Mormon women were in the news again in 2024 after a new reality show and several famous online influencers stirred up questions about what it means to be a woman who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Are all Mormon women white, upper class and residents of Utah? What is the relationship between their own agency and the requirements of Church membership? What do their family relationships look like? These questions have been asked and answered numerous times during the nearly two centuries since the Church’s founding, both by insiders and outsiders. What it means to be a Mormon woman is a question with as many answers as there are women in the Church. The more we hear the stories of different women, the more we can appreciate the diversity of our world and the many ways in which God loves his children. Two recent books explore the stories of Mormon women through different lenses, and both are valuable additions to our understanding of what it means to be a woman who is a member of the Church:
The Not-So-Secret Lives of Real “Mormon” Wives (published in 2024 by Cedar Fort) collects personal essays by Fernanda Böhme, Shayla Egan, Allison Hong Merrill, Kimberly DowDell, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Caroline Melazzo, Kerry Own, and Esther Jackson-Stowell. Each of these women tells a story of how God has worked in their lives to guide them in different ways, including publishing books, creating business, starting podcasts, and advocating for those in need. They come from different backgrounds and from all over the world, and just as the challenges of their lives have all been different, their responses to them have been different as well. In this book I found points of connection with each of the women as well as points of divergence from my own life. This book was an uplifting and inspiring window into the lives of women who are working to connect with others and to be a force of good in the world.
Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness by Caroline Kline (published in 2022 by University of Illinois Press) explores the experiences of Mormon women of color in Mexico, Botswana, and the United States. Kline combines oral histories from women in these three countries with a variety of theoretical approaches to draw conclusions about the experience of being a woman who is a member of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the most important insights arises early in the book as Kline begins her project with interviews of women in Veracruz, Mexico. After conducting several interviews, she realized that some of the questions she was asking about equality and gender roles in the Church were not relevant to the women she was interviewing. Instead, Kline found that the women she interviewed in all three countries shared a worldview that she calls “non-oppressive connectedness”, which focuses both on female empowerment as well as fostering positive relationships. Kline’s book is academic in approach and focus but also written in an accessible style that includes numerous quotes and stories from the women she interviewed. I felt as if I got to know these women, and even when my experiences were different from theirs, I could relate to many of them and their insights on life. Reading this book gave me many things to think about in my life as a Mormon woman and new ways of seeing how my membership in the Church can connect me to others and empower my life.