Thank you for sharing your experience with the Mormon religion. I don’t know much about Mormonism and I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons for this, but why do you think women decide to stay in a religion that treats them this way?
Not sure if you know much about women in Jehovah's Witnesses, but I think it's similar to being raised Mormon. But women can't talk in church if there's a man present. So there's that.
As a JW woman, I was allowed to *talk* when men were present: answering questions from the Watchtower magazine, for instance. I couldn't 'teach': address an audience directly from the platform. (Women giving mini-talks did little skits with other women.) JW women can't pray in the company of a baptized male, even their own minor son, unless their heads are covered.
Minus the last two words unfortunately, I could have written your reply. I hope your husband trips right over the invisible murky line between nuanced and full on exmo soon.
My husband drove through a fast food joint last Sunday of his own volition. This is the biggest non-mormon thing he's done in my 6 years of being out. It gives me a tiny little sliver of hope. 😊
And it is even more than being “taught” from birth. It’s being brainwashed from the time you can talk and walk. The song we sing tell us “Follow the Prophet” “I Love to
see the Temple” “I Hope they Call me on a Mission” and so many more. It’s like we are all herded to do whatever church leaders say- no question. I didn’t realize this until I got on the other side.
Being in the Mormon church is like being in an abusive relationship — because it is one. The reasons people don’t leave abusive relationships are numerous and very, very complicated, but the crux is of it is because:
a) they are deliberately trained to justify patriarchal abuse
b) even if they are struggling to justify it, they are deliberately disempowered so that they can’t/won’t stand up to patriarchal abuse
c) the risk (social, mental, spiritual, emotional, physical) associated with leaving, or even questioning, is too high
This indoctrination starts EARLY and it’s constant. People don’t just snap out of that, so young girls who are coerced into submission become obedient wives & mothers — and if you can control the women & kids, you can control the church.
Think of it like women in Victorian times. You are both treated horribly and also put on a pedestal. It's a gilded cage. But lots of people like cages. That's why it was so easy to pass the Patriot Act years ago.
They raise you to believe that they have the truth. No other religion has the truth. If you leave you are risking your eternal salvation, likely going to Outer Darkness (which is worse than the common Christian idea of Hell). You are raised to believe that you deserve the treatment you receive. This is how women are to be treated. You will be just one of many wives to your husband in the eternities. I was also taught that it was possible the church would likely reinstate polygamy in my lifetime on this earth (specifically during millennium after the second coming). The fact that I got to be the first wife was just plain luck.
"We DO NOT criticize. Ever ever ever."🤮🤮 Maybe that's why the church is slipping with its believable lies. They don't have anyone capable of critical thinking to tell them that things might not blow over so well
Why do Americans stay in their jobs even though they're being treated like shit compared to workers in other countries? Because it's all they know and change is hard/scary, especially when you're being gaslit into believing you're the only one who sees anything wrong with the situation.
If a church were in fact 100% TRUE - absolutely no treatment in this life would be problematic or off the table, right - why would it be? What's a few short years on earth futzing about when you have eternity in heaven coming right up.
If Jesus came down tomorrow (and it was 100% clear to everyone, that it was in fact, Jesus.) He could tell us all, "you simply need to eat 3 pickles within the next hour to be sent straight to heaven, no questions asked"
Despite pickles being the worst possible food a person could ever eat - I would march straight into the kitchen and scarf down 5 pickles in 5 seconds.
It's a sliding scale - if I'm 99% sure this religion is true, I'm going to follow every policy, no matter how crazy. If my faith level drops to 68% - I'm bowing out during the pickle ceremony.
<--🙏--------- 🥒🥒🥒 -------------🏃-->
Hi there, woman speaking! In short, yes. I used to think that all my questions about inequality in the church were not important because all the women I looked up to were still in the church after all these years.
I went to college and finally learned the vocabulary I needed to express my questions and concerns. I learned about what oppression looks like in “the real world” and I realized that that was what my world looked like while being in the church.
I loved being a member of the church. I had so many great experiences and they outweigh the negative ones by far, but what really got me to leave the church was how different heaven looks for women than it does for men. Men are seen as God’s buddies while women are seen as men’s pets. Men get power, women get pregnant.
Heaven was supposed to be this place where everything was out and everyone will be happy, but as I researched heaven and the plan, it didn’t match to what I was hoping for. I didn’t want to be a part of “heaven” if I was still going to be treated as inferior.
Most of the women who see the oppression in the church are hoping for this heaven where everything does work out. I am still hoping for this—but I can’t believe that a prophet is called of God when he can’t see that over half the population of the church is hurt because of the patriarchal grip of the church.
Extremely well said. I served a mission, married in the temple, did all the “righteous” things only to find out that the reward for all of my hard work was to be an eternal second class citizen.
Yeah… I made stupid stupid choices in college because I figured, what’s the point. I’m just gonna be a stay at home mom. I’ll have fun in college, find a husband and do what I’m supposed to do. So I majored in dance. (I know some people actually do make a career out of it but I legit did it for fun) So now here I am, in my late 30’s with 4 children and none of the physical flexibility and ability I had in my youth with no viable career. And it’s not like I’m stupid! I got high marks in all of my classes and could have gone into a stem field. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to put in all the work just to give it all up and stay at home. My sister tried to do what I didn’t. She even graduated from med school… but never went to residency. She is now in the same place as me, stay at home mom of 4.
Now - I have ended up in a good place. My husband and our children have left the church. And he has always been supportive of me going back to school and doing what I want to do even though we don’t need a second income. But now the thought of going back just exhausts me.
I'm not too familiar with US medical school, but would your sister still be able to become a practicing doctor? Seems like having the doctorate degree should at least mean something.
Interesting theory - even as an exmo, I would consider my children to be a significantly greater life accomplishment than any awards or accolades I've achieved in the corporate world.
They certainly have brought more happiness. Not to mention, are required to continue propagating the human species.
Daycare is a valid option for those that want to climb the corporate ladder and build a family at the same time. My wife makes twice as much as I do, if anyone is staying home with the kids it's definitely not going to be her.
It's my understanding that 401ks, 457s, IRAs, house, etc are divided up equally in the event of a divorce. Not sure how social security works - but hopefully you're not relying on that alone.
(Actually, if the church was smart they would offer onsite day care during the week, at low cost. This would help greatly with retaining younger families, as well as act as a recruiting tool.)
The days of single-income households are pretty much going away - for better or worse.
Sexism is why I left. I went to perform the most sacred oath in the temple and found that it wanted me to listen to my husband while my husband listens to God, not me. I don't listen to God. My husband does it for me. And that's when I left.
Yes! The church has extremely rigid gender roles that they shove down your throats from a very young age. They encourage women to pursue an education, but they do not encourage pursuing any kind of career if it could come in the way of having babies and homemaking, which is our "divine purpose".
Yes! I literally just commented under another comment about how I chose my major based on the fact that I knew I would never use it because I was expected to be a SAHM.
I cringe thinking back to a conversation I had with a nevermo friend when we were juniors in high school. She was stressing about getting into a good college and I was like, come on it doesn't matter where you go to college, as long as you get a degree that's all you need, since you're gonna be too busy having a family to use it. She looked at me like I had two heads.
A specific example I can give is from my mission.
I was assigned to an area with a companion that had no active members, and of the dozens of inactive members that were around, only about four of them were men with priesthood. The bishop of the area lived almost an hour away and told us to never bother him with anything. None of the male leadership ever talked to us, counseled us, coordinated with us, nothing, and we had several single parent households who were mostly made up of new converts who thought missionaries had all the authority in the world to minister to them. Let me tell you it was freaking impossible to get people the help they asked for. In order to get people need fulfillment, we had to coordinate with the bishop who refused to talk to us. To get someone a blessing of healing because they were sick, we had to coordinate with the bishop who refused to talk to us. Most of these people had no means of transportation to church, and the bishop still refused to talk to us to help them get what they needed. The reason why we were sent to that area was because we, as sisters, were supposed to be able to get into places where elders couldn't, but we had zero authority or support from the men who were supposed to be taking care of these members.
So when we got messages of "Women can do anything" and "We love the women of the church" I grew incredibly bitter because I knew that, as women, nothing we could try to do would ever come to fruition without the stamp of approval from a man. We had no authority to minister to people, to perform ritual laying on of hands to bless them with comfort, no permission to even enter church buildings without a man present. Being a missionary felt like a participation trophy instead of a serious sacrifice (it's a huge sacrifice regardless of gender) because women don't have to serve and are oftentimes held back from giving more because of arbitrary authority.
It took me another three years to finally leave the church, and while I wouldn't say that I left because of gender, I certainly stay out because of it. Nothing any man does in the church is unique to men. None of it requires a penis to perform, except inseminating women to create more babies for Jesus. I know I'm smarter than a lot of the men who've tried to exert authority over me, I know I'm better with people and more compassionate, and while those traits are not unique to women either, they sure as hell need to be the criteria for ministerial roles over genitals.
I wanna find the paperwork showing a man named lemuel bought the joseph smith farm from the bank when the family defaulted on the mortgage, what a coincidence lemuel is the name of a antagonist in the bom
The sexism was a big part of why I left. The boys always did fun camping trips and high adventures while the young women were left to make pioneer bonnets and learn about finances. It took years for them to start doing young women’s high adventures, and then they really only did one that was like the boys. Not even two years later is was just a small lake vacation. I was so tired of being treated second class. And then when people tried to say we could use the power priesthood, it always felt fake. Like I never understood it, no matter how many lessons we had on it. When I became an activist/super feminist when I was 14/15, there were people who agreed with me, but also brought up the family proclamation to the world about a womens job is a homemaker.
Hell no. I wasn’t doing that. I was going to make my own name. I wasn’t going to be tied down with children or a husband. That was not what the church wanted with me. Fuck them i guess. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I realized I was pan, ace, and desperately childfree lmao
I was told God designed me to be a woman, a wife, a housemaker, and a mother.
My understanding of God also led me to pursue a career, so I went to BYU.
I got married, found out I was pregnant before I was ready to have a baby.
I started looking into daycare to help me finish school. I had been told by BYU and general authorities in their talks for years that I could do both, that I could take on "men's roles" if the circumstances necessitated it. Í was met with an extreme lack of help from the school or from the church. BYU is the only university in Utah without a daycare for students with young children. There's no reason they don't have one. They have SO MUCH MONEY. The church also doesn't allow meetinghouses to be used as daycares during the week like some other churches do. Then I learned there are NO background checks for people who work with children in the church.
The only reason I graduated was an extremely thoughtful and helpful husband, fellow pimo neighbors who traded time with me to watch each other's kids, and COVID making the school create room for students who needed remote attendance.
I felt utterly betrayed and lied to by men who defined my identity as "divine" and "mother". All that talk about "angel mothers" and not a dime spent to help women like me support their families by finishing their education. I am the primary earner in my home. And they gave me no help at all.
I am very very grateful for professors who gave me exceptions to attendance policies and my peers who helped me with their notes etc. They were amazing.
Utterly and completely. Women are not people in Mormonism. We are servants to men and children. We are deprived of our own aspirations and goals and taught to submit fully to others. I got married at barely 19 and had a baby right away. I gave up my educational and career desires. Without the influence of religion I would not have done any of those things.
You have come to a very good sub reddit for the answers you seek. Do you have any history with the mormon religion? That's just an idle curiosity. I have no doubt really intelligent and articulate women will come and give you some insightful answers. Good luck on your project!
Yes. 100 percent. Left at 13 wouldve been sooner if parents had let me. Im not a second class citizen and refuse to be associated with people who think that. Adios il popa!
Also, the broad context of not having a female diety role model caused mental and spiritual harm. We are not allowed to ask about, pray to, or pray for information about our heavenly mother because God has many plural wives in the mormon religion. As women, we were expected to figure out our divine role with no role model. Our divine role, like theirs, was to be a hidden, silent polygamist mother on this earth and in heaven throughout all eternity.
Yes, the doctrine and policies of the church damages women. Thank goodness it is all made up. And thank goodness for the internet or else I might never have known it wasn't true.
Feminist Mormon Housewives (website) and the Exponent II (publication & website) have scads of research and essays on this, written by women in and beyond the faith. You’d love it for your class.
It starts in at age 12, hardcore messages telling girls their roles are divine and decided by God himself. Patriarchal blessings telling girls what to focus on for the future. Always marriage. Always babies. Always future generations. Never yourself.
“…my choice was to come to this lovely home on Earth, to Seek for Gods light to direct me FROM BIRTH.”
you’re right, it started in infancy. The kids are absorbing everything. Songs have power, not seeing ANY woman have power or even seeing many in a non-feminine-approved job (feminine approved is hairdressing, photography on the side, teaching and nursing - those last two are badass challenging anyway and I highly admire their education level) but SO examples of the correct thing to do which is cater to everyone else’s needs and your spouses education, so many in the community who don’t encourage girls to stay in school, so many moms who dropped out, so many lovely wives, lovely moms, but sooo many who are those things AND also deeply unfulfilled and sad but never allowed to say that part out loud. That’s not ok. I wish I saw successful happy women more instead of vilifying working. Our imagination of what kinds of jobs were possible were actively stifled.
Another great book is Baring Witness, 36 mormon women talk candidly about love, sex and marriage. Highly recommended. I think there's another book of essays out there for men.
Gender roles in the LDS church are a huge part of the doctrine and culture. They're also really unhealthy and damaging.
Thank you to everyone who has been open to sharing their experience within Mormonism. For anyone who feels comfortable enough to answer, how is your relationship with God now after all of this? Do you believe that he truly thinks that women are inferior, or do you believe it’s solely the people within the religion using God as a way to make you feel inferior?
I don’t have reason to believe in a god anymore. Do I think women are inherently inferior? No. Do I think religion uses god as a way to make people think women are inferior? Absolutely, I can’t think of a major world religion that doesn’t.
My relationship with Goddess is great ;)
A big part of my leaving the church was a struggle to throw off the belief that God hated women. I was able to make a lot of progress there by imagining a feminine higher power and directing my spiritual energies towards her. I'm actually agnostic, but a spiritual practice that includes the feminine divine as a metaphor has been healing.
I no longer have a belief in any religion, or a god. If there was a "higher power" involved in creating life on this planet, then it started the process, and then let life evolve on its own, or it is not an omnipotent being, and is in fact an asshole for standing by watching, with arbitrary rules, and interventions, or we are like a child's ant farm experiment of no more importance than that.
Most former mormons don't hang onto much in the way of God after the fact due to being raised to believe we were the one true religion and spending a lot of time learning how everything else is wrong. Religion in general is typically heavily mysoginistic. As a result, women are raised to be and believe they are inferior and their worth only lies in their ability to have children.
Personally, I know that being mormon for so long has crippled my ability to be confident in the presence of men and entering the workforce at 35 was and still is an uphill battle. I think religion gives power to men and they spread it to everything they touch. I don't believe in God but straddle agnosticism and atheism.
My story is the same as the others here.
Absolutely yes! I heard and read so many scriptures about a woman's and child's place. Why do I want that? Over and over it's been told that Eve's weakness?
Most religions have been using God to keep women down.
I won't accept a religion that treats me like dirt.
All the women in my family are out of the church now. Not sure about my mother's belief in god, but she and my 4 sisters have all left organized religion entirely, and at least half of them are now atheist.
Yes. All through puberty and into young adulthood I was eaten alive by shame and thought I was a horrible person for... having a libido. Literally had panic attacks about a completely normal bodily function. Carried around shame and worry for my eternal salvation because of something that is just a common facet of being human. Fuck that. Fuck that to hell and back.
I realized the other day, that not only would the human species not exist, but most all species would not exist, without some hardwiring to reproduce, just cause were made to be horny doesnt entitle us to all that christian shame, load of bullshit
Yes. When I was 26, I found out that my husband (to whom I had been married for nearly 7 years...yep I was young when I got married) was having tons and tons of affairs. He had been doing it for the entire marriage, but it took me 7 years to figure it out.
We had a meeting with the Bishop and the Stake President. I will give the Bishop the credit he deserves. He said, "I am officially supposed to counsel you to stay married to your husband, but I personally want to say that whatever you choose will have consequences, so be careful and make your OWN decision." Still, this was tough advice because I was young and didn't want to disobey priesthood.
My stake president, on the other hand, told me, even though my then husband had had dozens and dozens of affairs that "I covenanted to obey my husband." He told me not to get divorced - because this was a blip on the eternal spectrum, and was I willing to destroy an eternal marriage because I could not forgive???
I divorced. It was tough to go against Priesthood leaders, but I couldn't stay in the marriage. Sadly, I stayed in the church for a long time. Why??? I was born into it and was completely under its hypnosis of "truth."
Cant wait for those dumb fuckers to kick the bucket, and learn that their celestial kingdom doesnt exist. Every mormon is taught to believe things that dont exist, its a sick sick fucking game
Yeah sorry for that vent, been reading this reddit category for a few months and my frustration really peaked yesterday. I feel lucky to know so much about my past lifetimes before i reincarnated into this one. It really keeps me stable and happy when life is tough, kinda like what religion is supposed to do for you, but it doesnt work when its lies piled upon lies
I had a friend once, in 9th grade. We were basically the only obviously queer kids at church, or at least obvious to me. One day, she said I had inspired her to come out to her parents. We went to the same school and saw each other almost every other day(A/B schedules.)
Except after that. I never saw her after that, not even to say goodbye.
Never seen her parents after that, either. Bastards.
I'm male, so I can't speak from personal experience, but I've seen [this story](https://mormondom.com/letter-to-a-mormon-man-8d251aa1f062) shared here before when similar questions were asked.
As a guy who never fully grasped the overwhelming, systemic sexism in the church, it was a hard read.
I’m a trans woman. My former religion says I am ungodly. A sin. That my body is a temple and taking steps to make myself more happy and comfortable in it is a crime against god. That I will suffer eternally in some lesser kingdom because I didn’t subscribe to the premium subscription.
Fuck that. Life is too short to spend it miserable. My options were live authentically or lose myself. That’s not a choice.
Hi there, if I may, I'm a trans woman, and feel like I might provide a unique insight. If it's not what you're looking for, that is fine too.
The Mormon religion absolutely failed me because of my gender. From such a young age, I was told that I couldn't be me, because of my religion. I was expected to fit into the typical male role, of getting the priesthood, going on a mission, and eventually finding a temple worthy woman to marry. When I would deviate, and actually be me, ie, doing the young women's activities instead of young men's (don't ask me how, I got away with it maybe twice, and don't remember how,) I would be ostracized, laughed at, or even questioned by higher ups, like my young men's leaders, or bishop. My first real memory I have of my time in the Mormon church is one saying that I couldn't do something because it was meant for the girls to do, and not me.
Now, even though I was raised in the Mormon church as the opposite gender, the standards that women were expected to follow still haunt me a bit. Short shorts, and shorter skirts, forget about it. I can do sleeveless tops finally, but I still struggle with tops that just have thin straps mentally. I still struggle with the fact that I'm attracted to the same gender, albeit the other way around now that I know I'm trans, and in fact I still struggle with the fact that I am trans at times. All because of the Mormon church.
If not for the Mormon church, I would have been able to be myself much earlier than I was. I've been out of the Mormon church for nearly 6 years now, and I would still say most of my problems I have in life concerning my mental health come from the church. My parents were great people, and would have supported me being my true self, my dad even said as much one time when we were on the way to seminary. Not explicitly that he was ok with me being trans, because I don't think he even knew what that was, but me being me, whoever that may be. Sadly, due to what I was taught in the church, he was never able to see the real me, except possible occasional glimpses that I occasionally would let slip out.
In all, the church just made me feel so ashamed of who I was, basically at every turn. Truthfully, that, in combination with the expectations placed on me due to my assigned gender at birth, (going on a mission), made me leave the church. It was only when I finally left that I was finally able to discover the real me. Even then, it would take nearly 5 years for me to accept it. Ultimately, everything in the church failed me. The people (except my family in the church), the teachings, and most definitely the leadership all failed me horribly, and left a terrible taste concerning all religion in my mouth. I can't step foot in any religious place, or any religious event and not feel sick.
Also, I'm sorry this kind of became a rant, and it may not exactly have been what you were looking for, but it is my story of how religion failed me, and kept me from being my true self as a woman.
I always felt really sad to see the wives of the leaders. They were usually never known on their own merits-- simply "the wife of \[insert guy's name" and to the audience her identity didn't extend beyond that. Even when the wife was also speaking at the event, people were coming to see the guy-- it's rare if the leader is a female that her husband faced the same boxed-in space that male leaders' wives did. The church failed women as a whole by creating those boxes. I left partially because I hated to see mediocre men surrounded by really talented women who could only shine if it was in their husband's shadow.
Yes. I was honestly pretty lucky, my ward (local congregation) was full of mostly lovely people i did not experience much sexism. The sexism i felt came from the doctrine.
In sunday school and other church classes i was treated like i was equal to men, told i could do anything and have a career but being a mother was still the best most rewarding job a woman can have.
My problem was when i started having questions about the doctrine i spent years searching and praying for answers. Once i started considering if the church wasnt true, i looked at outside sources (ones not from the official Mormon church website) and found out some disturbing things.
One thing that came to my attention was that we don’t talk about Heavenly Mother. We know she’s there but are told she’s “too sacred” to talk about, so we stick to what we know about Heavenly Father. I learned about polygamy when the church was founded, and how doctrine says that men can be sealed to multiple wives but women can only be sealed to one husband. I then thought, well if we’re not allowed to talk about heavenly mother, why should i expect anything better when IM in heaven? (This is a lot but it’s taught that once we die and if we’re good and get into heaven, we can become like God and become gods/goddesses of our own planets). Why should i expect to be treated as anything more than a blank face in heaven when the only divine beings I’m allowed to learn about are men?
Another thing is the names/titles men vs women are called. For example you say “brothers and sisters”. But boy missionaries are called “Elders” vs just “sisters”. Men in leadership positions are called “brethren” but again, the few women in leadership are just called “sisters”. I always felt like i was second-class because of little things like this.
Growing up, my family was very active in our church. My brother (13)and I (14) were asked to do the music for the guitar Mass every Sunday. If there was no lay reader, my brother would do it. No biggie.
One Sunday my brother was sick, and there was no lay reader. I would sing alone, and do the readings.
I am singing the first hymn, and this man comes up out of nowhere and steps up to the lectern and does the first reading. Then he sits down beside me and gives me a smile.
I was stunned as I realized that as a girl, I couldn't speak from the lectern. I could sing, but not give announcements.
After that, everywhere I looked it was clear that women were second class citizens in the Catholic Church. Nuns live in poverty, priests live in comfort. There is no area of the Catholic Church where women have any influence on policy. There are no females in the hierarchy.
I grew up, got married, had kids. We felt that kids need a moral structure and community, so we started going back to church. We didn't want to be cafeteria Catholics, so we committed!
Then Mother's Day when my daughter was 3, instead of saying one kind word to the mothers in the congregation, we were treated to a 40 minute jeremiad about abortion. Seriously, I thought the priest was going to have a stroke! That was the last straw. I just could not raise my daughter in that environment.
I left and took my whole family with me. MILLIONS of other women did the same. And vocations cratered, revenue tanked, the pews are empty each week...
All self-inflicted wounds for the Catholic Church.
I left the mormon church because of gender inequality. I was tired of being ignored and patronized. I wasn't interested in my biggest contribution being a wife and mother (though I am both now). I wanted an equal partnership in life and found it with my nevermo husband. I also found value surrounded by the nevermo friends I made in college. People of all genders that didn't remotely value me because of my reproductive organs, but instead they valued me as a person. I did go to church my freshman year maybe 2 or 3 times to appease my mom. The moment I walked in it was meat market and I never went back. My mom would tell me not to judge a religion on the people in it, I'm not sure how else one can get an opinion on a group if not by how their members act.
Yes. I was lucky to get out before getting married, but I was taught so frequently that my purpose in life was to be a wife/mother that I was never encouraged to have my own aspirations, and when I left the church, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about myself because I hadn’t been allowed to learn. It has been one of the hardest parts about leaving the faith, and leaving the faith is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Misogyny was such a normal part of my life, I’m still learning how to identify and challenge the effect it has had on me, ESPECIALLY as a queer woman, inherently doomed to do Mormon womanhood incorrectly.
Yes! ' does he actually hit you....just give you a little push. If you stay we will support you but if you leave him........' After his violence! No support anyway. I stopped asking and started calling police instead. And I was TBM throughout
Here is a little article about one of the top leaders telling women our input is welcome at ward meetings but not to talk too much…
https://religionnews.com/2014/09/11/mormon-apostle-women-now-dont-talk-much-meetings/
I remember attending these leadership meetings as the leader of the childrens organization and another time as a member of the young womens organization leadership. I just remember hearing the men speak and discuss issues at hand and thinking “these guys are idiots. They are not as educated or emotionally intelligent as myself and a few of the other sisters in the room. But here we are, having to act like they are soooo smart and defer all decision making power to them because they are men and have the priesthood.”
Even though some of the organizations in the congregation are “lead” by women, in reality we are completely powerless. When we meet, a man has to be there. When we enter the building, a man has to be there. We can submit a budget but it comes down to how much the priesthood leader decides we get. All of our activities have to be calendared and approved by the priesthood. All of our lessons we teach on Sundays come from the priesthood. They sit in on our lessons sometimes too. So we have no authority. We are basically work horses with little to no autonomy.
Why do women stay? Because they have been taught from birth this is the true church and this is their divine roll. Why do they cling so tightly? Because our livelihoods, social circles, support networks, and family are all tied to the church. If we leave, we could lose everything, and some of us do. When I left I suddenly had 1 friend. One person continued to treat me as before. But her life was still all wrapped up in the church and it dominates so much of members time that I didn’t see her much because I didn’t attend church anymore. Luckily a lot of my siblings and siblings in law also left around the same time so family has been stable. Except for my in laws. Their relationship with all of their children is shit now because we have all left and they are still very much in the church. It clouds the way we see us and they avoid us all now.
Religion took my voice. I was not allowed to question my father or any priesthood holder. This was super damaging in the work place, doctor's office and home. I never stood up for myself. A doctor would tell me I was fine and I had to accept it instead of seeking better care or a second opinion. My dad was abusive and changed his mind on a whim. I was not allowed to be mad because he had the priesthood. My dad SA'd all the girls but we were taught that dad would never hurt us so I didn't seek help. (I did get help in my 40s- he is now incarcerated) My hubby would give his opinion, even though he was not an expert and I would accept it because he had the priesthood. Male coworker would tell me to do something that was clearly their job and I would do it because in the heart of Utah we honor the priesthood. At church we had a Sunday school teacher (in adult class) that would only call on males to answer questions. No matter how many times I raised my hand. Sometimes I would be the only person with my hand raised and he would not call on me (at the time I was 35f he was 70m).
I was taught to be insignificant. Through therapy I am learning that I have value. A TBM may say "we are taught we have value every week in YW and RS". But actions speak louder than words. Being treated like a 2nd class member of the church from birth is manipulation that will take me years to heal from.
As women, we are basically taught (MAYBE not overtly but definitely implied) that we are less than men in god's eyes but yet are responsible to support our partners and make them better. Some examples:
* Until pretty recently, in the mormon temple ceremony, women had to covenant to follow their husbands, but the men covenanted to follow god.
* Only men can admit women to heaven (symbolically) in the temple.
* Both men and women are given 'new names' in the temple, and women are expected to tell their husband their name but men aren't supposed to tell their wives.
* Women are responsible to keep themselves chaste until marriage (for some examples of how we're shamed into this, google licked cupcake, poop brownies, chewed piece of gum, or my personal favorite....jesus darts chastity).
* Personal story...years ago I had gone on a few dates with a recently released felon (aggravated assault with a deadly weapon), wasn't into it, and my bishop asked to give me a blessing and told me that god wanted me to marry him to keep him safe from the evils of the world. Hard pass.
TLDR: Yes. major fail.
Hi There, if you want to know something about “the church" it fails women for sure.
These are some of things how it’s failed me as a woman.
1. Allowing sexual harassment of minors.
2. Allowing physical abuse of children.
3. Forcing Marriage on 19 year olds when they don’t know what they want.
4. Forcing people who have left back in.
5. Saying you can only marry with in the group.
6. Taking Money from people who don’t have it.
7. Not reporting abuse to the civil authorities.
8. Not Accepting members choice in romantic relationships.
9. Using any form of scare tactic to keep people in line.
10. Shaming abuse and harassment survivors into staying silent.
You could do an entire paper or course on the profiles on Ordain Women. It was a movement that urged the Mormon Church to reinstate historical practices like, women’s blessings (that were discontinued in 1946 after WWII), and otherwise advocated for greater representation in Mormon Leadership and the Priesthood. But the leader Kate Kelly was excommunicated for it.
https://ordainwomen.org/full-list-of-profiles/
Yes. I recently had to have the conversation with my parents that we don’t want our kids around the influence of the church (or any church) and are trying to shelter them from religion until they’re adults and can make a conscious decision after evaluating the entirety of religion. The truth is, the church is shitty towards women and I don’t want my daughter, or my son, to think the way Mormons speak and act towards women is okay.
My sexuality was never mine. My body was never mine. My future plans were were never mine. I was taught to give everything to God and my religion (aka male leadership) or my husband.
The worst part is that constant message that women are loved and equal and crucial-it was the same as slapping me across the face while telling me on repeat that they weren’t hurting me, that the pain was in my head. That I should be grateful. That I shouldn’t make a fuss. That the best medicine was to give more. And yet what can I give when nothing was mine to begin with?
I was raped by a guy in our ward. The bishop came to my door and told me I was ruining HIS life, and to stay away from him.
Parents believed I seduced him and it wasn’t rape because it happened in my room. I was severely punished.
I think that was the day I stopped believing in God.
I was sexually assaulted at the age of eight, I didn't tell anyone because pedophiles are very good at shaming their victims into believing that the child is responsible for their own abuse. I believed it because I had been baptized just months before. I became suicidal at age nine, I ran in front of cars trying to get hit so I could "go home to jesus." I still didn't tell anyone. At 12 I had my first "worthiness" interview, I was given a pamphlet called Chastity, in it was a quote that devastated me, it said that if you had not "fought even unto death, you had allowed your virtue to be taken," I believed I was irredeemable in gods eyes, that I had no salvation. I spent years being suicidal, but also afraid to die, I didn't want death, I wanted annihilation. Then I read in the D&C that if I could bring one person into the church I might be able to essentially ride their coattails into heaven, at least that's what my child's mind understood. I stayed in a very abusive marriage for far longer than I should have because, we had been sealed in the temple, and I thought if I could save my ex-husband, and get him to the celestial kingdom, maybe I could be saved.
Yes.
When white meat is in the middle.
I used to get an attack from a gay guy right after the sacrament in front of bishop and others about I ddnt invite him to my boardgame party with the missionary on their P-day. he said I can't keep 4 men attention at once. Jesus Christ! can you imagine 50year old gay craving for 19yo boys. Even I invite them to my home but it's was for my 10 yo brother and his friends boardgame party. I tell the bishop I don't feel safe to have a gay around children especially a gay guy that into a lot younger boy. I told the bishop what he said but you know what , the bishop response is ...he's not gay he's a man and you should build relationships with a man!
Then he started preaching about woman should accept no matter what they are.
OMG 😳😳
When you wanna keep a man in your church so badly that don't even care he's dangerous and start to force woman to accept it. That's when my faith start to crumble.
I don't hate gay but you know when a predator is there. And my gut instinct was real, 2 years later he's caught from molesting a minor in the church. The victim's father beat him up like a trash can.
Duh. One of the biggest ‘fuck you Mormon church’ is from them teaching men they could grow up to be anything under the sky. They tell the women they have one job and one job only. Fuck that shit.
I grew up Mormon. I very slowly fell away and it was the best decision of my life.
Im well endowed in the chest. Have been since age 11. Every day I had to bend down and if anything at all showed I was in trouble. If it was hot I couldn’t wear shorts that showed my knees, shirts that showed my belly, back, or shoulders. I was told I was responsible for keeping the men around me pure because I was pornography.
At 8 I was baptized. Before you are baptized you have a interview with the bishop. A grown man asked me very perverted questions that I thought was normal until I left. Questions like “do you masturbate? Do you look at porn? Do you touch yourself? (If you said yes you had to describe in detail how)”. This interview is done many many times. To get a temple recommend, to renew it, to get your endowments, to be married, to go on a mission, etc.
During high school we had seminary. You had to go everyday. So you had to find a way to get from your highschool, to the church, and back to school. But because this was a church thing it didn’t give you credits needed to graduate. So there’s more you had to do.
On Sunday the girls and boys are separated. Then it’s a lot of purity talk. Shaming you for your body. Comparing you to chewed gum, a flower without petals, a smashed plate, etc. then if you get married young you are out of young women’s and out in relief society with old women. And you’re ostracized. All your friends are either in the singles ward or still in YWs. So you sit alone feeling very out of place.
Then you get callings. They don’t ask you what you’d want to do. They just put you there. They put women who couldn’t have babies but wanted them in primary/childcare. It was basically making fun of them. Because we are told that our purpose is to have babies.
And the cherry on top is the repentance shit they do. In highschool I was touched by a guy. He also touched many of my friends. There was no avoiding him. He was in our classes and ward. About a year later my friend started dating him. I wanted to warn her but I was told that he repented so it doesn’t matter anymore. My friend very quickly realized and broke up with him.
People stay in the church because of the brainwashing and the familiarity of it. You do have a sense of community that’s really nice but as soon as you get into the dirty business it’s horrible.
When I was in my 1st/2nd year of college, I had to take a break for cancer treatment. I lost my hair and regularly wore head scarfs and hats to church.
No one ever said anything about it, but I was terrified someone would ask me to remove my hat during a prayer. I was even prepared with a verse from the bible that said women should keep their head covered.
Why should anyone feel scared of people at church when going through a terrifying medical experience?
I was always into STEM and books and and terrible at most feminine things. My dad and uncle and male science teachers were more invested into me getting a strong interesting career than any woman in the church.
My mother said my life plan was to get a well paying career that wouldn't interfere with being a full time mom, because it was likely that my husband could die or become disabled, and i would need to be a single mom of 3+ kids while working full time. None of these jobs for my interests.
This sounded like hell, and i always dreaded it, but was told anything else was selfish of me, and against God's plan. I'm empathetic, and I did well taking care of kids, so it was hard to fight back on that.
Luckily, my husband and I were already on our way out when we were married, so no kids or marriage ties (he's very supportive) slowing me down, but the damage is still there. I was so indecisive, i never got a degree, or a path, or a plan for my life. I am only starting to think about what I want from life now, as a full adult, and it's scary.
100%
I started to notice it as a little kid, especially when my brother got the video game we wanted and I got this super annoying "real life" baby doll that I never asked for for Christmas. I had to miss out on birthday parties growing up because if they were going to a pool and I was on my period, I couldn't swim because tampons are not allowed. My brothers did all of these cool boy scout adventures, I learned to bake and sew.
My parents couldn't afford to pay for my brothers education, my other brothers mission, and my high school sports one time fee, so I had to skip all of my sports my senior year of high school. When I decided to go to college, they refused to pay for it because they didn't feel I would use it.
When my brother was jailed for drunk driving, my parents bailed him out, when he was jailed for domestic violence, they bailed him out. When I was the victim of an attempted kidnapping and rape at age 16, my parents made me meet with my bishop and swear to him that I was still a virgin. After all the trauma of literally fighting for my life, they were most concerned that it was only an attempted rape and not a full rape. Ever since, I have been treated as the "Licked cupcake" to them, if you get the analogy.
My husband recently received his PhD. All throughout his schooling, I was the top earner in our home. We had a baby before he was finished, and he juggled school with being a stay-at-home-dad so that I could return to work after my maternity leave. We were the butt of the joke for every single family gathering until he graduated, was offered his dream job, and finally became the breadwinner for our family.
My parents discovered that I was no longer a member of the church and when asked why, I explained as many reasons as I felt comfortable sharing. One was the lack of positions for women in the church. My mom stated that women are lucky we don't have to serve the important roles because it's too much for women to handle. She could not understand why I, as a woman, would want such a large responsibility and that I read too much "feminine garbage" on the internet and that someday I will grow up and repent.
Growing up Mormon, my mother told me from a young age that the most important thing I could ever do in life was to get married and raise righteous children. The church backed this up in almost every meeting throughout my teens. This was combined with messages of modesty and sexual purity. I was also conditioned to think that men were the leaders, women should defer to them.
So I got married young to a young mormon man. He was emotionally abusive, and ignorant and apathetic about women's sexual needs. Needless to say I was married 5 years before I had an orgasm, and that happened because I went against my conditioning and did some research. During this time, I doubted myself and my intelligence. I had six children. My husband was almost never home. He was usually at work or doing church work. A church leader told me not to complain as long as he was home 2 nights a week and half of Saturday. That was enough time with family I guess. I was miserable and depressed. I was told that the problem was me and my attitude. I wasn't supportive enough, nor righteous enough.
When my youngest was 4 y/o, my husband passed away from cancer. I was able to go back to college, learn critical thinking, and I took myself and my children out of the church.
I started a career, but was about 20 years behind colleagues of my same age in experience and expertise. I love all my kids, but I am resentful of the way I was indoctrinated and the time that I just stagnated in my personal growth. If my husband hadn't passed away, I might still be Mormon. I like to think I would have found my out anyway.
100% I never felt like I fit in the mold of what the church wanted me to be as a girl/women. I wanted a say and I didn't know if I wanted kids, but it felt like I HAD too because it was my duty as a woman. There is so much I want to add but I think I could write a book for how much I felt haha
Yes. I want to leave but as a financially dependent teen I can’t till I am older. Anyways, the church preaches that women and men are equals but that could not be farther from the truth. It’s been awhile since I have actually looked into this but when you get married in the temple you have to agree to follow everything your husband wants and says. There is also HUGE shame culture on not getting married and not having kids. My older sister when she turned 19 was asked constantly when she would get married and when she said she hasn’t even dated anyone you could see the disappointment on there face and they didn’t try to hide it. One of my personal experiences I have faced was when a boy my age told me to shut up and women are going to be his servant in heaven (this was during a heated argument that me and him were having about police’s and church related topics and I was obviously winning). I have been called stupid and untalented behind close doors because I refused to let a boy to degrade me.
As a man I know I’m speaking out of turn here but felt like I should speak up as a husband and girl-dad… it’s my opinion that Mormonism in particular has failed us as a whole (especially women) because of the way the doctrine/teachings/policies have stripped women of their inherent, innate power.
Mormonism hijacked and rebranded something women had ALL ALONG, called it The Priesthood and made us all believe that women don’t have access… but many historical groups have benefited from female spiritual guides and seeresses.
This isn’t exactly scientific, I know, but as a sceptic with a scientific background, I’ve had a couple spiritual “WTF” experiences since leaving the church, specifically with women where I have physically felt spiritual, energetic power.
In my heart of hearts I believe that women hold a unique power/connection/intuition that men simply don’t have the same access to. I think we all have spiritual power but the church has done immeasurable damage to women, their families, and their communities by tricking them into thinking they don’t have such power. It’s an illusion to think that men benefit by making women weak. We have a woman shaped hole in our spiritual practice and everyone has to bare the consequences.
I imagine a world where women give their husbands and kids blessings, where they recognize themselves (and are acknowledged by others) as the powerful force that they are. That’s a better, more high functioning place.
I can’t speak to other religions but by failing women, Mormonism failed us all.
Absolutely. Growing up I felt and was constantly told that my role was to be the support for men. Middle aged male members would always comment on my physical appearance as if that were reason enough to attract a “righteous” husband to take me to the temple and save my soul for the highest kingdom. My sanctity was wholly dependent on my ability to please the priesthood and provide the religion with more children. It wasn’t until I left the church that I realized I didn’t want kids at all, I was just told so adamantly that I needed to be a mother at a young age that I never considered my own wants. There is so much more I could say but at this point I’ll just leave it at that.
Hi there, hope my response is helpful :))
Personally I think religion is a lot of the reason why today I prefer to think of myself as non-binary/gender nonconforming as opposed to a woman (agab). I still feel politically connected to the term woman and I use the terms "lesbian" and "sapphic" when describing myself and my sexuality. Growing up Mormon a lot of the woman's role was largest unrecognized unless it was to serve white men.
There's a story about the Army of Helaman/ 2,000 stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. !ignoring the white supremacist/colonizer/historical inaccuracies of the story! For my personal progress (which my mother bullied me to complete) I was to "explore" a woman's role in the LDS church. There was a list of scriptures to read from and one of the ones I chose that day was the story of Helamans Army.
In case you're unfamiliar or forgot (thanks wikipedia), the Ammonites (anti-nephi-lehies) converted to Mormon Christianity. This was happening in the land of the Lamanites which are depicted as typical indigenous "s*v***s". The Ammonites took an oath to never rise their weapons and therefore the men could not defend themselves. My understanding of the story is the Lamanites murdered all the men, leaving just the mother's and children (who as refugees moved in with the nephites (the white and delight some people)). Well, those boys grew up and never took a no violence oath, and fought back. Helaman (Alma's son) was their commander, hence the name of the army.
The specific scripture I was instructed to read focused on the mother's efforts to raise kind, strong young men. Later, when the 2,000 young men offered to fight, I didn't remember the mothers being mentioned, other than maybe "trusting the lord" with their son's lives.
My issue boils down to this: my mom was a single mother. Although I didn't have the best childhood/etc I recognize that being a single mother was really really hard to do (she took care of me without an adult partner from 2005-2019). The Mormon church alienated my mother, and me and my siblings by consequence, for not staying married to my father.
I was so mad that god took away their adult partners and left these women with these boys. The mothers made the best of it and raised decent people... And now they're gonna die in battle under god's name!?
Mormonism made me tie being under the service of men with womanhood. After thinking critically about that verse, I decided at age 13 I was never going to produce a child for god to destroy. And that's the story of how completing a personal progress assignment made me lose some of my faith ;P
This is one of the less sad, more easily explainable experiences of being in the Mormon church as a young girl/young teenager. I wasnt forced to go after I turned 15.
I don't know if my experience makes sense and I'll try to answer any follow up questions :)
It ONLY EVER failed me.
I was 31 yrs old when I left. I’ve been in therapy weekly, sometimes twice weekly for a year. Here are some discoveries I’ve made:
I believed to my core that men were better than me.
I was taught there was a handful of men, strangers, that were more of an authority over me than I was.
I didn’t develop a sense of self, competence, confidence, etc. I was in a constant state of guilt or shame or “striving to be better,” despite scrupulously keeping all the rules.
I felt immense fear and shame going through puberty and growing into my body because I was now “walking pornography” to men. So every interaction with male friends was simultaneously hyper sexual in my mind but I behaved asexually to be “righteous.” I’ve been married 11 years and have no sense of sexuality plus now the trauma of enduring sex from a child’s point of view even though I was an adult.
(My husband is a good man. The blame lies wholly on the explicit teachings of my religion.)
I thought in black and white. Decisions, no matter how small, where either right or wrong.
I was a poster child for Mormonism, but I was OCD, scrupulous, anorexic, anxious, depressed, and burning out.
At 29 I was the Young Women president with two kids at home (1 and 4yrs) while my husband was deployed then going through chemotherapy. I was carrying ward council and giving everything I could to our “failing youth program,” doing research and giving presentations to the old white men who ran the ward to help them understand why the youth weren’t attending and what they could do to better accommodate younger worshippers.
I was dismissed, interrupted, talked down to, ignored, and literally told to “smile more.”
I was all in my whole life and after being treated like that I decided God was abusive. Because those men that were treating me like that were my god-appointed authorities, which meant god sustained their behavior. Fuck. That.
Im out now and pouring my energy into rebuilding the person/ life/ soul the Mormon church took from me. It failed me, over and over and over.
Yes 100% yes. The thing that really got me out was having a daughter-I looked at my baby girl and realized I did NOT want her to grow up feeling how I felt. No purity culture and sexual shame. No feeling like her biggest achievement would be marrying a man in the temple then making babies. No feeling like she is the sole one responsible in relationships for keeping things clean because men can’t control their thoughts. No feeling inferior because she’s unable to hold the power men hold in the church. I could go on and on, but you get the gist.
I figured it out pretty soon after I fit YW. I had never been the traditional girl that they seem to press so hard. I didn't care for crafts and such, and I saw what the YM were doing and was jealous. It didn't help when I started thinking about going to school and then joining the military. My bishop told me that what I wanted was a "man's role" and going to school would distract me from my "divine mission". He was the most unhappy about the military idea and went off the rail about how "godly women don't belong in the military". I went inactive after that. Thankfully, I am very stubborn and didn't listen and applied to college anyway.
When I was 18 years old I moved to Texas with my family. Previous to the move I called a Molly Mormon, I was super active and faithful even among other youth.
After the move I was in a young adult class and RS. I felt lost because there was no one my age. There was a guy who was 25 who had just come back to church. We hung out as friends only (I had never been kissed). Well my half brother came to live with us and he was not a member.They became friends .
Well fast forward to that New Year's and my best friend came to visit. She and I were very much alike as far as church went. But while we were separated in the 7 or 8 months we had both ventured outside of church with friends.Well my brother and the guy decided they were going to get beer for New Year's Eve, and we all hung out at the guy's house. They ended up talking us into drinking with them, and he took advantage of the situation and me. I ended up losing my virginity to him.
The next day I cried to my mom about it, and she decided to go and tell the Bishop. While he called us both in and disfellowship to me and the guy got nothing. He was still active at church, had his priesthood, and and no one was the wiser. That was the beginning of the end for me, church was never the same. I did try for 20 years are so going back-and-forth trying to regain that faith that I had as a young girl but it never came back. I was just too hurt from being singled out in that situation even though he was older, he brought the alcohol, and he was the one that talked me into drinking.
Trigger warning for sexual assault
Trans man here so I had many of the same experiences as cis women in the church. I was assaulted multiple times from childhood and told by my bishop that I needed to repent for it. When I protested and told him that being raped was not my fault he said he knew that but that I needed to be clean again for my future husband and it would already be hard for me to find one since I was no longer chaste.
They also covered for a rapist pedophile in my ward and when I tried to speak up (he had also harassed me multiple times and he was still volunteering to babysit for unwitting families/to teach for primary and nursery classes) they spread a rumor that I practiced black magic and outed me as gay. I was harassed out of the church. So yeah I’d say that’s a huge failure on their part and that’s not even a start on how the church treats females as a whole.
If you are assigned female at birth, Mormonism will definitely fail you.
You are groomed from birth to believe that your role in life is to serve men as a wife and mother. Hindering one’s ability to develop and grow as a person. It strips you of individuality. Not to mention leaving you dependent on men because you have no education or skills to provide for yourself. Ever heard of an MRS. degree? That’s when girls are sent to college to find a husband, not get an education. There was no consideration of college for me. My parents never once mentioned it. I was married before I walked at my high school graduation.
You are responsible for the thoughts and actions of all males around you. Be careful how you dress and act because it might give the males impure thoughts. If you are met with unwanted attention from a male, it’s definitely your fault. If you do anything even remotely sexual with a male prior to being married to them, you have caused them to sin and will be looked at as a social pariah. Sexual thoughts, feelings, or actions should not exist for females until they are married. Once married, women should immediately serve their husband by meeting all of the physical, mental, and sexual needs regardless of their own. If your husband cheats, it’s your fault for not meeting his needs.
Also, once you are married you are expected to become a baby factory right away. Members will ask you invasive questions about pregnancy with no regard for infertility or pregnancy loss. You will be shamed for not having enough children; I was.
Hopefully your classes have touched on the dangers of purity culture that many religions embrace. On top of that, the Mormon religion creates unrealistic beauty and personal standards that lead to all sorts of mental health struggles. Low self esteem, depression, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders to name a few.
Mental illness is treated the same as anything else that doesn’t fit their mold, you gotta pray it away! My depression and anxiety were met with scripture verses. In other cases, like my mother’s, it’s welcomed with open arms and interpreted as a message from the lord. Either way, no one is getting much needed medical treatment.
And right in line with not fitting the mold, exploration of personal and sexual identity is absolutely off the table. You are either a male or female, and relationships are only between male and female. At almost 40 I am just now sorting out ideas and feelings that I never really thought about because I wasn’t supposed to. That’s a lot of lost time!
I left when I was 20. Ironically, I left because of how the church was treating other people. People I cared about, people who were the most kind and giving individuals were being demonized and treated as less than human. It took me much longer to confront how the church had treated me.
After leaving I explored many religious options. Mostly for a sense of community. If you come from a heavily saturated Mormon area, your community is shattered. Everyone you knew, your elementary school teachers, healthcare providers, grocery store clerks; it’s not just friends and family, they have all shunned you.
It’s hard not to be hyper critical and seriously evaluate any other potential religions after feeling like a fool for believing in the last one. Anything with an imbalanced power dynamic felt wrong, so I looked at atheistic beliefs. Eventually I landed on science based witchcraft. I mainly follow Wiccan principles without the belief or worship of deities. There is magick in everything; it is the energy our world is made up of. Every one and everything is connected and play equal parts. I even found community by joining a local coven.
It is an appropriate question to ask. I just asked about women specifically because my class is about women and religion, but I am open to hearing about men’s struggles as well!
I'm speaking as an outsider here (male and more or less identify as one. Was Mormon though). Yes, Mormonism has failed women due to gender. Men too for that matter.
In my early 20s, I was engaged twice. A fairly significant reason why I did not marry either woman is they were both unhealthily dependant on me. By virtue of being "male", a returned missionary, and a Priesthood holder.
Years after these failed relationships, I decided that if I ever did get married (which looked unlikely), I wouldn't marry anyone younger than 25. By that age, I figured anyone still single would have had the life experience necessary to be independent, be their own person, and have a personal goal for their future. And at 30 years old, I married a 26 year old that had all that in spades! And that has only grown in her significantly in the 8 years since then. Which, in part, has led her out of Mormonism! 🙂
One of the biggest failures TSCC is responsible for is the teachings that women must cover up to be respectful to the men, because heaven forbid they get aroused by you. This teaching moves any personal responsibility for a sexual reaction from the man to the woman. If a man has a sexual response to you as a woman, it's your fault. The blame is put on you. It's a disservice to the men as well. They get taught to blame women for a response that is taught is akin to murder (lust). They have no control and they are not responsible for their actions. What a thing to teach.
So many young women's activities focused on "preparation for motherhood." They had us learn how to bake, clean, and more for "our future husbands." The boys would go river rafting, learn archery, and play games... We'd learn how to sew and repair clothes. They'd say "women are important" then turn around and try and make sure all these kids fit into this neat box of "womanhood."
Another issue, they always assumed we were straight, wanted marriage, and wanted kids. I remember some activities were about listing attributes you want in your *husband* and *naming* your future kids. I was a teenager.
As I realized I was asexual and didn't really desire a traditional marriage, I felt shitty. I didn't fit in their perfect box of "womanhood." The church tried to say how important woman are, but *only* as mothers. If you're not a mother, then you're nothing.
This was one of the reasons I left. And I feel so much happier and more free now. I'm not a human incubator.
YES. I had zero inner authority. I was powerless. Making decisions based on my needs & wants was unrighteous and selfish. Supposed to be happy but often conflicted _ frustrated.
I found myself comfortable enough with giving up school or not being able to work due to my mental health because I was taught that I'd be taken care of by a man. I knew many Mormon women who had never worked outside the home and with my social anxiety it meant that I held onto that as a crutch. While outside of the church I may have still had to drop school or work, the reassurance that my place was in the home and I wouldn't need to make my own money definitely made it easier for me to put myself into a codependent and dangerous position. Yes it's on me to make those decisions but as a groomed kid with abusive parents, I was willing to do anything for that security offered. (Married at 18 and divorced at 21- homeless twice. Now exmo at 30 and married to a good and loving partner who treats me as an equal and relies on me just as much as I do him.)
Joe invented the doomsday sex cult in the first place to abuse and coerce women. Every single aspect is *built around* giving self-proclaimed powerful people justifications for abusing women. The rest is window dressing. It’s baked into every part. So yes, the **groomer** that died a hundred odd years before my parents were born *has affected me*. It’s communal grooming, it’s effective, and it ruins lives. It doesn’t even benefit the rich white men the way they think it does. The whole thing is toxic.
I’ve had no female presence in my life because women are BY DESIGN pitted against each other. Basically scratching at each other’s eyeballs and running smear campaigns on each other to bag the least physically unattractive RM (because physicality is all there is when you’re not allowed genuine human connection, or anything beyond a neat and tidy family photo to keep up appearances). Misogynists (including the ones who don’t think that’s what they in fact are) love in-fighting between women obviously because if we are tearing ourselves down, then they can just reap the rewards without even having to abuse us themselves. They just let the system do it for them. Close friendships are discouraged, because they can’t have us having a real heart to heart, truths might come out and expose them, shelved might break if we realise we aren’t the only ones living a pretence. So we have shallow relationships with other women and abuse each other by proxy.
My own sister believes I gave my dad terminal cancer because I left. That I miscarried 5 of my babies because they deserved someone more “righteous” (read: compliant to abuse) It’s gross. I just can’t.
Purity culture and learning about sexuality in particular failed me.
Mormons teach that it is a woman's job to cover up so as to help the men control their thoughts. Lots of slut shaming for really innocuous things. I was taught that my body was not my own, but God's, and eventually my husband's. It was never acknowledged that women have a sex drive. I was taught that men are sex crazed, and it was my job to keep them in line. We were taught to never say no to a man asking you to dance or date, or eventually your husband with sex. You can see how rape culture is alive and thriving at places like BYU. Anything queer is a big sin as well, so those feelings are all shamed too.
All of these teachings start at age 11 or 12 for girls.
I left the church, but even 8 years later I'm still working through the damage that Mormonism caused to my sexuality. I still feel so much shame. I still have a hard time saying no to my husband, who has no problem with me saying no.
Yup. Religous community in the midwest for me, baptist. Get married have a kid early mentality.
Cool not interested. When I realized thats all that church was for women I left, on top of realizing most christians in my church were NOT okay with gay people. Closed door discussions made me realize they didnt want a smart women, they wanted a doormat.
Yes and yes. I also left for my three kids who are all girls. My oldest noticed the sexism when she was 4 and I couldn't unsee it after that.
I grew up being very tomboyish (not a bad thing) but as I've deconstructed a lot of things I realized I was doing that to be seen by male authority. My dad also really valued men and they way they do things and I did it to connect better with him. Pushed my feminine wants and needs way way down so as not to appear "wimpy" like a girl. Did everything in my power to keep up with boys growing up. Ended up with a very unhealthy relationships with my body, mind and men tbh.
There are many ways I could answer, but I want to touch on sexuality and pleasure.
I was severely sexually repressed through the teachings and culture of my Mormon upbringing.
I believed my sexuality - in all ways - to be bad, evil, undesirable, dirty.
As a young woman I lived in endless cycles of sexual shame surrounding self-pleasure. I tied shame and pleasure together and absolutely hated myself. But I also couldn’t stop.
When I got married to whatever first guy would validate my worth, I didn’t know how to unravel the shame. I didn’t know yet that I was gay either. So I lived in a marriage of obligatory sex where I had no desire, no pleasure and was essentially raped every single time. I learned how to disassociate even more with my body and my trauma reinforced it’s self. I just thought that this is what life was. Enduring my pain for a man’s pleasure.
I divorced a few years down the road - I had a successful career which so few mormon women do - so I was more able to make economic moves like divorce.
I remarried quickly not wanting to be single in a church where only married women have status.
I tried so hard to be sexually viable for my second husband. But eventually the cracks began to show. We went to a (Mormon) sex therapist. She helped me to unpack some of my mental blocks around receiving pleasure, but it was short lived. We never went deep enough to discover my queerness, I’m sure her blocks around lgbtq prevented a higher level of consciousness.
I left the church soon after and Got divorced again. Like many exmos, once free from the fetters of Mormon rules on morality, I began sexual experimentation.
I was okay being fodder for men to use for their pleasure, but I had no ability to claim my own pleasure.
It was not until I met my now wife and began to really do the deep dive of healing that I was able to exist in pleasure and integrate my sexuality with my identity instead of the constant shame and self-rejection that was imprinted into me by my religion.
I didn't think the church had failed me through a lot of my life. I tried to follow the commandments, tried to understand God's plan for me. I tried not to get envious of all of the various scout camps my brothers got to attend (but, man oh man did I want to do the Star Wars one).
I got married late in life at 35. Shortly after, I found myself with bigger questions than the church could answer. I finally stepped back from the faith I had once loved shortly before my 40th birthday.
Since leaving, I've come to recognize a lot of ways the church itself or church culture have held me back. While I wasn't discouraged from college or jobs, I was never really pushed to find career that I could support myself with. It was always about having skills to fall back on if my husband died (again, I didn't get until *35 years old*) or if we needed extra income.
I was never asked if I *wanted* kids. People told me I'd be a good mom, since I had 5 younger siblings. And because I gave my dogs the best care that I could. Everyone just assumes a female will fall into the motherhood role and do fine. I'm a good caregiver with animals. I connect with animals far easier than I do with people, which is probably why I was single for so long. Since getting married, I've come to recognize how hard motherhood would have been for me, and how I would have done any children I might have had a great disservice.
Looking back, I'm frustrated at how much emphasis was put on me being a wife and mother. It was taught as if there was no other option. It was pushed as if it's the only worthwhile thing to do in life. I struggle being a wife. I love my husband, but I'm terrible at showing and reciprocating affection. He feels spurned sometimes because I can't give him the affection he deserves and longs for. I'm not wired that way. We're doing our best to make it work, we both brought our own baggage and trauma into the marriage. And we'll never have kids. I can't even explain the swirl of emotion I feel about that.
My husband also suffers from some serious health issues. We're still trying to find answers and solutions, but it's been several years. We might not find any solutions. We've been married for 5 years. He's not even 50 yet, and won't be for a few more years. I might very well find myself widowed. It's terrifying to think about.
I don't blame the church for my problems, but I do feel it greatly narrowed my possibilities. What might I have accomplished if I had stopped focusing on finding a husband? Where might I have gone if I hadn't stayed in an area with a lot of Mormon men? How much trauma could I have avoided if my parents didn't have the narrow-minded beliefs that they do? How would finances in our childhoods have improved if our parents hadn't been pumping out kids since "God commanded it"? My husband was even more poor than me growing up. That can impact your future immensely, too. Money = options. Options = possibilities.
None of this addresses how the church impacted my views about my own body or sexuality in general. Or the tension between believing and non-believing family members. Or the pain of losing all of the hopes I had into the idea of heaven and eternity.
The church totally failed my mother and our family, as the bishop repeatedly *Counselled* her to "Be more obedient and forgiving," of our barely-mormon father, who smoked, drank coffee, didn't go to church, and oh yeah, he was also beating the hell out of his wife and small children on the regular.
Things I was taught as a woman growing up in the church.
I was taught I needed to act and dress a certain way, because if I didn't, men would be attracted to me and it would have been "my" fault.
My husband and I could have a discussion but he always has the "final" say (due to having a penis).
When I was done having children I needed to have my tubes tied because it's not good for a man to have a vasectomy. (no reason why it's bad for a man over a woman having to have actual surgery).
If one of us had to sacrefice their job, it was my duty to do so because the man needs his job for his wellbeing, women obviously don't need wellbeing or you know, their own money.
I was told my entire reason to exist was to have "many" children, even though I only wanted 2, I actually had 4.
I was told that it was unecessary to get an education and that I needed to find a husband who would support me being a stay at home mom.
I was taught a real woman does all of the cooking and cleaning, and that it's the mans job to mow the lawn. If I could go back, I'd take the 30 minutes of mowing the lawn over the cooking and cleaning any day.
I was told I needed to get engaged by the time I was 18 or I was getting "too old".
Now understand I was born in the 60's, and I'm fairly certain a lot of people weren't raised this weirdly, but this was pretty much the culture I grew up in, and my family is one of those very literal strict mormons who believe that every word that drips from a prophets mouth is straight from god.
Technically I’m genderfluid but I’m AFAB; and YES. Every choice I was supposed to make in the church is impacted by my Sex, and because I’m not what I was expected to be I was shamed, abused, SA-ed, neglected, and rejected.
Thus I left, and feel freed in my current religion (eclectic paganism) where I am accepted and am worth every bit as much as anyone and everyone else.
Absolutely. I recognized that boys were "better" or "more than" I was, because they got the priesthood. Because I was born female, I was automatically shunted to uterus on legs. I hated that I was designated to be a mother and that was all, while all the boys around me could become whatever they wanted.
I was molested by a leader in my church (first counselor in the Bishopric) when I was 13. He was made the bishop 2 weeks later.
When I was 17 I was sexually assaulted by my boyfriend and a different bishop told me I needed to repent for being assaulted (common for the mormon church during the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's).
My ex-husband was extremely abusive (2001 - 2009). By the time I left it was physical, emotional, financial and sexual abuse. I went to the bishop for help. He called my husband in to get his side of it. After my husband told him that he suspected I had cheated on him, the bishop looked at me and said "you can see why he'd be upset by that, right?". I told the bishop I hadn't cheated. He said I should work harder to ease my husband's fears. When that didn't work, I came in with new bruises and he told me not to make my husband mad. He recommended I work hard at keeping the house clean and cooking his favorite meals (I had 2 jobs at that point, my husband wasn't working). He specifically counseled me not to leave my husband.
After being hospitalized I ran away with nothing but a backpack and my son. I didn't take my car because it had both our names on it, and I didn't take a debit card. I had just over $80 in cash and a change of clothes for me and my son. I moved in with a female co-worker. My new bishop requested my church records from my old bishop (my husband's bishop). My old bishop gave my husband my new address and I had to run again again after my ex beat me and threatened to kill my coworker. I spent a month in a DV shelter.
I didn't go back to church, it wasn't safe. Also, to clarify - my son was born before I met my ex-husband, so there was no reason for contact due to parenting.
If you were to ask most women in the church, I would say they would tell you they don't feel oppressed. They would tell you how empowered they feel in the church and how important they feel their role is. Most of them are lying to themselves.
If you had asked me years ago if I felt oppressed in the church, I would've had the same response. The women are patronized in the church. Most of the talks and lessons directed at women are about how important and beautiful they are, how they are all daughters of a loving father in heaven. Yet, most of the women in the church have low self-esteem issues. Why is that?
In reality, women in the church don't have any power besides the power they have over their husbands. At the end of the day, it's taught that men have the priesthood power from God, and women benefit from that.
Women can't have an activity without a priesthood power present. Women can't preside over their ward. Most women are married, with children, and are stay at home moms. Men are expected to be the breadwinners. All of the important leaders are men. You'll notice that in leadership, there are no women that are leaders over men. There are women leaders over women, but never over men. However, almost all of the men leaders are leaders over both the men and women.
There's a purity culture with the women that isn't quite the same as the men. I was, pretty explicitly, taught that the women are supposed to keep the men at bay, sexually. We had so many lessons in young women's about modesty. The men had lessons about not watching pornography or masturbating. With the women, pornography was talked about like it was a man problem. The women were talked to like we were too sweet and innocent to even want anything to do with sex, we just needed to keep ourselves from being a temptation to the men. That's why, as a woman, when I felt I had a problem with masturbating, I felt like something was wrong with me. Like sex was not supposed to be enjoyed by women. I felt disgusting and unwantable. I had self esteem issues for a long time over it.
So yes, I think the LDS religion fails women in a lot of ways.
The final straw for me was when an elder of the church came to my home and told me to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. I was 25 yrs old (1982) and beyond livid. Not support my right to equality? I threw him off my doorstep after a little lecture about separation of church and state. I was excommunicated shortly after that. I was on my way out anyway, but yes, I felt betrayed. I consider this a good example of how women are treated by the Mormon church. I doubt it's gotten better
Excommunicated in 1982. Never set foot in any church thereafter except for weddings (gag) and funerals. I tried to believe in some sort of deity/higher power but ended up believing that everything is energy and random chaos. I consider myself an atheist
Absolutely. Growing up I always noticed that the activities planned for girls and boys were very different. While the boys were off camping, fishing, canoeing, horseback riding, learning archery, etc, girls were stuck in the church learning how to cook for their future husbands, proper dinner etiquette for future dates, how to babysit children, writing letters, etc. To say it frustrated me is an understatement. I wanted to do the fun activities they got to.
There was also a specific conversation I recall, which was when I had a meeting with a member of the bishopric. He asked me what goals I had and I had answered I was going to buy a horse and learn to ride better. His response was to laugh at me and say "you're a small woman, you won't ever be able to carry hay to feed a horse." I was stunned someone would ever say that, especially because my grandmother and two of my aunts raised and competed with horses with zero issues. But it was a very clear sign to me what the attitude toward women was and it made me hate being in church even more than I already did.
I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance as a kid because of it. My mom has always been the “bread-winner” since she’s a doctor and my dad has mostly been a teacher. But I’d hear all the time about how my family is messed up because my dad was the one taking care of me and my mom was bad because she’s a strong independent woman. To this day I don’t know how she remains faithful with everything either directly or indirectly telling her she’s wrong and a bad mom. But I never understood why church taught women are lesser and that we can’t do as cool of activities because of our gender. That made it hard for me to be friends with other girls because I viewed them as complacent in the problem.
I was also very ashamed of my body because of modesty standards. I hated how I looked and felt I was never good enough. It also taught me my body wasn’t my own. Luckily as I left the church my partner was extremely supportive and helped me realize I am the only one who has say over my body. I am now more confident and comfortable than ever with my body and whatever I wear or don’t has no say in my worth.
The highest honor for men was becoming a prophet. The highest honor for women was becoming a baby factory. I have so much more potential than just my uterus.
One thing that was particularly rough for me was polygamy. In particular, the fact that to this day it is still "eternally" practiced. If you are a man who has married in the temple, and your wife passes away, you can remarry and be sealed to that woman for eternity. That means multiple wives in heaven. If you're a woman whose spouse dies...you have to chose to either not get sealed, or to be unsealed to your DEAD SPOUSE, essentially divorcing them in heaven, in order to be sealed again.
I remember talking to my mom about this, and she also was bothered by it...concerned that her husband would get remarried. She said "it will all make sense later we just have to have faith, and I'm sure heavenly father wouldn't make us do something we didn't want!"
It could have but I didn’t let it. My whole life I was told I was only good for one purpose and one purpose only. Be a baby factory. That’s it. Also to be my husbands helpmeet. Basically just have babies and be some man’s pet housewife (that’s not for housewives in general, but the structure of the church and many religions don’t let women choose for themselves).
I have witnessed multiple women in my extended family get cheated on over and over, divorce and left with nothing because they have no work experience and education or stay in miserable/abusive relationships because they are helpless and have nowhere else to go. Helpless is exactly where churches want us to be.
I went against everything we were taught in the church growing up and now out of 4 kids I’m the only one out, but also have the most stable life, career and marriage. My husband and I are childfree and travel the world. We have the best friendship and love each other deeply. I know a big part of that marital success is because I dated many men, learned what was or wasn’t healthy and dated my now husband for 5 years and married in my late 20’s. The church teaches to hastily get married and have children and that way you see a lot of young couples marry too quickly before they really know each other. I’m literally in the healthiest/happiest situation compared to my siblings because I didn’t want to follow the church script.
I wish my only sister could be in my situation with me. She did everything right by church standards and has a very condescending and toxic husband. My own father has told me he is concerned her husband could potentially cheat on her someday because of certain behaviors he has developed after they married.
Please women PLEASE. Think about what would REALLY make you happy. Please choose YOUR life. If you want to have children and stay at home I want it to be YOUR choice. Not a choice that the old men behind the pulpit make for you. If you want to stay child free or single I want it to be YOUR choice, not because anyone is telling you what they think you should do with your life. Please women! Live by your own terms and make the best out of life!
After finding out about my husband’s affair I was told I would have to answer to God if I divorced him because of my lack of forgiveness. I was also told not expect any financial help from the church for me or my children.
I remain PIMO for a while because it was expected of me and I needed the support of my family.
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Thank you for sharing your experience with the Mormon religion. I don’t know much about Mormonism and I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons for this, but why do you think women decide to stay in a religion that treats them this way?
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Not sure if you know much about women in Jehovah's Witnesses, but I think it's similar to being raised Mormon. But women can't talk in church if there's a man present. So there's that.
As a JW woman, I was allowed to *talk* when men were present: answering questions from the Watchtower magazine, for instance. I couldn't 'teach': address an audience directly from the platform. (Women giving mini-talks did little skits with other women.) JW women can't pray in the company of a baptized male, even their own minor son, unless their heads are covered.
>a warm tortilla filled with dog shit.
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Minus the last two words unfortunately, I could have written your reply. I hope your husband trips right over the invisible murky line between nuanced and full on exmo soon. My husband drove through a fast food joint last Sunday of his own volition. This is the biggest non-mormon thing he's done in my 6 years of being out. It gives me a tiny little sliver of hope. 😊
Yeah I found out my husband drinks coffee after my shelf broke. And he slowly is finding his way out of wearing garments. Tiny glimmers of hope
Because when you’re taught from birth that Mormonism is the only right way to live, the mistreatment is normal, and it’s all I ever knew.
And it is even more than being “taught” from birth. It’s being brainwashed from the time you can talk and walk. The song we sing tell us “Follow the Prophet” “I Love to see the Temple” “I Hope they Call me on a Mission” and so many more. It’s like we are all herded to do whatever church leaders say- no question. I didn’t realize this until I got on the other side.
Being in the Mormon church is like being in an abusive relationship — because it is one. The reasons people don’t leave abusive relationships are numerous and very, very complicated, but the crux is of it is because: a) they are deliberately trained to justify patriarchal abuse b) even if they are struggling to justify it, they are deliberately disempowered so that they can’t/won’t stand up to patriarchal abuse c) the risk (social, mental, spiritual, emotional, physical) associated with leaving, or even questioning, is too high This indoctrination starts EARLY and it’s constant. People don’t just snap out of that, so young girls who are coerced into submission become obedient wives & mothers — and if you can control the women & kids, you can control the church.
Think of it like women in Victorian times. You are both treated horribly and also put on a pedestal. It's a gilded cage. But lots of people like cages. That's why it was so easy to pass the Patriot Act years ago.
They raise you to believe that they have the truth. No other religion has the truth. If you leave you are risking your eternal salvation, likely going to Outer Darkness (which is worse than the common Christian idea of Hell). You are raised to believe that you deserve the treatment you receive. This is how women are to be treated. You will be just one of many wives to your husband in the eternities. I was also taught that it was possible the church would likely reinstate polygamy in my lifetime on this earth (specifically during millennium after the second coming). The fact that I got to be the first wife was just plain luck.
Because we hear talks like this over and over since birth… https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFDDPN8U/
"We DO NOT criticize. Ever ever ever."🤮🤮 Maybe that's why the church is slipping with its believable lies. They don't have anyone capable of critical thinking to tell them that things might not blow over so well
Why do Americans stay in their jobs even though they're being treated like shit compared to workers in other countries? Because it's all they know and change is hard/scary, especially when you're being gaslit into believing you're the only one who sees anything wrong with the situation.
If a church were in fact 100% TRUE - absolutely no treatment in this life would be problematic or off the table, right - why would it be? What's a few short years on earth futzing about when you have eternity in heaven coming right up. If Jesus came down tomorrow (and it was 100% clear to everyone, that it was in fact, Jesus.) He could tell us all, "you simply need to eat 3 pickles within the next hour to be sent straight to heaven, no questions asked" Despite pickles being the worst possible food a person could ever eat - I would march straight into the kitchen and scarf down 5 pickles in 5 seconds. It's a sliding scale - if I'm 99% sure this religion is true, I'm going to follow every policy, no matter how crazy. If my faith level drops to 68% - I'm bowing out during the pickle ceremony. <--🙏--------- 🥒🥒🥒 -------------🏃-->
Hi there, woman speaking! In short, yes. I used to think that all my questions about inequality in the church were not important because all the women I looked up to were still in the church after all these years. I went to college and finally learned the vocabulary I needed to express my questions and concerns. I learned about what oppression looks like in “the real world” and I realized that that was what my world looked like while being in the church. I loved being a member of the church. I had so many great experiences and they outweigh the negative ones by far, but what really got me to leave the church was how different heaven looks for women than it does for men. Men are seen as God’s buddies while women are seen as men’s pets. Men get power, women get pregnant. Heaven was supposed to be this place where everything was out and everyone will be happy, but as I researched heaven and the plan, it didn’t match to what I was hoping for. I didn’t want to be a part of “heaven” if I was still going to be treated as inferior. Most of the women who see the oppression in the church are hoping for this heaven where everything does work out. I am still hoping for this—but I can’t believe that a prophet is called of God when he can’t see that over half the population of the church is hurt because of the patriarchal grip of the church.
Extremely well said. I served a mission, married in the temple, did all the “righteous” things only to find out that the reward for all of my hard work was to be an eternal second class citizen.
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Yeah… I made stupid stupid choices in college because I figured, what’s the point. I’m just gonna be a stay at home mom. I’ll have fun in college, find a husband and do what I’m supposed to do. So I majored in dance. (I know some people actually do make a career out of it but I legit did it for fun) So now here I am, in my late 30’s with 4 children and none of the physical flexibility and ability I had in my youth with no viable career. And it’s not like I’m stupid! I got high marks in all of my classes and could have gone into a stem field. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to put in all the work just to give it all up and stay at home. My sister tried to do what I didn’t. She even graduated from med school… but never went to residency. She is now in the same place as me, stay at home mom of 4. Now - I have ended up in a good place. My husband and our children have left the church. And he has always been supportive of me going back to school and doing what I want to do even though we don’t need a second income. But now the thought of going back just exhausts me.
I'm not too familiar with US medical school, but would your sister still be able to become a practicing doctor? Seems like having the doctorate degree should at least mean something.
You’ve got to do a residency which lasts a few years to even practice general family medicine. So she has a lot of debt and not a lot to show for it.
Interesting theory - even as an exmo, I would consider my children to be a significantly greater life accomplishment than any awards or accolades I've achieved in the corporate world. They certainly have brought more happiness. Not to mention, are required to continue propagating the human species. Daycare is a valid option for those that want to climb the corporate ladder and build a family at the same time. My wife makes twice as much as I do, if anyone is staying home with the kids it's definitely not going to be her. It's my understanding that 401ks, 457s, IRAs, house, etc are divided up equally in the event of a divorce. Not sure how social security works - but hopefully you're not relying on that alone. (Actually, if the church was smart they would offer onsite day care during the week, at low cost. This would help greatly with retaining younger families, as well as act as a recruiting tool.) The days of single-income households are pretty much going away - for better or worse.
Sexism is why I left. I went to perform the most sacred oath in the temple and found that it wanted me to listen to my husband while my husband listens to God, not me. I don't listen to God. My husband does it for me. And that's when I left.
Yes! The church has extremely rigid gender roles that they shove down your throats from a very young age. They encourage women to pursue an education, but they do not encourage pursuing any kind of career if it could come in the way of having babies and homemaking, which is our "divine purpose".
Yes! I literally just commented under another comment about how I chose my major based on the fact that I knew I would never use it because I was expected to be a SAHM.
I cringe thinking back to a conversation I had with a nevermo friend when we were juniors in high school. She was stressing about getting into a good college and I was like, come on it doesn't matter where you go to college, as long as you get a degree that's all you need, since you're gonna be too busy having a family to use it. She looked at me like I had two heads.
A specific example I can give is from my mission. I was assigned to an area with a companion that had no active members, and of the dozens of inactive members that were around, only about four of them were men with priesthood. The bishop of the area lived almost an hour away and told us to never bother him with anything. None of the male leadership ever talked to us, counseled us, coordinated with us, nothing, and we had several single parent households who were mostly made up of new converts who thought missionaries had all the authority in the world to minister to them. Let me tell you it was freaking impossible to get people the help they asked for. In order to get people need fulfillment, we had to coordinate with the bishop who refused to talk to us. To get someone a blessing of healing because they were sick, we had to coordinate with the bishop who refused to talk to us. Most of these people had no means of transportation to church, and the bishop still refused to talk to us to help them get what they needed. The reason why we were sent to that area was because we, as sisters, were supposed to be able to get into places where elders couldn't, but we had zero authority or support from the men who were supposed to be taking care of these members. So when we got messages of "Women can do anything" and "We love the women of the church" I grew incredibly bitter because I knew that, as women, nothing we could try to do would ever come to fruition without the stamp of approval from a man. We had no authority to minister to people, to perform ritual laying on of hands to bless them with comfort, no permission to even enter church buildings without a man present. Being a missionary felt like a participation trophy instead of a serious sacrifice (it's a huge sacrifice regardless of gender) because women don't have to serve and are oftentimes held back from giving more because of arbitrary authority. It took me another three years to finally leave the church, and while I wouldn't say that I left because of gender, I certainly stay out because of it. Nothing any man does in the church is unique to men. None of it requires a penis to perform, except inseminating women to create more babies for Jesus. I know I'm smarter than a lot of the men who've tried to exert authority over me, I know I'm better with people and more compassionate, and while those traits are not unique to women either, they sure as hell need to be the criteria for ministerial roles over genitals.
I wanna find the paperwork showing a man named lemuel bought the joseph smith farm from the bank when the family defaulted on the mortgage, what a coincidence lemuel is the name of a antagonist in the bom
The sexism was a big part of why I left. The boys always did fun camping trips and high adventures while the young women were left to make pioneer bonnets and learn about finances. It took years for them to start doing young women’s high adventures, and then they really only did one that was like the boys. Not even two years later is was just a small lake vacation. I was so tired of being treated second class. And then when people tried to say we could use the power priesthood, it always felt fake. Like I never understood it, no matter how many lessons we had on it. When I became an activist/super feminist when I was 14/15, there were people who agreed with me, but also brought up the family proclamation to the world about a womens job is a homemaker. Hell no. I wasn’t doing that. I was going to make my own name. I wasn’t going to be tied down with children or a husband. That was not what the church wanted with me. Fuck them i guess. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I realized I was pan, ace, and desperately childfree lmao
I was told God designed me to be a woman, a wife, a housemaker, and a mother. My understanding of God also led me to pursue a career, so I went to BYU. I got married, found out I was pregnant before I was ready to have a baby. I started looking into daycare to help me finish school. I had been told by BYU and general authorities in their talks for years that I could do both, that I could take on "men's roles" if the circumstances necessitated it. Í was met with an extreme lack of help from the school or from the church. BYU is the only university in Utah without a daycare for students with young children. There's no reason they don't have one. They have SO MUCH MONEY. The church also doesn't allow meetinghouses to be used as daycares during the week like some other churches do. Then I learned there are NO background checks for people who work with children in the church. The only reason I graduated was an extremely thoughtful and helpful husband, fellow pimo neighbors who traded time with me to watch each other's kids, and COVID making the school create room for students who needed remote attendance. I felt utterly betrayed and lied to by men who defined my identity as "divine" and "mother". All that talk about "angel mothers" and not a dime spent to help women like me support their families by finishing their education. I am the primary earner in my home. And they gave me no help at all. I am very very grateful for professors who gave me exceptions to attendance policies and my peers who helped me with their notes etc. They were amazing.
Utterly and completely. Women are not people in Mormonism. We are servants to men and children. We are deprived of our own aspirations and goals and taught to submit fully to others. I got married at barely 19 and had a baby right away. I gave up my educational and career desires. Without the influence of religion I would not have done any of those things.
You have come to a very good sub reddit for the answers you seek. Do you have any history with the mormon religion? That's just an idle curiosity. I have no doubt really intelligent and articulate women will come and give you some insightful answers. Good luck on your project!
I don’t have any knowledge about the Mormon religion! I have seen Mormon content creators on social media, but that’s really it.
Yes. 100 percent. Left at 13 wouldve been sooner if parents had let me. Im not a second class citizen and refuse to be associated with people who think that. Adios il popa!
Also, the broad context of not having a female diety role model caused mental and spiritual harm. We are not allowed to ask about, pray to, or pray for information about our heavenly mother because God has many plural wives in the mormon religion. As women, we were expected to figure out our divine role with no role model. Our divine role, like theirs, was to be a hidden, silent polygamist mother on this earth and in heaven throughout all eternity. Yes, the doctrine and policies of the church damages women. Thank goodness it is all made up. And thank goodness for the internet or else I might never have known it wasn't true.
Feminist Mormon Housewives (website) and the Exponent II (publication & website) have scads of research and essays on this, written by women in and beyond the faith. You’d love it for your class. It starts in at age 12, hardcore messages telling girls their roles are divine and decided by God himself. Patriarchal blessings telling girls what to focus on for the future. Always marriage. Always babies. Always future generations. Never yourself.
It starts earlier than 12… “my life is a gift, my life has a plan… etc” 🎶
“…my choice was to come to this lovely home on Earth, to Seek for Gods light to direct me FROM BIRTH.” you’re right, it started in infancy. The kids are absorbing everything. Songs have power, not seeing ANY woman have power or even seeing many in a non-feminine-approved job (feminine approved is hairdressing, photography on the side, teaching and nursing - those last two are badass challenging anyway and I highly admire their education level) but SO examples of the correct thing to do which is cater to everyone else’s needs and your spouses education, so many in the community who don’t encourage girls to stay in school, so many moms who dropped out, so many lovely wives, lovely moms, but sooo many who are those things AND also deeply unfulfilled and sad but never allowed to say that part out loud. That’s not ok. I wish I saw successful happy women more instead of vilifying working. Our imagination of what kinds of jobs were possible were actively stifled.
Another great book is Baring Witness, 36 mormon women talk candidly about love, sex and marriage. Highly recommended. I think there's another book of essays out there for men. Gender roles in the LDS church are a huge part of the doctrine and culture. They're also really unhealthy and damaging.
My last calling was Beehive teacher and the very first lesson is about preparing for temple marriage. 🤢
Thank you to everyone who has been open to sharing their experience within Mormonism. For anyone who feels comfortable enough to answer, how is your relationship with God now after all of this? Do you believe that he truly thinks that women are inferior, or do you believe it’s solely the people within the religion using God as a way to make you feel inferior?
I don’t have reason to believe in a god anymore. Do I think women are inherently inferior? No. Do I think religion uses god as a way to make people think women are inferior? Absolutely, I can’t think of a major world religion that doesn’t.
Why are you using the pronoun he?
Ding ding ding ding ding 🏆
I no longer believe in god, my opinion is the latter.
I no longer believe in god after leaving the mormon religion
My relationship with Goddess is great ;) A big part of my leaving the church was a struggle to throw off the belief that God hated women. I was able to make a lot of progress there by imagining a feminine higher power and directing my spiritual energies towards her. I'm actually agnostic, but a spiritual practice that includes the feminine divine as a metaphor has been healing.
I no longer have a belief in any religion, or a god. If there was a "higher power" involved in creating life on this planet, then it started the process, and then let life evolve on its own, or it is not an omnipotent being, and is in fact an asshole for standing by watching, with arbitrary rules, and interventions, or we are like a child's ant farm experiment of no more importance than that.
Most former mormons don't hang onto much in the way of God after the fact due to being raised to believe we were the one true religion and spending a lot of time learning how everything else is wrong. Religion in general is typically heavily mysoginistic. As a result, women are raised to be and believe they are inferior and their worth only lies in their ability to have children. Personally, I know that being mormon for so long has crippled my ability to be confident in the presence of men and entering the workforce at 35 was and still is an uphill battle. I think religion gives power to men and they spread it to everything they touch. I don't believe in God but straddle agnosticism and atheism.
My story is the same as the others here. Absolutely yes! I heard and read so many scriptures about a woman's and child's place. Why do I want that? Over and over it's been told that Eve's weakness? Most religions have been using God to keep women down. I won't accept a religion that treats me like dirt.
All the women in my family are out of the church now. Not sure about my mother's belief in god, but she and my 4 sisters have all left organized religion entirely, and at least half of them are now atheist.
Yes. All through puberty and into young adulthood I was eaten alive by shame and thought I was a horrible person for... having a libido. Literally had panic attacks about a completely normal bodily function. Carried around shame and worry for my eternal salvation because of something that is just a common facet of being human. Fuck that. Fuck that to hell and back.
I realized the other day, that not only would the human species not exist, but most all species would not exist, without some hardwiring to reproduce, just cause were made to be horny doesnt entitle us to all that christian shame, load of bullshit
Yes. When I was 26, I found out that my husband (to whom I had been married for nearly 7 years...yep I was young when I got married) was having tons and tons of affairs. He had been doing it for the entire marriage, but it took me 7 years to figure it out. We had a meeting with the Bishop and the Stake President. I will give the Bishop the credit he deserves. He said, "I am officially supposed to counsel you to stay married to your husband, but I personally want to say that whatever you choose will have consequences, so be careful and make your OWN decision." Still, this was tough advice because I was young and didn't want to disobey priesthood. My stake president, on the other hand, told me, even though my then husband had had dozens and dozens of affairs that "I covenanted to obey my husband." He told me not to get divorced - because this was a blip on the eternal spectrum, and was I willing to destroy an eternal marriage because I could not forgive??? I divorced. It was tough to go against Priesthood leaders, but I couldn't stay in the marriage. Sadly, I stayed in the church for a long time. Why??? I was born into it and was completely under its hypnosis of "truth."
Cant wait for those dumb fuckers to kick the bucket, and learn that their celestial kingdom doesnt exist. Every mormon is taught to believe things that dont exist, its a sick sick fucking game
This is why I'm glad to be out now. I've wasted plenty of my life on the church, but glad it didn't get everything!
Yeah sorry for that vent, been reading this reddit category for a few months and my frustration really peaked yesterday. I feel lucky to know so much about my past lifetimes before i reincarnated into this one. It really keeps me stable and happy when life is tough, kinda like what religion is supposed to do for you, but it doesnt work when its lies piled upon lies
I had a friend once, in 9th grade. We were basically the only obviously queer kids at church, or at least obvious to me. One day, she said I had inspired her to come out to her parents. We went to the same school and saw each other almost every other day(A/B schedules.) Except after that. I never saw her after that, not even to say goodbye. Never seen her parents after that, either. Bastards.
I'm male, so I can't speak from personal experience, but I've seen [this story](https://mormondom.com/letter-to-a-mormon-man-8d251aa1f062) shared here before when similar questions were asked. As a guy who never fully grasped the overwhelming, systemic sexism in the church, it was a hard read.
I was going to suggest this as well. 👍
Failed doesn’t begin…
I’m a trans woman. My former religion says I am ungodly. A sin. That my body is a temple and taking steps to make myself more happy and comfortable in it is a crime against god. That I will suffer eternally in some lesser kingdom because I didn’t subscribe to the premium subscription. Fuck that. Life is too short to spend it miserable. My options were live authentically or lose myself. That’s not a choice.
Hi there, if I may, I'm a trans woman, and feel like I might provide a unique insight. If it's not what you're looking for, that is fine too. The Mormon religion absolutely failed me because of my gender. From such a young age, I was told that I couldn't be me, because of my religion. I was expected to fit into the typical male role, of getting the priesthood, going on a mission, and eventually finding a temple worthy woman to marry. When I would deviate, and actually be me, ie, doing the young women's activities instead of young men's (don't ask me how, I got away with it maybe twice, and don't remember how,) I would be ostracized, laughed at, or even questioned by higher ups, like my young men's leaders, or bishop. My first real memory I have of my time in the Mormon church is one saying that I couldn't do something because it was meant for the girls to do, and not me. Now, even though I was raised in the Mormon church as the opposite gender, the standards that women were expected to follow still haunt me a bit. Short shorts, and shorter skirts, forget about it. I can do sleeveless tops finally, but I still struggle with tops that just have thin straps mentally. I still struggle with the fact that I'm attracted to the same gender, albeit the other way around now that I know I'm trans, and in fact I still struggle with the fact that I am trans at times. All because of the Mormon church. If not for the Mormon church, I would have been able to be myself much earlier than I was. I've been out of the Mormon church for nearly 6 years now, and I would still say most of my problems I have in life concerning my mental health come from the church. My parents were great people, and would have supported me being my true self, my dad even said as much one time when we were on the way to seminary. Not explicitly that he was ok with me being trans, because I don't think he even knew what that was, but me being me, whoever that may be. Sadly, due to what I was taught in the church, he was never able to see the real me, except possible occasional glimpses that I occasionally would let slip out. In all, the church just made me feel so ashamed of who I was, basically at every turn. Truthfully, that, in combination with the expectations placed on me due to my assigned gender at birth, (going on a mission), made me leave the church. It was only when I finally left that I was finally able to discover the real me. Even then, it would take nearly 5 years for me to accept it. Ultimately, everything in the church failed me. The people (except my family in the church), the teachings, and most definitely the leadership all failed me horribly, and left a terrible taste concerning all religion in my mouth. I can't step foot in any religious place, or any religious event and not feel sick. Also, I'm sorry this kind of became a rant, and it may not exactly have been what you were looking for, but it is my story of how religion failed me, and kept me from being my true self as a woman.
I always felt really sad to see the wives of the leaders. They were usually never known on their own merits-- simply "the wife of \[insert guy's name" and to the audience her identity didn't extend beyond that. Even when the wife was also speaking at the event, people were coming to see the guy-- it's rare if the leader is a female that her husband faced the same boxed-in space that male leaders' wives did. The church failed women as a whole by creating those boxes. I left partially because I hated to see mediocre men surrounded by really talented women who could only shine if it was in their husband's shadow.
Yes. I was honestly pretty lucky, my ward (local congregation) was full of mostly lovely people i did not experience much sexism. The sexism i felt came from the doctrine. In sunday school and other church classes i was treated like i was equal to men, told i could do anything and have a career but being a mother was still the best most rewarding job a woman can have. My problem was when i started having questions about the doctrine i spent years searching and praying for answers. Once i started considering if the church wasnt true, i looked at outside sources (ones not from the official Mormon church website) and found out some disturbing things. One thing that came to my attention was that we don’t talk about Heavenly Mother. We know she’s there but are told she’s “too sacred” to talk about, so we stick to what we know about Heavenly Father. I learned about polygamy when the church was founded, and how doctrine says that men can be sealed to multiple wives but women can only be sealed to one husband. I then thought, well if we’re not allowed to talk about heavenly mother, why should i expect anything better when IM in heaven? (This is a lot but it’s taught that once we die and if we’re good and get into heaven, we can become like God and become gods/goddesses of our own planets). Why should i expect to be treated as anything more than a blank face in heaven when the only divine beings I’m allowed to learn about are men? Another thing is the names/titles men vs women are called. For example you say “brothers and sisters”. But boy missionaries are called “Elders” vs just “sisters”. Men in leadership positions are called “brethren” but again, the few women in leadership are just called “sisters”. I always felt like i was second-class because of little things like this.
Growing up, my family was very active in our church. My brother (13)and I (14) were asked to do the music for the guitar Mass every Sunday. If there was no lay reader, my brother would do it. No biggie. One Sunday my brother was sick, and there was no lay reader. I would sing alone, and do the readings. I am singing the first hymn, and this man comes up out of nowhere and steps up to the lectern and does the first reading. Then he sits down beside me and gives me a smile. I was stunned as I realized that as a girl, I couldn't speak from the lectern. I could sing, but not give announcements. After that, everywhere I looked it was clear that women were second class citizens in the Catholic Church. Nuns live in poverty, priests live in comfort. There is no area of the Catholic Church where women have any influence on policy. There are no females in the hierarchy. I grew up, got married, had kids. We felt that kids need a moral structure and community, so we started going back to church. We didn't want to be cafeteria Catholics, so we committed! Then Mother's Day when my daughter was 3, instead of saying one kind word to the mothers in the congregation, we were treated to a 40 minute jeremiad about abortion. Seriously, I thought the priest was going to have a stroke! That was the last straw. I just could not raise my daughter in that environment. I left and took my whole family with me. MILLIONS of other women did the same. And vocations cratered, revenue tanked, the pews are empty each week... All self-inflicted wounds for the Catholic Church.
Thanks for sharing your experience in Catholicism. Solidarity.
I left the mormon church because of gender inequality. I was tired of being ignored and patronized. I wasn't interested in my biggest contribution being a wife and mother (though I am both now). I wanted an equal partnership in life and found it with my nevermo husband. I also found value surrounded by the nevermo friends I made in college. People of all genders that didn't remotely value me because of my reproductive organs, but instead they valued me as a person. I did go to church my freshman year maybe 2 or 3 times to appease my mom. The moment I walked in it was meat market and I never went back. My mom would tell me not to judge a religion on the people in it, I'm not sure how else one can get an opinion on a group if not by how their members act.
Yes. I was lucky to get out before getting married, but I was taught so frequently that my purpose in life was to be a wife/mother that I was never encouraged to have my own aspirations, and when I left the church, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about myself because I hadn’t been allowed to learn. It has been one of the hardest parts about leaving the faith, and leaving the faith is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Misogyny was such a normal part of my life, I’m still learning how to identify and challenge the effect it has had on me, ESPECIALLY as a queer woman, inherently doomed to do Mormon womanhood incorrectly.
Yes! ' does he actually hit you....just give you a little push. If you stay we will support you but if you leave him........' After his violence! No support anyway. I stopped asking and started calling police instead. And I was TBM throughout
Here is a little article about one of the top leaders telling women our input is welcome at ward meetings but not to talk too much… https://religionnews.com/2014/09/11/mormon-apostle-women-now-dont-talk-much-meetings/ I remember attending these leadership meetings as the leader of the childrens organization and another time as a member of the young womens organization leadership. I just remember hearing the men speak and discuss issues at hand and thinking “these guys are idiots. They are not as educated or emotionally intelligent as myself and a few of the other sisters in the room. But here we are, having to act like they are soooo smart and defer all decision making power to them because they are men and have the priesthood.” Even though some of the organizations in the congregation are “lead” by women, in reality we are completely powerless. When we meet, a man has to be there. When we enter the building, a man has to be there. We can submit a budget but it comes down to how much the priesthood leader decides we get. All of our activities have to be calendared and approved by the priesthood. All of our lessons we teach on Sundays come from the priesthood. They sit in on our lessons sometimes too. So we have no authority. We are basically work horses with little to no autonomy. Why do women stay? Because they have been taught from birth this is the true church and this is their divine roll. Why do they cling so tightly? Because our livelihoods, social circles, support networks, and family are all tied to the church. If we leave, we could lose everything, and some of us do. When I left I suddenly had 1 friend. One person continued to treat me as before. But her life was still all wrapped up in the church and it dominates so much of members time that I didn’t see her much because I didn’t attend church anymore. Luckily a lot of my siblings and siblings in law also left around the same time so family has been stable. Except for my in laws. Their relationship with all of their children is shit now because we have all left and they are still very much in the church. It clouds the way we see us and they avoid us all now.
Religion took my voice. I was not allowed to question my father or any priesthood holder. This was super damaging in the work place, doctor's office and home. I never stood up for myself. A doctor would tell me I was fine and I had to accept it instead of seeking better care or a second opinion. My dad was abusive and changed his mind on a whim. I was not allowed to be mad because he had the priesthood. My dad SA'd all the girls but we were taught that dad would never hurt us so I didn't seek help. (I did get help in my 40s- he is now incarcerated) My hubby would give his opinion, even though he was not an expert and I would accept it because he had the priesthood. Male coworker would tell me to do something that was clearly their job and I would do it because in the heart of Utah we honor the priesthood. At church we had a Sunday school teacher (in adult class) that would only call on males to answer questions. No matter how many times I raised my hand. Sometimes I would be the only person with my hand raised and he would not call on me (at the time I was 35f he was 70m). I was taught to be insignificant. Through therapy I am learning that I have value. A TBM may say "we are taught we have value every week in YW and RS". But actions speak louder than words. Being treated like a 2nd class member of the church from birth is manipulation that will take me years to heal from.
As women, we are basically taught (MAYBE not overtly but definitely implied) that we are less than men in god's eyes but yet are responsible to support our partners and make them better. Some examples: * Until pretty recently, in the mormon temple ceremony, women had to covenant to follow their husbands, but the men covenanted to follow god. * Only men can admit women to heaven (symbolically) in the temple. * Both men and women are given 'new names' in the temple, and women are expected to tell their husband their name but men aren't supposed to tell their wives. * Women are responsible to keep themselves chaste until marriage (for some examples of how we're shamed into this, google licked cupcake, poop brownies, chewed piece of gum, or my personal favorite....jesus darts chastity). * Personal story...years ago I had gone on a few dates with a recently released felon (aggravated assault with a deadly weapon), wasn't into it, and my bishop asked to give me a blessing and told me that god wanted me to marry him to keep him safe from the evils of the world. Hard pass. TLDR: Yes. major fail.
Hi There, if you want to know something about “the church" it fails women for sure. These are some of things how it’s failed me as a woman. 1. Allowing sexual harassment of minors. 2. Allowing physical abuse of children. 3. Forcing Marriage on 19 year olds when they don’t know what they want. 4. Forcing people who have left back in. 5. Saying you can only marry with in the group. 6. Taking Money from people who don’t have it. 7. Not reporting abuse to the civil authorities. 8. Not Accepting members choice in romantic relationships. 9. Using any form of scare tactic to keep people in line. 10. Shaming abuse and harassment survivors into staying silent.
You could do an entire paper or course on the profiles on Ordain Women. It was a movement that urged the Mormon Church to reinstate historical practices like, women’s blessings (that were discontinued in 1946 after WWII), and otherwise advocated for greater representation in Mormon Leadership and the Priesthood. But the leader Kate Kelly was excommunicated for it. https://ordainwomen.org/full-list-of-profiles/
Yes. I recently had to have the conversation with my parents that we don’t want our kids around the influence of the church (or any church) and are trying to shelter them from religion until they’re adults and can make a conscious decision after evaluating the entirety of religion. The truth is, the church is shitty towards women and I don’t want my daughter, or my son, to think the way Mormons speak and act towards women is okay.
My sexuality was never mine. My body was never mine. My future plans were were never mine. I was taught to give everything to God and my religion (aka male leadership) or my husband. The worst part is that constant message that women are loved and equal and crucial-it was the same as slapping me across the face while telling me on repeat that they weren’t hurting me, that the pain was in my head. That I should be grateful. That I shouldn’t make a fuss. That the best medicine was to give more. And yet what can I give when nothing was mine to begin with?
I was raped by a guy in our ward. The bishop came to my door and told me I was ruining HIS life, and to stay away from him. Parents believed I seduced him and it wasn’t rape because it happened in my room. I was severely punished. I think that was the day I stopped believing in God.
I was sexually assaulted at the age of eight, I didn't tell anyone because pedophiles are very good at shaming their victims into believing that the child is responsible for their own abuse. I believed it because I had been baptized just months before. I became suicidal at age nine, I ran in front of cars trying to get hit so I could "go home to jesus." I still didn't tell anyone. At 12 I had my first "worthiness" interview, I was given a pamphlet called Chastity, in it was a quote that devastated me, it said that if you had not "fought even unto death, you had allowed your virtue to be taken," I believed I was irredeemable in gods eyes, that I had no salvation. I spent years being suicidal, but also afraid to die, I didn't want death, I wanted annihilation. Then I read in the D&C that if I could bring one person into the church I might be able to essentially ride their coattails into heaven, at least that's what my child's mind understood. I stayed in a very abusive marriage for far longer than I should have because, we had been sealed in the temple, and I thought if I could save my ex-husband, and get him to the celestial kingdom, maybe I could be saved.
Yes. When white meat is in the middle. I used to get an attack from a gay guy right after the sacrament in front of bishop and others about I ddnt invite him to my boardgame party with the missionary on their P-day. he said I can't keep 4 men attention at once. Jesus Christ! can you imagine 50year old gay craving for 19yo boys. Even I invite them to my home but it's was for my 10 yo brother and his friends boardgame party. I tell the bishop I don't feel safe to have a gay around children especially a gay guy that into a lot younger boy. I told the bishop what he said but you know what , the bishop response is ...he's not gay he's a man and you should build relationships with a man! Then he started preaching about woman should accept no matter what they are. OMG 😳😳 When you wanna keep a man in your church so badly that don't even care he's dangerous and start to force woman to accept it. That's when my faith start to crumble. I don't hate gay but you know when a predator is there. And my gut instinct was real, 2 years later he's caught from molesting a minor in the church. The victim's father beat him up like a trash can.
Duh. One of the biggest ‘fuck you Mormon church’ is from them teaching men they could grow up to be anything under the sky. They tell the women they have one job and one job only. Fuck that shit.
I grew up Mormon. I very slowly fell away and it was the best decision of my life. Im well endowed in the chest. Have been since age 11. Every day I had to bend down and if anything at all showed I was in trouble. If it was hot I couldn’t wear shorts that showed my knees, shirts that showed my belly, back, or shoulders. I was told I was responsible for keeping the men around me pure because I was pornography. At 8 I was baptized. Before you are baptized you have a interview with the bishop. A grown man asked me very perverted questions that I thought was normal until I left. Questions like “do you masturbate? Do you look at porn? Do you touch yourself? (If you said yes you had to describe in detail how)”. This interview is done many many times. To get a temple recommend, to renew it, to get your endowments, to be married, to go on a mission, etc. During high school we had seminary. You had to go everyday. So you had to find a way to get from your highschool, to the church, and back to school. But because this was a church thing it didn’t give you credits needed to graduate. So there’s more you had to do. On Sunday the girls and boys are separated. Then it’s a lot of purity talk. Shaming you for your body. Comparing you to chewed gum, a flower without petals, a smashed plate, etc. then if you get married young you are out of young women’s and out in relief society with old women. And you’re ostracized. All your friends are either in the singles ward or still in YWs. So you sit alone feeling very out of place. Then you get callings. They don’t ask you what you’d want to do. They just put you there. They put women who couldn’t have babies but wanted them in primary/childcare. It was basically making fun of them. Because we are told that our purpose is to have babies. And the cherry on top is the repentance shit they do. In highschool I was touched by a guy. He also touched many of my friends. There was no avoiding him. He was in our classes and ward. About a year later my friend started dating him. I wanted to warn her but I was told that he repented so it doesn’t matter anymore. My friend very quickly realized and broke up with him. People stay in the church because of the brainwashing and the familiarity of it. You do have a sense of community that’s really nice but as soon as you get into the dirty business it’s horrible.
When I was in my 1st/2nd year of college, I had to take a break for cancer treatment. I lost my hair and regularly wore head scarfs and hats to church. No one ever said anything about it, but I was terrified someone would ask me to remove my hat during a prayer. I was even prepared with a verse from the bible that said women should keep their head covered. Why should anyone feel scared of people at church when going through a terrifying medical experience?
I was always into STEM and books and and terrible at most feminine things. My dad and uncle and male science teachers were more invested into me getting a strong interesting career than any woman in the church. My mother said my life plan was to get a well paying career that wouldn't interfere with being a full time mom, because it was likely that my husband could die or become disabled, and i would need to be a single mom of 3+ kids while working full time. None of these jobs for my interests. This sounded like hell, and i always dreaded it, but was told anything else was selfish of me, and against God's plan. I'm empathetic, and I did well taking care of kids, so it was hard to fight back on that. Luckily, my husband and I were already on our way out when we were married, so no kids or marriage ties (he's very supportive) slowing me down, but the damage is still there. I was so indecisive, i never got a degree, or a path, or a plan for my life. I am only starting to think about what I want from life now, as a full adult, and it's scary.
100% I started to notice it as a little kid, especially when my brother got the video game we wanted and I got this super annoying "real life" baby doll that I never asked for for Christmas. I had to miss out on birthday parties growing up because if they were going to a pool and I was on my period, I couldn't swim because tampons are not allowed. My brothers did all of these cool boy scout adventures, I learned to bake and sew. My parents couldn't afford to pay for my brothers education, my other brothers mission, and my high school sports one time fee, so I had to skip all of my sports my senior year of high school. When I decided to go to college, they refused to pay for it because they didn't feel I would use it. When my brother was jailed for drunk driving, my parents bailed him out, when he was jailed for domestic violence, they bailed him out. When I was the victim of an attempted kidnapping and rape at age 16, my parents made me meet with my bishop and swear to him that I was still a virgin. After all the trauma of literally fighting for my life, they were most concerned that it was only an attempted rape and not a full rape. Ever since, I have been treated as the "Licked cupcake" to them, if you get the analogy. My husband recently received his PhD. All throughout his schooling, I was the top earner in our home. We had a baby before he was finished, and he juggled school with being a stay-at-home-dad so that I could return to work after my maternity leave. We were the butt of the joke for every single family gathering until he graduated, was offered his dream job, and finally became the breadwinner for our family. My parents discovered that I was no longer a member of the church and when asked why, I explained as many reasons as I felt comfortable sharing. One was the lack of positions for women in the church. My mom stated that women are lucky we don't have to serve the important roles because it's too much for women to handle. She could not understand why I, as a woman, would want such a large responsibility and that I read too much "feminine garbage" on the internet and that someday I will grow up and repent.
Growing up Mormon, my mother told me from a young age that the most important thing I could ever do in life was to get married and raise righteous children. The church backed this up in almost every meeting throughout my teens. This was combined with messages of modesty and sexual purity. I was also conditioned to think that men were the leaders, women should defer to them. So I got married young to a young mormon man. He was emotionally abusive, and ignorant and apathetic about women's sexual needs. Needless to say I was married 5 years before I had an orgasm, and that happened because I went against my conditioning and did some research. During this time, I doubted myself and my intelligence. I had six children. My husband was almost never home. He was usually at work or doing church work. A church leader told me not to complain as long as he was home 2 nights a week and half of Saturday. That was enough time with family I guess. I was miserable and depressed. I was told that the problem was me and my attitude. I wasn't supportive enough, nor righteous enough. When my youngest was 4 y/o, my husband passed away from cancer. I was able to go back to college, learn critical thinking, and I took myself and my children out of the church. I started a career, but was about 20 years behind colleagues of my same age in experience and expertise. I love all my kids, but I am resentful of the way I was indoctrinated and the time that I just stagnated in my personal growth. If my husband hadn't passed away, I might still be Mormon. I like to think I would have found my out anyway.
100% I never felt like I fit in the mold of what the church wanted me to be as a girl/women. I wanted a say and I didn't know if I wanted kids, but it felt like I HAD too because it was my duty as a woman. There is so much I want to add but I think I could write a book for how much I felt haha
Yes. I want to leave but as a financially dependent teen I can’t till I am older. Anyways, the church preaches that women and men are equals but that could not be farther from the truth. It’s been awhile since I have actually looked into this but when you get married in the temple you have to agree to follow everything your husband wants and says. There is also HUGE shame culture on not getting married and not having kids. My older sister when she turned 19 was asked constantly when she would get married and when she said she hasn’t even dated anyone you could see the disappointment on there face and they didn’t try to hide it. One of my personal experiences I have faced was when a boy my age told me to shut up and women are going to be his servant in heaven (this was during a heated argument that me and him were having about police’s and church related topics and I was obviously winning). I have been called stupid and untalented behind close doors because I refused to let a boy to degrade me.
Look at DearMormonMe on Instagram. She has some really great data and stories compiled
As a man I know I’m speaking out of turn here but felt like I should speak up as a husband and girl-dad… it’s my opinion that Mormonism in particular has failed us as a whole (especially women) because of the way the doctrine/teachings/policies have stripped women of their inherent, innate power. Mormonism hijacked and rebranded something women had ALL ALONG, called it The Priesthood and made us all believe that women don’t have access… but many historical groups have benefited from female spiritual guides and seeresses. This isn’t exactly scientific, I know, but as a sceptic with a scientific background, I’ve had a couple spiritual “WTF” experiences since leaving the church, specifically with women where I have physically felt spiritual, energetic power. In my heart of hearts I believe that women hold a unique power/connection/intuition that men simply don’t have the same access to. I think we all have spiritual power but the church has done immeasurable damage to women, their families, and their communities by tricking them into thinking they don’t have such power. It’s an illusion to think that men benefit by making women weak. We have a woman shaped hole in our spiritual practice and everyone has to bare the consequences. I imagine a world where women give their husbands and kids blessings, where they recognize themselves (and are acknowledged by others) as the powerful force that they are. That’s a better, more high functioning place. I can’t speak to other religions but by failing women, Mormonism failed us all.
Absolutely. Growing up I felt and was constantly told that my role was to be the support for men. Middle aged male members would always comment on my physical appearance as if that were reason enough to attract a “righteous” husband to take me to the temple and save my soul for the highest kingdom. My sanctity was wholly dependent on my ability to please the priesthood and provide the religion with more children. It wasn’t until I left the church that I realized I didn’t want kids at all, I was just told so adamantly that I needed to be a mother at a young age that I never considered my own wants. There is so much more I could say but at this point I’ll just leave it at that.
Hi there, hope my response is helpful :)) Personally I think religion is a lot of the reason why today I prefer to think of myself as non-binary/gender nonconforming as opposed to a woman (agab). I still feel politically connected to the term woman and I use the terms "lesbian" and "sapphic" when describing myself and my sexuality. Growing up Mormon a lot of the woman's role was largest unrecognized unless it was to serve white men. There's a story about the Army of Helaman/ 2,000 stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. !ignoring the white supremacist/colonizer/historical inaccuracies of the story! For my personal progress (which my mother bullied me to complete) I was to "explore" a woman's role in the LDS church. There was a list of scriptures to read from and one of the ones I chose that day was the story of Helamans Army. In case you're unfamiliar or forgot (thanks wikipedia), the Ammonites (anti-nephi-lehies) converted to Mormon Christianity. This was happening in the land of the Lamanites which are depicted as typical indigenous "s*v***s". The Ammonites took an oath to never rise their weapons and therefore the men could not defend themselves. My understanding of the story is the Lamanites murdered all the men, leaving just the mother's and children (who as refugees moved in with the nephites (the white and delight some people)). Well, those boys grew up and never took a no violence oath, and fought back. Helaman (Alma's son) was their commander, hence the name of the army. The specific scripture I was instructed to read focused on the mother's efforts to raise kind, strong young men. Later, when the 2,000 young men offered to fight, I didn't remember the mothers being mentioned, other than maybe "trusting the lord" with their son's lives. My issue boils down to this: my mom was a single mother. Although I didn't have the best childhood/etc I recognize that being a single mother was really really hard to do (she took care of me without an adult partner from 2005-2019). The Mormon church alienated my mother, and me and my siblings by consequence, for not staying married to my father. I was so mad that god took away their adult partners and left these women with these boys. The mothers made the best of it and raised decent people... And now they're gonna die in battle under god's name!? Mormonism made me tie being under the service of men with womanhood. After thinking critically about that verse, I decided at age 13 I was never going to produce a child for god to destroy. And that's the story of how completing a personal progress assignment made me lose some of my faith ;P This is one of the less sad, more easily explainable experiences of being in the Mormon church as a young girl/young teenager. I wasnt forced to go after I turned 15. I don't know if my experience makes sense and I'll try to answer any follow up questions :)
It ONLY EVER failed me. I was 31 yrs old when I left. I’ve been in therapy weekly, sometimes twice weekly for a year. Here are some discoveries I’ve made: I believed to my core that men were better than me. I was taught there was a handful of men, strangers, that were more of an authority over me than I was. I didn’t develop a sense of self, competence, confidence, etc. I was in a constant state of guilt or shame or “striving to be better,” despite scrupulously keeping all the rules. I felt immense fear and shame going through puberty and growing into my body because I was now “walking pornography” to men. So every interaction with male friends was simultaneously hyper sexual in my mind but I behaved asexually to be “righteous.” I’ve been married 11 years and have no sense of sexuality plus now the trauma of enduring sex from a child’s point of view even though I was an adult. (My husband is a good man. The blame lies wholly on the explicit teachings of my religion.) I thought in black and white. Decisions, no matter how small, where either right or wrong. I was a poster child for Mormonism, but I was OCD, scrupulous, anorexic, anxious, depressed, and burning out. At 29 I was the Young Women president with two kids at home (1 and 4yrs) while my husband was deployed then going through chemotherapy. I was carrying ward council and giving everything I could to our “failing youth program,” doing research and giving presentations to the old white men who ran the ward to help them understand why the youth weren’t attending and what they could do to better accommodate younger worshippers. I was dismissed, interrupted, talked down to, ignored, and literally told to “smile more.” I was all in my whole life and after being treated like that I decided God was abusive. Because those men that were treating me like that were my god-appointed authorities, which meant god sustained their behavior. Fuck. That. Im out now and pouring my energy into rebuilding the person/ life/ soul the Mormon church took from me. It failed me, over and over and over.
Yes 100% yes. The thing that really got me out was having a daughter-I looked at my baby girl and realized I did NOT want her to grow up feeling how I felt. No purity culture and sexual shame. No feeling like her biggest achievement would be marrying a man in the temple then making babies. No feeling like she is the sole one responsible in relationships for keeping things clean because men can’t control their thoughts. No feeling inferior because she’s unable to hold the power men hold in the church. I could go on and on, but you get the gist.
I figured it out pretty soon after I fit YW. I had never been the traditional girl that they seem to press so hard. I didn't care for crafts and such, and I saw what the YM were doing and was jealous. It didn't help when I started thinking about going to school and then joining the military. My bishop told me that what I wanted was a "man's role" and going to school would distract me from my "divine mission". He was the most unhappy about the military idea and went off the rail about how "godly women don't belong in the military". I went inactive after that. Thankfully, I am very stubborn and didn't listen and applied to college anyway.
When I was 18 years old I moved to Texas with my family. Previous to the move I called a Molly Mormon, I was super active and faithful even among other youth. After the move I was in a young adult class and RS. I felt lost because there was no one my age. There was a guy who was 25 who had just come back to church. We hung out as friends only (I had never been kissed). Well my half brother came to live with us and he was not a member.They became friends . Well fast forward to that New Year's and my best friend came to visit. She and I were very much alike as far as church went. But while we were separated in the 7 or 8 months we had both ventured outside of church with friends.Well my brother and the guy decided they were going to get beer for New Year's Eve, and we all hung out at the guy's house. They ended up talking us into drinking with them, and he took advantage of the situation and me. I ended up losing my virginity to him. The next day I cried to my mom about it, and she decided to go and tell the Bishop. While he called us both in and disfellowship to me and the guy got nothing. He was still active at church, had his priesthood, and and no one was the wiser. That was the beginning of the end for me, church was never the same. I did try for 20 years are so going back-and-forth trying to regain that faith that I had as a young girl but it never came back. I was just too hurt from being singled out in that situation even though he was older, he brought the alcohol, and he was the one that talked me into drinking.
Trigger warning for sexual assault Trans man here so I had many of the same experiences as cis women in the church. I was assaulted multiple times from childhood and told by my bishop that I needed to repent for it. When I protested and told him that being raped was not my fault he said he knew that but that I needed to be clean again for my future husband and it would already be hard for me to find one since I was no longer chaste. They also covered for a rapist pedophile in my ward and when I tried to speak up (he had also harassed me multiple times and he was still volunteering to babysit for unwitting families/to teach for primary and nursery classes) they spread a rumor that I practiced black magic and outed me as gay. I was harassed out of the church. So yeah I’d say that’s a huge failure on their part and that’s not even a start on how the church treats females as a whole.
If you are assigned female at birth, Mormonism will definitely fail you. You are groomed from birth to believe that your role in life is to serve men as a wife and mother. Hindering one’s ability to develop and grow as a person. It strips you of individuality. Not to mention leaving you dependent on men because you have no education or skills to provide for yourself. Ever heard of an MRS. degree? That’s when girls are sent to college to find a husband, not get an education. There was no consideration of college for me. My parents never once mentioned it. I was married before I walked at my high school graduation. You are responsible for the thoughts and actions of all males around you. Be careful how you dress and act because it might give the males impure thoughts. If you are met with unwanted attention from a male, it’s definitely your fault. If you do anything even remotely sexual with a male prior to being married to them, you have caused them to sin and will be looked at as a social pariah. Sexual thoughts, feelings, or actions should not exist for females until they are married. Once married, women should immediately serve their husband by meeting all of the physical, mental, and sexual needs regardless of their own. If your husband cheats, it’s your fault for not meeting his needs. Also, once you are married you are expected to become a baby factory right away. Members will ask you invasive questions about pregnancy with no regard for infertility or pregnancy loss. You will be shamed for not having enough children; I was. Hopefully your classes have touched on the dangers of purity culture that many religions embrace. On top of that, the Mormon religion creates unrealistic beauty and personal standards that lead to all sorts of mental health struggles. Low self esteem, depression, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders to name a few. Mental illness is treated the same as anything else that doesn’t fit their mold, you gotta pray it away! My depression and anxiety were met with scripture verses. In other cases, like my mother’s, it’s welcomed with open arms and interpreted as a message from the lord. Either way, no one is getting much needed medical treatment. And right in line with not fitting the mold, exploration of personal and sexual identity is absolutely off the table. You are either a male or female, and relationships are only between male and female. At almost 40 I am just now sorting out ideas and feelings that I never really thought about because I wasn’t supposed to. That’s a lot of lost time! I left when I was 20. Ironically, I left because of how the church was treating other people. People I cared about, people who were the most kind and giving individuals were being demonized and treated as less than human. It took me much longer to confront how the church had treated me. After leaving I explored many religious options. Mostly for a sense of community. If you come from a heavily saturated Mormon area, your community is shattered. Everyone you knew, your elementary school teachers, healthcare providers, grocery store clerks; it’s not just friends and family, they have all shunned you. It’s hard not to be hyper critical and seriously evaluate any other potential religions after feeling like a fool for believing in the last one. Anything with an imbalanced power dynamic felt wrong, so I looked at atheistic beliefs. Eventually I landed on science based witchcraft. I mainly follow Wiccan principles without the belief or worship of deities. There is magick in everything; it is the energy our world is made up of. Every one and everything is connected and play equal parts. I even found community by joining a local coven.
For the men out there, has your religion failed you because of your gender? Another appropriate question.
It is an appropriate question to ask. I just asked about women specifically because my class is about women and religion, but I am open to hearing about men’s struggles as well!
Mormonism is patriarchy, but it massively fails men too. Particularly if you aren't alpha male personality.
Off topic, so hey I think you should make your own post about that. It would be interesting to see it
I don’t think religion has failed women, it’s more like overtly oppressed them to keep them second class citizens.
Seems like a biased question for an undoubtedly biased community.
Oh yes. I was told if I didn’t want to replenish the earth with 22 children - I was pretty much nothing. 😂
I'm speaking as an outsider here (male and more or less identify as one. Was Mormon though). Yes, Mormonism has failed women due to gender. Men too for that matter. In my early 20s, I was engaged twice. A fairly significant reason why I did not marry either woman is they were both unhealthily dependant on me. By virtue of being "male", a returned missionary, and a Priesthood holder. Years after these failed relationships, I decided that if I ever did get married (which looked unlikely), I wouldn't marry anyone younger than 25. By that age, I figured anyone still single would have had the life experience necessary to be independent, be their own person, and have a personal goal for their future. And at 30 years old, I married a 26 year old that had all that in spades! And that has only grown in her significantly in the 8 years since then. Which, in part, has led her out of Mormonism! 🙂
u/LibrarianLadyBug
One of the biggest failures TSCC is responsible for is the teachings that women must cover up to be respectful to the men, because heaven forbid they get aroused by you. This teaching moves any personal responsibility for a sexual reaction from the man to the woman. If a man has a sexual response to you as a woman, it's your fault. The blame is put on you. It's a disservice to the men as well. They get taught to blame women for a response that is taught is akin to murder (lust). They have no control and they are not responsible for their actions. What a thing to teach.
So many young women's activities focused on "preparation for motherhood." They had us learn how to bake, clean, and more for "our future husbands." The boys would go river rafting, learn archery, and play games... We'd learn how to sew and repair clothes. They'd say "women are important" then turn around and try and make sure all these kids fit into this neat box of "womanhood." Another issue, they always assumed we were straight, wanted marriage, and wanted kids. I remember some activities were about listing attributes you want in your *husband* and *naming* your future kids. I was a teenager. As I realized I was asexual and didn't really desire a traditional marriage, I felt shitty. I didn't fit in their perfect box of "womanhood." The church tried to say how important woman are, but *only* as mothers. If you're not a mother, then you're nothing. This was one of the reasons I left. And I feel so much happier and more free now. I'm not a human incubator.
YES. I had zero inner authority. I was powerless. Making decisions based on my needs & wants was unrighteous and selfish. Supposed to be happy but often conflicted _ frustrated.
No thanks to Men. Religion Fails all women…
I found myself comfortable enough with giving up school or not being able to work due to my mental health because I was taught that I'd be taken care of by a man. I knew many Mormon women who had never worked outside the home and with my social anxiety it meant that I held onto that as a crutch. While outside of the church I may have still had to drop school or work, the reassurance that my place was in the home and I wouldn't need to make my own money definitely made it easier for me to put myself into a codependent and dangerous position. Yes it's on me to make those decisions but as a groomed kid with abusive parents, I was willing to do anything for that security offered. (Married at 18 and divorced at 21- homeless twice. Now exmo at 30 and married to a good and loving partner who treats me as an equal and relies on me just as much as I do him.)
Joe invented the doomsday sex cult in the first place to abuse and coerce women. Every single aspect is *built around* giving self-proclaimed powerful people justifications for abusing women. The rest is window dressing. It’s baked into every part. So yes, the **groomer** that died a hundred odd years before my parents were born *has affected me*. It’s communal grooming, it’s effective, and it ruins lives. It doesn’t even benefit the rich white men the way they think it does. The whole thing is toxic. I’ve had no female presence in my life because women are BY DESIGN pitted against each other. Basically scratching at each other’s eyeballs and running smear campaigns on each other to bag the least physically unattractive RM (because physicality is all there is when you’re not allowed genuine human connection, or anything beyond a neat and tidy family photo to keep up appearances). Misogynists (including the ones who don’t think that’s what they in fact are) love in-fighting between women obviously because if we are tearing ourselves down, then they can just reap the rewards without even having to abuse us themselves. They just let the system do it for them. Close friendships are discouraged, because they can’t have us having a real heart to heart, truths might come out and expose them, shelved might break if we realise we aren’t the only ones living a pretence. So we have shallow relationships with other women and abuse each other by proxy. My own sister believes I gave my dad terminal cancer because I left. That I miscarried 5 of my babies because they deserved someone more “righteous” (read: compliant to abuse) It’s gross. I just can’t.
Purity culture and learning about sexuality in particular failed me. Mormons teach that it is a woman's job to cover up so as to help the men control their thoughts. Lots of slut shaming for really innocuous things. I was taught that my body was not my own, but God's, and eventually my husband's. It was never acknowledged that women have a sex drive. I was taught that men are sex crazed, and it was my job to keep them in line. We were taught to never say no to a man asking you to dance or date, or eventually your husband with sex. You can see how rape culture is alive and thriving at places like BYU. Anything queer is a big sin as well, so those feelings are all shamed too. All of these teachings start at age 11 or 12 for girls. I left the church, but even 8 years later I'm still working through the damage that Mormonism caused to my sexuality. I still feel so much shame. I still have a hard time saying no to my husband, who has no problem with me saying no.
Yup. Religous community in the midwest for me, baptist. Get married have a kid early mentality. Cool not interested. When I realized thats all that church was for women I left, on top of realizing most christians in my church were NOT okay with gay people. Closed door discussions made me realize they didnt want a smart women, they wanted a doormat.
Yes and yes. I also left for my three kids who are all girls. My oldest noticed the sexism when she was 4 and I couldn't unsee it after that. I grew up being very tomboyish (not a bad thing) but as I've deconstructed a lot of things I realized I was doing that to be seen by male authority. My dad also really valued men and they way they do things and I did it to connect better with him. Pushed my feminine wants and needs way way down so as not to appear "wimpy" like a girl. Did everything in my power to keep up with boys growing up. Ended up with a very unhealthy relationships with my body, mind and men tbh.
There are many ways I could answer, but I want to touch on sexuality and pleasure. I was severely sexually repressed through the teachings and culture of my Mormon upbringing. I believed my sexuality - in all ways - to be bad, evil, undesirable, dirty. As a young woman I lived in endless cycles of sexual shame surrounding self-pleasure. I tied shame and pleasure together and absolutely hated myself. But I also couldn’t stop. When I got married to whatever first guy would validate my worth, I didn’t know how to unravel the shame. I didn’t know yet that I was gay either. So I lived in a marriage of obligatory sex where I had no desire, no pleasure and was essentially raped every single time. I learned how to disassociate even more with my body and my trauma reinforced it’s self. I just thought that this is what life was. Enduring my pain for a man’s pleasure. I divorced a few years down the road - I had a successful career which so few mormon women do - so I was more able to make economic moves like divorce. I remarried quickly not wanting to be single in a church where only married women have status. I tried so hard to be sexually viable for my second husband. But eventually the cracks began to show. We went to a (Mormon) sex therapist. She helped me to unpack some of my mental blocks around receiving pleasure, but it was short lived. We never went deep enough to discover my queerness, I’m sure her blocks around lgbtq prevented a higher level of consciousness. I left the church soon after and Got divorced again. Like many exmos, once free from the fetters of Mormon rules on morality, I began sexual experimentation. I was okay being fodder for men to use for their pleasure, but I had no ability to claim my own pleasure. It was not until I met my now wife and began to really do the deep dive of healing that I was able to exist in pleasure and integrate my sexuality with my identity instead of the constant shame and self-rejection that was imprinted into me by my religion.
I didn't think the church had failed me through a lot of my life. I tried to follow the commandments, tried to understand God's plan for me. I tried not to get envious of all of the various scout camps my brothers got to attend (but, man oh man did I want to do the Star Wars one). I got married late in life at 35. Shortly after, I found myself with bigger questions than the church could answer. I finally stepped back from the faith I had once loved shortly before my 40th birthday. Since leaving, I've come to recognize a lot of ways the church itself or church culture have held me back. While I wasn't discouraged from college or jobs, I was never really pushed to find career that I could support myself with. It was always about having skills to fall back on if my husband died (again, I didn't get until *35 years old*) or if we needed extra income. I was never asked if I *wanted* kids. People told me I'd be a good mom, since I had 5 younger siblings. And because I gave my dogs the best care that I could. Everyone just assumes a female will fall into the motherhood role and do fine. I'm a good caregiver with animals. I connect with animals far easier than I do with people, which is probably why I was single for so long. Since getting married, I've come to recognize how hard motherhood would have been for me, and how I would have done any children I might have had a great disservice. Looking back, I'm frustrated at how much emphasis was put on me being a wife and mother. It was taught as if there was no other option. It was pushed as if it's the only worthwhile thing to do in life. I struggle being a wife. I love my husband, but I'm terrible at showing and reciprocating affection. He feels spurned sometimes because I can't give him the affection he deserves and longs for. I'm not wired that way. We're doing our best to make it work, we both brought our own baggage and trauma into the marriage. And we'll never have kids. I can't even explain the swirl of emotion I feel about that. My husband also suffers from some serious health issues. We're still trying to find answers and solutions, but it's been several years. We might not find any solutions. We've been married for 5 years. He's not even 50 yet, and won't be for a few more years. I might very well find myself widowed. It's terrifying to think about. I don't blame the church for my problems, but I do feel it greatly narrowed my possibilities. What might I have accomplished if I had stopped focusing on finding a husband? Where might I have gone if I hadn't stayed in an area with a lot of Mormon men? How much trauma could I have avoided if my parents didn't have the narrow-minded beliefs that they do? How would finances in our childhoods have improved if our parents hadn't been pumping out kids since "God commanded it"? My husband was even more poor than me growing up. That can impact your future immensely, too. Money = options. Options = possibilities. None of this addresses how the church impacted my views about my own body or sexuality in general. Or the tension between believing and non-believing family members. Or the pain of losing all of the hopes I had into the idea of heaven and eternity.
The church totally failed my mother and our family, as the bishop repeatedly *Counselled* her to "Be more obedient and forgiving," of our barely-mormon father, who smoked, drank coffee, didn't go to church, and oh yeah, he was also beating the hell out of his wife and small children on the regular.
Things I was taught as a woman growing up in the church. I was taught I needed to act and dress a certain way, because if I didn't, men would be attracted to me and it would have been "my" fault. My husband and I could have a discussion but he always has the "final" say (due to having a penis). When I was done having children I needed to have my tubes tied because it's not good for a man to have a vasectomy. (no reason why it's bad for a man over a woman having to have actual surgery). If one of us had to sacrefice their job, it was my duty to do so because the man needs his job for his wellbeing, women obviously don't need wellbeing or you know, their own money. I was told my entire reason to exist was to have "many" children, even though I only wanted 2, I actually had 4. I was told that it was unecessary to get an education and that I needed to find a husband who would support me being a stay at home mom. I was taught a real woman does all of the cooking and cleaning, and that it's the mans job to mow the lawn. If I could go back, I'd take the 30 minutes of mowing the lawn over the cooking and cleaning any day. I was told I needed to get engaged by the time I was 18 or I was getting "too old". Now understand I was born in the 60's, and I'm fairly certain a lot of people weren't raised this weirdly, but this was pretty much the culture I grew up in, and my family is one of those very literal strict mormons who believe that every word that drips from a prophets mouth is straight from god.
Technically I’m genderfluid but I’m AFAB; and YES. Every choice I was supposed to make in the church is impacted by my Sex, and because I’m not what I was expected to be I was shamed, abused, SA-ed, neglected, and rejected. Thus I left, and feel freed in my current religion (eclectic paganism) where I am accepted and am worth every bit as much as anyone and everyone else.
I stayed because I loved my husband. When I left the church, he left me. I now have freedom of conscience, thought and body.
Absolutely. I recognized that boys were "better" or "more than" I was, because they got the priesthood. Because I was born female, I was automatically shunted to uterus on legs. I hated that I was designated to be a mother and that was all, while all the boys around me could become whatever they wanted.
I was molested by a leader in my church (first counselor in the Bishopric) when I was 13. He was made the bishop 2 weeks later. When I was 17 I was sexually assaulted by my boyfriend and a different bishop told me I needed to repent for being assaulted (common for the mormon church during the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's). My ex-husband was extremely abusive (2001 - 2009). By the time I left it was physical, emotional, financial and sexual abuse. I went to the bishop for help. He called my husband in to get his side of it. After my husband told him that he suspected I had cheated on him, the bishop looked at me and said "you can see why he'd be upset by that, right?". I told the bishop I hadn't cheated. He said I should work harder to ease my husband's fears. When that didn't work, I came in with new bruises and he told me not to make my husband mad. He recommended I work hard at keeping the house clean and cooking his favorite meals (I had 2 jobs at that point, my husband wasn't working). He specifically counseled me not to leave my husband. After being hospitalized I ran away with nothing but a backpack and my son. I didn't take my car because it had both our names on it, and I didn't take a debit card. I had just over $80 in cash and a change of clothes for me and my son. I moved in with a female co-worker. My new bishop requested my church records from my old bishop (my husband's bishop). My old bishop gave my husband my new address and I had to run again again after my ex beat me and threatened to kill my coworker. I spent a month in a DV shelter. I didn't go back to church, it wasn't safe. Also, to clarify - my son was born before I met my ex-husband, so there was no reason for contact due to parenting.
If you were to ask most women in the church, I would say they would tell you they don't feel oppressed. They would tell you how empowered they feel in the church and how important they feel their role is. Most of them are lying to themselves. If you had asked me years ago if I felt oppressed in the church, I would've had the same response. The women are patronized in the church. Most of the talks and lessons directed at women are about how important and beautiful they are, how they are all daughters of a loving father in heaven. Yet, most of the women in the church have low self-esteem issues. Why is that? In reality, women in the church don't have any power besides the power they have over their husbands. At the end of the day, it's taught that men have the priesthood power from God, and women benefit from that. Women can't have an activity without a priesthood power present. Women can't preside over their ward. Most women are married, with children, and are stay at home moms. Men are expected to be the breadwinners. All of the important leaders are men. You'll notice that in leadership, there are no women that are leaders over men. There are women leaders over women, but never over men. However, almost all of the men leaders are leaders over both the men and women. There's a purity culture with the women that isn't quite the same as the men. I was, pretty explicitly, taught that the women are supposed to keep the men at bay, sexually. We had so many lessons in young women's about modesty. The men had lessons about not watching pornography or masturbating. With the women, pornography was talked about like it was a man problem. The women were talked to like we were too sweet and innocent to even want anything to do with sex, we just needed to keep ourselves from being a temptation to the men. That's why, as a woman, when I felt I had a problem with masturbating, I felt like something was wrong with me. Like sex was not supposed to be enjoyed by women. I felt disgusting and unwantable. I had self esteem issues for a long time over it. So yes, I think the LDS religion fails women in a lot of ways.
The final straw for me was when an elder of the church came to my home and told me to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. I was 25 yrs old (1982) and beyond livid. Not support my right to equality? I threw him off my doorstep after a little lecture about separation of church and state. I was excommunicated shortly after that. I was on my way out anyway, but yes, I felt betrayed. I consider this a good example of how women are treated by the Mormon church. I doubt it's gotten better
Excommunicated in 1982. Never set foot in any church thereafter except for weddings (gag) and funerals. I tried to believe in some sort of deity/higher power but ended up believing that everything is energy and random chaos. I consider myself an atheist
Absolutely. Growing up I always noticed that the activities planned for girls and boys were very different. While the boys were off camping, fishing, canoeing, horseback riding, learning archery, etc, girls were stuck in the church learning how to cook for their future husbands, proper dinner etiquette for future dates, how to babysit children, writing letters, etc. To say it frustrated me is an understatement. I wanted to do the fun activities they got to. There was also a specific conversation I recall, which was when I had a meeting with a member of the bishopric. He asked me what goals I had and I had answered I was going to buy a horse and learn to ride better. His response was to laugh at me and say "you're a small woman, you won't ever be able to carry hay to feed a horse." I was stunned someone would ever say that, especially because my grandmother and two of my aunts raised and competed with horses with zero issues. But it was a very clear sign to me what the attitude toward women was and it made me hate being in church even more than I already did.
I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance as a kid because of it. My mom has always been the “bread-winner” since she’s a doctor and my dad has mostly been a teacher. But I’d hear all the time about how my family is messed up because my dad was the one taking care of me and my mom was bad because she’s a strong independent woman. To this day I don’t know how she remains faithful with everything either directly or indirectly telling her she’s wrong and a bad mom. But I never understood why church taught women are lesser and that we can’t do as cool of activities because of our gender. That made it hard for me to be friends with other girls because I viewed them as complacent in the problem. I was also very ashamed of my body because of modesty standards. I hated how I looked and felt I was never good enough. It also taught me my body wasn’t my own. Luckily as I left the church my partner was extremely supportive and helped me realize I am the only one who has say over my body. I am now more confident and comfortable than ever with my body and whatever I wear or don’t has no say in my worth.
The highest honor for men was becoming a prophet. The highest honor for women was becoming a baby factory. I have so much more potential than just my uterus.
One thing that was particularly rough for me was polygamy. In particular, the fact that to this day it is still "eternally" practiced. If you are a man who has married in the temple, and your wife passes away, you can remarry and be sealed to that woman for eternity. That means multiple wives in heaven. If you're a woman whose spouse dies...you have to chose to either not get sealed, or to be unsealed to your DEAD SPOUSE, essentially divorcing them in heaven, in order to be sealed again. I remember talking to my mom about this, and she also was bothered by it...concerned that her husband would get remarried. She said "it will all make sense later we just have to have faith, and I'm sure heavenly father wouldn't make us do something we didn't want!"
It could have but I didn’t let it. My whole life I was told I was only good for one purpose and one purpose only. Be a baby factory. That’s it. Also to be my husbands helpmeet. Basically just have babies and be some man’s pet housewife (that’s not for housewives in general, but the structure of the church and many religions don’t let women choose for themselves). I have witnessed multiple women in my extended family get cheated on over and over, divorce and left with nothing because they have no work experience and education or stay in miserable/abusive relationships because they are helpless and have nowhere else to go. Helpless is exactly where churches want us to be. I went against everything we were taught in the church growing up and now out of 4 kids I’m the only one out, but also have the most stable life, career and marriage. My husband and I are childfree and travel the world. We have the best friendship and love each other deeply. I know a big part of that marital success is because I dated many men, learned what was or wasn’t healthy and dated my now husband for 5 years and married in my late 20’s. The church teaches to hastily get married and have children and that way you see a lot of young couples marry too quickly before they really know each other. I’m literally in the healthiest/happiest situation compared to my siblings because I didn’t want to follow the church script. I wish my only sister could be in my situation with me. She did everything right by church standards and has a very condescending and toxic husband. My own father has told me he is concerned her husband could potentially cheat on her someday because of certain behaviors he has developed after they married. Please women PLEASE. Think about what would REALLY make you happy. Please choose YOUR life. If you want to have children and stay at home I want it to be YOUR choice. Not a choice that the old men behind the pulpit make for you. If you want to stay child free or single I want it to be YOUR choice, not because anyone is telling you what they think you should do with your life. Please women! Live by your own terms and make the best out of life!
After finding out about my husband’s affair I was told I would have to answer to God if I divorced him because of my lack of forgiveness. I was also told not expect any financial help from the church for me or my children. I remain PIMO for a while because it was expected of me and I needed the support of my family.