Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism

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Women and Authority
Re-emerging Mormon Feminism
MAXINE HANKS, EDITOR
Paperback. 494 Pages. / 1-56085-014-0 / $19.95

Utah women today might be surprised to learn what their grandmothers' views were on feminist issues, according to Maxine Hanks. For instance, the 1920 Woman's Exponent--the official Relief Society newspaper--editorialized in favor of: "Equal rights before the law, equal pay for equal work, equal political rights." The paper's masthead read, "The Rights of the Women of Zion and the Rights of Women of All Nations." One of the society's founders, Sarah Kimball, referred to herself as "a woman's rights woman," while Bathsheba Smith was called on a Relief Society mission in 1870 to preach "woman's rights" throughout southern Utah.

According to the Exponent, a woman's place was not just "in the nursery" but "in the library, the laboratory, the observatory."

Those who were encouraged to study medicine were assured that "when men see that women can exist without them, it will perhaps take a little of the conceit out of some of them." Female temple officiators were called "priestesses," and Relief Society president Eliza R. Snow was "the prophetess." Snow discouraged women from confiding personal issues to bishops, saying that such matters "should be referred to the Relief Society president and her counselors." Women were organized as a "Kingdom of Priestesses," paralleling the men's priesthood quorums, and were set apart as healers "with power to rebuke diseases."

In addition, Mormon theology spoke reassuringly of a Mother God and hinted at the divine status of Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Eve. No wonder the Relief Society president in 1875, Emmeline B. Wells, could say with confidence: "Let woman speak for herself; she has the right of freedom of speech. Women are too slow in moving forward, afraid of criticism, of being called unwomanly, of being thought masculine. What of it? If men are so much superior to women, the nearer we come up to the manly standard the higher we elevate ourselves."

Maxine Hanks is a feminist theologian, writer and lecturer on women's studies in religion. She lectured at the University of Utah (1989-98), and guest lectured at BYU, UVSC, Weber State, SLCC, and Harvard Divinity School. She was a fellow at Harvard Divinity School in 2006, and a research fellow with Utah Humanities Council in 1992. She has presented at the National Women's Studies Association, Mormon History Association, Sunstone Theological Symposium and Claremont Graduate University. In 1993 she was one of the "September Six" for her work on feminst theology.

Her other books include Mormon Faith in America, Getting Together with Yesterday, and A History of Sanpete County.