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Series Title: Analysis of Ezra Taft Benson's "To the Mothers in Zion" Infamous Address [Part II of II]

Join Valerie and fellow therapist Dr. Julie Hanks for a heartfelt conversation about the address given in 1987 by Ezra Taft Benson called “To the Mother’s of Zion”, which impacted thousands of women’s experiences of motherhood for decades.

Julie and Valerie are LDS women, wives, and mothers themselves and were in their adolescence when this address was given, eventually becoming the position statement for acceptable womanhood in the LDS church for decades.

In this episode they reflect on the profound impact this talk had on their lives as young, highly motivated, but devoted-to-the-church women, navigating the complexities of emerging womanhood, their own personal hopes and dreams, and desires for both motherhood and also personal development beyond motherhood.

The fruits of this address for each of them? A lot of guilt, shame, anxiety, and fears that they were "bad” women, mothers, and daughters of God for having desires beyond that of caregiving.

In their typical respectful but direct way, Julie and Val evaluate many teachings from this talk from the perspective of psychological, developmental, spiritual, and relationship health and offer thoughts and feelings about different and healthier ways that we might model a path towards adult womanhood.

The offer hope for a wide open space where women can choose if motherhood is right for them and how motherhood might look if that is the direction they go.

They encourage courage, autonomy, personal authority, and self confidence as the foundation of healthy womanhood—whether that be full-time motherhood, a choice not to be a mother, or motherhood blended with other personal and professional pursuits.

 Every choice is worthy.  Because women are infinitely worthy and capable of choosing for themselves the lives they want to lead.

 The talk addressed in this episode: https://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/pdf/tomothersofzion.pdf

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Series Title: Analysis of Ezra Taft Benson's "To the Mothers in Zion" Infamous Address [Part I of II]

This week on Latter Day Struggles we are diving into an address that rocked the worlds of many women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The talk?  “To the Mother’s in Zion” given by Ezra Taft Benson clear back in 1987.  This talk became a sort of priesthood-directed “Mormon motherhood position statement” for all women of the church for several decades.

To say the very least, it made its mark on thousands of women during this era and beyond.

In today’s episode Valerie offers a truckload of VERY SIGNIFICANT context that will help each of us better understand the reasons for this heavy-handed mandate for women to stay in the home.  Some of the context addressed in this episode includes:

•  Historical issues that informed Benson’s stance (the Red Scare, the sexual revolution, the feminist movement, the civil rights movement)
•  The LDS church’s longing to achieve “in-group” status with the Christin conservative Right after a century of polygamy-induced shunning
•  The LDS church’s commitment to codified gender roles in an effort prevent the spread of homosexuality 
•  Benson’s own involvement in the ultra-conservative John Birch Society 

In FRIDAY’S episode, Valerie and friend and colleague Julie Hanks together walk through their own formative years as LDS girls and how this talk impacted them personally. They also jump into the address itself and talk about several sections from a psychological, spiritual, and relational health standpoint.   Link to "To the Mother's of Zion" talk: https://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/pdf/tomothersofzion.pdf

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Series Title:  How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part VI of VI]

In this six part series Val and Nathan took on the daunting task of exploring with you the phenomenon of how human beings since the beginning of time have created systems of dominance.

In the past several episodes they defined why power hierarchies are created, how this plays out in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the six-step process followed in creating systems of dominance. They used a variety of examples of what this looks like both within the LDS context and zooming out much broader in time and place.

This week they are ending this series focusing on strategies for change in hopes to awaken our own minds and hearts to how we might contribute to a healing of our own systems where dominance continues to wound those seen as “other”.

TODAY’S final episode of this series breaks down the last few recommendations that we can each integrate into our own growth journeys as we endeavor to become more and more capable of truly loving our fellow humans.

Topics addressed includes ways that we can get involved in speaking up against systemic marginalization and how we can leverage our own self interest in this process—knowing that even if we are currently in a powerful “in-group”, our status could easily change due to any number of life’s circumstances and while this system is in place, we will inevitably eventually be wounded too.

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Series Title:  How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part V of VI]

In today’s and Friday’s (final) episode of this series we will be covering several recommendations given by the brilliant scholar Gerta Lerner on how we as individuals within our own systems can break down hierarchical systems of oppression.

The recommendations explored today are as follows:

1. Accept differences in others.  Don’t just tolerate them.  Val and Nathan go into some detail about how this might look on the group within the culture and theology of the LDS church.
2. Once we acknowledge, honor, and accept the differences of unique others  in our individual relationships, allow them to be a complex composite of a a multitude of characteristics (not simply a representative of their grouping that makes them different).
3. Although we enjoy these loved ones in 1:1 situations and don’t focus on their differences, we DO NOT “move on” in social situations where institutionalized marginalization is taking place.  ***Tune in for much more on this topic!
4. Personally notice when we move into stigmatizing others.  Val and Nathan talk about how this is such a human self-preserving temptation.

FRIDAY’S final episode of this series breaks down the last few recommendations that we can each integrate into our own growth journeys as we endeavor to become more and more capable of truly loving our fellow humans.  Books referenced in this episode:

• Decolonizing Mormonism, edited by Gina Colvin
• Universal Christ, by Richard Rohr

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Series Title: How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part IV of VI]

In this part four of this series studying the psychological phenomenon of the  creation of marginalized populations Val and Nathan tackle the six step process in how populations create power hierarchies and select those over whom they rule.

As a reminder, steps one through three are as follows:

• Mark the difference between yourself and another type of person
• Stigmatize the difference
• Institutionalize the discrimination against stigmatized group

This episode tackles steps four through six: 

• Allow for exceptions in the stigmatized population
• Blame the stigmatized group social problems of the culture
• Turn various oppressed populations against each other by encouraging them to create hierarchies between themselves.  This ensures that they will sustain the larger system of dominance and oppression

The last two episodes of this series explores how individuals can contribute to the reversing of this systemic phenomenon. Each individual's heightened consciousness around issues of hierarchy and oppression slowly moves the world in the direction of increased love and connection.

 Book being referenced in this series: Living with History: Making Social Change by Gerta Lerner

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Series Title: How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part III of VI]

Welcome to part three of this diving into why and how human beings create hierarchies of power.  So far in this series we have explained the psychological phenomenon itself, zoomed in on how this plays out on the ground in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and now we are going to spend the next two episodes walking through the six-step process of how humans create those groupings whom we choose to dominate, subjugate, and marginalize.

This episode tackles in detail the first three steps:

1. Mark the difference in a group of people who are unlike yourself.
2. Stigmatize the difference.
3. Institutionalize the discrimination practiced against the group.

FRIDAY’S episode four tackles steps 4-6.

In these next two episodes (today’s and Fridays) Val and Nathan will offer both historical and current examples of how each of these steps in the creation of marginalized “out-group” populations looks both within the LDS faith and in other contexts. 

Get ready to have your mind further expanded.

Referenced in this series: Living with History: Making Social Change by Gerta Lerner

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Series Title: How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part II of VI]

In this episode Val and Nathan are going to talk about how the phenomenon of marginalization happens in virtually every collective unless it is consciously addressed.  In an effort to invite healing around this topic in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they will walk through some historical and current examples such as hierarchical structures around gender, race, and sexuality.

They will then break down how within the LDS church there are a variety of more subtle hierarchies and disempowered out-groups that may seem invisible because they are so entrenched in the culture and theology such as the early-returned missionaries, unwed mothers, and non-temple recommend holders.  

Val and Nathan discuss these and several others to help us all see that our organization has its own idiosyncratic ways of creating “out-groups”…those who deviate from the expectations of the community and therefore are seen as (and often treated as) “other”.

Their desire in shining a light on this phenomenon in this series is to help our community root out the multiple layers of hierarchy to create a community bonded not by hierarchies of powerful in-groups and powerless out-groups, but by equality and Christ-like love.   

Book referenced throughout this series: Living With History: Making Social Change, by Gerta Lerner

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Series Title: How & Why Power Hierarchies Were Created [Part I of VI]

In this mini-series Val and Nathan will be covering in-depth one of Val’s recent Sunstone Symposium presentations exploring the psychology around human civilization’s tendency to organize themselves into hierarchies. These hierarchies consist of an empowered group whose authority is dictated by selecting a different group over whom they dominate. These disempowered groups are sometimes called “out-groups” or “deviant others”.

In Episode 1 of this series Val and Nathan will explore why collectives organize themselves into a dominating few who find identity in their rule over designated disempowered out-groups, how those in power use differences in others to dominate them, how some disempowered ‘out groups’ are common throughout time and place [gender, class, race], and how unique out-groups are arbitrarily selected within micro-cultures.

This Friday’s episode Val and Nathan will discuss how this concept applies to hierarchical structures in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, both through macro-issues such as their historical and current struggles with institutional patriarchy, racism, and issues around disempowering gender and sexual minorities.

Their desire in shining a light on this phenomenon in this series is to help our community root out the multiple layers of hierarchy to create a community bonded not by the division between powerful in-groups and powerless out-groups, but by equality and Christ-like love.

Info on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below.  See you there!

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Series Title: "Tabernacles of Clay” Analysis with Taylor Petrey [Part IV of IV]

Join Valerie and colleague Taylor Petrey in this final episode of their fascinating series studying Taylor's must-read book "Tabernacles of Clay": a study of the movements of the LDS church in the realm of gender and sexuality spanning the time period beginning post WWII to present.

In this episode Val and Taylor address the following:

• A mind-bending list of proposed causes and cures forwarded by the LDS Church for homosexuality over the years
• A list of vastly varying ideas preached by different LDS general leaders about pre-mortal gender, post-mortal gender, and allowed sexual practices--illustrating the extreme shifts and changes in this area in the past 70 years
• They also explore how an analysis of  Tabernacle’s of Clay makes explicit the tendency for humanity [including the LDS church] to scapegoat a new population of people when another group of people receives recognition for historical marginalization
• They also address the psychological phenomena of victim becoming persecutor and how this may apply to our church’s historical tendency to marginalize various populations

The book being analyzed in this series: 

• Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism, by Taylor Petrey

Podcast episodes mentioned in this series:

• Latter Day Struggles Episode 94, Claiming Spiritual and Psychological Agency as Women in/around a Patriarchal Church
• Latter Day Struggles Episode 38, Standing up Against Chicken Patriarchy

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Series Title: "Tabernacles of Clay” Analysis with Taylor Petrey [Part III of IV]

In this portion of their conversation exploring the history of gender and sexuality in the LDS church from post WWII until present, Valerie and Taylor Petrey do a deep dive into gender, sexuality and how the following historical developments, policies, and political engagement are each connected to the LDS Church’s attempts to keep in place heteronormativity due to the contagion theory of sexual orientation:

• Church Correlation Movement
• Family Home Evening Program
• Home Teaching Program
• Collaboration with the Religious Right
• The Equal Rights Amendment
• Prop 8
• The Proclamation to the World on the Family
• The 2015 Policy

In Friday's Final episode,  Val and Taylor wrap up this fascinating series responding to those out there who claim that “No doctrine has ever changed regarding gender and sexuality in the LDS church".  In short...nothing could be more false!

They will walk you through a lengthy list of all of the ideas forwarded by various official leaders throughout the years on pre-mortal gender, post-mortal gender, birth control, sexually acceptable behaviors amongst married cisgendered people, and so much more.

They also will walk you through a historical list of proposed causes and cures forwarded by the Church for homosexuality over the years.

They conclude Friday’s episode on a personal note, sharing how work in this area has deeply impacted them and why they both care so much about shining a light on this history.  Its all about healing our community and helping expand our ability to love.

Info on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below.  See you there!

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