More thoughts on 'Pants'.

A few more thoughts on yesterday's event:

I believe that Heavenly Father created women and man to be equal.

Unfortunately, he created people that are not perfect.

Which is why there is inequality.

While there are women that don't feel this way (yay!) there are many who do.

Similarily, there are men that feel outcasted. (Like anyone not married by 26 is a "menace to society".)

This day was for them.

No one can deny that historically, women have been disadvantaged. The Mormon culture is no exception to this. 

Wearing pants, while a protest, was also a way of confirming how far we've come.

[source]

At the same time, wearing pants was a reminder of how much further we have to go.

"The action here has nothing to do with some rule about wearing pants to church. Calling attention to social norms within our community, those “unwritten order of things” that so often negatively impact or impose on women (and yes there are some for men too!) and doing so in a spirit of sisterly solidarity is important. Many of these may seem “small”, but accumulated they help define our social world. Other norms, however, have profound effects on women’s psychological, emotional and physical well-being. Some of the worst we have already left behind as enlightened members and leaders have come to understand and reject them. Choosing to violate this particular social norm has large symbolic meaning within the broader arc of feminism since it was among the symbolic rights our feminist foremothers fought for and a symbol they used in the past in their fight for suffrage and equality."

[source]

I've explained that I wore pants for myself and for others that felt alone.

Also, I wore pants For my mother, who was told:

• "a woman doesn't need an education".
• that taking care of her aging mother with severe Alzheimer's was "woman's work", so she had to carry all the responsibility. 
• for being mocked, belittled, and criticized for being an "old maid" before she got married at twenty three. 

I wore pants for my mother, who despite all these things, has been socialized to not think that any of this is a problem. 

Wearing pants was in no way criticizing the Gospel or Heavenly Father. 
It was a wake up call to our social culture that sometimes overpowers our spirituality. 

Pants

I'm a little late to the party (thanks, finals, for taking over my life) but today is Wear Pants to Church Day.
I haven't been attending church for the past few months, so I'm not going today, but If I was, I would be wearing pants. Even though I don't wear pants and I hate them. I would wear pants for the cause.

To feel power and autonomy.

Wear pants this Sunday – and every Sunday if you wish. And if and when you begin to experience a bodily sensation you associate with authority, give the sensation a name. Decide if it’s fear or rebellion or honor. Let that sensation pass through you….. through you and out of you so that you can move on to other things.

To stand together for a cause.

But even a gentle break with Mormon social convention, even a modest effort to help progressive Mormons feel less alone in the faith is enough to engender a national reaction, as Wear Pants to Church Day organizers have since discovered.

To challenge gender/social norms.

The pant suit carries many connotations, most prominently, that of the professional women.  The fact is that when people accuse women who want to wear pants to church as wanting to “be men” it is playing directly (whether they know it or not) on the gender norm that men are professionals and providers while women are the center of the domestic sphere. Clearly these are gender norms in which the church has long been heavily invested and have consequences for women and families.

The fact women can even wear pants,  own property, even not BE property were all thanks to women who stood up and demanded they be heard and counted.One way to do this is to challenge the “unwritten order of things” to begin conversations, open dialogue and yes, even raise a little heck.  What is more Mormon than that? 

I'm so proud of all the sisters that decided to wear pants today.
I hope that by doing so, by presenting a challenge to the norm and the "unwritten" social rules we face so many of in Mormon society, that things can change.

 

 

 

Body Love

I just had to share this here. It is one of the most beautiful and inspiring thing i've ever seen/heard.

I really don't know what else to say. 

This really says it all.

I know girls who are trying to fit into the social norm 
like squeezing into last year’s prom dress 
i know girls who are low rise, mac eyeshadow, and binge drinking 
i know girls that wonder if they’re disaster and sexy enough to fit in 
i know girls who are fleeing bombs from the mosques of their skin 
playing russian roulette with death; it’s never easy to accept 
that our bodies are fallible and flawed 
but when do we draw the line? 
when the knife hits the skin? 
isn’t it the same thing as purging, 
because we’re so obsessed with death, 
some women just have more guts than others 
the funny thing is women like us don’t shoot 
we swallow pills, still wanting to be beautiful at the morgue, 
still proceeding to put on make-up, 
still hoping that the mortician finds us fuckable and attractive 
we might as well be buried with our shoes, 
and handbags and scarves, girls 
we flirt with death everytime we etch a new tally mark 
into our skin 
i know how to split my wrists like a battlefield too 
but the time has come for us to 
reclaim our bodies 
our bodies deserve more than to be war-torn and collateral, 
offering this fuckdom as a pathetic means to say, 
“i only know how to exist when i’m wanted” 
girls like us are hardly ever wanted you know 
we’re used up and sad and drunk and 
perpetually waiting by the phone for someone to pick up 
and tell us that we did good 
You did good. 
( i know i am because i said am, my body is home) 
so try this 
take your hands over your bumpy lovebody naked 
and remember the first time you touched someone 
with the sole purpose of learning all of them 
touched them because the light was pretty on them
and the dust in the sunlight danced the way your heart did 
touch yourself with a purpose 
your body is the most beautiful royal 
fathers and uncles are not claiming your knife anymore 
are not your razor, no 
put the sharpness back 
lay your hands flat and feel the surface of scarred skin 
i once touched a tree with charred limbs 
the stump was still breathing 
but the tops were just ashy remains, 
i wonder what it’s like to come back from that 
sometimes i feel a forest fire erupting from my wrists 
and the smoke signals sent out are the most beautiful things 
i’ve ever seen 
love your body the way your mother loved your baby feet 
and brother, arm wrapping shoulders, and remember, 
this is important: 
you are worth more than who you fuck 
you are worth more than a waistline 
you are worth more than any naked body could proclaim 
in the shadows, more than a man’s whim 
or your father’s mistake 
you are no less valuable as a size 16, than a size 4 
you are no less valuable as a 32A than a 36C, 
your sexiness is defined by concentric circles within your wood; 
wisdom 
you are a goddamn tree stump with leaves sprouting out: 
reborn

This is Halloween!

I think it's clear that I LOVE Halloween.

Really, I love dressing up as beloved characters.

So for the church dance I went as Spock. Complete with genuine Vulcan ears!

It was part of a group costume- rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock.

Yeah, I have the coolest friends.

Also, please notice how legit my eyebrows were.

I did them all by my (amateur) self!

Then Wednesday night I decided to dress up again.

This time as beloved feminist icon Rosie the Riveter!

I had some friends over for some caramel apples and classic halloween movie viewing. (The Great Pumpkin, and Hocus Pocus!) A great way to spend the holiday in my humble opinion. 

You'll notice these costumes are incredibly simple-I already had everything needed, just had to put it all together! 

This just proves how insanely busy my semester is. Full course load and working has been in.sane. 

So bear with! It may be another month before i'm fully back!