For the love of pants

This post was written for the same reason that I haven't had any posts lately - with a crying baby on my lap, and the Youtube sensation Psy playing in the background. Something about korean rap seems to really soothe her. (no, really!)

I have so much more that I want to say, and I feel like my ideas are so jumbled, but motherhood is calling, and it is much more important right now.

Many of you may have heard about the wearing pants to church day event on facebook. It's gotten world-wide attention, including articles written in the huffington post, washington post, jezebel, and countless others.
And if you're not mormon, you may have heard about it and wonder when we all hopped into the tardis and traveled back to the 1940s. (that's right, I just made a Dr. Who reference!)

Let me start from the beginning. I am a feminist. I think I always have been. I am also a mormon. I belong to this amazing community of women, called "feminist mormon housewives", and our hilarious tagline is "angry activists with diapers to change". They are amazing, Christ-like women who constantly challenge me to grow my testimony.

However, when a few women who were associated with the group started "wear pants to church day", I thought very little of it. I like wearing skirts, and I have no problem with it. I didn't feel like it was a battle I would understand, or one that I needed to take on.

 So replied that I would not be attending.

But I lingered on the event page to see other peoples' reasoning. There were heartfelt pleas and stories about women who had gone to church in pants and had been ridiculed away. It sparked a memory of my own, when I was first investigating the church and wore pants, one woman my age pulled me aside and told me how disrespectful I had been. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

So I changed my status as "maybe attending". To show support for those who did want to wear pants.

I re-visted the page a day later and was shocked at the responses from other non-feminist mormons. Some of them were appalling. 
Of course there will always be a few loud outspoken few ruining it for the others, but even then the general concensus was "either be quiet and follow the church, or leave."
I had several concerns about that mentality.
Firstly, The church has no stance on pants, They have said (back in 1971) that you could wear either pants or skirts, but to always wear your best.
Secondly, Why are we so against those who are struggling or who have left the church. Isn't their opinion still of value? Aren't we all human, all struggling? There is room for everyone in God's church, so shouldn't there be room for people with differing opinions in our faith?

So I changed my status to attending. 

I was the only woman who wore pants to church, but that was ok, because I happen to be in an amazing ward, full of amazing and accepting women. But it didn't always used to be that way. A ward we attending in Utah made me feel really uncomfortable. The Bishop would gossip about other members behind their back, and when I needed help the most, after Maddie was born and I was recovering from a complicated c-section, the relief society told me that they would not be delivering any meals to our family because I hadn't attended church lately. BECAUSE I WAS ON BED REST.

[Vent over.]

So I wore pants. Because I think that the culture can stand to change a little, to be more accepting. I wore pants because I wanted to show love and support to other people who have been judged, turned away, or ever felt uncomfortable. I wore pants because women my age have been leaving the church at an alarming rate recently, and I wanted them all to know that there is a place for them.

And you know what? about 2,000 other people wore pants today to send me the same message. And I truly felt the love.




ps - this woman expresses my feelings so much better than I ever could. click here. 

pps - Jeff also wore a purple tie in support. I am so lucky to be married to a feminist.

What it means to be a feminist

Growing up in liberal, hippie Portland you find your fair share of hippies. And liberals. And feminists. When I thought of feminists, I had this image of a woman in a tie-die dress burning her bras down by the waterfront park in Portland. (probably because that kind of thing still happens in Portland)

But coming to BYU, I had a bit of culture shock. No one was a hippie liberal feminist. In fact, no one even voted for obama! (gasp)

So I kind of sunk into the crowd and closeted some of my ideas. I wasn't sure really even what my political or social beliefs were, so I took the classes and waited to find out what I believed in.

When I had signed up for Psychology of Gender and Women's Studies, I kind of rolled my eyes. After all, women are equal to men and there's just no reason for all of these crazy feminists to shove their bra-burning agendas down my throat, right?

Let me throw some stats your way:
 (all of these stats were taken from my psychology of Gender textbook):
- Women are still paid less than men for doing the exact same job. (on average, they're paid 79 cents on the dollar that men are paid) Even in women-domineered careers like nursing, men are still paid more. And the census shows that this hasn't gotten better since past years! (see image right)
- 26% of all women will be raped at some point in their life. and 56% of women are sexually assaulted in some way.
- In classrooms, boys receive more encouragement for speaking up and voicing their opinions than girls do.

The list goes on and on... and on.

Then I thought to myself, "well, yeah, but I mean, things are better compared to everywhere else." And you would think our own country would be better, right? Being such a great industrialized nation? wrong. The US falls way behind the rest of the world in several areas.
- The US provides the least amount of maternity time. (European countries give 6 months paid off, canada gives a year paid off!)
- The US has very few women in parliament in comparison to other countries in the UN. (see image to left)

So I came to a conclusion - there is still so much more that needs to be done before women are equal. And since Feminists seek for equality, I guess that made me a feminist.





But there's such a negative stigma associated with the word "feminist". I even asked Jeff one day:

A: "You'd consider yourself a feminist, right?"
J: "No."
A: "But you agree with me on pretty much everything! And you agree that there's a lot that needs to be done before women and men are equal, right?"
J: "Well... yeah."
A: "So that makes you a feminist, too."
J: "Yeah, I guess so. It's just that I don't like the word. I don't want to be associated with the stereotypical feminist."

I didn't really understand what Jeff meant. After all, I didn't really consider myself a bra-burning hippie. It's just that after learning everything I had learned, I couldn't ignore the facts.
But this past week I finally understood what Jeff meant. I've had a few people bully me for my beliefs. I'll quote what they had to say here:

"I just feel bad for you--that something happy... still gets tainted by feminist arguments. Finding the bad in everything isn't a very healthy practice."

"When you take such a strong stance like this on a matter post so frequently on it, despite how good and legitimate your arguments might be, anyone outside the bubble who doesn't care as much, starts invisioning you as a zealot." 

"Amber is a bit of a feminist like Hitler was a bit of a meaner."

I never meant to offend anyone, but apparently labeling myself as a feminist meant that other people could freely attack me. I never wanted to come off as a "zealot" or be compared to Hitler in any way. And I'll admit it, I cried. I thought about deleting my blog. I thought about never posting anything about women's rights or never posting anything about my opinions ever again. But what good would that do?

This is what I believe:

I'm a feminist... not because I think women should be exactly like men, but because women should have the same opportunities as men.
I'm a feminist because I think I should be able to have a career without being judged for not staying at home, just as much as other women should be able to be stay-at-home moms without being judged.
I'm a feminist for Madison, because by the time she turns 8, studies show that she'll likely already have a bad body image and have attempted dieting. she'll also have given up dreams of being president.
I'm a feminist for my future sons, because the media teaches that it's ok for men to be violent towards women, and that affects the men in my life.


Above all, I choose to focus on how the media affects all of society because studies show that this inequality isn't because of inherent sexism, but from learned portrayals of women in the media: 

I don't...
- burn bras.
- believe that the way to equality means that society should put men down.
- think that men and women are exactly alike. We are different, and we should celebrate those differences.

Lastly, if you disagree with me, that is fine. I don't know how you can argue with the facts, but you have the freedom to do so. Just don't leave a message or a post attacking me personally.

To quote my good friend Amanda, "misogynists gunna hate."

I thought this was funny.
And particularly appropriate considering the hitler comment. 

pssst... agree with me? there are others out there like me! 

check out http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/