Author: Caroline Kline

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, the wife of Heavenly Father and mother to all the spirits who are eventually born into bodies here on earth.

Mormon feminists such as myself embrace the existence of Heavenly Mother. We do our best to keep her alive and present in Mormon discourse and memory, despite the fact that our Church leaders and fellow members rarely mention her and despite the fact that some Mormon feminists in the 1990’s and 2000’s were excommunicated at least in part because of their refusal to stop writing and talking about Heavenly Mother. Mormon feminists like me recognize that equality for women within the Mormon tradition can never be achieved until our Mother receives recognition on par with the Father.  Mary Daly once famously said, “If God is male, then male is God.” Amen to that. Raising up Heavenly Mother in the consciousness of Mormons is a significant way to dismantle that association between maleness and godhood. Continue reading “Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother: Why I Stand By Her by Caroline Kline”

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 this organization, originally developed in 1842 as a parallel to the men’s priesthood quorums.  In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, this organization opened hospitals, published its own newspapers/magazines, developed its own curriculum, participated in promoting women’s suffrage, managed the Church’s social services program, and engaged in various economic endeavors. However, as the 20th century wore on, the Relief Society lost much of its autonomy, as male priesthood channels took over many of these endeavors. Continue reading “Do Women Disappear When Women and Men Integrate? A Mormon Case Study by Caroline Kline”

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 are told that men are to preside over their wives, and on the other hand, husbands and wives are told to act as equal partners with one another. As Kiskilili shows in her post, this embracing of two seemingly contradictory stances towards the issue of male headship leaves many Mormon feminists frustrated.  She writes:

This rather mind-boggling situation, in which the Church simultaneously embraces most of the spectrum on gender roles from traditionalist positions to egalitarianism, is not simply soft patriarchy, although a recent tendency to soften patriarchal language is one important ingredient in the mix. Neither is it traditional patriarchy; nor egalitarianism. Chicken Patriarchy never allows itself to be pinned down to a single perspective; chameleonlike, it alters its attitude from day to day and sometimes even from sentence to sentence, too chicken to stand up for what it believes. By refusing to settle down in any one place on the map, Chicken Patriarchs can embrace egalitarianism and still continue to uphold time-honored traditions of male authority. Continue reading “Chicken Patriarchy by Caroline Kline”

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 (these ideas stem from the Eve narrative in Genesis 2), this characterization of women as naturally spiritual and selfless does present problems for some Mormon feminists like myself.

First, it often seems to be used a a palliative, as an excuse to not incorporate women into the priesthood hierarchy of the Church. Because women are naturally so spiritual, the common reasoning goes, women don’t need priesthood like men do — men must learn spirituality and altruism from their priesthood service in order to develop these same qualities. Continue reading “Women Are More Spiritual than Men? The Mormon Conception by Caroline Kline”

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 during the holiday break.

Some of my favorite feminist films deal overtly with gender roles and pushing up against patriarchal norms.

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 the way they work now in modern society. According to Miles, in pre-industrial society, women were essential to the survival of the family because they spent the vast majority of their time engaged in production — gardening, sewing clothes, making butter etc. In these pre-industrial societies, if a kid needed socks, there was one way to get them — the mom knitted them. Purchasing such items was not economically feasible for most families, which generally lived in a subsistence mode. They produced the vast majority of what they consumed. Continue reading “Consumption Rather than Production: The Modern Housewife?”

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 nun by the name of Margaret Farley who taught at the Yale Divinity School for over 30 years.  Her book is called Just Love.

The framework for sexual ethics that Farley comes up with highlights her commitment to the importance of justice in sexual relationships. For Farley, love is not enough. Love alone can be based on fantasy, it can be manipulative, it can look at the other only as a means to an end. Therefore, in her sexual ethical framework, love must coincide with justice.  Just love must contain these seven norms:

1. Do no unjust harm (don’t be physically, emotionally, spiritually destructive to the other) Continue reading “Christian Sexual Ethics and Just Love for a Mormon Marriage by Caroline Kline”

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 uncomfortable. I’m not a very consistent personal prayer, but when they do happen, most of them occur as I lie in bed before I sleep. I’m not a kneeler, either.

I’ve not ever thought much about this before, but now that we have a five year old, I’m seeing my child being taught prayer postures by his Sunday School teachers that don’t resonate with me personally. It’s caused me to think a little more deeply about why I don’t conform to typical Mormon prayer posturing.

I found an article* about eye positioning during prayer helpful as I thought about this question. According to the author Thomas Ellis, members of Abrahamic religions tend to view deity as an “intra-tribal rank superior.” In other words, the same way these ancient people approached their social superiors with supplications, they approach their deity with supplication. This usually involves lowering the eyes and head in order to not appear challenging or demanding. Contemporary Mormonism seems to fall into this category.

Prayer Tree by Janet Chui

One exception to this generalization about Abrahamic religions is Marian worship. Catholic or Eastern Orthodox adherents tend to approach Mary with a direct gaze, seeking out visual reciprocity. They often look at icons and pray to her simultaneously. The submissive lowering of head and eyes is not present. Ellis postulates that this is because these adherents are approaching deity not as an “intra-tribal rank superior” but instead as an “attachment figure,” just as babies and young children approach with eyes open the loving mother or father.

Interesting. Does my lack of desire to close my eyes and bow my head mean that I think of deity more like Catholics think of Mary? Do I approach deity as loving parents**, rather than social superiors? Do I want to emphasize our similarities and talk to them as loving friends, rather than focus on the vast difference of our hierarchical positions?

Yes, I think I do.

*Natural Gazes, Non-Natural Agents: The Biology of Religion’s Ocular Behaviors” by Thomas B. Ellis in the book The Biology of Religious Behavior

**Mormons believe in both a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, though Mormons are instructed to not worship her or pray to her.

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 more pragmatic and cynical feminists seemed to be able to remain practicing, whereas the idealistic feminists were the ones who didn’t stay.

I thought this was an intriguing framework: the idealistic ones who can’t endure the dissonance between what they know in their heart is right/just and what the Church teaches about gender eventually leave the Church, whereas the pragmatic or cynical ones who see patriarchy as inescapably infusing almost all institutions (universities, corporations, etc.) or who decide to weigh the pros and cons and stay for various reasons including community, family, heritage, and root belief in core Mormon teachings tend to be able to make Mormonism work for them.

This gave me pause. Where do I fall in this framework? Continue reading “Idealistic, Cynical, and Pragmatic Mormon Feminists: Who Stays, Who Goes”

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 it three years ago. At the time I was struggling within my Mormon tradition, wondering if I could continue to remain practicing when doing so, in a sense, perpetuated an institution which I saw as limiting women’s opportunities. Many of my Mormon feminist friends had made the painful decision to leave. They left on principle, as they could no longer lend their support to an institution which promoted teachings which violated their core beliefs in men’s and women’s equality. They were willing to face the pain and disappointment their families would undoubtedly experience, as well as possible ostracism.

I understood and supported my friends’ choices to leave. However, I knew I wasn’t ready to make that choice. Continue reading “Gilligan’s Framework and its Implications: The Benefits and Dangers in my Mormon Context by Caroline Kline”