Did You Hear It?

Yesterday, Saturday April 7th, a couple of minutes before noon something happened that has never happened before--NEVER! Did it matter? Did you hear it? I was in my studio doing pottery and I made a point to have the LDS General Conference on. I'd heard that there was a strong possibility that a woman would be giving a prayer. Then just as I squeezed the water from my sponge after cleaning clay off my tables, I heard the announcement--a woman's name. Then Jean Stevens' voice, calm and beautiful. I didn't hear what she said. I took a breath and let the emotion wash over me. You know that feeling that comes when your heart swells and you are filled with something we Mormons call the spirit? That's what I felt.


1,500 or 15,000, or perhaps even 150,000 or more prayers answered. I wish my mother-in-law was still alive. I can hear her now. "Tokenism." A decade of more ago, my mother-in-law was asked to pray in stake conference. She called it tokenism then, but she gladly offered the prayer, even though she was always less than fully-engaged in the gospel. Today she would have said, "Tokenism," and she would have chuckled, but then she would have added, "It's about time."

Television offers us a glimpse of social consciousness. Despite the trashy programs, there are great things that have happened. I've watched the changes. We all have. I was a TV junkie growing up: Andy of Mayberry, Petticoat Junction, Gilligan's Island and on and on, a sea of white faces and stereotyped roles for men and women. Then we a saw a sprinkling of black characters, but usually in the background or sometimes as a servent, or a jolly maid. When "All in the Family" came along and we saw the ugliness and even ridiculousness of racism and sexism through the bigotry of Archie Bunker. The show broke down the barriers and finally we saw more and more minorities portrayed on television. Mary Tyler Moore became one of the first females who was career orientated. She won the respect of her TV colleagues. Did it matter? Did the tokenism of the first minorities with strong roles on TV matter? Did young females watching Mary Tyler Moore feel their world opening up by seeing her take on the world? I remember a disturbing moment at my mother's house years ago. I was still a teen, not quite twenty. A woman near my mother's age (a relative) was visiting. She made a comment about how she can hardly stand to "see so many of them' on TV. You can hardly watch anything anymore without seeing blacks. Do they have to be on every show? she'd said. I was shocked. I hadn't grown up hearing these types of sentiments in our home. I'm sure it bothered my mother as well, but she simply said, "I haven't noticed." We notice when someone gives us hope for a better tomorrow. It may sound cliche, but all of these moments, big and small, matter. They matter to someone. This conference mattered. It mattered to me.

This afternoon while watching conference with some family members at my mom's, another day, another session and another woman offered now the opening prayer in a session. I mentioned that the day before had been the first time a woman had offered a prayer. My brother said, really? My mother said, she wouldn't have noticed if the papers hadn't made such a big deal about it. The truth is, it's a big deal. It shouldn't be, but it is. Young Mormon girls and women need to see women offering prayers in conference, sitting in leadership positions, making decisions, being strong, being courageous and yes, speaking up when women are being neglected, sidelined, and ignored.

Why I Wore Pants to Church Today since no one asked...

The first outfit I wore during Sacrament meeting.  Because we attended another ward  we had a break between meetings. 

My Sunday School and R.S. outfit. (no one even stared at me.)

I was pretty ambivalent about Stephanie Lauritzen's call to wear pants in support of gender equality. But something changed when I started to read all the negative comments to Stephanie's Face Book event. It wasn't the "those women should be shot in the face" comment from a BYU student that put me over the edge, it was the comment from someone named Cheryl who said, "if some women have a problem wearing a skirt to church, they should just stay home." She had time to re-think that extremely judgmental, less than empathetic comment, but she reiterated it again. Fill in the blank and see it for what it is. If someone has a problem, no matter what it is, that isn't fitting with the typical Mormon, they should just stay home. Stay home, is not the admonition from our Savior. "Come unto me, all  ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give ye rest." Brigham Young didn't tell folks to stay home either, he said that our "chapels should smell like a tavern on Sunday morning." And of course there's the idea that the church isn't a showplace for the perfect, but a hospital for sinners--which includes all of us. But then wearing pants isn't a sin at all. It's not even church policy for women to wear a skirt, rather it's a pretty strong cultural norm. So once I read Cheryl's over-the-top judgmental comment, I knew that I had to wear pants, at least for a day.

Clear back when I attended USU, over thirty years ago I lived on Darwin Avenue. I met a guy named Rich. Rich was a returned missionary: outgoing, funny, and faithful in the church. He was everyone's friend. About ten years ago, Mick and I ran into Rich and his wife. In the conversation, he asked if he'd ever told us why he'd gotten active in church. We told him he hadn't and he told this story. Remember this was the 70's."I was a freshman. I came to USU and moved in with a bunch of guys I didn't know. They were clean cut returned missionaries for the most part. When sunday rolled around, they tried to get me to go to church and I told them, no way. They pushed and finally I relented on one condition and that was that I would go just the way I was: hair to my shoulders, wearing overallls, barefoot and without a shirt, that's not a white shirt--it's not a shirt--period. Then, if one person said anything to me about my appearance, I'd never go back again. They persuaded me to at least put  a shirt on under my overalls, so I put on a T-shirt. But I still went barefoot and strolled in and sat on the front row. No one said a thing about my appearance and I kept going." Rich was a great guy, fantastic father, husband, and teacher. He died in a tragic accident shortly after he told us this story, leaving behind his wife and children. I am grateful that no one said to Rich, if you have a problem putting on a white shirt and tie--just stay home. So for Rich, I wore pants today.

When we a were young married couple with our first baby, I was called into the Young Women's (for the first time) as a counselor and advisor. I loved it and still to this day run into some of the fantastic women I taught. I'll never forget a question from one of those girls. I was dropping her off at her house after an activity and she said, "Women aren't as important as men in the church, are they?" I was shocked. I didn't feel that way. "No, that's not true. Women are every bit as important as men." "Well, all the leaders are men. When they have general conference, it's all men up there." I don't remember what I said after that because I didn't have an answer, not a good one. So for Katie* I wore pants today.

My son Trevor married Joanna, a beautiful, compassionate and outgoing woman. After they had their first baby and Trevor started a teaching job in Colorado, they saw a young woman struggling to cross the road. She was carrying a toddler in a car seat and pulling another little boy by the hand. Traffic was backing up. I can see how hard that might have been. My daughter-in-law pulled over to the shoulder, jumped out and helped the woman and her children cross the road. Then,  told her to wait, that she'd be back. She then dropped my son and the baby off so there would be room in their tiny car for the woman and her two children. Joanna went back for them and got them where they were going. Joanna found out who she was, where she lived, and befriended the woman who I'll call Tamra*, and then introduced the gospel to her. Tamra, a young African-American, single mother joined the church. She had no car to drive, no dress to wear, but made the effort to attend church--in pants. It's nice that no one in Tamra's branch made her feel unwelcome because of the way she was dressed. For Tamra and all those like her, I wore pants to church today.

My mother-in-law was before her time. In the 40's she left the small town of Garland, Utah and went to arguably one of the most liberal, but prestigious schools in the nation--University of California in Berkeley. After graduation, she taught school, then married a rancher and helped support the family. When he had to take early retirement due to a disability, she became THE provider for the family. Not only was she a good mother to my husband and his siblings, she taught him by her example qualities of a truly equal woman. She died earlier this year. I wore her blouse today in her honor. For Ruth, a feminist before her time, I wore pants today.


*not real name