After the Women’s March a few weeks ago (you know the one, there was no doubt a contingent near you) there was this Facebook post making its way around the internet equating that grand action with attending Relief Society. It was quite the leap.
I’m going to set aside how grossly self-congratulatory the deification of Relief Society is here. This woman’s need to claim moral superiority is a topic for another day. What I take the most issue with is her central claim that the Relief Society is the largest and longest-standing women’s organization in the world. It’s not just an absurdly arrogant claim; it is entirely untrue. The Relief Society can’t even boast that it is a women’s organization at all.
Let’s back this up and go over a basic timeline of Relief Society history.
The Relief Society of Nauvoo was founded in 1842. The way this gets discussed in church, you’d think it was because the Lord decreed it so right at that time. The reality is that women’s organizations like this were very popular at the time, and Mormon women were far from the first to form one. What is noteworthy is that, at this point, it was entirely a women’s organization. They had their own membership rolls, leadership, and they paid dues.
The Relief Society of Nauvoo was disbanded in 1844. I’ve learned that this will come as a shock to many–especially given that the church celebrated the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Relief Society in 1992. Alas, it had not been around for 150 years because in 1844 it ceased to exist for quite awhile. It was disbanded because women like Emma Smith were using the organization to speak out against polygamy and Brigham Young wasn’t having it. (True story. Check it out in The First Fifty Years of Relief Society.)
Women’s coalitions started popping up in local wards again in 1851. In 1866 they made it official again. For some time it is a pretty amazing organization. They join the National Council of Women, fighting for suffrage. They build hospitals. They start holding their own general conferences. They build their own buildings, and they create their own manuals. They have their magazines.
But then something happens.
They lose their buildings, and they lose their magazines. The church takes ownership of the hospitals and co-opts their conferences. Before you know it, instead of having their own meetings and their own budget and their own agenda, they are meeting in a three-hour block of church that is presided over by men who grant them meager budgets and approve/dictate their agendas. No longer do women even run this organization on their own. Can it be called a women’s organization if women do not own it?
It is referred to as an auxiliary. It is supplementary to the organization to which it belongs. Can it even be called a women’s organization when it is just an auxiliary to a larger one that is run entirely by men?
And here’s another kicker. In 1971, all adult women in the church became members of Relief Society. You can have been baptized at the age of 8, stopped attending church at the age of 13, and five years later when you turn 18, your name gets moved from the Young Women rolls to the Relief Society rolls. Can you boast the numbers of an organization that has no opt-in or opt-out procedure? Can you boast the numbers of an organization that has no control of its own membership rolls?
Can you boast the longevity of an organization that stopped being its own organization fifty years ago?
I submit that you cannot.
Leah Marie
Leah Marie earned a BA in Political Science, and a Masters in Public Administration. She is currently working towards her PhD in Public Policy. She is wife to an English professor, and mother to 3 beautiful boys.
All posts by Leah Marie
Thank you for this great insight. Always enjoy your posts. Keep keeping it weird!
I don’t see this woman as claiming moral superiority at all. She is simply mentioning a few of the nurturing acts that the Relief Society women do. I would rather see this than women marching on Washington chanting vulgar slogans to draw attention to their cause. She may not have her dates correct and that is not important. It is most definitely a women’s organization no matter how it began. The women selflessly keep it going and greatly contribute not only in their local areas, but worldwide. History proves that we can’t depend on men to care for others like women do. I thank God for these women who recognize their personal strengths and gifts and use them for good!!!
Most of your comment is about the one sentence where I established what this post is *not* about, so I’m going to just address the one thing:
It is not most definitely a women’s organization just because you say so. There are characteristics that it would actually need to have to be a women’s organization–and it does not have them.
Your local Relief Society would gladly welcome you to be a part of their “group of women”.
I didn’t argue otherwise…?
Spot on, Leah Marie! Great post! Depressing, but thanks for stating it so clearly.
I have to this really resonated with me. As a Relief Society president I learned that it was not a women’s organization. As soon as a man walked in we stopped everything to find out if he needed a moment to speak. I did what the bishop told me to do, on several occasions this went against my sense of what I needed to be doing as RS president, but even when I discussed it with him, and explained my thoughts and impressions, he wasn’t having it. I got ground down for daring to have a different perspective from him. He told me several times that it was an auxiliary organization and I had no business differing from him. Also, when I was in Young Women’s a few of our leaders asked to be released because what they were trying to accomplish for the 12-18 year old women wasn’t what the bishop wanted. Cheiko N Okazaki’s interview made it clear that this lack of self-determination exists at the highest levels. It is a farce.
This has been my experience serving in RS, YW, and Primary presidencies as well. Nothing has made it so clear to me that men are in charge than when I was “in charge” of one of these organizations.
Leah Marie, I felt the same way “In charge”. I’ve never felt more powerless or dismissed to than in Ward council.
I’d also point out that Julie B. Beck, as the recently emeretus RS General President, campaigned for Trump/Pence, even giving a Mormon opening prayer to one of their rallies in Utah. Let this sink in- the recent “leader” of the world’s largest women’s organization used her reputation and clout to promote a decades-long playboy who boasts that he sexually assaults women. As millions of women on every continent including Antartica for marched for women’s respect and issues, against the power being given to a known abuser, our good ol’ “mothers who know”, Julie B., was out pitching for partisan politics instead of the first female president. Is the RS a women’s organization? No. Not in word or action, not in administrative structure, and not in spirit. the word “woman” denotes an adult woman- and RS even recently shifted away from its annual adult women’s meeting to include primary girls. It might be a “female” group, but it isn’t focused on the specific learning or development needs of adult women anymore.
I’m heartsick. Absolutely heartsick.
Thank you for this. I’m not surprised that yet again, the church has spun its history with alternative facts. And yet I’m sure I’d hear from male leadership that this is common knowledge, that women need the priesthood to lead them, that we’re really equal but fulfilling different roles. They have the power roles, woman don’t.