Being a Kiwi Mormon Girl

Last updated on: January 2, 2015 at 3:44 pm by Gina Colvin

Being a Kiwi Mormon Girl 2015-01-02T15:44:37+13:00 Gina Colvin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

As a teenager, my sister and brothers and I would sometimes read out excerpts from’Fascinating Womenhood (Andelin, 1963) to gafaws of laughter. Amazingly its gone into its 6th print edition and still produces a chuckle (albeit an indignant one) with statements such as:

“Men admire girlishness, tenderness, sweetness of character, vivacity, and the ability to understand men.” (p. 16-17)

My feminist awakening however occurred as a defiant response to the teaching material in the Young Women programme (in the early 80’s). Divested of any sensitivity toward national, racial, gender diversity, these curriculum materials bespoke a set of cultural assumptions that caused a slew of questions while in my youth. Looking back, I can see that my leaders worked as best as they could with the lesson manuals by sensitively ignoring some of the material or smiling knowingly and understandingly as a result of our protestations. With few words to say about how we felt we were at the same time disempowered by the familiar rhetorical devices of our church leaders reminding us that we were obligated to treat ‘Head Office’ edicts, curriculum material, and discourses as manifestations of the ‘truth’ of our religion.

However, there was some discomfit in assuming ‘in-full’ the ideologies of young LDS femininity. Our reading of American femininity was that it was characterized by a kind of helpless immaturity and dependence, an obsession with physical appearance, naivety born out of limited exposure to a world of complexity, an essentialization of the feminine along with an over-emphasis on our future roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers.

New Zealand femininity looks and behaves differently to American/Utah femininity. New Zealand women were historical products of bush communities whether Māori or settler, where a kind of hardy frontier diva was born who competed successfully at some levels with the colonial masculinities because of the sheer necessity for women to be resourceful, tough minded and physically capable. Where Victorian femininity and Māori femininity intersected is hard to say but there is no doubt that both informed the other, constituting an interesting cocktail of reserve, practicality, competitiveness, and unassuming confidence in New Zealand woman. Reading aphorisms and dictums from the metropol about how our femininity was to be constructed and understood was like wearing our bras on backwards.

Mormonism characteristically communicates its maxims through analogy and story so that when those stories (eg. sweet LDS girls finding peace and consolation from homemaker ‘Mom’s cooking’) didn’t light up my spiritual receptors, but left me with deafening questions lingering over my identity, I was frequently angry that I was left to negotiate these ‘spaces in between spaces’. Something often felt out of sync with my own character, disposition and identity which prayer and scripture study couldn’t wash away, giving place to a deep seated restlessness as a young woman over who I was and what I should be. So on the one hand my feminine activism is constituted because of these fractured Mormon spaces which didn’t entirely seduce me in light of the disjuncture I felt between what the metropol expected of me and what I could legitimately give up as my offering to LDS womenhood ‘out here’.

New Zealand Mormon Feminist Thought

Mormon feminism

new zealand LDS feminism

Previous Post

April 21, 2020

A Reign of Dangerous Lunacy

Next Post

January 17, 2012 Reflections on American Mormons at New Zealand Pulpits

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Thoughtful Faith Adultery Apostasy Brigham Young BYU Church Culture Church Leadership Clergy Sex Abuse Community of Christ Divorce Excommunication faith crisis Faith Development Heavenly mother Heresy Indigenous Mormon James Fowler Jesus Christ John Dehlin Joseph Smith Kate Kelly LDS Church Politics LDS doctrine LDS Essays LGTB Maori Mormon marriage and family Mitt Romney Mormon church discourse Mormon church history Mormon Conservatism Mormon corporate culture Mormon Cultural Identity Mormon feminist politics Mormon finances mormon matters podcast Mormon Political Economy Mormons feminism New Zealand and US Mormonism New Zealand Mormon Culture New Zealand Mormon Feminist Thought New Zealand temple Official Declaration Two Ordain Women Pastoral Theology for Mormons phillip barlow Polygamy Practical Theology Prayer Protect LDS Children Racism in the LDS church Sexual Abuse temple recommend temple recommend interview Temples tyranny of certainty Uncategorized why mormons leave

Select a Month April 2020 December 2019 March 2019 December 2018 October 2018 September 2018 June 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 August 2016 May 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 March 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the main Christian church in Armenia?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Catholic Church Armenian Apostolic Church Greek Orthodox Coptic Church