridges or have people suggest I look elsewhere. I also don’t feel doctrinally and historically grounded, and so I don’t feel able to contribute to deeper discussions.
    Thanks for your blog. I love how your posts make me think, and I love hearing about your courses.
  5. I frequent Feminist Mormon Housewives, and have no problem tackling the tough issues there, though that is not much to brag about because nearly everyone there wants to tackle the tough issues. I’ve wanted to be more active on a few other LDS blogs, but for me it’s been a matter of time. I do so many things, and I only have so much time for blogging. It would be odd for me to spend all my time on blogs talking about how I’m a Mormon woman who studies the scriptures academically when I need to study my Hebrew or read my homework for my class on Feminism instead. In fact, I’ve often wondered how you manage to write online as much as you do.
    However, after reading this post, I’m going to make more of an effort to get out there more often. It bothers me that there are so few visible female LDS Academics out there. I’ve wondered whether they just don’t exist, or whether they don’t speak up. My partner for teaching the 9-year-olds at church told me Sunday that she really thinks we should just stick to the basics, and things that can be answered directly with scripture. But darn it, if a kid that young mentions Egyptian prophecies relating to resurrection and final judgement (which one did on Sunday), I’m darn well going to tell him he’s right! And I’m going to use my Hebrew to help in class! And when my partner tells the kids that the Pearl of Great Price was recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls, I’m going to correct her! The problem is, when my husband does things like this, people think he’s smart, but when I do them, people seem annoyed. Maybe it’s just my personality. At least, I hope so.
  7. I agree with kew – without my education, I would feel even less comfortable commenting. Aside from my personal experiences and thoughts, I just don’t know enough to comment. I know basic church history and I like digging through some of the original Greek, but I haven’t studied it. I pull a lot from these discussions, but I don’t have anything doctrinally to add. I feel a bit out of my element, because ya’ll are so much smarter than I am. (But if there’s ever a post about teh internets and how it affects people, I’m in!) That said, I’ll chime in with my experience if the post seems to ask for it.
    I’ll second kew’s statement about faith. I still have faith in the heart of the church, but since I’ve started reading and participating, I notice more things that seem silly. (This could also correspond to my PhD, which taught me to think more critically and ask better questions.) Example: yesterday a RS lesson on virtue turned into a modesty rant. Srsly? We have this wonderful gospel and you’re dwelling on sleeveless shirts? I’m actually considering finding another congregation (not LDS) once I move to California, but I don’t want DH to take the blame for me leaving. Sigh.
  8. Ifrit! It’s nice to see another lady academic. Do you know about the google group Mormon Women in Academia?
    And I hear ya – when I correct the few things I know, people do react differently than to the menfolk. It helps when I wear heels – instead of being the silly woman, I’m a bit more intimidating and they tend to accept it as a legitimate comment to the lesson.
  9. Jack,
    I think men in general are more inclined to deal with theology and other more abstract religious topics than are women. I think two phenomena in Mormon culture accounts for some of the absence of Mormon women on more theologically oriented blogs.
    First, men have many more opportunities for theological study and reflection in Mormon culture than do women. Men are expected to go on missions while women are not. Men’s callings in the church require more knowledge of church doctrine while women’s callings tend to focus heavily on nurturing. This type of culturation leads to men dealing more with doctrinal/theological ideas and women dealing more with concrete nurturing situations. To be completely sexist for a moment, a good Elder’s Quorum lesson will consist in deep doctrine, while a good Relief Society lesson will involve a doilie and tears.
    Second, when you get right down to it most Mormons (even the men who are “supposed to”) don’t really care all that much about doctrine at all. I think many disaffected Mormons would say that what shocks them is how little most Mormons care about the issues they bring up. It also accounts for the never ending accusation towards the disaffected that they just cared too much, that they should have just blown off the issues and spent more time doing something else. My point is this, the percentage of Mormon men who care enough to get on the internet is probably pretty small. Given that Mormon women are even less inclined, this leaves a miniscule percentage who actually do get on the internet to discuss. In other words, it may not be that Mormons women are disproportionately disinclined to blog about theology and doctrine, at least compared to their evangelical peers. It may just be that Mormons in general are less inclined and that the natural disinclination of women to do this in general makes the total numbers really small.
  10. I’ll also say that I tend to comment on blogs (here, fmh) where I think my contributions will be respected. That is, I may be wrong or someone may disagree with me, but I probably won’t be dismissed for having boobs. Because that already happens in my work and on Sundays and it gets old, so I take the easy way out and avoid it online.
  13. Or, as The Office put it:
    (looking at porn site, reading from the screen)
    David: “Dutch girls must be punished for having big boobs.” Now you do not punish someone, Dutch or otherwise, for having big boobs.
    Gareth: If anything, they should be rewarded.
    David: They should be equal.
    Gareth: Women are equal.
    David: I’ve always said that.
  14. My experience is most Mormon women don’t care to analyze / debate doctrine in the manner that we all do on these blogs. My wife took a few looks at LDS and Evangelical Conversations, I Love Mormons, and maybe even CleanCut, but she never commented and wasn’t really interested.
    Some women are a little more extreme and make fun of people like me that discuss and analyze doctrine ad nauseum. My theory is that most LDS women are happy with the fact that they have a testimony of the Church based on some type of spiritual witness and are content to let the ambiguities and “weirdness” well enough alone, having faith that some day we will get all the answers.
    One could say that is good because they have faith in and are true to the answer they received. Or one could say it’s a bad thing because they don’t question and think carefully about some of the contradictions and paradoxes.
  15. That1girl: No, I’ve never heard of that site, but I’m headed there now! And I should mention that I’m probably still an academic-in-training, or Junior, or something. But I’m working hard! And when conversations at church derail and they end up discussing things that seem petty or blatantly incorrect, I like to go to Feminist Mormon Housewives when I get home. It reminds me that I can have a very different view of the Gospel than other people in my ward and still be a “good Mormon” and have a satisfying experience. Sometimes that takes work, but it’s worth it.
  16. Tomchik, I wonder whether less women care because it’s a natural gender difference, or because we’re too preoccupied doing laundry, or because we’re trained to think it’s not our job to look at religion critically. About a month back, my ward’s Primary decided to wrap up a year of learning about families by getting a girl and a boy up in front to be “mommy and daddy”. They then had each girl come to the mike and tell something her mom did, and likewise with the boys and their dads. Then they gave an object representing that activity to the “mom” or “dad.” By the end, “mom” was wearing an apron, holding a pot and spoon and a baby and who knows what else to the point she could barely hold it sitting down, and coated in jewelry. The dad was wearing a suit jacket and baseball cap and holding a wad of fake cash, a laptop, and a set of scriptures. The lady who organized the activity was in her sixties, so let’s hope it was more a relic of past beliefs than an indication of what these kids will actually grow up to believe. But I think it says something about the blog situation.
  17. I’m not sure I agree with the premise of the original post. Most of the politically oriented sites I visit, the ones that don’t have anything to do with religion, seem to be dominated by males. I also manage a for-profit forum, one that’s education-oriented, and from what I can tell most of the frequent participants there are male as well (although there seem to be a higher proportion of females than on the political boards).
    I’m not convinced this is a Mormon women issue so much as it’s a gender difference in our culture.
  18. I am part of a philosophy/religion discussion group involving evangelicals and Mormons, and we’ve had a hard time getting women of either faith to come. Guys pack the house out, but we’ve only had two or three females come consistently.
  19. Great post, and I enjoy your comments, BJM.
    To answer your question, I don’t comment on other blogs or engage in apologetics for two main reasons:
    (1) lack of time
    (2) lack of interest in defending church doctrine and policies with which I disagree
    Depending on the tone and context, I agree with many of the criticisms about the church – especially when these criticisms are based upon texts written by Mormon leaders or current practices – it’s not as if the church’s critics are making stuff up.
    I guess someone could convince me that it’s important to have women represented in apologetics, but since I find many Mormon practices and doctrines to be indefensible in any sort of rational sense, it would be a stretch for me to participate given time constraints.
  20. So, I had a really long, thoughtful comment in the works replying to a lot of these responses…
    And then I somehow tabbed off the page and lost it.
    Sorry. Hopefully I will get to these tomorrow, but I’m in classes all day, so no promises.
  21. BFF: all I’m saying with the sample size issue is that to truly convince myself that there is a lack of female interfaith dialogers I’d have to see the numbers. Otherwise, we’re trying to uncover reasons for something that doesn’t exist.
  22. Even though you named me as a Mormon woman who participates in interfaith dialogue, I have to say, I really understood where ECS is coming from. I have zero interest in making excuses for the church. Suck it up, church, I say.
    That doesn’t mean I don’t defend the church when I think the criticisms are unfounded, but I very rarely engage people who are polemical and unreasonable anyway. And you’re gonna get most of your silly, unfounded criticisms of the church from those types.
    So what does that say about me (let alone Mormon women in general)? I have no idea.
    Maybe we’d be better to ask, why are men more eager to debate and argue and get all blue in the face defending the status quo?
    If that’s the question, maybe it’s because, 99% of the time, they’ve got waaaaaaay more to lose if the status quo comes crashing down.
    (P.S. Not saying you all you guys get blue in the face defending the status quo. But as Jack and Eric and probably some other people have pointed out, men are more likely than women to be hardcore apologists.)
  23. Thanks for everyone’s comments on this.
    Eric and Brian, it’s not like I have a sociological study to back up this observation, but your disagreement is certainly noted.
    #18 Sarah ~ Doesn’t your group meet at BYU though, where there are very few members of non-LDS religions? I think that the observation that women are less involved in apologetics and debate is kind of a given. One need only peruse the issues of FARMS Review of Books, the articles at FAIR, or the history of FAIR Conference speakers to see that. The real question is whether Mormon women are even less involved than women from other religions, and that’s hard to prove. We’d have to ask if there are philosophy/dialogue groups at colleges that are mostly evangelical Christian (Liberty U. or something) to compare.
    #4, #7, #19 kew, that1girl, ECS ~ Thanks for your observations and your honesty re: not being interested in defending the church because you disagree with its policies. That makes me think that Katie L.’s question (#22) is correct. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking why the women are less interested in defending the status quo; maybe we should be asking why the men are more interested in defending it and less interested in just acknowledging that there are problems (not necessarily the men who comment here).
    I also agree with what’s been said about graduate school helping me to learn to think critically. I don’t know what the ratios are for men v. women getting graduate degrees in the LDS church; I do know that Utah has the lowest ratio in the nation of women attending college.
    #9 David ~ Great thoughts on this. I agree that the nature of callings and duties in the LDS church does seem to give men more opportunity for theological and doctrinal study. My husband is always coming home from priesthood recounting the arguments everyone had that day. I only get to Relief Society 2-4 times per year, but I never see even mild disagreements on issues. If I make a controversial comment, the teacher usually tries to smooth it over quickly and move on.
    Ifrit, good luck if you do decide to get more involved in interfaith dialogue. I haven’t had as much time for it since returning to graduate school as I did when I was a SAHP, but I still find time to participate in 1-2 conversations per day, and I think they’re a lot of fun.
  24. We don’t meet at BYU, but we meet close enough that probably the distinction doesn’t matter (a block away at the house of a friend of mine’s). I would be so interested in finding out what the ratio of men to women is in such groups at places like Liberty…
  25. “Maybe we shouldn’t be asking why the women are less interested in defending the status quo; maybe we should be asking why the men are more interested in defending it and less interested in just acknowledging that there are problems (not necessarily the men who comment here).”
    Yes, absolutely. This is the thought behind my original comment. In Western society, it has become almost embarrassing to exclude women from religious and professional organizations based upon their sex. For example, Pres. Jimmy Carter’s resignation protesting the inferior status of women in his church, and the recent NY Times article about The Elders (not to mention secular laws prohibiting sex discrimination), attack traditional patriarchal structures and put its defenders squarely on the defensive.
    I’ve argued passionately against the patriarchal structure of the LDS Church on my blog, and at times I’ve felt like I’m shooting fish in a barrel. It’s obvious to any objective observer that the LDS Church demeans and degrades women in favor of men. I almost feel as if I don’t need to argue this point anymore, but it continues to amaze (and provoke) me that people refuse to see the implications of inferiority when women are excluded from any leadership position and key religious rituals in the LDS Church. Or if they do see the implications of inferiority, they blame the individual for internalizing the implication and acting accordingly. God loves women as much as men. He just doesn’t want women to participate in anything men consider to be important.
    The platitudes offered to justify a male-only priesthood are acceptable only to those who don’t really need a justification to exclude women. What I worry about is that because women are inferior to men in a religious sense, religious adherents (both men and women) internalize this inferiority complex to believe – and to act as if – women are also inferior to men in family relationships (i.e., where the men preside) and in secular relationships (i.e, where women are primarily sex objects and must stay out of workplace to nurture children).
    In any event, I’m not going to stop attacking the patriarchy any time soon, but the defenders of the patriarchy are fighting a losing battle if they wish to maintain their credibility. The next fight, however, is against the patriarchs (both men and women) who have stopped overtly defending the patriarchy but continue to enforce traditional gender roles through their behavior (i.e., against maternity/paternity leave policies, affordable child care, etc.)
  26. “God loves women as much as men. He just doesn’t want women to participate in anything men consider to be important.”
    When I read this, my knee jerk reaction was to look for a troll below saying ‘Yes, but He also doesn’t want men participating in motherhood, something *I* consider important.’ Except that us ladies need your swimmers. True, men aren’t able to give birth, but that implies that giving birth is *so important* and so essential to women only, that God took away any possibility for debate and didn’t give the men a uterus. If the priesthood and leadership callings are all that important to men only, He could have provided a hurdle so significant that women would never dream of crossing it because it was physically impossible. It wouldn’t just be “because we said so. Neener neener.”
  27. ECS, well said!
    that1girl, I know, I’m waiting for the same response. My feminist sensibilities have really been activated the last year or two, and I’ve noticed the whole “but we have motherhood!” deflection is much more prevalent than I realized before. It’s frustrating, because I usually want to make a counter-argument, but it’s so taboo to come across like you “want” the priesthood that I just keep my mouth shut.
    One day, I’ll be braver.
  28. LOL. Well, men _have_ co-opted the most significant births of all time: (1) the creation of the world, (2) Adam and Eve, and (3) Jesus.
    I guess Mary had something to do with Jesus’ birth, but the LDS Church glosses over that fairly easily.
    As a result, I would argue that men find motherhood and child care/nurturing to be mundane tasks they’d rather not bother themselves with. The problem is that men do need women to reproduce themselves, so men exert as much control over this process as they need to and then step back and let women do all the grunt work, but being sure to blame women for any undesirable outcomes (i.e., blame mothers for autism and homosexuality). I apologize for the rude stereotypes here – I’m speaking in generalities.
  29. As I’ve mentioned in a few comments at fMh, I’m working on a series addressing the most common “defenders of the status quo” arguments. It certainly does feel like shooting stupid fish in a barrel.
    What’s impressive about the DotSQ arguments though isn’t how many of them are misogynist. That’s to be expected. What impresses me most about them is how many of them are misandrist, i.e. “Women are more spiritual than men, so men need the priesthood just to keep up.” Or “if men can’t have roles that are exclusively theirs, they’ll stay home from church and watch the football game.” Yes, that’s right, men. You are passive and lazy and the priesthood has been given to counteract that.
    I guess that what I’m learning through writing my series is that I think much more highly of men than DotSQ do. There’s a good reason I’m a fan of men!
    Maybe I’ll give you guys a preview of the series when I get home from my classes tonight.
  30. “What impresses me most about them is how many of them are misandrist, i.e. “Women are more spiritual than men, so men need the priesthood just to keep up.”
    BJM – I’ve found this interesting as well, but I think these arguments are mostly a ruse and a red herring.
    Have you ever broken up with a boyfriend with the line: “it’s not you, it’s me!”?!
    I think men are saying the same thing when men say they need the priesthood because women are so special. On the contrary, _men_ are so special, therefore men get the priesthood while women cheerlead them on from the sidelines, believing that men need their support and encouragement much more than women need the priesthood (because women are already so special).
    Does this make sense? There’s a great Seinfeld episode about this, where George’s girlfriend tries to break up with him using the “it’s not you, it’s me” line.
    I’d love to read a preview of your series!
  32. Mormon women aren’t used to being confrontational or aggressive. Most of them need a sheltered environment that favors their worldview in order to survive in a debate.
    Weirdly, even though I do a lot of interfaith discussion, I might be considered a data point in favor of this idea. I’m not confrontational, and I rarely engage in back-and-forth debate, even on Main Street Plaza where my (atheist) worldview has the upper hand.
    This is mostly because I’d rather have a discussion than a debate, so I like to start from a point of agreement and then compare positions from there. For me, Internet communication is more about exposing myself (and everyone) to new ideas and viewpoints — not to prove once-and-for-all who’s right. So, reading the other comments and then stating my position clearly, once is generally sufficient.
  33. Thanks for your thoughts on that, chanson.
    I moved my “women and the priesthood” series back to private so that I can continue working on it and revising those drafts. So you won’t see it if you try to click on it now.
    BTW, ECS, I forgot to tell you, I think your “It’s not me, it’s you” analogy is right on the money.
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