Mormon Feminism and Me
Claudia Bushman was the bishop's wife over what eventually became the units I attended in the stake where I was baptized. The Elkton Ward was in my hometown.
Doug and Susan Taber were the very first people I met when I was in the Neward 2nd ward as a teenager.
This is the ground where my discipleship began.
Claudia Bushman assembled women in dignity, dedicated to making the Church a more equal place everywhere she went.
That's where I was baptized. The ripples of her presence are still felt there.
The sexism and deprioritization of women and their contributions I have experienced in other corners of the Church never happened to me there.
Claudia Bushman and so many of the women she knew were the reasons why. It was a garden they tended carefully where women could grow.
I just bought a copy of Susan Taber's book, Mormon Lives: a Year in the Elkton Ward. Flipping through the index, I see so many names I recognize. These are the people who gave me my foundations as a member of the Church. They were the people who taught me the gospel, baptized me, and gave me the foundations I needed to walk through the Church expecting to be treated like an equal.
I'm going to end up getting similarly derailed with a lot of the writers, works, and projects that get mentioned in passing in Mormon Feminism. It'll probably take me a long time to finish because of that.
I don't mind though.
As it turns out, my reflexive reaction of "this would never happen to me back home" wasn't just wishful thinking. It wasn't an accident or a fluke. It's the legacy of Mormon women who came before me who did the work to make the Church a better place. And if there's anything to take away from a book called Mormon Feminism, surely that is it.
