Author Archives
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Mormon Feminism and the Need for Ritual and Practice Creation by Caroline Kline
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… Read More ›
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Women’s Erasure in Patriotic Songs by Caroline Kline
A couple of weeks ago, I attended my first grader’s school Patriotic Program. At home he had been singing snatches of “Fifty Nifty United States,” “Proud To Be an American,” and “America the Beautiful” for the last few weeks, so… Read More ›
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Making Mormon Feminist Progress: Writing for Change by Caroline Kline
Over the last five months, Mormon feminist activism has been on the rise. Wear Pants to Church Day in December garnered national press coverage, and the Ordain Women movement, launched in March, boldly called for Mormon leaders to change Church… Read More ›
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Mormons Who Advocate Women’s Ordination by Caroline Kline
A couple of months ago, I came across the “Ordain a Lady” video by the Catholic Women’s Ordination Conference. Even though it was lighthearted, clever, and fun, it made me cry. Why? Because as a Mormon feminist, I had never seen… Read More ›
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Rebekah of the Hebrew Bible: A Mormon Feminist Model by Caroline Kline
This semester I took a class on women in the book of Genesis. I was particularly interested in learning more about the language used to describe Eve, since she is such an important model of inspired action and proactivity for… Read More ›
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Pantspocalypse: It’s Time for Conversation about Mormon Gender Norms by Caroline Kline
A little over a week ago, hundreds if not thousands of Mormon women across the world participated in Wear Pants to Church Day, a movement orchestrated by some feminist Mormon women in an effort to bring attention to issues of… Read More ›
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Tonight I Mourn for the Woman I Might Have Been by Caroline Kline
A few days ago, as I attended a conference on women in the LDS Church, I realized something about my Mormon feminist community: many of these Mormon women in the audience have felt called to ministry. Many came to this… Read More ›
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Why Some Mormon Feminists Stay by Caroline Kline
In my almost two decades as a Mormon feminist, I’ve seen my fellow Mormon feminists come and go. Mostly go. Remaining a practicing Mormon while also embracing feminist principles is for many of us a harrowing and angst-inducing endeavor. While… Read More ›
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We Are Responsible for Asking the Questions by Caroline Kline
(a version of this was originally posted at Patheos) Twelve years ago, a conversation with my then-boyfriend turned to the Mormon ideal of husbands presiding over wives. I couldn’t understand why such language was necessary in a relationship of equals…. Read More ›
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Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother: Why I Stand By Her by Caroline Kline
Unlike the amorphous God of other Judeo-Christian faith traditions, Mormonism’s Heavenly Father is literally, anatomically male. He is the god Mormons pray to, worship, and reference. However, within the Mormon tradition are teachings about Heavenly Mother, an embodied, perfect goddess,… Read More ›
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Do Women Disappear When Women and Men Integrate? A Mormon Case Study by Caroline Kline
Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Harvard professor, and Mormon feminist, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, recently gave a talk in which she examined the history of the LDS Relief Society, Mormonism’s women’s organization. In her talk she documented the rise and decline of… Read More ›
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Chicken Patriarchy by Caroline Kline
One of the most powerful and frequently cited Mormon feminist blog posts, Kiskilili’s “The Trouble With Chicken Patriarchy” on Zelophehad’s Daughters discusses the strange brand of patriarchy Mormons contend with in the modern LDS Church. On the one hand, Mormons… Read More ›
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Women Are More Spiritual than Men? The Mormon Conception by Caroline Kline
In the Mormon tradition, women are often held up by Church leaders and members as naturally more spiritual and selfless than men. While it’s nice that Mormonism escapes traditional Christian conceptions of women’s nature being inherently deceptive, seductive, and sinful… Read More ›
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Feminist Films by Caroline Kline
My semester is nearly over, my papers will be done in a couple of weeks, and my Netflix account has been sorely underused for the last four months. It’s time for me to find some good feminist movies to watch… Read More ›
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Consumption Rather than Production: The Modern Housewife?
Last year I went to an intriguing talk by organizational psychologist Carrie Miles, who spoke about changing gender norms in Mormon society. One thing that caught my attention was how she traced the way gender roles functioned in pre-industrial society to… Read More ›
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Christian Sexual Ethics and Just Love for a Mormon Marriage by Caroline Kline
Several months ago, my husband and I had a fascinating dinnertime discussion on whether or not we have a ‘just love’. I had been reading one of the foremost ethicists on the subject of Christian sexual ethics — a Catholic… Read More ›
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The Postures of Prayer by Caroline Kline
I’m not generally an eye closer during prayers. Nor am I an arm folder. If I’m in a public space like my Mormon church, I tend to slightly bow my head so as to not make any other non-eye closers… Read More ›
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Idealistic, Cynical, and Pragmatic Mormon Feminists: Who Stays, Who Goes
One of my Mormon feminist friends once made an observation to me about feminists who were able to stay and even thrive within the Mormon Church, versus the ones who left or were forced to leave. She saw that the… Read More ›
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Gilligan’s Framework and its Implications: The Benefits and Dangers in my Mormon Context by Caroline Kline
This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium, Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao. Gilligan’s In a Different Voice was a revelation when I discovered… Read More ›
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Presiding: Its History Within My Marriage By Caroline Kline
Mormon feminists struggle with patriarchy on (at least) two levels. First, since women are excluded from priesthood ordination, women have very few opportunities to rise in Mormon leadership. They can participate as leaders (under the male bishop’s jurisdiction) on a… Read More ›
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Immortality: Distinctions and Confluences Between Feminist Theology and Mormonism By Caroline Kline
On the whole, I like the Mormon concept of immortality. I like the idea of being with my family forever. I like the idea of being able to love and live with a child or spouse or parent that might… Read More ›
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The “Marriage Crisis” in the U.S and Around the World By Caroline Kline
The Mormon Church, the tradition in which I was raised, is into protecting marriage. In the United States, that seems to often mean deeply discouraging out of wedlock births and politically lobbying against homosexual unions. But, according to Stephanie Coontz,… Read More ›
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Good Mormon Feminists Vs. Bad Mormon Feminists: The Dividing Line By Caroline Kline
(cross posted at the Mormon feminist blog, The Exponent) In a couple of different conversations I’ve had with her, Mormon feminist Lorie Winder Stromberg has proposed that many Mormons commonly perceive two types of feminists within the Church. The first… Read More ›
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Eroticized Wives and Mormonism By Caroline Kline
(cross posted at the Mormon feminist blog, The Exponent) “As the clock approaches the hour of her husband’s return, a nervous housewife readies herself for his arrival. She checks herself one last time in the mirror, smoothes her hair, and… Read More ›
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Woman as Partner or Possession:The Irreconcilable Voices of Mormonism’s D&C 132
(cross posted at the Mormon feminist blog, The Exponent) Doctrine & Covenants 132 stands as one of Mormonism’s greatest conundrums. In this one section of Mormon scripture, we have the empowering notions of eternal marriage and eternal progression, coupled later… Read More ›
