I’m well aware of Mormon women’s history Diana.
Not only was I one once, I was even a Utah Mormon woman at that.
The story wasn’t only written to you, Marie.
I actually didn’t trust myself to respond directly to LJ, I guess.
Having been both a devout Mormon woman, and now a devout Catholic woman, I guess I can see when broadstrokes are being made is all.
Mormon history is understandably very limited to just under a tad of 2centuries.
Catholic of course is much longer.
Yep…which of course makes it a little…dangerous? To proclaim that Catholics have given women more ‘rights’ than Mormons have. There’s a lot more interesting stuff to look at in Catholic history, y’see, to raise an eyebrow at when someone decides that Mormons women are downtrodden comparatively.
Not sure what LJ ment by “women’s rights” but both faith traditions can claim, and rightfully so, that, if a close study is made, women certainly have had rights.
Of course a clear understanding of the theology needs to be had as well, and well as, like you suggested, what is ment by “rights”.
Yep, that one has got to be defined!
Women have long been a force for great good and progress in the Catholic church and a study of many of it’s women point to that.
This is true.
Again, though…the history of these fine women has been a history, mostly, of them struggling against the standard operations, more’s and traditions of the church–at least when you talk about women whose work is with and for women. That’s part of what made them exceptional, and in many cases, Saints. This does not in any way disparage those women–but it says a lot about the society in which they dwelt, that their work was so unusual that engaging in it made them Saints.
When I was first in college, a very long time ago, I was in a history class. This was at a time when "women’s studies’ was first getting a toe hold in academia, and I had to take a class. I remember vividly a guest speaker going on about how mind numbed cults were who kept their women down, brain washing them so that they never even thought of going against their leaders.
She started in on the Mormons. I took it for awhile (a lot longer than I would do now, but I was only 20 at the time…) until she started talking about how there were NO suffragettes in Utah at the turn of the century. She went on and on about how downtrodden these Mormon women were, and remained; why, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found out that Mormon women were not allowed to go to college. At the end of her diatribe, she asked for questions…and she was inundated with them, from girls who simply accepted every silly syllable she had uttered. She finally called on me.
I asked her exactly when that constitutional amendment had passed, again…she looked at me like I was utterly illiterate. I then asked her…have there been any ‘votes for women’ activists since the amendment was passed? She said well, no…feminists, having won that one, went onto other matters. Then I said “OK then, it’s not because they were too brainwashed?”
“No…” By then I think she thought she was dealing with a brain-damaged student.
“Well, by 1920, Mormon women had been voting, legally, for close to 60 years–longer than any other group of American women. Tell me; why do you think there weren’t any suffragettes in Utah, again?”
The meeting ended very quickly.
I haven’t seen a statement that stupid since…until some idiot here decided to accuse the US of massacring thousands of Mexicans in their conquest of California–at the hands of the Mormon Batallion. (which, though it does still hold the record for the longest single military march in history, still only saw one ‘battle,’ during which they defended themselves against a bunch of wild cattle whose bulls decided they wanted to eat the wagons. Casualties…10-15 bulls.)
