Once upon a time, Rachel had the rich opportunity to research Heavenly Mother full-time at BYU. Her post, What I first learned about Heavenly Mother, was the most discussed post at the Exponent blog in 2013.
Four of the ten most commented posts of 2013 discuss the Ordain Women movement, which began that year. Guest Donna Kelly expressed her enthusiastic support for the Ordain Women movement in Ask, Seek, and Knock — Standing in Support of the Ordain Women Movement, while guests Catherine Worthington (Why A Self-Proclaimed Feminist is Uncomfortable with the Recent Push for the Ordination of Women) and Frank Pellett (Imagining Priestesshood) expressed opposing points of view. Exponent blogger Mraynes reacted to Ordain Women’s first failed attempt to attend the male-only priesthood session of General Conference in Ah! Turn Me Not Away.
Ordain Women was not the only Mormon feminist activist project of 2013. Defygravity described her participation in Let Women Pray, a letter-writing campaign to encourage church leaders to include women among those assigned to offer prayers at General Conference and how it led her to consider how Mormons continue to defend the concept of Separate but Equal.
Jessawhy reviewed Katrina Barker Anderson’s project, Mormon Women Bare, a photography series intended to address “modesty culture.”
Speaking of modesty, Deborah was impressed with the modesty of the Catholic leader, Pope Francis, who was newly elected in 2013: Un-SexyModest: Or, What A Pope Can Teach Us About Modesty.
In 2013, EmilyCC was called to be a Cub Scout master for her stake, leading her to seriously reflect on how Institutionalized Gender Inequality Starts in the Church at Age 8…
In the midst of all this excitement, Kelly Ann invited Exponent readers to pause for some Introductions.
This post is part of the blog’s Tenth Anniversary Retrospective.
Thanks for this look back, April. Wow. This all doesn’t feel so long ago. I particularly loved looking back at mraynes’s inspired post on the OW action.
Strangely, 2013 feels like ages ago to me. Even though it was an angsty year in many ways, I feel nostalgic for it. I guess because we were pushing boundaries, and now it feels all too clear where some of those boundaries are.
Great point, Emily. The Church seemed more full of possibilities then. Now, like you said, lots of those possibilities appear to be closed off.