Loved this, Lane. I've been so fascinated by all the various smart analyses (like Sara Petersen's) parsing out the question of where patriarchy is and isn't being subverted here, and thought that your ability to situate it more broadly in LDS culture really unlocked so much for me. Thank you!
No need to respond to this half, but if you did have a take here there's a question that I've been wrestling with in the past few weeks that I anticipate you'd have a smart take on. [Caveat here that my LDS knowledge is secondary; the part of the West I grew up in is significantly less LDS and while my wife was raised in a heavily LDS area of SE Idaho, her family weren't part of the church]. My limited understanding of LDS history is that from the beginning the church was many things (high control, hierarchical, white supremacist, immensely patriarchal, but also utopian proto-socialist) and it's notable that over time all the parts that one might hope the church would evolve on (the high control/patriarchy/white supremacy, etc.) have either remained unchanged or evolved from explicit to implicit for greater public acceptance but the one thing that the church abandoned altogether was what I'd argue was its best feature (though a sympathetic argument could be made that the church is an extra-statist social democracy for its members). I guess I have two questions-- one, is that analysis/read of history correct or incorrect? And, if it is mildly correct, would you foresee that in the next decades there may be some outward moves towards softening (at least from a PR perspective) the church's patriarchy ("soft patriarchy," lol)-- such as being slightly less restrictive on things like clothing that reveals the wearer isn't wearing garments, a little more open to women working non home-based jobs, etc. as long as that 'softening' doesn't impact the broader structure and/or bottom line of the church?
Hi Garrett! One, thanks for reading. And two, I love a smart Mormonism question and hopefully I can help you with it! Whatever I can't tease out I can probably point you to some smart Mormon scholars to answer. I know that we are from similar necks of the woods from having read your book--my mom's (Mormon) family is from Montana and Wyoming (Billings, Missoula, and Sheridan, respectively). As you probably know, Brigham Young sent Mormon colonies to what are now Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. So there is certainly Mormon history there, but not in the same concentration as Utah.
First, I was intrigued by this part of your question: "but the one thing that the church abandoned altogether was what I'd argue was its best feature..." what were you referring to here? I think I lost what the "best thing" was and would like to know.
Re: the rest of your question, I'd say your reading is correct, yes. The part that you might find most interesting in re: to race is that the early church leaders went back and forth on acceptance of Black members. In the early frontier days when Joseph Smith was in charge, Black men were allowed to have the priesthood and members of the church were politically abolitionist. Some Black members even migrated with the Mormon pioneers to settle what is now Utah. However, Brigham Young, who was a real SOB on MANY FRONTS, succeeded Smith and changed the church's tune...forbidding Black priesthood and making many terrible racist statements/doctrines. Eventually those Black members left Utah. I might have some of the details not exactly right but those are the broad strokes. I learned what I know from the book "Mormonism and White Supremacy" by Joanna Brooks, published in 2020. The book is great, but you can also glean a lot of the info from this great episode with Radio West: https://radiowest.kuer.org/religion/2020-06-12/mormonism-and-white-supremacy
As for the rest of your question, I'll have to get back to you after dinner :)
Oops on the unclear sentence-- by "best feature" (defined by somebody with my particular political biases) I was referring to what some scholars would argue was the early church's utopian proto-socialism.https://www.salon.com/2012/04/15/when_mormons_were_socialists/
Also: such fascinating context re: Smith vs. Young on race (at least Black/White race relations-- that makes me curious on whether there's been any scholarship on whether Smith would have taken a different stance re: Mormon/Indigenous relations had he led the church post-Nauvoo), but regardless, no pressure but excited for your thoughts on the other questions too...
As an east coast born and raised LDS women, some of the culture you are describing above is Utah Mormon culture, and not representative of Mormon culture across the country. The few times I have visited or lived in Utah I never felt comfortable, the church was so all encompassing and suffocating there, but I don’t feel that living in places with fewer LDS people.
I have lived outside of Utah for most of my adult life and it’s a different aesthetic and vibe on the east coast for sure. But the doctrine remains the same!
They put Sam Smith's Unholy at the end of the trailer, what exactly are they saying is 'soft' swinging again🫣😂. I had to go and look it up after reading this but it seems the trailer is the only thing we're getting for now outside of the US. It's so fascinating that using make-up and doing things to be seen as pretty are seen as good things by these strict religions, or at least allowed.
I am also ex-Mormon and totally experience the “world collapse” as I left the church. I find this show endlessly fascinating. Thank you for this article!
OMG this made my day: "Is Taylor Paul our polygamist-wife ancestors’ dream? Hard to say, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility." Bahahahaha! Isn't this the truth!
Ha!! Thank you Sarah I loved writing this part 😅 IYKYK!
I haven’t watched enough to see how toxic her relationship is. But in terms of living her best life including sex life while low key highlighting the hypocrisy of the Mormon church…I love it.
Would be interested in your thoughts in the sex “scandal” part of this!
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, so will have to buckle up and get ready for a ride. I remember when this scandal went down during covid, with the soaking and “it’s okay to put it in, but not to thrust” (wtf?!).
Curious how much they actually get into this? We’ll just have to see!
As someone who decided religion wasn’t for me early in age, this still hits spot on with a sledgehammer. I say good on ya ladies. Make them uncomfortable…paybacks for the years of repression you’ve suffered.
Ha! Same wavelength- I could not stop myself from both bingeing and writing about this show! Also I started my essay with “I usually don’t watch reality tv.” You and me? We’re not like the other Mormon girls 🫠
Also the connection of Mormonism to Latin ballroom dance is another one of those interesting paradoxes. All of my husband’s family did ballroom super competitively. The girls are as moral and chaste and squeaky clean as they come… until they are competing the rumba 💃🏻🔥
Oh no...I said shoulders and now I remember how in middle school my family went to a Catholic conference and it was really hot and I'd brought a bunch of [extremely modest] tank tops to wear, but the young adult programming shamed us about temptation so after a day or two I switched to t-shirts and even borrowed some from my mom. Nobody said anything to me specifically! It was just "cool sinners" telling us all about the mistakes they'd made in life, including wearing SHOULDER-BARING CLOTHING which led to SEX and SLUTTERY (the women) and listening to METALLICA which led to DRINKING and HATING GOD (the men).
After I spent two weeks excavating with a Mormon co-worker (I used to be an archaeologist, we were digging together every day for 10 hours), where we compared notes on her upbringing as a Mormon and mine as a Catholic, I concluded that Mormonism is a lot like Catholicism, which really pissed my mom off when I mentioned it to her, but is undeniable if you actually know anything about both of them. It's all a matter of degree.
And this part:
"There is no part of your life, no thought you can form, that’s not filtered through your Mormon-wired brain."
hits hard, because I left the Catholic Church 20 years ago and I would not say that I am 100% not-Catholic yet. There's a reason people joke about being a recovering Catholic. I feel fine showing my shoulders because I wasn't raised in an extremely conservative church, but I still feel weird about cleavage because I wasn't raised in an extremely liberal church.
Loved this, Lane. I've been so fascinated by all the various smart analyses (like Sara Petersen's) parsing out the question of where patriarchy is and isn't being subverted here, and thought that your ability to situate it more broadly in LDS culture really unlocked so much for me. Thank you!
No need to respond to this half, but if you did have a take here there's a question that I've been wrestling with in the past few weeks that I anticipate you'd have a smart take on. [Caveat here that my LDS knowledge is secondary; the part of the West I grew up in is significantly less LDS and while my wife was raised in a heavily LDS area of SE Idaho, her family weren't part of the church]. My limited understanding of LDS history is that from the beginning the church was many things (high control, hierarchical, white supremacist, immensely patriarchal, but also utopian proto-socialist) and it's notable that over time all the parts that one might hope the church would evolve on (the high control/patriarchy/white supremacy, etc.) have either remained unchanged or evolved from explicit to implicit for greater public acceptance but the one thing that the church abandoned altogether was what I'd argue was its best feature (though a sympathetic argument could be made that the church is an extra-statist social democracy for its members). I guess I have two questions-- one, is that analysis/read of history correct or incorrect? And, if it is mildly correct, would you foresee that in the next decades there may be some outward moves towards softening (at least from a PR perspective) the church's patriarchy ("soft patriarchy," lol)-- such as being slightly less restrictive on things like clothing that reveals the wearer isn't wearing garments, a little more open to women working non home-based jobs, etc. as long as that 'softening' doesn't impact the broader structure and/or bottom line of the church?
Hi Garrett! One, thanks for reading. And two, I love a smart Mormonism question and hopefully I can help you with it! Whatever I can't tease out I can probably point you to some smart Mormon scholars to answer. I know that we are from similar necks of the woods from having read your book--my mom's (Mormon) family is from Montana and Wyoming (Billings, Missoula, and Sheridan, respectively). As you probably know, Brigham Young sent Mormon colonies to what are now Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. So there is certainly Mormon history there, but not in the same concentration as Utah.
First, I was intrigued by this part of your question: "but the one thing that the church abandoned altogether was what I'd argue was its best feature..." what were you referring to here? I think I lost what the "best thing" was and would like to know.
Re: the rest of your question, I'd say your reading is correct, yes. The part that you might find most interesting in re: to race is that the early church leaders went back and forth on acceptance of Black members. In the early frontier days when Joseph Smith was in charge, Black men were allowed to have the priesthood and members of the church were politically abolitionist. Some Black members even migrated with the Mormon pioneers to settle what is now Utah. However, Brigham Young, who was a real SOB on MANY FRONTS, succeeded Smith and changed the church's tune...forbidding Black priesthood and making many terrible racist statements/doctrines. Eventually those Black members left Utah. I might have some of the details not exactly right but those are the broad strokes. I learned what I know from the book "Mormonism and White Supremacy" by Joanna Brooks, published in 2020. The book is great, but you can also glean a lot of the info from this great episode with Radio West: https://radiowest.kuer.org/religion/2020-06-12/mormonism-and-white-supremacy
As for the rest of your question, I'll have to get back to you after dinner :)
Oops on the unclear sentence-- by "best feature" (defined by somebody with my particular political biases) I was referring to what some scholars would argue was the early church's utopian proto-socialism.https://www.salon.com/2012/04/15/when_mormons_were_socialists/
Also: such fascinating context re: Smith vs. Young on race (at least Black/White race relations-- that makes me curious on whether there's been any scholarship on whether Smith would have taken a different stance re: Mormon/Indigenous relations had he led the church post-Nauvoo), but regardless, no pressure but excited for your thoughts on the other questions too...
As an east coast born and raised LDS women, some of the culture you are describing above is Utah Mormon culture, and not representative of Mormon culture across the country. The few times I have visited or lived in Utah I never felt comfortable, the church was so all encompassing and suffocating there, but I don’t feel that living in places with fewer LDS people.
I have lived outside of Utah for most of my adult life and it’s a different aesthetic and vibe on the east coast for sure. But the doctrine remains the same!
They put Sam Smith's Unholy at the end of the trailer, what exactly are they saying is 'soft' swinging again🫣😂. I had to go and look it up after reading this but it seems the trailer is the only thing we're getting for now outside of the US. It's so fascinating that using make-up and doing things to be seen as pretty are seen as good things by these strict religions, or at least allowed.
Ha! Bad news about the swinging—there’s no tell all about the dang swinging! Total bait and switch! 4 eps in no details.
Where’s the swinging deets?? 😂😂
THANK YOU for this!
I am also ex-Mormon and totally experience the “world collapse” as I left the church. I find this show endlessly fascinating. Thank you for this article!
The “world collapse” is so validating and I hope it’s helpful to you ❤️
Lane I loved this
Emma! Thanks so much my friend :)
OMG this made my day: "Is Taylor Paul our polygamist-wife ancestors’ dream? Hard to say, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility." Bahahahaha! Isn't this the truth!
Ha!! Thank you Sarah I loved writing this part 😅 IYKYK!
I haven’t watched enough to see how toxic her relationship is. But in terms of living her best life including sex life while low key highlighting the hypocrisy of the Mormon church…I love it.
Would be interested in your thoughts in the sex “scandal” part of this!
Haha, I can totally see why! This is pure gold!
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, so will have to buckle up and get ready for a ride. I remember when this scandal went down during covid, with the soaking and “it’s okay to put it in, but not to thrust” (wtf?!).
Curious how much they actually get into this? We’ll just have to see!
I’ll return and report. 😂
Hahaha! Pls do! You’re THE perfect person to analyze soft swinging for us!
As someone who decided religion wasn’t for me early in age, this still hits spot on with a sledgehammer. I say good on ya ladies. Make them uncomfortable…paybacks for the years of repression you’ve suffered.
Right?!! It’s easy to feel for them in all their flaws.
I did not know about the world collapse thing! Now, I can make sense of some more stuff.
And I just might want to go watch this show out of sheer curiosity…
Right?! It’s so validating! And I’m not recommending the show but I’m not NOT recommending it… :)
Yes it really is, thank you for helping with that! Oh, I’m just curious as to what I left behind and what’s changed and not… ; )
WORLD COLLAPSE!!!! I experienced this as I became exvangelical!!!!!
I bet!! It is a real thing! If you follow the link the description in the research is very validating :)
Oh I already did and scheduled a therapy appt!
Fantastic! 🙌
Ha! Same wavelength- I could not stop myself from both bingeing and writing about this show! Also I started my essay with “I usually don’t watch reality tv.” You and me? We’re not like the other Mormon girls 🫠
Also the connection of Mormonism to Latin ballroom dance is another one of those interesting paradoxes. All of my husband’s family did ballroom super competitively. The girls are as moral and chaste and squeaky clean as they come… until they are competing the rumba 💃🏻🔥
This is maybe definitely both of our thing 😅
I can’t wait to read yours! I had fun writing this honestly it reminded me how fun Mormon culture can be. Sometimes :)
Thanks for sharing.
Oh no...I said shoulders and now I remember how in middle school my family went to a Catholic conference and it was really hot and I'd brought a bunch of [extremely modest] tank tops to wear, but the young adult programming shamed us about temptation so after a day or two I switched to t-shirts and even borrowed some from my mom. Nobody said anything to me specifically! It was just "cool sinners" telling us all about the mistakes they'd made in life, including wearing SHOULDER-BARING CLOTHING which led to SEX and SLUTTERY (the women) and listening to METALLICA which led to DRINKING and HATING GOD (the men).
After I spent two weeks excavating with a Mormon co-worker (I used to be an archaeologist, we were digging together every day for 10 hours), where we compared notes on her upbringing as a Mormon and mine as a Catholic, I concluded that Mormonism is a lot like Catholicism, which really pissed my mom off when I mentioned it to her, but is undeniable if you actually know anything about both of them. It's all a matter of degree.
And this part:
"There is no part of your life, no thought you can form, that’s not filtered through your Mormon-wired brain."
hits hard, because I left the Catholic Church 20 years ago and I would not say that I am 100% not-Catholic yet. There's a reason people joke about being a recovering Catholic. I feel fine showing my shoulders because I wasn't raised in an extremely conservative church, but I still feel weird about cleavage because I wasn't raised in an extremely liberal church.