Episode 207 (Transcript): What About Religiosity, Violence, and Abuse? A Conversation with Dr. Susan Madsen

Episode Transcript

Many thanks to listener, Tara Larson, for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app, or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

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Teaser intro

SM: You know, when you're doing change, you have to shake things up. People need to be uncomfortable enough to say, that's enough.

CW: Yeah.

SM: And I say often, and I get some pushback when I say this by people that are uncomfortable with me saying this, but I say if it's at all an audience that will have a religious group, I will say, this is unacceptable and this is not okay with me. It shouldn't be okay with you and it's not okay with God.

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SH: Hi, I'm Susan Hinckley.

CW: And I am Cynthia Winward.

SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today's episode is, “What About Religiosity, Violence, and Abuse? A conversation with Dr. Susan Madsen.”

Dr. Madsen, welcome to At Last, She Said It. We are delighted that you're taking time to talk to us today.

SM: Well, it's so good to be with you today.

SH: What can you tell us about yourself? Just a little something for our listeners that lets them know who you are and maybe some context for the conversation today–why you're the person here to have the conversation with us.

SM: Well, I have been a professor for lots of years. I'm actually a scholar of women and leadership and have done so much on gender. And as I've gone through my global speaking, global publishing career, I've also done a lot of work in the state of Utah, and not just around women's leadership. That's where I started. That's what I've written books about and so forth.

CW: Yeah.

SM: But as we look at gender issues, I've really been pulled into doing research and reports on all things girls and women. So that doesn't just include research related to leadership and politics, but also in terms we've done reports. And I end up speaking a lot on topics like the pay gap on topics like women in STEM, and topics like domestic violence, sexual assault, and even we're doing a report now on child sexual abuse. And so I could, we could talk for hours about the various kinds of reports that we've done, women in higher education and so forth, but that has really come through my career of not just from my academic side in women's leadership, but I've learned through the years that you can't separate women's leadership from everything else that happens in a woman's life. If you are worried you're living in poverty and you're worried about feeding your children You're not gonna use your voice in ways that that can be the best in moving things forward for yourself and others. If you are–if you've suffered abuse, you're not going to be able to have the confidence and voice and competence to move forward and become a leader.

So when people sometimes ask me, aren't you a women's leadership scholar? Why are you doing these other things? Well, how does that relate? I'm like everything relates in terms of what we're doing. So I have, I've been pulled into that and I run so much of the research and work in the state of Utah on girls and women. And so I still do global, I still publish in that, but I'll tell you my work in the state of Utah, which impacts a lot of things in life, has really pulled me in because we have some work to do.

SH: Yeah, it would be great if on our Churchy podcast we didn't have to have a conversation about this, right? But we absolutely do and I think in part it's doubly important because this is a churchy podcast and we still need to have this conversation. So we want to unpack a little bit about kind of why this is important in the context of Latter day Saint women's lives specifically. So it sounds like you are exactly the person to have that conversation with us. And Cynthia is going to lead us through the discussion today. So I'm just going to turn it right over to her.

CW: Susan, as you were giving that intro, a little bio about yourself, that's actually how Susan Hinckley isn't going to get confusing today. So we might have to say a lot of last names as we're talking, but Susan Hinckley and I, we've had so many people recommend that we have you on the podcast, mainly from the leadership side. But then we read these two articles, one of them was in the Daily Herald and it was a guest opinion and it was called “The Link Between Domestic Violence and Religiosity.”

And then the second one, the more recent one that I read made me go, that's it. I want her to come on and talk about this instead of leadership. Maybe we'll do leadership another time. But The second article was in the Salt Lake Tribune and it was called “Utah Has a Problem with Violence Against Women. There's a Clear Solution.” And that was the one that made me reach out and [00:05:00] contact you and say, please come on and talk about this link between religiosity and abuse. So, can we jump in and ask you a little bit to talk about the power dynamic first. I'm going to read a quote to you from one of the articles, which listeners we will link to everything on our website, all the good info about Dr. Madsen, you will find there as well, if you want to get into more of her work. Anyway, the quote that you wrote that I wanted you to kind of dissect a little for us is, “Power disparity is at the root of violence. Research continues to show that when men have significantly more power than women–in homes, groups, communities, and societies–there tends to be more issues with abuse. At its foundation, power is about relationships.”

SM: Yeah, I think one of the reasons that I've really decided to write the pieces is that Utah is above the national average on the violence rates, which surprises people sometimes because they assume since we're such a religious society that we would have less violence.

And so that's why I wrote the piece. I just want to back up for a second so listeners could understand, because people just assume we don't have the violence. But what we know is that one in seven kids, this is what the research is telling us, are sexually abused in the state of Utah, which is above the national average.

We're above the national average on domestic violence. One in three women will experience domestic violence. And we're the sixth worst state on sexual assault and rape. So when you think about that, and I know some of the listeners might be uncomfortable with this, but I will tell you, that's part of the issue. If we remain silent, like we have been for decades and centuries in some ways, it shot, I mean, these things–the negative, the abuse, the violence–continues to abound. It's when you break the silence that we can make progress. And so that's why I really wrote these pieces. I've been writing about violence for three or four years. And can I just say very clearly that I feel absolutely called by God to use my voice to get our violence rates down in the state of Utah, and in the church, I should say.

And so when you feel called by God to use your voice and you have the privilege of having education and having an audience, then I would say I have no choice but to step forward and use my voice in the best way I can to honestly save lives, to save souls in some ways, right–

CW: Yes.

SH: Right.

SM: Because this is a serious issue. So if listeners are uncomfortable, join us because we're uncomfortable talking about it, but you have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think that's, I say that all the time. So I Cynthia, I didn't go to your question yet–

CW: That’s fine.