In the past year, Mormon feminist activism has exploded. Wear Pants to Church Day, Let Women Pray, and Ordain Women are three recent projects which encouraged Mormon feminists to agitate collectively and put pressure on the institutional LDS Church to be more inclusive. I was proud to be involved in each of these, and I see this new activism as enormously important. Not only has it led to actual change (a woman did recently pray in General Conference), but this kind of public agitating also creates more space within the fold for Mormon feminists, so often silent about their questions, to discuss their feminist convictions and hopes with other Mormons.
Over the last few months, however, I have had the growing sense that pressuring the institution for change is only one part of our feminist struggle. We also need to begin developing our own community practices, our own rituals, and our own traditions. We need practices we can pass on to the next generations of Mormon women, so that our granddaughters and great nieces can turn to these traditions and find insight and inspiration in them.
Part of this conviction about developing Mormon feminist practices and rituals was sparked by some of my readings of womanist theology and ethics. I love the fact that a crucial source of authority and inspiration for womanists is the experiences and insights of their foremothers. Womanists turn to diaries, novels, letters, essays, practices, and oral wisdom from African American women of generations past to find insight into how to navigate racism, sexism, and other oppressions. Reading works by womanists has made me think of my own daughter and the women who will come after her. To what will they turn that will illuminate a path forward for them when they feel themselves disappeared and discounted by patriarchy? Can Mormon feminists today create traditions and rituals which will help them navigate their lives, which will inspire them to raise their voices, claim their own spiritual authority, and reject any cultural understanding that posits women as secondary or less-than?
To put this in the context of feminist theology, Rosemary Radford Ruether has discussed feminist theological methodology. She mentions a three-fold process.
- Critiquing effects of male bias on the symbols and practices of the tradition
- Finding alternative traditions within the historical heritage and religious experiences that provide more inclusive images of women
- Reenvisioning the basic symbols in way that will undo male bias and create a wholistic theology in which women are no longer marginalized.
So critiquing, lifting up, and reenvisioning are crucial, and several Mormon feminists like Margaret Toscano and Janice Allred have done important work in all these areas. The thought recently came to me, though, that part of that reenvisioning process must include the creation of meaningful practices and rituals we can pass down and prove to be sources of strength for our descendants. After all, it’s highly unlikely the institutional LDS Church will create innovative and inclusive rituals and traditions for Mormon women anytime soon. It’s up to us Mormon feminists to produce and proliferate them.
At a recent Mormon feminist gathering, I raised this topic for discussion, and we brainstormed practices and products we could create, pass along, and pass down. We came up with ideas for rituals of banishing and healing, for products like feminist Mormon liturgical calendars, feminist Mormon songs, and Heavenly Mother art, for practices like Quaker-style clearness committees and matriarchal blessings. While the brainstorming session was thrilling and many of the ideas brilliant, I know my feminist sisters from other traditions have great insight and experience regarding feminist ritual and practice creation. Please feel free to contribute your ideas. What feminist practices and traditions have you engaged in which have brought meaning, comfort, and inspiration into your life?
Caroline is completing her coursework for her Ph.D. in religion with a focus on women’s studies in religion. Her areas of interest revolve around the intersections of Mormon and feminist theology and the study of contemporary Mormon feminist communities. She is the co-founder of the Mormon feminist blog, The Exponent.
feminismandreligion.com 
Didn’t Terry Tempest Williams write about women simply and secretly appropriating the right of laying on of hands blessings which were supposed to have been done by patriarchal figures? What do you think is the next step on this?
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I believe she did, though it’s been a while since I’ve read Refuge (amazing book). Laying on hands and blessing is a ritual that many Mormon feminists I know engage in privately. Perhaps becoming a bit less private about the practice is the next step. It would be interesting to see if/how the ecclesiastical hierarchy would crack down on that.
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Caroline, I am a Mormon Feminist, and I love what you have to say here. Last winter I was involved in a ritual worship night of Heavenly Mother, and I see these types of spiritual expression emerging more and more, even in Utah. Do you think there is space for the study of Mormon feminist ritual from an academic/anthropological perspective? I see this changing, and I wonder about the potential in studying this emergence like you are doing but with an ethnographic approach?
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Emma Smith was said to hold the priesthood and even gave herself a blessing while Joseph was in Carthage jail. Here’s a couple of links with information:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2335/women-and-the-melchizedek-priesthood/
http://kolobiv.blogspot.com/2009/05/emma-smiths-blessing-to-herself.html
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Quaker style clearness committees are a great idea. Quakers also have a form called worship sharing, where people speak from the silence in an intimate circle sometimes on a chosen topic. Anything done in a circle is powerful. It locates the divine in each other’s faces. All the best to you, sister!
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I love the idea of using circles as much as possible in ritual and practice. Thanks, Elizabeth!
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I hope you’ll write on this topic again and describe the rituals you and other Mormon feminists create.
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I’ll definitely do that. Offhand, I can say that Blessingways are taking off in the Mormon feminist community. Usually we do this for pregnant women. We gather in a circle, offer a poem or an insight for the child or woman, and also offer a bead that represents something we’d like to convey to the mom or baby. Sometimes other ceremonial elements are involved too.
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A Blessingway is a complex set of Navajo ceremonies- blessing pregnant women is only a small component. I found another article here on the same site about mother blessings, same idea but less appropriative.
https://feminismandreligion.com/2014/10/08/mother-blessings-and-the-power-of-ritual-by-molly-meade/
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I suspect that you may need to educate many Mormons, who are not fsmiliar with womanist theory, about the need for ritual in the first place. I’ve heard Mormons distinguish their “saving ordinances” from “mere ritual”.
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Yes, I think I’ve heard Mormons say that as well. I do think many Mormons appreciate religious rituals though (I’m using the term ritual loosely). Certainly blessings would be rituals that aren’t saving, but that many Mormons treasure. My hope is that the Mormon feminist community could develop practices like giving blessings, practices that could create community and allow women to claim spiritual authority.
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I would like to see that too.
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How do you plan to deal with public/private rituals such as ones done in the Temple, which after personal experience in the classes we have shared together, I know to be deeply private to Mormons? Would these rituals and practices you are talking about be public? Or would the public rituals signal the need for change churchwide?
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John,
I think some of the rituals I’m talking about probably would be rather private, particularly the blessings. I see those happening in private gatherings and homes, though anyone (Mormon or not) could be invited by the organizers, as they feel comfortable. Other practices/products could be public, like the feminist liturgical calendar and the Mormon feminist anthem.
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Within feminist Wicca, we practice a number of rituals that validate women’s power and authority, especially within our natural life cycles (since we’re a religion that views all nature as sacred). “First blood” rituals when a girl reaches puberty can be a powerful validation of the young woman’s entry into adulthood, especially if she is surrounded in the ceremony by older women who validate how strong and vital she can be as a woman (in the face of patriarchy). The one that I’ve found most empowering is a croning ceremony. This is a ritual that declares the woman involved to be a “wise old woman.” Our culture is not only sexist, it’s also ageist. Older women become invisible in many ways. So a ceremony that declares us wise also declares that wisdom to be necessary to society. I flew for months after my own croning, and recommend it any woman “of a certain age.”
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Excellent post!
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As a non-Mormon who grew up in a mid-sized Arizona Mormon town and later lived in a small, exceptionally repressive eastern Arizona Mormon town, I am astounded to read this article. I wish you and your emerging sisters joy and strength as you proceed your important work.
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The day is coming when a woman will be the prophet of the Mormon church. When I see men thinking they rule over the women, when I see the bishop telling the women in Relief Society what they can and cannot say on the women’s RS Facebook page, when a bishop acts in a misogynist way and that is supported by all the other men in the stake, I rejoice!! It is those kinds of men who are the reason that God is elevating women. We will soon have the Priesthood, or rather, the Priestesshood. We will be in every level of leadership, BECAUSE the men in the church have so badly handled their responsibilities toward women. Rather than lifting women up, they have held women down, given them orders, been convinced of their dominant position. The Mormon men will fight the changes, as oppressors always do — as will many women who are convinced their inferior position is God’s will (it is not). But the change is already happening. It’s obvious in the changes that Russell Nelson is making, and has already made. Watch closely, folks. The end of the Mormon-man-in-charge-of-women is right around the corner. I hope I live long enough to see it. If not, I’ll be laughing and applauding from the other side.
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