Mormon feminists — not an oxymoron — are frustrated after the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints reaffirmed its stance that women serve a six-month shorter missionary than men, the Los Angeles Times reports (h/t Jezebel). Although Mormon women are active in the church, they say it’s a separate-but-(un)equal thing. Women cannot be ordained, for example, but are allowed to run its Relief Society. Mormon blogger Jana Riess called it “progress with an asterisk.” She wrote, “No man gets the right to reassure me that I’m his equal when every single outward sign of how the church is run tells a different story.”
The same could be said for the group representing the majority of American Catholic nuns, who were chastised by the Vatican for their “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith,” i.e. supporting President Obama’s health-care plan. To say nothing of all the women in the Anglican church, who are already ordained but whose governing body weirdly refuses to give them a legitimate legislative path toward becoming a bishop.
What is it about churches that makes them such strong bastions for patriarchy? Asked when Mormon doctrine will catch up with the times, church leader Jeffrey R. Holland told the Times, “One miracle at a time.”
