“Inspiring Women”
By Kathryn Pritchett
Kathryn
and her husband just completed teaching a class on “Women in the Church” at the
Institute in Berkeley
and these are some of her thoughts and excerpts from that class.
She
asked the audience “What would you teach about inspiring women in the
Church?” Some answers were: Female characters in the Bible; Gifts of the
spirit—women giving blessings, speaking in tongues, etc.; Polygamy; Pioneer women; Modern day
women—bloggers, etc.; Lucy Mack Smith
& Emma Smith.
The
sections of the class that they divided it into were: How Mormons view Eve and Mary, Founding
Women—Emma and Lucy Mack Smith; Gifts of the Spirit; Pioneer women; Suffragette
movement; Relief Society-the foundation, disruption and renewal; Women and plural
marriage; Mother in Heaven; Women in transition; and Modern Voices.
Kathryn
structured her talk around five things that she learned about mothers after
teaching the class:
1-Mormons treat Eve better than most. We see her as
an instrument for good, the fortunate fall and the mother of all living. The Jewish Midrash explains the general world
belief about woman being created from the rib of man:
“Women
need to use perfumes and men do not because dust of the ground remains the same
no matter how long it is kept; flesh however requires salt to keep it in good
condition. Women’s voices are high and shrill and men’s voices are not because
when soft viands are cooked, no sound is heard; but let a bone be put in a pot
and at once it crackles. Women are rigid
and not easily placated like men because a few drops of water suffice to soften
a clod of water but a bone stays hard and will not soften in water. It is the man who proposes marriage and not
the woman because man lost his rib and must find a woman to retrieve it. And
finally, women precede men in a funeral cortege, because it was woman who
brought death into the world.”
Many
cultures favor males above females but we are taught that we will be judged for
our own transgressions not for Adam and Eve.
We
don’t speak much about Mary or about our Heavenly Mother. We hold ourselves back by not thinking about her.
2-Mothers
in the Early Church. Sarah Kimball
and her seamstress, in 1842, couldn’t help directly with the building of the Kirkland temple but they
could help making shirts for the men building the temple. They organized an association and went to
Joseph Smith for help. He put his
support behind it and sanctioned it.
They did many good works. It was
a volunteer organization at the time and women paid dues to belong. Not everyone was a member of the Relief
Society. Emma Smith and Brigham Young
didn’t see eye to eye often and for a number of years, the Relief Society was
disbanded although it unofficially met during this time. During this time, although not officially
sanctioned, the sisters continued to help those in need, both in the Church and
outside. They “huddled” to further
women’s rights and publish a newspaper, in addition to helping others on the
western frontier. In 1867, the Relief Society was reinstated by
Brigham Young. Eliza R. Snow, who was
married to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, deserves a lot of credit for
the Relief Society. Often known as “the
prophetess”, she carried the minutes of the first Relief Society’s across the
plains and often showed those to others.
She said, “Without no order we have no claim to the spirit.” She used those original minutes to go around
to train bishops on how to organize the ward Relief Societies. There were many other very strong women in
the early church such as Zina Young, Lucy Mack Smith, Emmeline B. Wells. Emmeline B. Wells was a Relief Society
President but also a writer and editor of the Exponent. Emmeline
Wells met Joseph Smith and had a deep testimony of him throughout her life.
3-Mothers support each other. Kathryn
studied much about polygamy and the early church. She has a new found respect for those women
who were called to participate in polygamy.
Emmeline B. Wells as a writer and editor for the Exponent, wrote under
two pen names, Aunt Ann, and Blanche Beachwood.
Under Aunt Ann, wrote about homemaking subjects but under Blanche
Beachwood, she vocalized feminist views.
Ellis
Reynolds Shipp was the first of four wives to Milford Shipp. She was very bright and articulate. The three other wives of Milford Shipp
supported Ellis while she went to medical school, not only financially but with
child care. Ellis was one of the first
female doctors in Utah and west of the Mississippi.
4-Mothers work and always have. Women from the
pioneers and before, through until today have always worked and worked
hard. Some of the modern women that were
taught about in this Institute class were:
Minerva Teichert with her paintings; Stephanie Meyer, author of the
Twilight novels; Emily Banks, a professor of genetics at the University of
Colorado, whose patriarchical blessing told her that she had the potential to
change human knowledge, that she would be a mentor and teacher to young people.
One
young man in the class pointed out that many of these LDS women said that their
work was spiritually driven, that their work has a spiritual component. He said that men rarely think that way about
work. Men usually feel that they work to
provide for their families. Kathryn asked, “Do you feel that your work is
divinely directed?”
Rose
Marie Reid was a swimsuit designer and a member of the Church. In 1955, she was named Sports Illustrated
Designer of the Year and Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. She did a lot of missionary work among the
Jewish people. She helped raise funds
for the Los Angeles
temple by selling sequined swim suits that had sequins sewn on by Relief
Society sisters. She felt that part of
her work was part of her missionary effort as well as a means to build the
kingdom.
5-Mothering the modern day Church. We
are standing on the shoulders of those women of the early church but mothering
it now takes creative work and discernment.
Kathryn asked the young women at the Institute what they thought of
Relief Society. Most didn’t feel like
they fit in and didn’t really like it.
The men had more tender feelings but were more through their mothers,
for example, the Relief Society taking care of the family when the mother was
ill. The women were far more critical
since they were part of making the Relief Society work where the men just saw
the benefits of Relief Society. It was a
good example of how critical and judgmental we can be. Martha Beck said, “Criticism is an alluring
substitute for creation, because tearing things down, unlike building them up,
really is as easy as falling off the stump.
It’s blissfully simple to strike a savvy, sophisticated pose by
attacking someone else’s creations, but the old adage is right: Any fool can burn down a barn. Building one is something else again.”
Kathryn
closed with urging us to be the change you want to be. This is an exciting time to be a woman in the
Church. Change has happened throughout
time and throughout the Church and will continue to change. We can be a part of it and make it better and
our mothers and our forbearers would expect nothing less.
