Reuters: Mormon Feminists? Yes They Exist, and They're For Obama

[Hissyspit]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE89I05220121019

Mormon feminists? Yes they exist, and they're for Obama

SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 18, 2012 11:08pm EDT

By Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - One group was not surprised to hear Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comments about "binders of women" at the presidential debate this week - Mormon feminists.

- snip -

Aimee Hickman, co-editor of the Mormon feminist magazine Exponent II, said Romney's remarks in which he said he looked at "binders full of women" while searching for staff as governor of Massachusetts suggested he was comfortable having powerful women around him, even if he put it awkwardly.

Yet when he then described setting up a flexible schedule for a senior aide so that she could go home and make dinner for her family, he was speaking in the church's paternalistic language that casts women ultimately as mothers, she said.

"The emphasis on them (women) being seen as leaders or them being seen as breadwinners is still really missing from our rhetoric," Hickman said. Romney's response put that "on full display," she added.

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[hrmjustin]

1. Mormons don't suffer freethinkers lightly so if they come out publicly for Obama they will...

... punish them. It won't be right away, but it will happen.

[Stargazer09]

2. I hope they are not using their real names

That paternalistic church hates women who think for themselves.

[hrmjustin]

5. They hate anyone who thinks for themselves. There was a frontline special on Mormonism...

... a couple of years back, and they showed how easily these people excommunicate their members who cross any line that they set for their members. i remember one of their elders said that intellectuals were not welcome, because they ask questions. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt leads to loss of faith. Not my cup of tea I will tell you.

[Stargazer09]

6. Scary. And sad.

I can't imagine growing up in that sort of world. I pity their children.

[Care Acutely]

3. A good VF article that touched on Mitt's brush with Mormon feminists here:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/02/mitt-romney-201202

Scroll down to about 2/3 down page 2 - - -

In the spring of 1993, Helen Claire Sievers performed a bit of shuttle diplomacy to resolve a thorny problem confronting church leaders in Boston: resentment among progressive Mormon women at their subservient status within the church.

<snip>

Romney wasn’t sure about holding such a meeting, but he ultimately agreed to it. Sievers went back to the Exponent II group and said they should be realistic and not demand things Romney could never deliver, such as allowing women to hold the priesthood. On the day of the meeting, about 250 women filled the pews of the Belmont Chapel. After an opening song, prayer, and some housekeeping items, the floor was open. Women began proposing changes that would include them more in the life of the church. In the end, the group came up with some 70 suggestions—from letting women speak after men in church to putting changing tables in men’s bathrooms—as Romney and one of his counselors listened and took careful notes.

and then there's this:

(Ann Romney was not considered to be sympathetic to the agitation of liberal women within the stake. She was invited to social events sponsored by Exponent II but did not attend. She was, in the words of one member, understood to be “not that kind of woman.”)

So you see, Queen Ann gets irritated with liberal Mormons. Think about how she must feel about the rest of us.

The article goes on to tell how Romney came into the home of a church member to tell her he, as the leader of the church, had decided that she should give away her baby for adoption, even though she was not looking to do any thing of the kind and had no plans to relinquish her child.

[LiberalElite]

4. 2 Words: Sonia Johnson

Any discussion of Mormon feminists must include Sonia Johnson, who was excommunicated from the Mormon church: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Johnson