Class
Article
College
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty Mentor
Victoria Grieve
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the group Mormons for the ERA (MERA) began using popular LDS songs, phrases, and rituals to engage in protest against the LDS church. This paper argues that MERA used Mormon material culture to protest against the LDS church’s opposition to the ERA and distinguish themselves from other Mormon women who embraced the LDS church’s conservative stance on gender roles. Feminist and Mormon material culture are relatively unstudied fields. There is some literature on Mormon quilting and canning, but there is no research on how Mormon women utilize material culture in protest. This research begins to fill this gap and utilizes ephemera within the Mormons for ERA collection at Utah State University, including revised songs, protest buttons, bumper stickers, newspaper clippings, and newsletter articles to understand protest, Mormon women’s identity, and the relationship between MERA and the LDS church. This study begins with an analysis of Mormon women’s gendered identity and its relation to Mormon material culture, it contextualizes MERA's protest as a reaction to conservative shifts in the LDS church and then delves into the material culture MERA used as forms of protests, concluding with a contemporary look at Mormon material culture.
Location
Room 421
Start Date
4-12-2018 10:30 AM
End Date
4-12-2018 11:45 AM
Come, Come, Ye Saints, and Pass the ERA
Room 421
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the group Mormons for the ERA (MERA) began using popular LDS songs, phrases, and rituals to engage in protest against the LDS church. This paper argues that MERA used Mormon material culture to protest against the LDS church’s opposition to the ERA and distinguish themselves from other Mormon women who embraced the LDS church’s conservative stance on gender roles. Feminist and Mormon material culture are relatively unstudied fields. There is some literature on Mormon quilting and canning, but there is no research on how Mormon women utilize material culture in protest. This research begins to fill this gap and utilizes ephemera within the Mormons for ERA collection at Utah State University, including revised songs, protest buttons, bumper stickers, newspaper clippings, and newsletter articles to understand protest, Mormon women’s identity, and the relationship between MERA and the LDS church. This study begins with an analysis of Mormon women’s gendered identity and its relation to Mormon material culture, it contextualizes MERA's protest as a reaction to conservative shifts in the LDS church and then delves into the material culture MERA used as forms of protests, concluding with a contemporary look at Mormon material culture.