This is Part One of my interview with Maxine Hanks, who edited and published her well-known feminist anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, with Signature Books in 1992 here. (more…)

The Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (here) is pleased to announce an Evening with the Editors and Authors of Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Volume 2, on Tuesday, April 9, 2013, at 7:00 p.m., at the 10th Ward Building in Salt Lake City.

Please join us for a thoughtful discussion of Mormon women’s biography, featuring editors Brittany Chapman and Rick Turley, a few featured authors of the biographies (to be announced), a brief program, refreshments, and opportunities to meet, mingle, and purchase books.   For an excellent review of Women of Faith, Volume 2, see Tona’s post here, and for a discussion of the complications of using biography in Mormon women’s history, you may reread Janiece’s excellent post here.

Also, look for biographies in Volume 2 by J.I.’s own Jenny R. and Andrea R-M.   Come and celebrate this excellent series!

Hope to see you there.

“Mark what I say:  the woman who quarrels with her clothes, and puts on the dress of a man, is like the man who throws off his fur gown and dresses like John the Baptist: they are followed, as surely as the night follows the day, by bands of wild women and men who refuse to wear any clothes at all.”  — The Inquisitor, St. Joan (Penguin Books, 1982).  

George Bernard Shaw’s interpretation of the life of Joan of Arc reminds us of an element of Joan’s influence– her straining of a woman’s role by dressing like a man–  that caused such discomfort for her contemporaries and partly led to her excommunication and execution in 1431. The zealous reactions to Joan’s gendered nonconformity in the 1400s allow us to think about similar ways that modern faith communities are also stretched by challenges to their gender expectations. (more…)

President Thomas S. Monson’s announcement in  General Conference on Saturday, October 6, 2012, that young women can now serve missions at age 19 is no less than revolutionary.  This move might seem like a pragmatic attempt to boost global missionary efforts.  However, a brief historical overview of the last century’s changes for sister missionaries provides some useful context for how remarkable this  policy really is. (more…)

The Mormon Women’s History Initiative

invites you to an evening of insights into the KUED documentary film (more…)

Overheard at this weekend’s conference:  “This could be Mormon women’s Seneca Falls.” (more…)

Mormon women’s history is alive and thriving, as seen in the rich and diverse offerings at the 2012 Mormon History Association conference in Calgary, Alberta. Out of forty sessions within the two-day period, a full four sessions were entirely devoted to women’s historical and/or contemporary activities, with another three panels examining early Mormon marital practices and broader examinations of polygamy. (more…)

Mormon women are in trouble again.  Not for selling out to the patriarchy or for working outside the home.  Not for having too many or not enough kids.  Not for wearing skinny jeans or peep-toe shoes.  No, this time it’s for being overwhelming subscribers to an online bulletin board site called Pinterest.[i] (more…)

We might be a little late kicking off our Women’s History Month events here at the Juvenile Instructor.  But our spirit is willing, and we still have sufficient time that we are pleased to offer your some significant contributions on Mormon women’s history from Jonathan Stapley, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, guest blogger David Pulsipher, myself, and others.   National Women’s History Month should be even more important to Mormons, intersecting as it does with the yearly March anniversary of the founding of the female Relief Society of Nauvoo.  While the latter is given varying degrees of attention depending upon the particular ward or branch and its available resources, the former is sometimes dismissed as a tool of feminist political correctness.  Still, I think the correlation of the two provides unique opportunities for LDS scholars to broaden our understanding of women’s experiences in the past, and to look for new ways to honor their contributions, spirituality, and sociality. (more…)

My first interest in the 1893-94 diary of Lucy Smith stemmed from her brief visit to the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.  “Fair diaries,” as I like to call them, are difficult to find, especially those written by women, with those by Mormon women even more rare.  For my own scholarship, visitors to the fair potentially have much to reveal about contemporary American views on women’s rights, race, American patriotism, imperialism, technological progress and culture in the 1890s.[1]  Lucy’s diary didn’t give me as much of the cultural comment that I was hoping for, but a few promising nuggets. (more…)

This week’s events have produced some of the most succinct, thoughtful and probing essays on the history and implications of race and Mormonism perhaps yet written: here, here, here, and here.  Indeed, I love that we indignant white folks have raised our voices against the doggedly persistent and  painfully antiquated racial ideologies within our religion. Truly, I do.  I love that we’ve circled the wagons, that we’ve stormed the castle walls (pardon all of my martial metaphors, but they seem appropriate considering the climate.)  Our esprit de corps is admirable and convincing.  The problem is that some of our intellectualizing has perhaps had the counter-effect of privileging the white voices in our community over others who need to be heard from just as much, or moreso.  To that end, I present for your consideration the story and words of a a former student of mine, an African-American convert to the Church and a returned missionary– I’ll call her “Kris” . . . . well, because that’s actually her name.  Four years ago,  as a recent graduate in history, she took an internship in a neighboring state and attended the local singles’ ward.  One Sunday . . . . indeed, let’s give privilege to Kris’s voice, in a letter that she penned to her stake president following a disturbing incident in her ward. (more…)

With the increased attention to George Albert Smith since his turn in the line-up of Prophets for the 2012 Relief Society and Priesthood curriculum, President Smith has captured the imagination of LDS members for his vulnerability, his personal struggles with chronic mental and physical illness, and his perceptibly gentle and compassionate nature.  Indeed, his very flawed humanness has made him recently a kind of accessible hero-prophet—one with whom some Mormons feel a more intense kinship.  With that keen interest, it’s timely to talk about his wife, Lucy. (more…)