From Deseret News archives:
LDS leader's '07 address still causing controversy
Panelists addressing the topic "Mormon Motherhood: Choice or Destiny?" at the annual Sunstone Symposium on Thursday discussed why a talk by Sister Julie B. Beck during the October 2007 General Conference troubled them and hundreds of others enough to support a Web site whatwomenknow.org to counter many of Sister Beck's characterizations.
The Web site has garnered signatures from more than 500 women and several hundred men since it was put up in the weeks following the talk.
Five presenters spoke for more than an hour about their belief that Sister Beck's talk, and other recent messages by LDS leaders, narrow the role of women in the church by minimizing the contribution of those who don't have children and stay at home to raise them, whether by choice or through circumstances they can't control.
Janice Allred, president of the Mormon Women's Forum, said as she listened initially to Sister Beck's remarks, she thought "there will be trouble, but the firestorm that followed surprised even me." She said she had seen some indications in recent years that the church "has become more accepting of women's roles and parenting in the wider society. But once again, women felt they were being handed a script for their lives that they couldn't follow."
Sister Beck's talk mirrored gender roles outlined in the church's "Proclamation to the World on the Family," Allred said. The document "gives a woman only one role. The single woman exists in the proclamation only as daughter of heavenly parents waiting to fulfill her destiny ... Being a mother is a good and a necessary role, but a good mother must first be a good person, with roles and needs outside that of mother."
Recent comments
After reading through more of these comments it seems there are a lot...
Kirsten | April 16, 2009 at 3:16 p.m.
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Kirsten | April 15, 2009 at 9:17 a.m.
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Motherhood IS all things | March 14, 2009 at 4:31 p.m.
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