Research Catalog

Title

Women and authority : re-emerging Mormon feminism / editedby Maxine Hanks.

Publication

Salt Lake City, Utah : Signature Books, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Hanks, Maxine, 1955-

Description

xxxiii, 460 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

Utah women today might be surprised to learn their grandmothers' views on feminist issues, according to Maxine Hanks. LDS Relief Society co-founder Sarah Kimball referred to herself as "a woman's rights woman, " while Bathsheba Smith was called on Relief Society mission in 1870 to preach equal rights for women. The society editorialized that females belonged not only "in the nursery" but also "in the library, the laboratory, the observatory." Sisters sent east 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." Temple officiators were called "priestesses, " Eliza R. Snow the "prophetess, " and women were discouraged from confessing to bishops on grounds that personal matters "should be referred to the Relief Society president and her counselors." Women were set apart as healers "with power to rebuke diseases." In addition, Mormon theology spoke reassuringly of a Mother God of the divinity ofMary, Mary Magdalene, and Eve. No wonder Relief Society president Emmeline B. Wells could write 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."

Subject

• Women in Latter Day Saint churches
• Mormon women

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The Mormon concept of a mother in heaven / Linda P. Wilcox -- The historical relationship of Mormon women and priesthood / Linda King Newell -- Empowerment and Mormon women's publications / Vella Neil Evans -- Historic Mormon feminist discourse-excerpts -- An expanded definition of priesthood? : some present and future consequences / Meg Wheatley -- Mormon women as "natural" seers : an enduring legacy / Ian G. Barber -- Non-hierarchical revelation / Todd Compton -- Let women no longer keep silent in our churches : women's voices in Mormonism / Dorice Williams Elliott -- The grammar of inequity / Lavina Fielding Anderson -- Healing the motherless house / Carol Lynn Pearson -- Personal discourse on God the mother / Martha Pierce -- Emerging discourse on the divine feminine -- Mormonism's odd couple : the priesthood-motherhood connection / Sonja Farnsworth -- Sister missionaries and authority / Maxine Hanks -- Reconciliation / Edwin Brown Firmage -- Why shouldn't Mormon women want this priesthood? / Marian Yeates-- Mormon women have had the priesthood since 1843 / D. Michael Quinn -- Put on your strength O daughters of Zion : claiming priesthood and knowing the mother / Margaret Merrill Toscano -- Women as healers in the modern church / Betina Lindsey.

ISBN

1560850140 (pbk. ) :

LCCN

^^^92009048^//r942

OCLC

• 25509094
• SCSB-12907146

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library