Recently, an area authority’s opposition to women sitting on the stand prompted a letter in response, signed by almost 3,000 members of the church, and a quote from President J. Annette Dennis during the recent women’s conference prompted over 17,000 comments on Instagram. These events highlight a simple truth: Many mainstream Latter-day saint women are fed up with the church’s continued and blatant gender discrimination.
This is not the first, nor the last time that women have mobilized to express their frustrations to the church about their second-class status.
In 1979, the Alice Reynolds Forum, a group of feminist Mormon women concerned by the church’s aggressive stance against the women’s movement, wrote a letter to Spencer W. Kimball, part of which stated, “As daughters of Zion we had expected to be trusted to perceive our own particular truths. That we are seen by the brethren as having no discrimination cuts deep.” They gave anecdotes of women losing responsibilities in their congregations due to their feminist leanings, an issue that still exists in many wards today.
Today, I echo the forum’s plea to the church: “We desperately need to know whether after serious consideration, soul-searching and prayer you find us unworthy…and ultimately expendable.”
Similar to the church’s response to the recent Instagram comments, the church acknowledged that the letter was received, but refused to engage with the complaints. Three months later, then BYU president Dallin H. Oaks banned the forum from meeting on BYU campus. However, the women kept meeting and discussing their desires for the church, paving the way for women to speak up today.
Perhaps we can learn from our religious foremothers and follow their example by creating spaces to speak up, whether church leaders are ready to hear that criticism or not.
Emily Peterson, Salt Lake City