Posted by on Jun 26, 2014 in , | 0 comments

I live in Chicago, IL. I am a BYU alumni with a BS in Psychology. I am a hair color and texture specialist at a high end salon here. I am also a single 35 year old Mormon woman. I grew up in the Mormon faith and was very involved in the City of Joseph Pageant (a church pageant put on every summer in Nauvoo, IL) as my father choreographed and then directed the show for 25+ years. I have had an extremely strong testimony, but the older I get the more I can see that I am not valued in the Mormon church. I am part of a women’s group that focuses on women’s issues around the world and it has opened my eyes to exactly how sexist it is in the patriarchal society of Mormonism. In a patriarchal society women are only valued for having children. As a childless woman, I feel like a third class citizen. It angers me also to see so many women whose children have grown and they are not being utilized for their talents in any way because they “can’t” have the priesthood. I believe that this is wrong. I think that women are equal in every way to men and that it is particularly painful to be in a group that doesn’t acknowledge the female face of God in addition to the male. If we were more open about Heavenly Mother and her Power and Authority, we would not be considered ineligible for holding the priesthood or every calling in the church. I believe that women should be ordained.