Episode 208: Patriarchy 101 | A Conversation with Amy McPhie Allebest
Latter-day Saints have a complicated relationship with the word patriarchy. We reverence it, including variations in some of our highest callings and ordinances, yet many members won’t touch it in a discussion of women’s rights or organizational equality. So how can we have meaningful conversations about it with other Church members? Amy McPhie Allebest says, “There are two ways to try to reach people’s hearts and minds to say, ‘I’m serious, this is a problem.’ One is through facts, and one is through feelings.” In Episode 208, Amy joins Cynthia and Susan to explore both in a discussion aimed at preparing listeners to have hard conversations in effective ways.
Notes & Quotes:
Breaking Down Patriarchy podcast
The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, by Beth Allison Barr
Dear Mormon Man, by Amy McPhie Allebest
The Only True and Living Church, Church and Gospel Questions
The Mother Tree, ALSSI podcast, with Kathryn Knight Sonntag, Ep. 30, 11/10/2020
“Patriarchy looks right because it is the historical practice of the world.” —Beth Allison Barr
“My awareness of my status as a woman in a patriarchal culture began in early adulthood. Through the years, my emotional unease and philosophical objections to patriarchy grew, and I found myself frequently agitated, trying to understand the invisible matrix of power within which everyone operated but about which people seemed to know so little. When I brought up these issues (often prompted by deep personal pain), men at church would frequently tell me that I was wrong to feel frustrated because either a) patriarchy didn't exist anymore, or b) patriarchy did exist, but it was ordained by God so if it bothered me, it was because I didn't understand it correctly. (Confusingly, sometimes the same man would make both arguments in the same conversation.) I felt profound anguish not only from church doctrine, but from being misunderstood and dismissed. In 2016 I experienced a mundane patriarchal incident that on its own was not a big deal, but for some reason it was the straw that broke the camel's back. A lifetime of pain poured out into an essay, and I swapped the genders in hopes that girls and women would feel seen and validated, and boys and men might be willing to imagine - just for a moment - how it might feel to be a girl and woman in a patriarchal religion.” —Amy McPhie Allebest
“Continuing revelation from the Savior allows the Church to be aligned with heaven and also to grow and progress—to be both a true and a living church. All living things grow and change. As President Russell M. Nelson said: “We’re witnesses to a process of restoration. If you think the Church has been fully restored, you’re just seeing the beginning. There is much more to come.” —Russell M. Nelson