Exponent II
A feminist forum for Mormon women and gender minority voices
A chance conversation at a family reunion saved me from a life of scrupulosity. I was thirteen or fourteen, an earnest middle school student, when I fell into conversation with my cousin’s girlfriend who was in attendance. “I feel guilty reading books that aren’t the scriptures,”…
“It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.” This quote is from a dog-eared page in a well-worn copy of Ender’s Game that followed me through elementary, middle, and high school in Provo, Utah, and has come to live on my bedside table in London and in my school bag as I com…
Outwardly, indeed, this spring was like any other. My children and I were at the park in our apartment complex in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. My then three-year-old, Harvey, dug in the sandpit, and I bounced my chubby, six-month-old baby, Helen, who had still never been to th…
A god that was a child is a difficult god to qualify. Of distance there is plenty little talk of the unsanitary and veiled who, after all, would it benefit to discuss the mystery of god’s tantrums and god’s hunger. Mystery, for Mother Mary did not disclose how long it was before …
People usually laugh when I reveal that my favorite book is Watership Down by Richard Adams. “Isn’t that the book about rabbits?” they ask, suppressing a slight chuckle. “Yes,” I answer. “Watership Down is all about rabbits.” Their eyes widen as they realize that I am serious. “W…
How did your journey with conservation and bookmaking begin? Have you always been drawn to this? Nope. I did not know craft bookwork existed. Granted, I did have a short-lived college work-study job in the library where I bulk-bound periodicals into plastic binders. And my husban…
Sacrament talk given in Capitol Hill Ward, Washington D.C., on November 28, 2021 I have been a member of this ward since 1997. Even though we lived overseas for seven years, my records stayed here and we always attended during our annual visits to the US. This is the ward where w…
I spent my daylight hours as a privileged, upper middle class white girl . . . At night, my mother trafficked me. The full content of this post is available to subscribers. Subscribe now or log in!
Book Review of Caroline Kline’s Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness (University of Illinois Press, 2022) Caroline Kline’s book, Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness (University of Illinois Pr…
You don’t deserve these cyclical pummelings. You are an individual of divine worth in your own right. You are not defined by your marriage. The full content of this post is available to subscribers. Subscribe now or log in!
One Heart and One Mind: Establishing Zion One Community at a Time In the fall of 2018, my husband and I headed to North Carolina to begin serving as Church Education System missionaries teaching Institute. The young adults in our classes were smart and engaged and we worked hard …
“We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. …