Blogging over Beck: analysis of reaction to 'Mothers Who Know'

SPINGFIELD, Ill. — In the October

2007 general conference, Relief Society General President Julie B. Beck gave a talk titled

"Mothers Who Know." An unprecedented online reaction followed. Even during her

talk bloggers began commenting on and analyzing her statements. In the coming

days and weeks, this reaction would grow, peaking in an online document titled "What Women Know."

BYU-Idaho history professor Andrea

Radke-Moss examined this online reaction in her presentation "Blogging over

Beck: LDS Women's Online Responses to Julie B. Beck's 'Mothers Who Know' Talk" Friday afternoon at the Mormon History Association conference in

Springfield, Ill.

Through her research,

Radke-Moss found that "the talk and the

ensuing discussion that followed on numerous online blogs serves as an excellent

example of how internet discussion is forming a new landscape of populist

response to top-down discourse in (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)." She explained "the fact the church has recently approached a more honest discussion of controversial church

history issues in the church publications shows that the leaders do have their

fingers on the pulse of what average members and investigators are exposed to

through the internet."

Radke-Moss realized there

was a wide range of reaction. "Among Mormon women's many reactions to Beck's

talk in the blogosphere, these ranged on a spectrum of overwhelming support for

Beck's call for higher standards of mothering, to those women who expressed

feelings of inadequacy and guilt, and, finally, Mormon women who disagreed with

what they perceived as Beck's attempts to pigeonhole all women into one set of

expectations."

This made Radke-Moss