For Future Generations
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board member, Christy Ellis-Clegg.
Since Ordain Women’s founding 5 years ago, there have been changes within the church directly as the result of Ordain Women’s work. One of the contributions this movement has made to Mormonism has been in bringing the idea and conversation about women’s ordination to the priesthood out into the open among church members. Whether or not one is wondering about women’s ordination, supportive of women’s ordination, or deeply opposed to women’s ordination, the question is being discussed and debated among church members today. Importantly, these conversations are not just happening among progressive Mormons in private or behind closed doors, but rather some of these conversations are happening within the walls of our meetinghouses.
I submitted my profile in May of 2013, shortly after the founding of Ordain Women. I decided to submit a profile and participate in Ordain Women actions because I fiercely believed that if we had the opportunity to access our leaders and communicate to them our experiences in the current structure of the church and the reasons that led us to the idea of women’s ordination, I believed our leaders would hear us, respond to us and see us as Christ does: seekers of truth. I didn’t expect that women would immediately be ordained or that these ideas would be immediately welcomed; I also didn’t expect the negative treatment supporters of Ordain Women received from the church leadership and from other members of the church. Rather than being treated as committed members of the church who wanted to more fully participate, we were treated as enemies who wanted to harm the church. This experience was a turning point in my life and in my spiritual development within the church. I had to grapple with the knowledge that my deeply-held values are not shared by the church leadership and instead, these values are discouraged and punished. This realization about my faith eventually led me away from regularly attending church.
At times I have wondered or been asked about why I continue to stay engaged with a group advocating for women’s ordination to the priesthood when I no longer attend church and would not opt to be ordained today, even if it were revealed that women could be ordained. One reason that I continue to stay engaged in advocating for women’s ordination is that I have recognized and experienced the harm that is caused when women are taught that they have a separate but equal role, and especially because that “separate” role excludes women from having spiritual and institutional authority. These rigid views of men’s and women’s roles and capabilities didn’t just impact me during church activities. These views also impacted the decisions I made outside of the church, how I viewed myself in the world and became interwoven with my identity. My hope is that there will be future generations women in the church who will never know through experience the challenges and pain of existing within a structure that tells women they are separate but equal and have no institutional or spiritual authority.
A few months ago, I attended a panel discussion in NYC about religious feminism. One of the panelists, Mona Eltahawy, spoke about her own religious activism in the Muslim faith. Though she is not currently a believer and describes herself as a liberal Muslim, she continues to speak about and advocate for equality in the Muslim faith. Mona highlighted her reasons for continuing that work by using an example of transgendered individuals serving in the military. Mona stated that while she is not transgendered and has not served in the military, she believes that transgendered individuals should be able to serve in the military. It is simply an issue of equality that impacts our world and represents the values we hold. Hearing Mona share her thinking on this made a lot of sense to me. Whether or not I attend church on a weekly basis doesn’t determine the validity of my involvement. Engaging in a cause to highlight inequality and wanting to help correct it is valid. It is also a cause that is personal for me: I am Mormon and have invested in the church and have experienced the effects of the current structure.
My hope for Ordain Women in the coming years is that the organization will continue to bring attention to the issues of inequality in the church. My hope is also that Ordain Women will continue to engage in direct actions that keep the conversation going. My hope is that these conversations will expose future generations of young men and young women to critically thinking about women in expanded roles.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
The Spirit of Restoration
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board member, Laura Pennock.
My name is Laura Pennock and I am the newest member of the Ordain Women executive committee and when I told people about my appointment, I was almost immediately asked: “Why do you continue to engage with Ordain Women?” It’s a legitimate question. I am no longer attending an LDS ward; I have joined Community of Christ. I think most of us have moved beyond active engagement with the LDS church, maybe we no longer even identify as LDS, perhaps we have had our names removed, or have – like me, joined another church.
Here’s my answer: Their misogyny, their homophobia, and their racism do not remain confined to the walls of their chapels; these things poison the entire community. This is my community: I live here, I work here, I have family here.
There is a reason Utah is at the top of the list of worst states for women.
There is a reason the teen suicide rate in Utah is staggering.
Whose influence drove the declaration of pornography as a public health emergency, rather than, say, air quality?
It was a Sunday morning that I got a text message from Bryndis, chair of Ordain Women, saying she wanted to talk to me. I knew what was on her mind, I just knew, so I was thinking about it during the service that day. I had been burning with anger and outrage at the LDS Church for a long time and the latest BIG FAT DEAL–the Joseph Bishop debacle–that exposed the systemic nature of abuse and coverup in the church had just exploded all over my Facebook feed. My anger and my outrage were righteous and appropriate and they are still there, but everything was suddenly different. As I sat there contemplating the thought that Bryndis was going to ask me if I would be willing to join the board of Ordain Women and meditating on what that would look like, my heart turned toward a new direction. Grace infused my feelings. Rather than wanting to set loose a wildfire on the institution and its leaders for the sole purpose of burning it down and walking away, I still want to burn it down but only in order to give them the opportunity to create something new.
Let me share with you some phrases from section 162 of the Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants which I believe speak to the Brighamites as urgently as they speak to the Josephites:
Listen carefully to your own journey as a people, for it is a sacred journey and it has taught you many things you must know for the journey yet to come.
Listen to its teachings and discover anew its principles. Do not yearn for times that are past, but recognize that you have been given a foundation of faithful service, even as you build a foundation for what is yet to be.
…you are called… to discern the divine will for your own time and in the places where you serve. You live in a world with new challenges, and that world will require new forms of ministry…
…Be respectful of tradition and sensitive to one another, but do not be unduly bound by interpretations and procedures that no longer fit the needs of a worldwide church…
…The spirit of the Restoration is not locked in one moment of time, but is instead the call to every generation to witness to essential truths in its own language and forms. Let the Spirit breathe.
I believe that is the purpose for which Ordain Women was called into being.
We are making a difference. I regularly hear accounts of encounters with local leaders who are trying to be more inclusive, of discussions in ward meetings that include topics never before spoken aloud, of individuals speaking up against harmful rhetoric and challenging long-standing cultural norms, of women and men consciously observing their daughters being treated very differently than their sons.
Recently LDS Living published an article entitled: You Are My People: Inactive Gay Mormon Shares Powerful Insights After Attending Church for the First Time in Years. I wasn’t sure what I would find, considering the source, but from that article:
Imagine my surprise, then, to get a Facebook message from my friend saying the bishop and his wife in her mom’s ward in Riverton, Utah, had organized a meeting for and about the needs of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints. They had invited their entire ward to attend. They were unsure how many would come, but they wanted her to tell all her LGBTQ friends they were welcome there.
A few paragraphs later:
I could see almost every color, shape, size, race, ethnicity, orientation, and identity you could imagine—clothed in the most vibrant, creative attire—seated alongside ward members, family members, and allies eager to make space among the makeshift pews of metal folding chairs for their LGBTQ brothers and sisters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.
What if it could be like this? I thought.
What if this weren’t a once-in-my-lifetime occurrence?
What if you could expect to see this walking into every LDS meetinghouse around the world on any given Sunday?
While LDS Living is not an official publication of the Church, you can be sure that it exists only because the Church hasn’t killed it — but it is being read by active, devout LDS people. What if…
As I sat in that Sunday service, contemplating Bryndis’s text and half listening to a wonderful sermon that I do not remember, I suddenly imagined a holy fire sweeping through the church office building that cleansed away what no longer serves any purpose in order to make room for new growth, new ways of being.
Imagine an LDS Church committed to mustering its legions and its resources to make a sincere, sustained and ongoing effort to be who they claim to be. It would transform this community, this region, this state, the world. It takes my breath away. May it be so.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
13 Lessons Learned as an Organizer of Ordain Women during its Infancy
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW former executive board member, April Young Bennett.
April Young Bennett (center in red, facing forward) speaks to LDS Spokesperson Ruth Todd (also in red, facing away from the camera) during Ordain Women’s first attempt to attend the Priesthood Session of General Conference, October 2013. Photo by Rick Egan, Salt Lake Tribune.
The Ordain Women movement is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and asked me, as one of its original organizers, to share some thoughts about its early days at the recent Sunstone Symposium. Here are some things I learned while helping to start this activist organization.
1. The only avenue to communicate with the Brethren is through the media.
When I served on the Ordain Women board, we actively sought to initiate discussions with Latter-day Saint (LDS) leaders, including five written requests to LDS Church headquarters for a brief, private meeting with any General Authority available and willing. These requests were ignored. A source at church headquarters later informed me that a General Authority had implemented a silent treatment policy against any Ordain Women leader, which began almost at its inception. As such, we found that the best way to communicate with church leaders was through the media and our only way of knowing their response was through PR statements.
2. A long-term movement must find a sustainable pace.
During those first few years, we communicated daily via Facebook, in addition to regular conference calls, video conferences, and in-person actions. Everyone had an idea for action; we seriously explored most ideas and implemented many of them. It was exciting and exhausting and completely unsustainable. No one can volunteer full-time indefinitely for a cause while maintaining their full-time day job and personal life. Movements need to find a sustainable pace to stay alive when the initial adrenaline rush comes to an end.
3. The face of a movement should not be one face.
In the beginning, too many media interactions were delegated to one person, Kate Kelly, because she was charismatic and willing. We quickly realized that this strategy was backfiring. Kate had a target on her back and the focus on her was giving the wrong impression—that Ordain Women was the pet project of one person instead of a movement with broad and diverse support among Mormons. We quickly pivoted and expanded the number of spokespeople. I took on one of these spokesperson roles long before our first public action. But the damage had already been done. Even now, many people assume that the Ordain Women movement is over because Kate Kelly is no longer on its board.
4. A big ask makes incremental change more palatable.
In an organization so conservative that a rebranding of the home teaching program is seen as historic, even the smallest request for progressive change shocks the system. Asking for the real, global change we actually wanted put those baby steps into perspective. Since Ordain Women launched, the Church has changed long-standing, seemingly permanent policies that discriminated against women, adding women to policymaking councils that used to be male-only and ending discriminatory policies targeting female Seminary and Institute teachers.
5. Taboos can be broken.
Before Ordain Women, even talking about whether Mormon women want the priesthood was taboo. Almost instantly after Ordain Women’s launch, conversations about women and priesthood became commonplace. Church leaders have adapted and changed their focus from priesthood as a manifestation of masculinity to preaching about a more expansive, less gendered view of the priesthood, accessible to women through callings.
6. The internet doesn’t protect us.
When Ordain Women launched, we hedged our bets on the belief that the internet had some sort of magical power to prevent the kinds of purges of Mormon feminists that the Church had orchestrated in the past. In the internet age, we thought, there were too many venues where we could raise our voices and too many of us to excommunicate. We didn’t think the church would risk the bad PR that would result from silencing us. We were wrong. The church doesn’t need to punish every activist; going after just a few public faces is enough to scare most people into submission. Censorship and coercion do bring bad publicity to the church, but the church appears to welcome this kind of publicity. Instead of using the media to spread the gospel to the whole world, the church appears to be targeting a certain socially conservative segment of the population, as well as using the media as a tool to keep current members in line. Publicity about censorship and coercion is actually conducive to these goals.
7. Obeying the rules doesn’t protect us.
Although we were expressing unorthodox opinions, we were careful to follow church rules. We believed that if we followed the rules we could evade church discipline. In fact, church policy gives ecclesiastical leaders a wide range of power to punish parishioners simply for not following their counsel, even if they don’t break any written rules.
8. Women are more expendable to the Church than men.
While Ordain Women had both male and female supporters, most of the supporters who were informally disciplined by their local ecclesiastical leaders were female. When the Church disciplines a man, they risk losing a priesthood holder. Since women are already banned from the priesthood, losing one is no big deal. Additionally, cultural expectations about feminine behavior may make female dissent more shocking to male ecclesiastical leaders than the same behavior by men like themselves. Formal discipline policies codify women’s expendability. It takes a regional council of 15 men to excommunicate a Mormon man, but a woman may be excommunicated locally by only four men. At a man’s excommunication trial, six men are assigned to advocate for the accused. No one advocates for a woman who is excommunicated by her local bishop.
9. Censorship backfires.
At one point, my stake president used my brother’s temple wedding as leverage to coerce me to censor my writing about the need to ordain women. This act of censorship brought so many views to the Exponent, where I blog, that the website crashed, leading to coverage in national news. Readers almost immediately found copies of my censored blog posts on internet archives and shared them. Most of these were old posts that weren’t getting a lot of traffic anymore, so censorship probably put my writing in front of more eyes than would have been the case otherwise. Church leaders beware; censoring women may not have the effect you are going for.
10. Formal recruitment efforts aren’t necessary.
Church leaders seem to believe that feminist ideals spread like a contagion from one woman to another, and can be blotted out by silencing or casting out the original vector. In my observation, Mormon feminists usually do not learn their ideals from other Mormon feminists. Instead, the need for equality is innate; it springs up seemingly from nowhere without outside influences. We found that supporters of women’s ordination existed throughout the LDS Church. Any publicity at all, whether good or bad, led to influxes of new people supporting the cause, not because we persuaded them, but simply because they had found other people who believed what they already believed. That said…
11. Diversity requires effort.
The lowest hanging fruit within a Mormon movement are people like me: white, middle class, multi-generation Mormons living in Mormon-dense areas of the Intermountain West. To build a more global movement, informed by more diverse perspectives, we had to reach out and adapt to accommodate diversity. Without an intentional and sustained effort, the movement would have stayed homogenous.
12. For most Mormon feminists, activism is a short-term gig.
Simply being Mormon and coping with Mormon patriarchy is more than many women can put up with over the long-term. Add to that the exhausting work of activism and coercive pressure from ecclesiastical leaders and the Mormon community, and it is not surprising that most people do not stay involved in Mormon feminist movements for many years. Continual turnover brings with it the need to relearn the same lessons over and over because few role models are still around to train up new activists.
13. There is a lot of support for the Ordain Women movement.
But it’s harder to see within the walls of our own churches, where oppressive church discipline policies force many people to hide their opinions. As an Ordain Women spokesperson, people reached out to me everywhere (in airplanes, bus stops, grocery stores, etc.) to express support, and these supporters were both Mormon and non-Mormon. Sexism doesn’t only affect members of our church. People working to combat sexism In the wider community need the help of religious feminists because one of their greatest barriers is the sexism people learn to tolerate at their places of worship. Since participating in Ordain Women, I have begun the Religious Feminism Podcast to support interfaith dialogue among people working to combat sexism in many faith communities. We can do more to work with our allies across faiths.
This post is cross-posted at the Exponent II blog.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Pioneering Equality
Ordain Women’s annual Pioneer Day Parade action in Salt Lake City is a great way to both enjoy the peculiarly Mormon holiday and promote gender equality. This year, we‘re having hundreds of OW logo hand fans printed up, and we need equality volunteers to help distribute them along the parade route. If you live or plan to be in Salt Lake City on July 24 and care about gender equity, please join us for a few hours of fun and feminist consciousness-raising.
When: Tuesday, July 24, 2018, from 9:00-11:00 AM
Where: Meet in Salt Lake City at the southeast corner of State Street and North Temple between 8:30 and 9:00 AM to pick up the fans for distribution and join with other volunteers. Look for the OW banner.
What: We’ll display the OW banner at the beginning of the Pioneer Day Parade, which starts at State Street and South Temple at 9:00 AM, and then distribute the fans along the parade route.
Onward!
Stand By Me #musicmonday
One of the reasons the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has been re-watched so many times is the music and one of the favorite pieces of music was The Kingdom Choir’s rendition of “Stand By Me.” That song resonated with so many of us not only because of the stirring rendition but because of its lyrics and because of its history. As Alan Connor of BBC News wrote, while “Stand By Me” may, on the surface, seem like just a love song, it was born out of the Black gospel music tradition and became a civil rights anthem.
I invite us all to spend some time listening to “Stand By Me.” Its lyrics contain so many lessons about love, sisterhood, unity, and allyship—lessons about how we each draw strength from our Creator and from one another. These lessons will stand us in good stead as we work together in the area of social justice. We just have to be willing to listen and to learn. Then, we each have to answer the call when our loved one, our friend, our colleague, or our fellow warrior says to us “[s]tand by me.”
Women ‘Rise #musicmonday
This Music Monday highlights a song our 19th-century Mormon feminist foremothers sang, “Woman ‘Rise,” written by L. L. Greene Richards. The suffragist anthem was often sung in Relief Society. It was also featured in the Utah Woman’s Suffrage Songbook and in the Young Women’s Journal, which became the official publication of the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was published monthly from 1889 until 1929.
Embedded in the otherwise empowering song is a notion that was prevalent both in the early LDS Church and Christianity more generally, namely, that women somehow continue to be punished for Eve’s transgression in the garden. Logically, such a notion should never have had a place in Mormonism. If we believe, as the Second Article of Faith asserts, “that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression,“ then it follows that women should not be punished for Eve’s. Like many of our Mormon foremothers, I look forward to the day when there will be full gender equality in the church and our communities.
Woman ‘Rise” is sung to the tune of the familiar hymn “Hope of Israel.”
Woman ‘Rise
Freedom’s daughter, rouse from slumber;
See, the curtains are withdrawn,
Which so long they mind hath shrouded,
Lo! thy day begins to dawn.Chorus
Woman, ‘rise! thy penance o’er,
Sit thou in the dust no more;
Seize the scepter, hold the van,
Equal with they brother, man.Truth and virtue be they motto,
Temperance, liberty and peace;
Light shall shine and darkness vanish,
Love shall reign, oppression cease.Chorus
Woman, ‘rise! thy penance o’er,
Sit thou in the dust no more;
Seize the scepter, hold the van,
Equal with they brother, man.First to fall ‘mid Eden’s bowers,
Through long suffering worthy proved,
With the foremost claim thy pardon,
When earth’s curse shall be removed.Chorus
Woman, ‘rise! thy penance o’er,
Sit thou in the dust no more;
Seize the scepter, hold the van,
Equal with they brother, man.
What Is Pentecost And Why Is It Important?
Source: Waiting for the Word on Flickr
“In the last days, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” came the prompting. You all know what I’m talking about – you are minding your business and suddenly a thought comes to you out of the blue, apropos of nothing, and stops everything. You think to yourself, “whaaaat??!!”
I knew this was a line from scripture and I knew I had heard it somewhere, but I had no context for it and no reason for it to be impressed upon me. I went to my scriptures and turned to the Topical Guide, ‘cause we all know that the LDS scriptures are cross-referenced to the Nth degree! “Daughter” had nothing; “Prophecy” yielded “Joel 2:28 (Acts 2:17) sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” I turned to Acts and found, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:” (emphasis added). Scripture. New Testament and Old Testament “…your daughters shall prophesy…” that phrase pierced my heart and made a place for itself. I did not know what to do with it but I did know that prophecy was a priesthood function of the highest order.
Many years later, I was attending a United Church of Christ and they said, “wear red next Sunday for Pentecost.” I had heard of “Pentecost” and had heard of “Pentecostal” congregations and denominations. I did not know what significance this would have for a fairly relaxed denomination. So I asked and they explained that Pentecost was traditionally celebrated 50 days after Easter and came from a passage in Acts. Someone opened her Bible and pointed out the passage. “In the last days, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. . .” lept out at me and had a context.
Pentecost occurred after the dark days of despair after Jesus was crucified as an enemy of the Roman state and his followers were heartbroken and confused. It was after the risen Jesus had appeared to the disciples several times when we come to the day of Pentecost. Jesus’ followers had been promised that as they had been baptized by water by John the Baptist, they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days. Jesus then ascended into heaven. Pentecost was a Jewish feast day called Shavu’ot or The Festival of Weeks, which according to Judaism 101:
…is the second of the three major festivals with both historical and agricultural significance (the other two are Passover and Sukkot). Agriculturally, it commemorates the time when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple and is known as Hag ha-Bikkurim (the Festival of the First Fruits). Historically, it celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and is also known as Hag Matan Torateinu (the Festival of the Giving of Our Torah).
The period from Passover to Shavu’ot is a time of great anticipation. We count each of the days from the second day of Passover to the day before Shavu’ot, 49 days or 7 full weeks, hence the name of the festival. See The Counting of the Omer. The counting reminds us of the important connection between Passover and Shavu’ot: Passover freed us physically from bondage, but the giving of the Torah on Shavu’ot redeemed us spiritually from our bondage to idolatry and immorality. Shavu’ot is also known as Pentecost because it falls on the 50th day; however, Shavu’ot has no particular similarity to the Christian holiday of Pentecost, which occurs 50 days after their Spring holiday.
It is noteworthy that the holiday is called the time of the giving of the Torah, rather than the time of the receiving of the Torah. The sages point out that we are constantly in the process of receiving the Torah, that we receive it every day, but it was first given at this time. Thus it is the giving, not the receiving, that makes this holiday significant.
It was on that day that the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples who were gathered for the festival of Shavu’ot, or the giving of the Torah. They began to testify of God’s deeds of power. Devout Jews from all over the known world were gathered and each heard the words in the language that their mothers had first spoken words of love into their newborn ears. They were astonished and wondered at how these plain people of Galilee were speaking in languages they each understood as their native tongue. Some people assumed that they were drunk, but Peter addressed them and explained that they were witnessing the fulfillment of the prophecy given to Joel.
Just as the Jewish people, both ancient and modern, celebrate the continual receiving of the Torah and redemption from idolatry, we as Christians celebrate, at Pentecost, the continual coming of the Holy Spirit and the redemption from idolatry experienced by the followers of Jesus, both ancient and modern.
Today at Pentecost, I call upon the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to open themselves to the continual coming of the Holy Spirit. A central tenet of the LDS Church is that it is the Restoration of the fullness of the Gospel as given to Jesus’ earliest followers. It is past time to complete the restoration of the priesthood to all so that the fullness of the gospel really can roll forth, so that we can finally be redeemed from the idolatry of patriarchy, and so that the daughters of Zion can take their rightful place as prophets, priests, and Queens in the Kingdom, side by equal side with their fathers, brothers, and sons.
Love, Inclusivity, and Resistance #MusicMonday
No one can deny the power of music. It can inform us, teach us, inspire us, soothe us, rally us, bring us to tears, or fill us with hop. In her latest album, “Dirty Computer,” Janelle Monáe achieves all of those things
Living and existing on the margins and in the intersections is painful. As a black woman who has travelled the journey of discovering and owning her sexual identity, Janelle Monáe knows that pain and this album and her recent coming out as pansexual in RollingStone is not only her personal declaration that she is not invisible and that she is enough, but it an inspirational message to all who live at the margins and in the intersections. As she said, “I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with sexuality, dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you.”
In a world where a premium is placed on being a white, heterosexual man, Janelle Monáe’s message is sorely needed. As Alisha Acquaye powerfully writes at okayafrica.com, “People on the margins of society—people of color, queer communities, women, trans and gender non-conforming identities—are often treated like something other than human, as if not fitting the social standards created by whiteness and men automatically means we are the problem, we are the machines that need rewiring.”
Janelle Monáe’ rejects that notion. So do I. I urge you to listen to what Acquaye describes as her “unfiltered messages of love, inclusivity and resistance” and to find your own role in spreading those messages.
Explore the Unknown #MusicMonday
“To begin with I have two handicaps—those of sex and race. I am a woman; and I have some Negro blood in my veins.” So begins a recently discovered letter written by composer Florence Price in 1943. “She plainly saw these factors as obstacles to her career,” writes Alex Ross in the New Yorker. “Indeed, she had a difficult time making headway in a culture that defined composers as white, male, and dead.”
Though she “is widely cited as the first African-American classical composer to win national attention,” continues Ross, but for Chicago Symphony music director Frederick Stock, most of her contemporaries ignored her. “Only in the last couple of decades have Price’s major works begun to receive recordings and performances, and these are still infrequent. … Listening to her, I have the uncanny sense of hearing the symphonies and operas that women and African-Americans were all but barred from writing during the Romantic heyday, when the busts on the piano were being carved.” In classical music, as in life, Ross reflects, we “stick with the known in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown.”
Until this month, prophets, seers, and revelators in the LDS Church were seen as white and American. They are still seen as male. What are we missing when “we stick with the known in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown,” the unprecedented, the unfamiliar? Why, when the core Mormon doctrine of continuing revelation seems so hospitable to change, are we often hostile to it, particularly with regard to diversity and gender equity?
As a church, we have to do the hard work of wrestling with both.
Happy Easter
Today is Easter — Resurrection Sunday — the day we celebrate the fact that the tomb is empty and Christ lives. Let us remember that the takeaway message of Easter is one of love — the love of our Heavenly Father who was willing to give HIS only begotten son and the love of Jesus Christ who was willing to die for us. That love is open to everyone. Let us model that love in our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.