Pants

I spent part of last night wide awake, thinking about the whole pants thing.  This morning, I started writing a post, but it turns out that Joanna Brooks has done a lot of the explaining and linking for me already.  So go check out her post for some background.

Joanna Brooks's point that not all Mormon feminists feel the same is so important.  Some women want an extreme and immediate change, and some women are willing to work within the current structure and wait patiently for changes that they hope will come.  The truth is, individual Mormon feminists don't necessarily feel the same from day to day - at least I don't.  Sometimes gender issues in the Church weigh heavily on my heart.  Sometimes they don't feel like such a big deal.

I didn't wear pants yesterday.  The reasons are twofold.  First, I hate pants.  In fact, the only pants I have are a couple pairs of jeans.  I have no problem with pants wearing at church, I just think church is one of those things that it's good to dress up for, so I wouldn't have felt comfortable in jeans, personally.

Second, I wasn't really sure if pants wearing was the statement I wanted to make at church.  When I first heard about Wear Pants At Church Day, it seemed a bit silly.  (The fact that wearing pants could actually be a political statement just shows how weird we Mormons can be.)  However, the ugliness and vitriol that emerged on the internet and in the personal lives of the organizers over the last week has astounded me.  Based on the comments I read last night at Feminist Mormon Housewives, a lot of people were emboldened to act because of the outrageous personal attacks heaped on the organizers and those who joined the movement early on. 

I am lucky to live in New England, where Mormons are rare, but, in that subset, liberal Mormons are fairly common.  I'm not overly vocal about my political positions, but by virtue of being a woman lawyer who voted for Obama, it's probably safe to make some assumptions about where I stand on things.

Yesterday I wore a red dress to church because it was our ward Christmas celebration and we sang at the Lessons and Carols service in Cambridge. I felt Christmas-y.  After reading the experiences from women literally all over the world, I wish I had passed over the red dress for my purple satin shirt and a skirt. I doubt anyone in my ward would have noticed, but because of the threats levied on the women who planned to wear pants, I wish I had worn purple to express my solidarity with my Sisters who were threatened.

Jason wore a purple shirt and a purple tie.  OK, so purple is his favorite color and he wears that shirt a lot, but yesterday he made a purposeful choice to wear the purple.  I am so proud to be married to a man who thinks gender inequality and patriarchy are kind of dumb.

As Jason drove us home last night, I read to him about the "Pantscapades" on Feminist Mormon Housewives.  Most of the women seemed to have positive or neutral experiences.  A few had negative experiences.  Jason's overall observation: The men in these womens' wards were generally much more supportive than the women.  While bishops and other male leaders wore purple ties and gave the pants-wearing women high fives, they got the cold shoulder or odd looks from some of the women. 

He was right.  If the pants wearers experienced negativity it usually came from other women.  I know I'm probably the five hundred millionth person to say this, but women are so, so hard on one another. 

I've always considered myself a feminist, but recognizing the issues in the institutional Church has been a fairly recent thing for me.  My husband is great; my current church leaders are great.  I feel listened to and respected in all that I do in my ward in my calling as the Young Womens President.   But there is an ache that comes from feeling that within the institutional Church, as a woman I am not quite equal to the men. My friend Kristine expressed this concept so well in a short but poignant post she wrote last year.

There is a lot of beautiful theology in the Church about women and men and our divine potential.  I think that's why so many of us stick around.  We can't deny the spiritual experiences we have had, and we cling to the potential that we see both for the Church and in the eternities.