Mormonism, Feminism, and Agency

Undergraduate / Graduate

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or "Mormon") teaches that every person is equipped with agency, the ability to act for oneself rather than to be merely acted upon by others. However, some have been puzzled by Mormon women's simultaneous commitment to a doctrine of agency and to a faith tradition that embraces the concept of patriarchy and is thus structured by gendered hierarchies. One method of analysis might interrogate Mormon women's choices according to the typical feminist view of agency as resistance. But does resistance adequately account for the operations of agency? How do non-resisting religious women reflect on their own capacities for agency? This course will first look at a set of theorists, including (among others) Saba Mahmood, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault, who will help us to examine agency by describing how the self is disciplined to desire certain types of action. Using these theorists as a framework, we will then explore, as a case study, how Mormon women have narrated their own desires, power, and actions. We will read primary documents from three episodes in Mormon history: (1) nineteenth-century Mormon women's involvement in both polygamy and the national suffrage movement; (2) Mormon women's grappling with the 1970s Women's Liberation Movement and the Equal Rights Amendment; and (3) the sharp divide among Mormon women regarding the 2013 Ordain Women movement.