Modern Mormon Women Leaders and the Dearth of Institutional Memory

A few years ago, I was conducting an oral history interview with a Mormon woman from South Africa, now living in the U.S. Samantha’s* life story was fascinating, as she reflected on issues of race in her life and the way she and her community of Cape Coloured people have been disenfranchised in her home country. One especially poignant moment was when she told me the life lessons she’d like to pass on to her children: “That you as a person are enough. You are plenty…. I just hope my children know that being yourself is enough. You don’t have to be anybody else.”  Her insistence that her children don’t have to conform to others’ expectations, that they can and should be completely and wholly themselves — so apt given her experience with the systematic dehumanization of people of color —  struck me immediately. Her language rang a bell in my mind. It was very similar to that of my favorite Mormon leader, Chieko Okazaki, from the general Relief Society presidency in the 1990s.

I broke in, “Have you read Being Enough by Chieko Okazaki? She has a whole book dedicated to this idea that we are enough and more than enough as we are.”

It was a bit depressing to learn then that not only had Samantha not ever heard of the book, she had not ever even heard of Chieko Okazaki. Samantha was in her thirties and had been raised in the church, but she had never heard of this woman leader who had broached so many topics of importance, like culture, race, and sexual abuse with sensitivity and thoughtfulness.**

This brief exchange weighed on me after our conversation. I left thinking that Samantha would love Chieko’s thoughts. How sad that she and so many women, inside and outside the U.S., don’t know about Chieko and aren’t benefiting from her wisdom. And not only her wisdom. It seems that there is little institutional memory of female church leaders and their contributions since the latter half of the 20^th century.

Ever since Belle Spafford was released from the general Relief Society presidency in 1974 after serving for thirty years, terms for general Relief Society presidencies have become shorter, now having stabilized at about five years. It’s difficult to leave a lasting legacy and tackle large projects with a five-year term limit. And, given that there are so few slots for women speakers in General Conference, their most visible venue for speaking and making an impact, it’s no wonder that so many church members don’t have much of a sense of who our women leaders are, what they care about, or even their names.

And this isn’t because our current women leaders aren’t insightful, wise people. It’s because there is a system in place which has weakened women leaders’ influence and ability to connect with their organization members. In our current priesthood-led correlated church, our general Relief Society leaders are no longer designing Relief Society curriculum, as they did during most of the 20^th century. They are no longer supervising the publication of a magazine that highlights Relief Society women’s wisdom and thoughts. It’s a rare (and strange) organization which has almost no pathways for its highest leaders to communicate to their members – and for members to communicate to their leaders.***

One thing I would love to see to further bring our women leaders’ voices and insights into people’s consciousness is a newsletter from the Relief Society board and general presidency. It pains me to think of how difficult it is for us women to hold our women leaders up as spiritual authorities, given the dearth of material we have to work with. But if there was a newsletter – monthly, quarterly, electronic, whatever – which highlighted our women leaders’ voices, activities, hopes, personal reflections, and goals, we members would have so much more to work with. We could quote them more often. We could feel more connected to them. We could feel prouder that we belong to this organization because we’d have a sense as to its leaders’ current good works and efforts.

And when we see the depressing graphics of just how little airtime women get in General Conference compared to men, we could at least look forward to a newsletter that forefronts women’s voices and stories. I’d love to see these newsletters translated into dozens of languages, and I’d love to see them feature voices of Relief Society presidents and members from around the world.

This change wouldn’t fix systemic problems that routinely sideline women and people of color. But it would be a welcome innovation that easily falls within the current structure.

*Samantha is a pseudonym.
**I imagine that part of the reason Samantha had no knowledge of Chieko Okazaki is due to the fact that church books are not easy to come by outside the U.S. And the reason Chieko Okazaki is such an amazing (potential) spiritual authority and resource is because after her time in the presidency she published over half a dozen books reflecting on gospel principles and her own life.
***General Relief Society presidency members also sometimes write in church magazines, I realize. More of that, please!