Gender Roles and Empowerment Goals: The LDS Women's Experience in Brazil

An Accidental Historian

“This is the Age Period Where You Start Figuring Out What You Want” LDS Women’s Experiences of Exploration During Established Adulthood

Seeking to Understand the Opposition to the Relief Society Activities of the Sesquicentennial Year

A Brief Look at the Creation of the Relief Society Sesquicentennial Exhibit at the Church Museum

The Sesquicentennial, So What? An Assessment a Quarter Century Afterward

Grappling with LDS Identity Formation: A Review of Recent Young Adult Novels

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

“O My Mother”: Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women's Authority

In Defense of Heavenly Mother: Her Critical Importance for Mormon Culture and Theology

Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture

Gendering Mormon Studies—At Last!

Fifty years after Loving v. Virginia, oppositional attitudes toward interracial relationships are still advanced by religious institutions in the United States. Extant social science literature characterizes these attitudes as generated largely by Evangelical and Christian nationalist traditions where members harbor negative attitudes toward interracial relationships. Hidden behind this characterization are the significant, but less obvious ways in which non-Evangelical denominations construct and disseminate similar attitudes. Through discourse analysis and digital interviews with LDS women of color, this study uses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon) as an entry point for examining intermarriage discourses in other faith traditions. Findings highlight that LDS messaging about interracial relationships shifted over time, integrating multiple racial frames in ways that expanded the scope of LDS racism with especially harsh implications for LDS women of color. Broader theoretical implications for the study of race, gender, and religion are discussed.

Tipping the Scales: LDS Women and Power in Recent Scholarship

LDS Women’s Authority and the Temple: A Feminist FHE Discussion with Maxine Hanks

The article examines theories, assumptions, concepts, experiences, and practices from the Latter-day Saints’ (LDS, or the Mormons) religious worldview to expand existing theoretical constructs and implications of leadership development and education for women. The article elucidates LDS doctrine and culture regarding women and provides specific strategies and guidelines to assist people involved with leadership development for LDS women. The article contains four sections: (1) overview of the LDS religion, (2) doctrine and culture, (3) theoretical frameworks, and (4) implications for research and practice. Analysis provides a foundation for leadership scholars and practitioners, particularly those who work directly with LDS women, to facilitate the development and growth of LDS women as leaders.

Despite evidence of the salutary effects of religion on physical health, relatively little attention has been paid to the influence of religiosity on the risk of overweight and obesity. Our study examines this relationship with specific attention to the influence of Latter-day Saint (LDS, Mormon) affiliation and attendance on bodyweight status. Latter-day Saints make an excellent test case because LDS proscriptions against the consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco could lead to either a reduced risk of overweight and obesity by reinforcing a broader constellation of healthy habits or a greater risk of overweight and obesity by contributing to unhealthy behaviors (e.g., overeating) that are substituted for religiously proscribed substance use. Given the salience of gender in the LDS context and gender-specific differences in bodyweight status, our analyses are run separately for men and women. While LDS men exhibit a somewhat greater obesity risk, LDS women are especially likely to face overweight and obesity risks. These findings demonstrate that religiosity can, in some circumstances, undermine physical health and that conservative religions can compromise bodyweight in gender-specific ways.

This article examines the role of the Mormon Church in the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s. While the historiography of the ERA has largely concentrated on the role of Phyllis Schlafly and Southern fundamentalists in defeating the proposed constitutional amendment, this article argues that the Mormon Church played a critical role in stopping the ERA in states as diverse as Utah, Nevada and Virginia. In doing so, the Mormon Church proved itself a formidable, if overlooked, player in the emerging New Right coalition. This article also highlights the critical role that Mormon women played in the church's political efforts against the ERA. In seeking to defeat a gain for women's equality, the Mormon Church activated its women through their church service organization to work against the amendment's ratification. This work was often presented as a religious calling, and Mormon women opposed the ERA out of service to their church as much as from political conviction. At the same time, the Mormon Church increased its emphasis on women's proper role, stressing wifely submission and domestic duties—a marked change from the church's historic encouragement of women as public figures. In light of the growing constrictions, Mormon women found that the ERA battle provided an opportunity to challenge subtly the limited role their church advocated for them. Mormon women worked to defeat the ERA, this article maintains, in part because of the chance it provided them to show the church they still had a useful public role. By opposing women's equality, LDS women showed the church and themselves that they could be more than housewives. In defending women's place in the home, Mormon women used the battle over the ERA as an opportunity to step out of their homes and take their place on the national political stage.

The purpose of this study was to explore the meanings of leisure for women who belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lived in Utah, and were stay-at-home mothers. Particular attention was given to the religious, cultural, and role-determined forces that shaped their lives and leisure. A phenomenological approach was used. Thirteen women were identified through a criteria-based snowball sampling technique. Emerging theory indicated that cultural beliefs and values can contribute to feelings of entitlement to leisure because of the support for leisure and life roles given by one's faith, family, and community.

BackgroundFemale breast cancer incidence rates in Utah are among the lowest in the U.S. The influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) religion on these rates, as well as on disease-specific survival, will be explored for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer in Utah from 1985 through 1999.MethodsPopulation-based records for incident female breast cancer patients were linked with membership records from the LDS Church to determine religious affiliation and, for LDS Church members, level of religiosity. Incidence rates were age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population using the direct method. Cox proportional hazards model was used to compare survival among religiously active LDS, less religiously active LDS, and non-LDS with simultaneous adjustment for prognostic factors.ResultsAge-adjusted breast cancer incidence rates were consistently lower for LDS than non-LDS in Utah from 1985 through 1999. Rates were lower among LDS compared with non-LDS across the age span. In 1995–99, the age-adjusted incidence rates were 107.6 (95% CI: 103.9 – 111.3) for LDS women and 130.5 (123.2 – 137.9) for non-LDS women. If non-LDS women in Utah had the same breast cancer risk profile as LDS women, an estimated 214 (4.8%) fewer malignant breast cancer cases would have occurred during 1995–99. With religiously active LDS serving as the reference group, the adjusted death hazard ratio for religiously less active LDS was 1.09 (0.94 – 1.27) and for non-LDS was 0.86 (0.75 – 0.98).ConclusionIn Utah, LDS lifestyle is associated with lower incidence rates of female breast cancer. However, LDS experience poorer survivability from breast cancer than their non-LDS counterparts. Parity and breastfeeding, while protective factors against breast cancer, may contribute to poorer prognosis of female breast cancer in LDS women.