Conference address by LDS relief society president sparks furious
debate
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/13/2007 09:21:10 AM MDT
LDS General Relief Society President Julie B. Beck (Rick Egan/The Salt
Lake Tribune)
Posted: 5:16 PM- Julie B. Beck has been the general president of the
all-women LDS Relief Society for only six months, but already she has
caused a stir among Mormon women not seen since 1987, when President
Ezra Taft Benson said unequivocally that mothers should not work
outside the home except in emergencies.
In her first LDS General Conference address on Sunday, Beck did
not mention the working-versus-stay-at-home issue, but quoted Benson's
infamous speech, "To the Mothers in Zion," urging Mormon women not to
limit or delay child-bearing.
She then went on to say that Mormon mothers honor their sacred
covenants by bringing daughters to church "in clean and ironed dresses
with hair brushed to perfection; their sons wear white shirts and ties
and have missionary haircuts."
Beck also linked the idea of nurturing with housekeeping and that
included "cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly
house." She suggested that Mormon women cut back on activities outside
the home "to conserve their limited strength in order to maximize
their influence where it matters most."
Within minutes of giving the speech before the 21,000 members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered in the giant
Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City or listening via
television, radio or satellite feed, Mormon men and women across the
country
were furiously responding on Mormon blogs.
"I want to sustain Beck," wrote Lisa Butterworh on
feministmormonhousewives.org. "I don't want to bash her, but there is
no way that I can believe that 'keeping our homes as tidy as the
temple' or 'being the best homemakers in the world' are the vital
lessons that will bring myself and my family closer to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ."
Single women were even more troubled.
"I'd love to be the best homemaker in the world, but that's not an
option for me right now," said Sallee Reynolds, who works for Ascend
Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Salt Lake City, addressing
poverty issues in South America and Africa. "I have influence on
children's lives. They are just not my own children."
The speech made her feel "like an outsider in my own church and
inadequate," Reynolds said. "Whatever offering I can give is not
enough because I don't have my own kids."
Debate about the speech has continued unabated throughout this
week. By now, there have been a half-dozen conversations
simultaneously raging on several Mormon sites, generating hundreds of
mostly critical comments about the speech, though not about Beck
herself.
Beck clearly knows the Mormon landscape, having chosen for her two
counselors a woman who was born outside the U.S. and one who has never
been married.
So what prompted her to give the speech?
Beck declined to be interviewed, nor would LDS spokesman Scott
Trotter comment on whether the speech was proposed or approved by any
of the leaders in the church's all-male hierarchy.
To many Mormon women, she seemed to contradict the church's
direction since 1987. The church has never taken an official stand
against birth control, for example, nor in recent years pushed members
to have as many children as possible.
In 2005, Brigham Young University President Cecil O. Samuelson
told the school's female science students that the church "is in favor
of [children]. This means not only having them, but caring for and
rearing them in righteousness."
But LDS scriptures and prophets "have not been explicit about
things such as number, timing, and so forth," Samuelson said. "This is
because not only are these things intensely personal in terms of
decisions, they are absolutely unique in terms of our customized,
individual circumstances."
While Beck mentioned childless women, saying they would get their
chance at motherhood in heaven, she didn't acknowledge that a growing
number of Mormon women have influence outside their families or that
some of her discussion was irrelevant to the millions of members who
live outside the U.S.
Middle-class American women have the luxury of staying home with
children, said BYU sociologist Marie Cornwall, partly because "they
can buy a T-shirt at Wal-Mart for $5, because other women somewhere
else sat at a sewing machine working for almost nothing."
In today's world, many LDS women work in order to have health
insurance, to support children on church missions or to educate them.
These couples often share household responsibilities equally, dividing
the labor in unconventional ways.
"I never had the knack of styling my daughters' hair; their hair
on Sunday is usually au naturel, which looks beautiful to my eyes,"
said Valerie Hudson, a BYU political science professor and mother of
eight. "My husband does the cooking in our family, and takes great
satisfaction in making what he calls 'food for the soul.' He even
bakes the treats for our children's class parties. . .This year I'm
teaching my 13-year-old son to sew his own special Halloween
costume."
Hudson and her landscape architect husband, David Cassler, take
solace in the words of Apostle Boyd K. Packer, who said in 1989,
""There is no task, however menial, connected with the care of babies,
the nurturing of children, or with the maintenance of the home that is
not the husband's equal obligation. The tasks which come with
parenthood, which many consider to be below other tasks, are simply
above them."
They also appreciate the teaching of LDS President Gordon B.
Hinckley, who has spoken repeatedly about women getting the most
education they can and not only to be better mothers.
"You can include in the dream of the woman you would like to be a
picture of one qualified to serve society and make a significant
contribution to the world of which she will be a part," Hinckley told
the young women of the church in a speech published last month in the
New Era, an official church magazine. "Set your priorities in terms of
marriage and family, but also pursue educational programs which will
lead to satisfying work and productive employment in case you do not
marry, or to a sense of security and fulfillment in the event you do
marry."
That fits with the general advice given from every Mormon pulpit
and prophet in the past few decades. And it corresponds with the views
shared by most Mormon women around the country and on the Internet.
"As we wives and husbands prayerfully and unitedly follow the
promptings of the [Holy] Spirit, we will be led to fulfill those
promises we made before we came to mortality, and we will know joy
thereby," Hudson said, "even if our lives are not identical to the
lives of our neighbors."
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