My Experience Fighting for Female Equality in My Church

The train rocked back and forth as I looked down at my book.  I couldn’t focus on the words, but I didn’t want to look at the people around me.  Not right now.  I knew that I was an island of isolation among a growing sea of suits.  The men of my church were heading to the semi-annual priesthood session of conference.  They chatted happily while I tried to hide in my cave of anxiety.  Excitement and dread gripped me.  The words of my book were no longer making it into my brain, so I shut it and looked up.  Were there others on this train like me?  I scanned the crowd.  Then I saw her.  She looked familiar from the online forums that I had been part of for months.  She wore a purple coat, purple being the symbolic color of the Ordain Women movement.  I hesitated to speak to her, knowing how other people feel about our movement.  For months I’ve been drowning under ridicule, hate, antagonism…I am an outcast because I see inequality where others don’t.  I have chosen to speak up in a culture where silence is respected.  If I spoke up now, and let this girl know who I was, how would she respond?  I wasn’t positive she was one of us.  But the purple coat spoke to me, so I took a deep breath and made my way over to her.

        “Are you with Ordain Women?” I asked.

        She looked up and for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of dread in her face as well.  Then relief washed over both of us as we realized we were among friends, allies.  We moved quickly to a place where we could sit together and an energy of love and excitement suddenly surrounded us.  The feeling of isolation and anxiety abated. There is something very powerful in just being in the presence of a like-minded soul.  I was among one of my sisters, someone I didn’t have to explain myself to, someone who understood perfectly and wouldn’t hurt me with well-meaning daggers.  And we were headed to the center, to a place where hundreds of like-minded people were gathering. 

        When we arrived at the park, women and men were chatting excitedly.  Soon the devotional began.  Nadine McComes Hanson led the music.  Nadine has been fighting for the priesthood and equality for women long before the internet and the ability to have hundreds and thousands of voices supporting hers.  We sang “Come Come, Ye Saints,” a song that our pioneer foremothers and fathers sang as they pressed forward to a place where they could rest from persecution and build the kingdom of God in peace.  We sang the last verse for Nadine, “And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day!  All is well!”  How long will this battle last?  Will I see the fruits of it in my own life?

        After the song, Kate Kelly, the founder of Ordain Women spoke.  "Before Ordain Women I was afraid to speak my truth.  I was afraid to say what I really think.  I was afraid to point out the obvious fact that men and women are not equal in our Church.  And, it occurred to me that if, as a well-educated, self-confident woman I was unable to say what I think, it must be extremely difficult for every Mormon woman who thinks like me to speak out.  It is so hard to speak up when you feel alone."  Yes!  Alone, I thought the problem was all in my head.  Now I was surrounded by hundreds of other people who saw the same problems I did.  Our power came from speaking up together.  "I am not invisible.  Now I know that there are hundreds and thousands of other people who can see it just as clearly as I can.  We are not invisible."
        Then my friend Abby got up to speak.  "I have never stood on the sidelines of the church," she said.  "I have young women leaders who would be disappointed to know that I am here, but they are the ones who taught me the values that brought me here today...faith, knowledge, and especially integrity."  I looked around.  None of these women and men were ones to stand on the sidelines of the church.  They were the rising stars of Mormonism, the ones who devoted everything to the church.  They came from the center and providence had pushed them to this place.

       As the closing prayer ended, we lined up and started for Temple Square.  Just outside the park men were shouting at us that we need to submit to our husbands as Eve Submitted to Adam.  These were men who hated our church, but hated us even more.  Their voices carried after me from behind as I began crossing the street to an echo of honks and people in nice clothing yelling at us from their cars.  These were members of our church who were taught alongside us in Sunday School that the first great commandment is love.  As the wind began to pick up with a mighty ferocity, I wondered at the dichotomy that lay before me.  Anti-Mormons hated me for what I was doing, Mormons hated me for what I was doing, only God knew what was truly in my heart.  Suddenly hail began pelting us, and the angry voices disappeared in the noise of the weather.  We pressed forward against the torrent which began to abate as we walked onto the holy grounds of our religion, Temple Square.

        I looked around as the sun began to filter in through the clouds.  I pictured a younger me visiting temple square with my family, doing service projects there with youth groups, coming to conference with friends during college.  I walked past the reflection pool and saw myself as a young woman, posing for a picture with my soul mate on our wedding day.  This was my place.  This is where I belong.  Yet only weeks ago, Church PR had told us not to come, not to make this public request.  We have been told that we are only a divisive group, apostates bent on ruining the church.  I have personally been told to leave.  I don’t belong in this church with the burdens and the questions I carry.  We were told that we belonged outside with the protesters, those men yelling hateful things at us.  But we were not protesters.  I felt like I was visiting Temple Square like I had so many times in my youthful, blissfully faithful days.  Today was no different, except that I was there seeking a Balm of Gilead.  I was surrounded by others like me, who carried burdens resulting from inequality in the Church. 

        The event was peaceful and anti-climactic.  We walked peacefully to the Tabernacle, stood peacefully in line, and waited patiently to speak individually with a PR lady.  She was warm and friendly, as she listened to our concerns and bore our burdens.  As I talked to her, I wondered how much further along we could be as a people if all our members acted the way she did.  Even if we don’t understand, can’t we at least speak warmly and listen, bearing each other’s burdens as we have covenanted to do?  I had an inclination as I spoke to her to reach out and hug her, but I faltered.  We were pitted against each other on opposite sides.  I wasn’t supposed to hug her, she was the other…or I was.  As I started to walk past her I had a moment’s relapse and I turned and touched her shoulder.  Our eyes connected and for a moment we looked into each other’s souls.  We were one, sisters, bound by love, though differing in our views and positions.  I was reminded that this is not about me fighting against the church.  I can’t make them “the other,” the way I have felt them do to me.  This is only about speaking my truth.  Suddenly I felt the energy drain out of me and I found a quiet place to sit down.  All the effort and sacrifice we had all made to be here, was it worth it?  Had we been heard?  Of course we didn’t expect to be let in.  But we wanted to be heard.
       My answer came about twenty minutes later when I pulled out my phone and read the official Church PR statement.  It said that we had refused ushers’ directions and refused to leave when asked.  "While not all the protesters were members of the church, such divisive actions are not the kind of behavior that is expected from Latter-day Saints and will be as disappointing to our members as it is to church leaders.”  I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  Had these PR reps seen the same event I had seen?  We had been dignified and respectful, yet that was not the report the Church was giving.  With no outside witness to back us up, since the news media had been denied access, it was our word against theirs.  Here it was again, us vs. them.  No, they had not heard us, and they had no intention of listening.  Unlike the lovely woman at the door, our church did not care about the sacrifices we had made, did not care about the pain we experienced in standing up and speaking about our feelings and experiences as women in the church.  Our church wanted only to paint us as the other.
        But we are not other.  We are not apostates, we are not anti-mormon protestors, we are not any number of things that the church wants us to be so that they can dismiss us.  We are the church.  We have devoted our whole lives in service to this church.  It is our home and we want to use our talents and energy to make it better.  We have a precious beautiful truth to share.  In a book called the Alchemist, by Paulo Cohelo, the Alchemist comes up against some guards and they ask him what he has in his pockets.  He pulls out a stone and a flask and tells them that they are the philosopher’s stone which will turn everything to gold, and the elixir of life, which will cure all ills.  They laugh and send him on his way.  The boy who is with him asks incredulously why he told them that.  He says, "...when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed."  This is how I felt on Saturday as the truth I offered was dismissed so easily.