I love this lesson series. I love the different approaches different writers take, and the insights they have  that I’d miss on my own. Most of all, I love that it exists. So of course the first place I went to prepare for teaching this lesson was EmilyCC’s post on the introduction to the Lorenzo Snow manual. She listed some great references, so I started reading.

And I kept reading. And kept reading. Here’s the bottom line: Lorenzo Snow was fascinating. I had a great reaction from my lesson today, and even though I’ll bet you’ve all covered this part of the manual in your Relief Society lessons already, I want to share my notes just because I’m so in awe of the man. (Just please remember that they’re notes, and if you rudely point out grammatical or style errors I will send my peeps after you.)

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Just before the presidential election NPR’s This American Life had an episode titled “Red State Blue State” that talked about the well-known divide of right versus left in American politics.  It told stories of close friends and family members who don’t speak to each other anymore because of politics, then discussed a new book titled You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong) by Jacob Hess (who is Mormon and conservative) and Phil Neisser (who is not religious and liberal).  Hess and Neisser believe that civilized, useful political dialogue is possible if the two parties stop trying to change each other and start listening.  I said something similar here recently.

So I wonder, are the contentious conversations I sometimes experience and that Hess and Neisser have written a book about the norm?  Or are they less common than they seem?  Please take our poll and let us know how you experience political conversations.

In the comments, please tell us what has worked for you to make your political discussions amicable.

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When I first learned that Exponent was getting political, my initial thoughts were on my own political coming of age story, involving a specific experience on my mission, and several more specific experiences at BYU that ultimately resulted in my experiencing a change of heart, from somewhat right leaning to somewhat left. This was the story that I wanted to tell, but after watching the debates, and taking in their tone, I feel a little too sad about politics. Or, at the least, I feel sad about the division of politics, and the dishonesty. Part of me wants to shout from rooftops, “Can’t we all just get along?” And the other part of me wants to whisper it.

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I am a biological anthropologist and one of my favorite classes to teach is about modern human variation. I ask my undergraduates to line up in front of the class according to their height. They have done this since kindergarten and so it is fairly easy and banal. Then I give them other categories (with the caveat that they are free to opt out at any time), such as: skin color, eye color, hairiness, weight, intelligence, gender, sexuality, and attractiveness. As the categories progress the line-ups get more difficult to make. Students start opting out and becoming very uncomfortable. I have yet to have a class line-up according to attractiveness.

The whole point of this exercise is to make students aware of the interaction between culture and biology. Despite all of those categories being definable as “biological” the social and cultural presumptions about race, body size, gender, sexuality, intelligence and attractiveness lend an emotional weight to these traits that height or eye-color does not have. Afterwards, we always have an enlightening discussion about human variation and culture. Why is it socially inappropriate to line-up by some variables and others not? How much of what we think is biological is really culturally constructed? Why and how do moral notions of good/bad get attached to some traits and not others? I explain that the often illusive concept of culture can be understood as all the extra baggage attached to the latter categories.

I cannot help but wonder if this exercise can be applied in other settings. Join me in a mental experiment to conduct a virtual Mormon women’s line-up.

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by Emily U

(Emily U is casual observer of politics who enjoys reading, writing, knitting, and cooking when it’s not 5 pm and her kids are whining.  She is a university administrator and sometimes lecturer in biology, and she’s one of those mothers Ann Romney mentioned in her speech who would love to spend less time at work and more time at home!)

I just finished watching Ann Romney’s speech from the Republican National Convention, and read Ruth Marcus’ opinion of it at the Washington Post.  I’d would love to know what Exponent readers think of both of them.  Marcus says Ann Romney’s speech was a “patronizing pander to women.”  Marcus naturally looks at the speech in context of Romney’s party, which has a gender gap when it comes to women voters.  But as a Mormon I’m looking at the speech in the context of Romney’s religion, which is one deeply rooted in traditional gender roles.  To me Romney sounded like a mission president’s wife giving a “women are incredible” talk in Stake Conference.  The whole thing just sounded so (sadly) familiar.

What was your take on the speech?  Is Marcus’ critique apt?  Do you think it was a calculated attempt to win women voters?  Or was it really the only kind of speech we could expect from a traditional Mormon woman?  Do you think it would resonate with women you know, or would they see it as inadvertently demeaning, as Marcus did?

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This picture was taken at a press conference for new bills introduced into Congress and Senate for The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during the 40^th anniversary on March 22, 2012 of the March 22, 1972 passage of the ERA through Congress. I was so inspired by this program that I decided to create a series of posts dedicated to the ERA’s past, present, and future. In the first post I gave some background information on the equal rights amendment, in next post I outlined my personal journey from knowing nothing about the ERA, to reading From Housewife to Heretic, to becoming a National Council for Women’s Organizations Mormons for ERA Activist! This final post will be dedicated to the future of the ERA, why it is so important and what you can do. Check out the official ERA website for more information: www.equalrightsamendment.org *Caveat: All quotes are taken from my rapidly written notes from March 22, 2012 and any mistakes in their translation and reproduction are entirely mine.

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