Sound Interesting?

This is the (current) introduction for my WMST paper:

To the vast majority of American society today, Mormonism is known as a highly conservative religion, regarded by some as a cult, of polygamists that worship Joseph Smith, get married at 18, have at least 12 children, oppose gay rights and abortion, and most important to this paper, relegate their women to spending their lives within the sphere of the home, ignorant of the outside world and dutifully obeying their husbands.

Within Mormonism, women are championed as those divinely endowed with the capacity for motherhood and are consequently a vital source of nurture and spirituality within the all-important unit of the family. It is their duty to raise and teach their children and thus the future of generations lies in their hands. This responsibility and power is said to be equal to, if not greater than, that of their priesthood holding husbands, with whom they are equal partners before the Lord and equally potentially worthy of eternal Godship in the afterlife.

It can be seen that there is some difference of perspective here. Instructed to be “in the world, but not of it” Latter-Day Saints have long embraced their identity as a “peculiar people” that might not always be understood in context of the current social trends. In a world where “women’s lib” is crusading for equality among the sexes through things like reproductive rights and greater employment opportunities, the traditions of Mormonism are ever requiring a unique paradigm to understand a culture that promotes gender equality through chastity and housewives.

The relationship between Mormonism and society at large is not static. Rather, as society changes, so to must Mormonism make clear, and frequently adjust, its stances on certain issues. A gospel of living doctrine and modern day Prophets, Mormonism is constantly in flux and thus as society changes, it perpetually is reestablishing it’s attitudes towards women. Yet, the common source of this re-establishment is always, and always will be, through the lens of the family, said to the key unit of society and the building block of nations. Thus, it cannot be said that as society has “progressed,” Mormonism has simply stayed stagnant. No, this would be altogether too simple. Yet, it can be said that as society moves farther away from the traditional nuclear family, the gap between Mormonism and society will be ever widening and thus increasingly difficult to bridge.

As this gap widens, a valid question emerges: can a Mormon be a feminist? Given that there are a number of Mormon women that are self-declared feminists, several of them housed at the church sponsored Brigham Young University, the answer seems to be yes. Yet, this raises three key questions. Firstly, what characterizes the self-declaration of a Mormon as a feminist? Second, what diversity of opinion exists among Mormon feminists? And third, in what ways is, or isn’t, Mormon feminism compatible with current “mainstream” feminism? In order to full explore these questions, a groundwork for understanding women in context of Mormonism must first be established and a series key topics relating to women in Mormonism will be discussed and critiqued according to multiple responses of Mormon feminists. Following this, will be a discussion of the experiences of Mormonism with feminism, both historical and personal, in an attempt to better understand the ways in which Mormon feminists identify themselves and how the church has responded to this. Lastly, will be a discussion of how Mormon feminism compares to current trends in feminism.