Blogging over Beck: analysis of reaction to 'Mothers Who Know' (LDS Caucus)

SPINGFIELD, Ill. -- In the October 2007 general conference, Relief Society General President Julie B. Beck gave a talk titled "Mothers Who Know." An unprecedented online reaction followed. Even during her talk bloggers began commenting on and analyzing her statements. In the coming days and weeks, this reaction would grow, peaking in an online document titled "What Women Know."

BYU-Idaho history professor Andrea Radke-Moss examined this online reaction in her presentation "Blogging over Beck: LDS Women's Online Responses to Julie B. Beck's 'Mothers Who Know' Talk" Friday afternoon at the Mormon History Association conference in Springfield, Ill.

Through her research, Radke-Moss found that "the talk and the ensuing discussion that followed on numerous online blogs serves as an excellent example of how internet discussion is forming a new landscape of populist response to top-down discourse in (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)." She explained "the fact the church has recently approached a more honest discussion of controversial church history issues in the church publications shows that the leaders do have their fingers on the pulse of what average members and investigators are exposed to through the internet."

Radke-Moss realized there was a wide range of reaction. "Among Mormon women's many reactions to Beck's talk in the blogosphere, these ranged on a spectrum of overwhelming support for Beck's call for higher standards of mothering, to those women who expressed feelings of inadequacy and guilt, and, finally, Mormon women who disagreed with what they perceived as Beck's attempts to pigeonhole all women into one set of expectations."

This made Radke-Moss wonder why. "Since so many talks are directed to women about the importance of motherhood, why did this one in particular produce such a wide range of responses, from very positive to extremely negative?"

This very question had been argued both online in the blogs and in real life with no clear answer. So instead Radke-Moss turned to look at the historical precedence of Mormon women's reactions: "From the Relief Society's 1842 petition to the Illinois government to end the persecution of the Saints in Nauvoo, to the 1880s petitions rejecting anti-polygamy legislation, to the petition efforts both for and against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 1980s, the petition has long served Mormon women as an important form of peaceful resistance to physical, social and legal forms of oppression."

And yet calling the "What Women Know" a petition drew clarification from the Web site's founders. They told Radke-Moss that Sister "Beck's speech got a bunch of us thinking about all that we have learned, collectively, about being women and mothers, and we agreed that our experiences are far more complicated than Beck's exhortation indicated. We saw our statement as an elaboration, not a rebuttal."

So did this online statement or any of the other blogging reaction illicit any change in the discourse surrounding women's roles? Radke-Moss thinks so. She formulated a chart comparing "Mothers Who Know" statements to the "What Women Know" statements as well as to subsequent statements by church leaders in the worldwide leadership training meeting in 2008 and to Elder M. Russell Ballard's 2008 April address "Daughters of God." As an example, in the training meeting, Elder Dallin H. Oaks stated that in regards to the Proclamation on the Family, "'Fathers are ... responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. ... Mothers are primarily responsibility for the nurture of their children.' It doesn't say 'exclusively' (responsible for nurturing)."

And Sister Beck met with a group of BYU women in March 2008. "When students asked her if they could have careers, she said: 'Girl, go for broke! ... Whatever your dreams are, go for it. ... Sometimes you don't have control over the Lord's time and plan. ... Go for broke, but don't lose sight of the gospel. When the time comes to marry and have children, re-evaluate.'"

In all of her research and writing for this presentation, Radke-Moss hoped to portray the women's disaffection with the talk accurately to "sort out their feminist ideas, while still respecting the faithful perspectives of their bloggers." And she concluded "I think any observer might be careful not to dismiss the significance of the Mormon feminist blogosphere as it influences or points to a new direction of gender discussions within Mormon culture, and even among mainstream Mormons."

Sister Julie B. Beck
Young Women General Presidency
Published: Sunday, April 4, 2004

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“What is a ‘mother heart’ and how is one acquired?”

Sister Julie B. Beck
“A woman with a mother heart has a testimony of the restored gospel, and she teaches the principles of the gospel without equivocation. She is keeping sacred covenants made in holy temples. Her talents and skills are shared unselfishly. She gains as much education as her circumstances will allow, improving her mind and spirit with the desire to teach what she learns to the generations who follow her.”

If she has children, she is a “goodly parent” who lives and “teaches standards of behavior exactly in line with the teachings of living prophets.” She believes that the primary responsibility for the nurture of her children is vital and dignified. She is not “weary in well-doing” and readily serves her family, because she knows that “out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”

Female roles did not begin nor do they end on Earth. “A woman who treasures motherhood on Earth will treasure motherhood in the world to come, and where her treasure is, there will her heart be also. By developing a mother heart, each girl and woman prepares for her divine, eternal mission of motherhood.”

Covenant-keeping women, whether motherhood comes early or late; whether blessed with children in mortality or not; whether single or married, are endowed with power from on high in holy temples.

Girls and women who make and keep sacred covenants can have a mother heart. There is no limit to what they can accomplish.

only 8 mins and all this stir wow!

The femenist are outrage yet they would like someday live in the Celestial Kingdom.

Some how I don’t think they would like it there with their attitude.

Yet the Lord promise all of us in John 14

1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

There is a place for all of us.

The Lord know each of our temperament where we will be happy so why should we be gruge each other which Kingdom is more suited to our desires!

As the Lord said

Let not your heart be troubled:

In my Father’s house are many mansions

And if I go and prepare a place for you...

There are those who hear the clarion call to prepare their child in the Name of the Lord.

****

THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL OTHERWISE CALLED

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE KINGS CHAPTER 1

Hannah prays for a son, and vows to give him to the Lord—Eli the priest blesses her—Samuel is born—Hannah loans him to the Lord.
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_sam/1

11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth.

13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

14 And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.

15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.

16 Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

17 Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

18 And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

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