As a teenager, I had very little self-confidence, and I was—and still am—an idealist. My mother, who suffered from diabetes and heart disease, never worked outside the home. She raised four children—one with disabilities—and found a great deal of happiness doing that when we were young. She died at the age of 49, when I was 21. By that point in my life, I had serious questions about my worth as a female member of society. How much of this was due to my family, how much was due to my religion, and how much was due to my middle-class American background? That is hard to answer. But I would probably say that my 21-year-old angst had more to do with witnessing my mother’s health challenges than anything else.
I never pictured my future looking any different than my mother’s and my aunts’, and until the reality began to stare me in the face, I thought I was OK with that. Raised in the Mormon diaspora of the American Mid-West, they all received bachelor’s degrees, married men with advanced degrees, and then settled down into the male-breadwinner model of marriage. Continue reading “The Sovereignty of the Soul by Elizabeth Mott”
Feminism and Religion 