John Dehlin [00:01:48] Well, Serafin, thank you so much for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Serafin [00:01:52] Well, thanks for having me.

Guest Introduction and Anonymity Explained

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Now, to begin, it probably makes sense for us to explain why we're using a handle or Seraphine, because I assume that's not your real name. Is that right?

Serafin [00:02:04] No, it's not.

John Dehlin [00:02:05] So tell us a little bit about that, a little bit about yourself, who you are, and why we're using a handle.

Serafin [00:02:13] Okay. I am a graduate student at a university. I study, I'm getting my degree in English and I prefer to use a handle online just because I'm about. I'm about to go on the job market in the next couple years. And I tend to not put personal information online that people can look up when it comes to, because they'll look stuff up when it comes to job search stuff.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] But it's fair to say you teach women's studies at a major Division 1 university.

Serafin [00:02:49] Yes, I do.

John Dehlin [00:02:51] Tell us a little bit about yourself and your history and what led to your interest in women's studies.

Serafin [00:02:58] Well, it developed in college. I mean, I was actually growing up, I was pretty conservative. I mean, I was one of the people that sort of thought feminists were scary and all of that. And I hit college and I actually didn't take any women's studies classes as an undergraduate, but I took a bunch of English classes where we studied what's called Critical theory, which is sort of, you know how people go about studying literature. And one of the things that I talked about in my theory class, we talked about in our theory classes was feminist theory. And so I sort of got introduced to feminism through, through English classes. And it was, I mean, probably the class that really stands out to me the most is I took a post modernism class and we actually read an article where a woman talks about her experiences as part of second wave feminism. And sort of, it was an article sort of about divides within second wave feminism and how feminists were sort of arguing with one another about various issues. And I remember reading this article in my mind was just sort of like, oh, my gosh, I sort of had this conception that feminism was this one thing. And I read it and was like, you know, this is a movement that is a lot more. There are a lot more differences of opinion. There's a lot more stuff going on here than I really realize. And kind of about the same time I was sort of, because of others, other things that were going on in my life sort of separately, I was sort of becoming increasingly sort of, I don't know, dissatisfied. Like, I was sort of having a. Having a crisis at the beginning of college about being a woman and wanting to be in academia and feeling really wrong about doing that, because I had been told so, you know, over and over again, you know, your mission is to be a mother and have children. Just loved school. And, you know, for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me. And so when I was in college, I was sort of having to deal with that. And when I started investigating feminism, you know, I started finding a language to sort of talk about this crisis I was going through in college. And it kind of solidified altogether.

John Dehlin [00:05:37] And apart from the conflicts about being a woman and maybe wanting to pursue academia, was your experience in the church otherwise positive and healthy and productive?

Serafin [00:05:47] Yeah, yeah, I've, I've, you know, it's. I mean, I've, you know, I had you know, sort of, you know, experiences as a woman that have been slightly, slightly frustrating. But in general, I mean, I, you know, grew up, you know, in an LDS home, and my parents are loving parents, really supportive, you know, basically said you can do anything you want to. You know, they were super encouraging of me to pursue my education and go to graduate school. And for the most part, I've been in really, you know, pretty healthy boards that have functioned well and, you know, not caused huge problems in my life. And so in general, I've had, for the most part, a positive experience. Church

Background and Blog Overview

John Dehlin [00:06:36] and before we jump into the main topics, I guess we should give a shout out to the blog to which you contribute. Is that right? You want to tell us a little bit about that and what.

Serafin [00:06:45] Yeah, yeah. I'm a member of a blog. It's called the Lo Fahad's Daughters. It was started by my best friend, her sisters and myself. Kind of a few of us had been sort of lurking on the blogger NACL for a while, and we sort of got the idea that we should start a blogger. I think they. My best friend and her sister sort of came up with the idea and they came and they said, hey, do you want to be part of it? And I was like, hey, that sounds like a great idea. And our blog is primarily. I mean, we do a variety of topics, but the issues that tend to come up again are sort of academic and feminist issues. Yeah, that's sort of our niche on the blogger. And Hackle is the academic feminist blog.

John Dehlin [00:07:39] And it's a pretty popular blog, one of the more reputable ones from what I've experienced. So shout out to all our. I won't say girls, so I'll say our Zilova had daughters. Women out there.

Serafin [00:07:51] Yes, women.

John Dehlin [00:07:53] And I've met at least one of them in addition to you.

Serafin [00:07:56] So, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:57] Hello, Kiskalily. Or however she pronounces it. I know her.

Serafin [00:08:02] I'm not sure I know her by her real name.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] Okay, great. So I'll have to confess I have much to repent for and much shame that I've gone through, like, 52 or 53 episodes of Mormon Stories podcasts, and I've never covered women's issues directly. I deserve scorn and rebuke for that delay.

Serafin [00:08:29] Well, the fact that you're doing it at all is great.

John Dehlin [00:08:31] Well, isn't it so classic, though? I mean, one of the things that I often think of as I ponder the status of women in the United States is we celebrated black men being. Being able to vote in, what, 1864, 1865, something like that?

Serafin [00:08:49] Yeah, yeah. I don't remember the exact date, but yeah, it was in the 1860s and it wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:08:55] And so we pat ourselves on the back. Hooray. It was another 50 years or 45 years until women could vote.

Serafin [00:09:03] It was another 60 years. It was 1920.

John Dehlin [00:09:08] So crazy that women, not only in the United States, but here on Mormon Stories are often. And I don't think that we often enough take enough time to think about that. So the purpose of this podcast is to give our LDS Friends out there, some context for this series on women's issues in the church. I will give you all this disclaimer that virtually none of what we have planned today is going to cover Mormonism at all. Instead, we're going to sort of paint a context of the. The plight or the struggle or the successes of women within the United States over the past few hundred years. And from there, we're going to then have established a context for the future episodes. And I'll just say, I didn't even know that feminism had waves. Today we're going to be talking about the three waves of feminism. I didn't learn this until a few months ago talking to Roasted Tomatoes, also on the blogger nacl. When she started telling me about the different waves of feminism, I had no

Serafin [00:10:13] idea that's how most people, when they talk about feminism and the history of feminism, talk about it in terms of waves. It's sort of the easiest way to talk about it.

First Wave Feminism and Early Women's Rights

John Dehlin [00:10:24] So with that, let's launch in. Tell us about the early years of feminism or of women's rights or the struggle for. For women here in the United States.

Serafin [00:10:38] Okay. Well, it started, I mean, really the kind of first wave feminism in the early years of first wave feminism was in the 1840s. And it started with, I mean, kind of the central figure at that point was a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And she and other women at the time were involved in the abolitionist movement. So they were trying to get rid of slavery and they were going to conventions. And what happened was that Elizabeth Cady Stanton went to a huge anti abolition. She went to a convention, the International Anti Slavery Convention in London in 1840. And she went with Lucretia Mott. And Lucretia Mott was a delegate for her local society. And what happened when they got to the convention is that they were not allowed to sit with the men. They weren't allowed to speak. They had to actually sit so that the men couldn't see them. And they were really, really bothered by this because, you know, here were these women who in their local communities were really working hard on this issue, and they go to this convention and they're effectively silenced and not able to represent their, you know, their own, the chapters that they were coming from.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] Right.

Serafin [00:12:12] So that was, I think, kind of the start. A lot of people point to that as sort of the start of Stanton's sort of interest in sort of women's rights. And what happened after that is she went back. She lived in Seneca Falls, New York, and she went back to Seneca Falls, New York. And she had actually just gotten married right before the convention that she went to. And she went back to Seneca Falls, New York, and she started having children. And she was very. I mean, up to that point in time, she had traveled a lot. She had been part of sort of intellectual communities. And she ended up in this small, small town with not a lot of people to talk to, raising these children and sort of going, ah, you know, my life is really different now, and it's a lot harder. You know, I don't have the intellectual stimulation that I used to. Raising these children is really hard. And she started really sort of paying attention to women's lives in a really more general way and sort of saying, you know what? Women's lives are really difficult. You know, there's a lot of really awful things that women have to deal with. And she sort of thought about this for a few years. And in 1848, she got together with a handful of women in the community, including Lucretia Mott. And they ended up deciding to hold a women's rights convention. And they also drafted Declaration of Sentiments, which they read at the convention, which is sort of a declaration, sort of saying, you know, here's how women are unequal and here are the things that we're going to work for. And this was really, I think, kind of the start of the women's rights movement. Where was this convention that was held in seneca Falls in 1848?

John Dehlin [00:14:07] Okay, okay. So the wheels start turning a bit. So

Serafin [00:14:23] if you want, I've got some statements here about some of the things that the Declaration sort of talked about. I mean, if you want me to.

John Dehlin [00:14:32] Yeah. Talk a bit about what the major issues were, what the major demands were or issues were. If you can.

Serafin [00:14:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] If you can just paint the life of a woman in the United states in the mid-1800s compared to what it's like today.

Serafin [00:14:51] Okay. Well, what I love about the Declaration of Sentiments, I mean, the Declaration of Sentiments is something that I think everyone should go read. It reads like it starts out like the Declaration of Independence, you know, that we hold these truths to be self evident. Except it goes on to say that says that all men and women are created equal. So they sort of modeled it after the Declaration of Independence to sort of get people's attention. And what they do is they go through kind of a list of injustices, sort of saying, these are all the problems with our lives. And, you know, looking back on it, it's sort of really shocking, you know, to me, to look back on this document, women, obviously, at that time, women weren't able to vote. You know, women were not able to. There were lots of barriers for women owning property. For example, when a woman got married, all her property was transferred to her husband, including, you know, if she worked at. At a job, like, let's say she was a teacher, all of those wages that she made at a job would be given to her husband. It would be her husband's property and not her property. You know, and, you know, if a woman ended up getting divorced from a husband, all of the property that was hers before she got married would no longer be hers. It would be her husband's, even after the divorce.

John Dehlin [00:16:21] Wow.

Serafin [00:16:22] Yeah. You know, women were completely under the power of their husbands. I mean, if you. If you had an abusive husband, you were, you know, you were in trouble because husbands could abuse their wives and not have any. Not really face any consequences. You know, men could rape their wives, beat their wives, you know, without getting in trouble. One thing that the Declaration of Sentiments points out that I thought was interesting that I didn't realize if a woman committed a crime and her husband was there, she was in the company of her husband, he would be responsible for the crime and not her. So women didn't even have rights of sort of, you know, response. You know, women weren't even held, you know, responsible or accountable for their own actions. In some situations, you know, women, they were very, very limited in terms of. Also, like education and professions, women were not accepted. Like, women could not attend colleges. And at this point, I mean, there were women's colleges that started up later, but at this point in time, there was probably one, maybe two women's colleges that were really small. So women couldn't pursue education at a college. Women couldn't pursue most professions. There were only a couple of professions that were acceptable for women. And when they did work, their wages were vastly, vastly less than the men who were doing the same work as they were. So, you know, it's women, you know, women, you know, really had a hard time. And really your happiness in life sort of depended on how lucky, you know, how lucky you managed to get in the person that you. With the person you married. You know, if you managed to marry someone who is good to you and supportive of you, then you probably had a pretty happy life, you know. But if you married someone who is abusive, who beat you, you know, you really, really had no recourse. If you decided to divorce your husband because he was beating or raping you, you had no property, he would get guardianship of your children, you'd be shunned by society. So, you know, your happiness was sort of really dependent on how nice your husband was. And that obviously wasn't a guarantee.

John Dehlin [00:18:53] Now, this is going to sound absurd, but I'm just going to ask it anyway. I've heard people, you know, discuss slavery and sort of glorify slavery and say, well, you know, the slaves had it pretty good, believe it or not, on the plantation. Could somebody make an argument that even though women had all these restrictions, you know, overall they were still happier because they had an identity and a known place and a specific role and men really were pretty kind overall. And so in reality, even though this sounds all restrictive, that women actually had it pretty good and probably were net happier than they were today? I mean, it's an absurd question, but I'm just going to throw it out there for those who might be thinking it or at least conceiving the possibility.

Serafin [00:19:38] Yeah, it's not an argument that I would accept. I mean, I mean, certainly there were women, you know, who were happy, who had, you know, who had husbands, who were very loving and supportive, you know, so, you know, I don't want to say that, you know, every woman, you know, you know, had a miserable life, but you know, obviously there were, you know, there were really no checks to things like domestic violence and rape. You know, there were no incentives for men besides, oh, I think that's a good thing to do for them not to be engaging. You know, they wouldn't get tried in a court of law if they beat their wives. So I mean, it was, those were problems that were pretty pervasive. And I mean, if you were also, if you were a woman in the working class, you probably had a miserable life just because you were doing back breaking work 12, 14, 16 hours a day, as anyone in sort of the working class was doing at that time. So pretty much if you were in the middle to upper class, if you managed to get a husband who was nice to you, you'd be happy. But if not, then you weren't happy. And if you were in the working class, then you were doing so much work that you probably died really early or, you know, so I would say that the possibilities for happiness were a lot fewer constricted.

John Dehlin [00:21:12] So do you have, and this is putting you on the spot a bit, do you have a story or two that might sort of encapsulate or personalize, you know, the plight of women during this time and, or were there any sort of public events or situations or happenings you know, where something really horrible happened to a woman or something terrible that helped to galvanize sentiment and inertia or momentum around this first wave of feminism.

Serafin [00:21:50] I mean, there really was. I mean, I wish I knew more, you know, I wish I knew more stories of sort of, you know, this woman suffered this. But I mean, at the time, that was just the status quo. I mean, and there weren't really any. This horrible thing happened to this woman. And so therefore, you know, first wave feminism, you know, took off. It took from the women's rights convention in 1848, you know, the 19th Amendment, which was the amendment that gave women the right to vote, which sort of, you know, and getting the right to vote became sort of the primary focus of the first wave. It took, you know, over 70 years for that to happen. I mean, it. And, you know, during those 70 years, people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were, you know, traveling around the country constantly and publishing and, you know, demonstrating and, you know, there were. It was just constantly, constantly going on, and it still took 70, you know, 72 years for them, for them to get the right to vote. So.

John Dehlin [00:23:06] So what can you tell us about, you know, what led to it? Was it just a long slog?

Serafin [00:23:13] Yeah, it was really just a long slog. I mean, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, both of them died right around the turn of the century, but from about 1850 to really, when they died, did a number of things. I mean, especially Susan B. Anthony, because she was not married. She went around the country and sort of did a bunch of lectures and sort of lectured groups of communities about the women's rights movement and what they were pushing for. And Susan B. Anthony initially sort of did a lot of writing, and she ended up lecturing a little bit later in her life. And what's really interesting is that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both died before the 19th Amendment was passed. So the thing that they were working the hardest for, they never saw. They died. I mean, one thing. I mean, one of the stories as I was reviewing this information that kind of made me really sad is when actually when the 15th Amendment was passed in the 1860s that gave black men the right to vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pushed for the language of that amendment to include women. I mean, they really were like, you know, we need to include women in this. You know, not only should we allow, you know, black men to vote, but we should allow women to vote, and wouldn't that be great? And they. And you know, they thought that they would be able to persuade people because of how involved they had been in the abolitionist movement. And they were basically told by their fellow abolitionists, you know, it's not time yet. You need to wait. This is the. You know, and they felt very, very betrayed and, you know, were kind of disheartened for a while. I mean, and.

John Dehlin [00:25:23] Yeah, yeah. So at some point, they won out and women received the right to vote. Was it Woodrow Wilson who was president?

Serafin [00:25:33] Yeah, it was Woodrow Wilson. And it was. I mean, it was kind of a combination. There were a combination of things. There were some. There were a couple of different sort of. I don't know if factions is quite the right word, but there was sort of a more radical arm of the women's right movement. And those are the. If you've ever heard stories about sort of the kind of the more radical suffragists, these were the people who were chaining themselves to the White House fence and getting arrested. And this happened during Wilford Woodruff's presidency. They actually got arrested because he was just having a hard time with them chaining themselves to the White House fence every day. I mean, they did it every day.

John Dehlin [00:26:16] Wow.

Serafin [00:26:17] Yeah. And at this point, Wilford Woodruff was sort of under.

John Dehlin [00:26:25] Oh, wait, what's their Wilford Woodruff? Did I say Wilford Woodruff?

Serafin [00:26:32] I probably did. I get all the W people.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] I'm sure I. I'm sure I'm the one who said it first.

Serafin [00:26:38] Anyway, no Woodrow Wilson.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] This is Mormon stories, you know.

Serafin [00:26:45] Yeah, yeah, we gotta get those Mormons in there somehow.

John Dehlin [00:26:48] Some WW guy. What do you say?

Serafin [00:26:50] Yeah, Woodrow Wilson. And actually what ended up changing his mind was a woman who was not a member of kind of this radical arm, but there is a woman who was part of sort of the people who were trying to get it through persuasion and talking to the leaders. And she went into his office and said, you know, this really needs to happen, and finally persuaded him. But at that point, the Senate, like that week, I think it was within the next few days, the Senate voted against it. And I think that was 1918 or 1919. And so they ended up having to wait until after the war was over. And they actually did it through ratification in a bunch of various states.

John Dehlin [00:27:42] So victory women were able to vote.

Serafin [00:27:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] So life got better, right?

Serafin [00:27:48] No.

John Dehlin [00:27:49] Oh, okay.

Serafin [00:27:50] I mean, what really happened? Because, I mean, and people looking back on first wave feminism, I mean, the main critique of first wave feminism is, yeah, those first wave feminists worked really hard, and they were really inspirational and did a lot of great things. But first wave feminists sort of pinned their hopes on the fact that, you know, if women could vote, they would go and, you know, it would change society and it would change all these other things because women would have a voice in politics. And that really didn't end up happening. It didn't. Women having the right to vote really didn't change a lot of the other sort of fundamental problems in society. Those took a lot longer. And, you know, that's one of the things that has, you know, changed in sort of later waves of feminism is sort of a greater attention to more issues, kind of a recognition that, hey, we shouldn't be just focused on one issue. We need to be focused on a bunch of different issues.

John Dehlin [00:28:55] A multi front battle.

Serafin [00:28:57] Yeah, a multi front battle.

Second Wave Feminism and Its Impact

John Dehlin [00:28:59] Do you have a sense for whether there were any Jim Crow like laws that even though the women technically were allowed to vote, that still did all sorts of things to keep them from being able to do so? Do you have a sense of that?

Serafin [00:29:09] I don't think so. I mean, obviously I'm not in history and I'm, you know, I have a familiarity with this history, but not a detailed familiarity with it.

John Dehlin [00:29:19] No, that's good.

Serafin [00:29:21] I don't think so, but I may be wrong.

John Dehlin [00:29:24] So how did we move to a second wave feminism and what was that all about?

Serafin [00:29:29] Well, second wave feminism, I mean, the origins of second wave feminism started sort of post World War II. And what you have is you have a bunch of women. During World War II, women sort of had a lot of. There was sort of increased freedom for women in society in the sense that, you know, half of the men in the country were fighting the war in Europe. And they had a lot of women who were actually, you know, going to work in families and, you know, members of unions and women who were sort of primarily taking care of their families at home. And women sort of had a greater sense of sort of power and influence. And what happened was that after the war, the men came home, they basically said, women, all of you who are working need to quit your job so that these men who are coming home can have jobs. And that's sort of when we get sort of the 50s, 1950s, leave it to Beaver family, where, you know, the father works and the mother stays home and raises the children. And, you know, women's lives were sort of very, very constrained to this really narrow domestic ideal. And, you know, you stayed home, you took care of your children and did nothing else.

John Dehlin [00:30:54] And many of them had Had a taste of professional life.

Serafin [00:30:59] Exactly. And many of these women had. Had a taste of professional life. And so there were many women who were sort of dissatisfied with it. And this sort of increased as women got into the 60s. A lot of second wave feminists just kind of like in the first wave, a lot of the women in the women's rights movement came from the abolitionist movement. A lot of women in the second wave movement came from various activist movements from the 60s. So, you know, you have sort of the peace. You know, you have sort of the civil rights movement. You know, a lot of. A lot of minority feminists were involved in organizing in the civil rights movement, for example. And so you had. You had women who were sort of part of these. These activists, activist groups and these women who are feeling sort of dissatisfied with this constrained domestic ideal. And kind of in the 60s and 70s, you know, women started saying, hey, look, we're not satisfied with this narrow sphere that we've been given.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] So. Yeah, so why wasn't June Cleaver happy? Why wasn't, you know, Harriet of Ozzy and Harriet happy? I mean, they had the apron, they had the white picket fence, they had the toaster. You know, they had the appliances. Their husband had a good, steady job where he'd get good retirement, beautiful kids. What's not to like?

Serafin [00:32:35] Well, I mean. I mean, you know, these women basically lost, you know, their identity was only in, you know, they only had an identity in relationship to their family, you know, so if they had, you know, loved, you know. Well, I think a lot of women sort of felt unfulfilled. Not that they're. Not that their families. Not that they didn't love their families or care about their families or, you know, and that they were saying, domestic life is bad. I hate it. But they felt like there was something missing. You know, they wanted to have goals that they could achieve. You know, there were things that they were passionate about that they maybe couldn't pursue. And they were just, you know, they felt very constrained that, you know, you have to be this way and no other way, you. You can't pursue these other goals, you know, and there were still a lot of inequalities, you know, in society at that point, too. I mean, there were, you know, a lot of, you know, things had started to change because of first wave feminism. But, you know, women. Women were still, you know, more limited in terms of education, ability to work, you know, things like that.

John Dehlin [00:34:07] Yeah. So all the injustices, a lot of the injustices of the late 1800s, early 1900s weren't remedied. And there was probably a lot of letdown. People feeling like, hey, we were supposed to have made progress and we haven't. They got a taste of work and then they were removed from it. And probably the commercialism and the materialism and the, you know, the expansion of subdivisions, et cetera, probably just, you know, made people feel a little bit empty. Made them feel a little bit empty.

Serafin [00:34:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:39] Like there was a little bit more. So you have outlined a few passages from an essay that you thought that you mentioned you might read to sort of describe what it was like.

Serafin [00:34:53] Yeah, there's this really great essay. It's. The essay is called A Day Without Feminism. And it was published in a book called Young Women Feminism in the Future by Jennifer Baumgartner and Amy Richards. And this is actually a book about third wave feminism. But they sort of tell the story of what women's lives were like sort of before the changes of second wave feminism. So I thought I'd. It's a really interesting essay and I thought people would be interested in hearing some passages.

John Dehlin [00:35:30] Please, please.

Serafin [00:35:32] So they start out and they say, imagine for a day it's still 1970, and women have only the rights they had then. What is it like to be female? So they start out. Babies born on this day are automatically given their father's name. If no father is listed, illegitimate is likely to be typed on the birth certificate. There are virtually no childcare centers, so all preschool children are in the hands of their mothers, a babysitter or an expensive nursery school. In high school, the principal is a man. Girls have physical education class and play half court basketball. But not soccer, track or cross country. Nor do they have any varsity sports team. The only prestigious physical activity for girls is cheerleading or being a drum majorette. Most girls don't take calculus or physics. They plan the dances and decorate the gym. Even when girls get better grades than their male counterparts, they are half as likely to qualify for a National Merit scholarship. Because many of the test questions favor boys. Standardized tests refer to males and male experiences much more to females than their experiences. If a girl, quote, gets herself pregnant, she loses her membership in the National Honor Society, which is still true today, and is expelled. The Miss America pageant is the biggest source of scholarship money for women. Women can't be students at Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, West Point, Boston College, or the Citadel, among other all male institutions. Women's colleges are referred to as girls schools. There are no take back the night marches to protest women's lack of safety after dark. But that's okay because college girls aren't allowed out much after dark anyway. Curfew is likely to be midnight on Saturday and 9 or 10pm the rest of the week. Guys get to stay out as late as they want. Women tend to major in teaching home economics, English or maybe a language, a good skill for translating someone else's words. Only 44% of women are employed outside of the home and those women make on average 52 cents to the dollar earned by males. Want ads are segregated into Help Wanted Male and Help Wanted female. The female side is preponderantly for secretaries, domestic workers and other low wage service jobs. So if you're a female lawyer, you must look under help wanted Male. There are female doctors, but 20 states have only five female gynecologists or fewer. Women workers can be fired or demoted for being pregnant, especially if they are teachers. If a boss demands sex, refers to his female employee exclusively as baby, or says he won't pay her unless she gives him a blowjob, she either has to quit or succumb. No pun intended. Women can't be airline pilots. Flight attendants are stewardesses, waitresses in the sky, and necessarily female. See, Except among the very poor or in very rural areas. Babies are born in hospitals, there are no certified midwives, and women are knocked out during birth. Most likely they are also strapped down and lying down, made to have the baby against gravity for the doctor's convenience if he has a schedule to keep. The likelihood of a caesarean is also very high. The women's health movement doesn't exist. If a woman goes under the knife to see if she has breast cancer, the surgeon won't wake her up to consult about her options before performing a Halsted mastectomy, a disfiguring radical procedure in which the breast, the muscle wall and the nodes under the arm right down to the bone are removed. She'll just wake up and find that the choice has been made for her. So those are some passages from the.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] So how exactly does one get herself pregnant?

Serafin [00:39:32] Well, I think there's another person involved, but at this point in time, she was the one that was getting herself pregnant. That's how it was talked about.

John Dehlin [00:39:46] Well, that's, you know, that's an excellent essay. That really does drive it home and help illustrate how things were. Now let's just ask the same question we asked before. You know, was it really that bad?

Serafin [00:39:59] Yeah, I mean, it really was. I mean, certainly, you know, as, you know, as with the first wave feminist, there were places, you know, there were probably Cities and places in the country where it was better or worse. But, you know, this is very typical. This is sort of a typical experience. You know, you read about, you know, the women just sort of waking up to find that this radical medical procedure has been done on her. And certainly that wasn't done. I'm sure it wasn't done in all cases, but it happened very, you know, very frequently. I mean, there were minority women at this point in time. One of the things that I actually learned teaching women's studies, there were minority women, even up into, you know, even up to the 60s and 70s, who would go into the doctor for just, you know, routine checkups and medical, you know, or other. Other medical procedures and would. They would. The doctors would sterilize them without the women's knowledge? Oh, yeah. It's just. I found out about this and was just horrified that this was going on. You know, these women would be sterilized without even being told what was going on.

John Dehlin [00:41:25] They're just. They're kind of objects. Women are kind of objectified to a

Serafin [00:41:30] high degree, very much.

John Dehlin [00:41:33] So what did second wave feminists do? How did they make progress?

Serafin [00:41:39] Well, second wave feminists looked at sort of, sort of a lot, you know, a lot of the issues that. That. That essay points. You know, obviously you. When I read that essay, you know, when I read it, you say, oh, you know, things are different today. That's not the case. And, you know, a lot of those things have changed. And that's really, to a large extent, because of second wave feminists. Second wave feminists really focused on a lot of sort of institutional changes. They really pushed women who wanted to work to go into the workforce. They pushed for, you know, equal pay and equal opportunity in the workforce. They pushed. One of the things that was passed by that passed during second wave feminism was Title ix, which for most people, when they hear Title ix, they think of sports in college. Like, you know, if there's a men's, you know, football team, there has to be a women's softball team or whatever. But Title IX is actually a really. It guarantees educational equality for men and women across the spectrum. Like, it's not just about sports. It's about having equal opportunity in higher education. And Title IX was passed because of efforts by second wave feminists. Obviously, women's health care is vastly better. You know, women are less. To a much less extent, you know, are taken advantage of in doctors offices. They have a lot more say in the medical procedures. You know, women these days, when they give birth, can choose how they want to give birth, and whether they want pain medication or not, how they want to, whether they want to lie down or squat or whatever, women have a lot more say in their health decisions. And additionally, doctors used to not do research, medical research on women and women's health concerns. So there was a lot that was just unknown about the various. The fact that women, when they have heart disease, have very different symptoms than men do. And for a long time that wasn't acknowledged and women's heart disease wasn't even studied. And because of second wave feminism, there's a lot more research being done into the medical issues that women face. You know, another big thing that the second wave feminists did were things like domestic violence and rape became issues that people actually talked about and became things that became, you know, there were laws where those were, you know, against the law and people would get in trouble for doing that kind of thing. I mean, it was really second wave feminists that sort of pushed, you know, pushed for action on domestic violence and rape and, you know, started shelters for women who had to leave situations, you know, where they were getting battered by husbands. So, I mean, that's just a handful. I mean, there are certainly more changes. But, you know, those are some of the big changes that happened because second wave feminists were sort of, you know, working on lobbying, lobbying for laws to be changed, you know, entering the workforce and demanding that they, you know, receive equal attention. You know, like I said, it was sort of, like we said, it was sort of a multi front battle.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] And was the ERA part of second wave feminism?

Serafin [00:45:43] Yes, the ERA was part of second wave feminism, which obviously did not pass. But it was one of the things that second wave feminists worked on because they thought that the Equal Rights amendment would give them, you know, when they were fighting these battles, for example, for equal pay, for equal work, if they had, you know, they would be able to use the Equal Rights Amendment to say, look, this equal rights Amendment says that, you know, says that we need to be treated equally. And they would have then a legal basis to appeal problems, you know, with unequal pay, you know, in the court system, for example. You know, that was one of the many motivations for their wanting to pass the era.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Right. So a question just occurred to me that I think will be a good segue into our third segment, which is third wave feminism. And we could talk about backlash a bit, but maybe this will lead into it. You know, when you think about the abolitionist movement, you know, we're all taught about men like Frederick Douglass who Were these high character, courageous, educated men who fought for truth and justice and helped a struggling movement achieve success. And when you think about the civil rights movement, immediately Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or Cesar Chavez sort of pop up to mind. And you think, whoa, what noble and great men these were who helped lead us. But if we were to do a little survey of who are the wonderful leaders of the women's rights, people would probably think, oh, I don't know, Betsy Ross or no one would know Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They might know Susan B. Anthony just because she had a dollar named after her a while back. And if you look at second wave feminism, I imagine people might know who

Backlash to Feminism and Third Wave Emerges

Serafin [00:48:04] they are, but they're not gonna admire.

John Dehlin [00:48:06] Yeah, it's like, who is it Patricia Ireland? Who would have been the figure?

Serafin [00:48:09] Gloria Steiner. Steiner and Danny Friedan are two of the big names. And, you know, you say those names

John Dehlin [00:48:14] and people are like, yeah, it's like sneering derision.

Serafin [00:48:18] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:48:19] So they're either unknown or derided. So was there backlash from first and second wave feminism? And if so, how do we explain the fact that we're not only educated about the leaders of the movement, but honor them and respect them instead of either not know them or sneer at them? What happened?

Serafin [00:48:40] Well, there definitely was backlash.

John Dehlin [00:48:42] And I would say this is true among women. I would say among women, what I just said would be as true as among men.

Serafin [00:48:48] Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. There was a huge amount of backlash. And this. I mean, this happened really strongly in the 80s. A really good book to read on this phenomenon is a book by Susan Faludi, which is actually called Backlash. And what happened in the 80s is that a lot of changes had been made by the 80s. What happened was that Reagan came into power, and so kind of there was kind of a more conservative regime, you know, in charge of the country that were a little bit suspicious of the feminists, because the feminists are the people who are sort of saying, we need change, we need change. We need to push for change. You know, and that makes a lot of people uneasy. And, you know, especially, you know, conservatives tend to like the status quo and want things to sort of stay the same. And so, you know, there's conservatives who are sort of in power in the country, and they sort of started resisting the changes that the feminists were trying to push for. You know, for example, the ERA wasn't passed. There was an Office of Domestic Violence which opened in, like, 1979, and it was closed two years later. But I think what's Even more interesting than sort of, sort of this resistance to sort of the institutional changes is the way that feminism started getting talked about in the 1980s. I mean, up to that point, people were sort of suspicious of the feminists because they were very radical. But I think it was really in the 80s that that feminism sort of got to be sort of the bad word that it is today. And what really ended up happening was that people in the 80s started saying, women aren't any happier. You know, we've had this women's rights movement and Lalala, you know, things have changed, things are great and women aren't any happier. You know, we have women who are going to work and then coming home to their children and their completely stressed out. And what ended up happening was that a lot of people blamed the feminists. They sort of said, you know, they sort of blamed women's unhappiness on the fact that women now had more choices and more equality and more freedom, which was just crazy. But that's really. There was a large. There were a lot of people in the 80s who were making that argument. But I mean, if you really go back and look, a lot of these women were unhappy because things weren't. Yes, there had been changes, but there were still a lot of things that hadn't changed. I mean, for example, women who went into the workforce who started working, for the most part their husbands would not do any of the domestic work at home because they had not ever been expected to do so. These women would go and work a part time job or a full time job and then they'd have to come home and do all of the housework. And of course, a woman having to work during the day and then coming home and doing all of the housework and taking care of the children without a whole lot of help from her husband, she's going to be unhappy. But feminists sort of got blamed for this. And I think it's really at this point that feminism sort of, you know, people were probably, I'm sure, were suspicious of the feminists before then. But feminism got, I think, wrongly criticized for a lot of things and got turned into a. Got blamed for a lot of things that it shouldn't have gotten blamed for. You know, which is not to say it's a perfect movement and it had no flaws.

John Dehlin [00:53:06] So let's play, let's play devil's advocate for a second now. I'll sort of, I'll put on my LDS cloak and I'll say, you know, the families, families are the most important thing on the planet. No success can compensate for failure in the home. Maybe studies have been done that show that if a parent stays home and is able to nurture and take care of the kids, that the kids do better. Everyone knows about dual income families where the kids are raised in daycare, get diseases, are mistreated by their daycare handlers. Everyone's stressed out, women feel more independent. And so maybe there's more promiscuity because they have more exposure to the men. Maybe there's more divorce because women don't feel as dependent on the men. Or maybe the men lose their self esteem because they say, what's my role if the women are making money? And so in the end, the family breaks down, people start having less children, the children are raised in daycare instead of in a nurturing home. Women aren't as happy, maybe anyway. And then if you even look at just the status of women, I have to be honest, and I'm not advocating this position. I just want you to speak to the people who might be having these thoughts, but I'm going to advocate for them. And then as ancillary, I've met a lot of women who worked into their late 30s or 40s following the feminist sort of dream, but then they realized that work wasn't what they thought it was. That, that the fulfillment that they thought they were going to achieve in the workplace, they didn't achieve. And then they tried to have kids, but they tried to have it late and they weren't able to have kids, you know, and they ended up, you know, let's just be, just be irresponsible and say they ended up spinsters and sad and lonely, wondering why did I try and become a man and sell out my womanhood and become, you know, more like men when the, when the fulfillment really was in, in sort of the domestic traditional household. So those are, those are sort of two questions. There's probably 15 questions, but it's, you know, how would you respond to those, those two strains of thought?

Serafin [00:55:20] Well, I mean, I would say that I do think, I mean, I do think that second wave feminism really did push a lot of women to go into the workforce. And there were women who ended up there who ended up being unhappy about it. But, you know, feminism has changed since then. You know, if you talk to any feminist today, you know, feminists will say, you know, feminists, all of the feminists I know will talk about the respect that we need to have for the choices that women make in terms of their family and that we need, you know, for women who choose to stay at home and, you know, raise their children, that needs to be something that is valued. Because, I mean, one of the things that feminism, one of the arguments that feminism does make is that work that has been sort of traditionally, women's work is something that hasn't been valued. You know, women have traditionally been the ones staying at home and taking care of the children. And that's something that, you know, women really haven't gotten a lot of recognition for. And, you know, most of the feminists I know and that I encounter and talk with will say, you know, yeah, we need to look at this issue of motherhood and valuing the work that women do in their daily lives. So I think, you know, feminism has really changed since second wave. Changed since the second wave. And I think second wave feminism, you know, while there were some women who got out into the workforce and maybe were unhappy and unfulfilled, there were a lot of women who were being. Who really wanted that, who really wanted to pursue a job or like me, wanted to pursue, you know, a graduate education and were held back because their families thought that wasn't proper for women to do. And second way feminism really made it possible for the women who want to do those kinds of things for that to be more broadly accepted. So I think that's a good thing. And I, you know, I, you know,

John Dehlin [00:57:43] it sounds like it's all about liberty and freedom, basically. And options.

Serafin [00:57:47] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:48] And just because. Just because options are available doesn't mean that the traditional families or traditional roles even have to be eroded. It's just nice that there be a choice so that, for example, if a woman can't have kids or can't get married or doesn't want to get married or just happens to really value other options, that those options are available as a core value of freedom.

Serafin [00:58:17] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:58:18] Liberty.

Serafin [00:58:19] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:58:20] And it's so silly that we go, okay, yeah, I guess women do deserve liberty and freedom. Right. But I mean, that's kind of what someone might have to arrive at. Yeah, I guess they do deserve that right to choose, don't they?

Serafin [00:58:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:58:36] So anyway, so what else is third wave feminism about?

Serafin [00:58:42] Well, third wave feminism, I mean, that's sort of one of the focuses of third wave feminism is looking back at sort of the limits of second wave feminism and saying, you know, hey, look, you know, the second wave feminists said this, you know, kind of like they pushed women into the workforce maybe a little too strongly. But, you know, we want to sort of value all the choices that women make. One of the things that third wave feminism is also really focused on is is kind of cultural issues, like issues about, like, how women are represented in the media in really problematic ways. That's been a huge focus of third wave feminism. You know, the, you know, advertising and, you know, how women are sort of represented as really thin and as objects. And, you know, third wave feminists are really interested in that. And trying to look the way we're representing women in the media is a huge problem. And, you know, related issues like women and eating disorders that have sort of risen as kind of related to these media issues has been an increasing focus of third wave feminism. And third wave feminism is also still working on a lot of the goals of second wave feminism. You know, women still aren't, you know, equally represented in the workforce. You know, we still haven't had a woman president, so there's still a lot of the goals of second, you know, you know, women are still working to eliminate domestic violence and rape. You know, so there are a lot of goals of second wave feminism that third wave feminists are still working on.

Global Progress and Women in Leadership

John Dehlin [01:00:31] You mentioned a woman president in the United States. I think a lot of Americans might pat themselves on the back to say they're quite progressive when it comes to social or cultural things, but There are probably 10 or 15 countries that have had female heads of state, including Israel, you know, India, Pakistan, Great Britain.

Serafin [01:00:54] Yeah, I mean, there are countries. I mean, you've named a few. Like, you know, there are countries like that. In terms of social progressiveness, we tend to think, hey, in the United States, we're ahead of them. But yet these other countries have had a female president or prime minister. And it's kind of telling.

John Dehlin [01:01:18] I think we even like to say that Muslims don't treat women well. But I think Muslims have had more than five female heads of state in countries predominately Muslim. That was a quote that I heard

Serafin [01:01:32] the other day that I don't know the number. I mean, I know that Indonesia either currently has a female president or just had. I don't know the exact statistics either, but.

John Dehlin [01:01:45] So you teach women's studies. You probably have a. I should say one thing first. I wonder if the third wave feminists feel a little bit disheartened because as you look at the way culture in the United States has turned. You look at the Britney Spears and the Paris Hilton phenomenon, you look at the prevalence of pornography now, of porn stars sort of almost becoming mainstream. Eating disorders are rampant. Magazine covers are more scantily clad and objectifying than ever. I'm not sure they're winning that battle.

Serafin [01:02:28] I'm not sure they are either. But I mean, one thing I do love about feminism is one of the mottos of second wave feminism is the personal is political. So one thing that second wave feminism did and that third wave feminism has sort of continued is, you know, a lot of these things, like changing the media seems like this huge, impossible goal. And you know, we don't really seem to be making a whole lot of progress. But you know, in our daily interactions, in the way that we interact with people, every day we have interactions with people or things that happen to us that, where we can be, we can stand up for sort of feminist values. You know, if, you know, if someone's getting sexually harassed at work, people can either if you're being harassed or someone, you know is being harassed standing up and saying this is not acceptable and you know, trying to ensure that this person is punished or you know, just on a small day to day basis, you can have small victories. And I think that's one way that certainly I have, you know, don't get disheartened. And I think feminists in general don't just get disheartened because, you know, when they have interactions where they, you know, where they try and make a small change in their life and they see something happen, they think, okay, you know, there are these big, huge things that we're trying to do that may be overwhelming, but I can affect things on a small scale. And that's, that's activism and that's making change.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] Yeah.

Serafin [01:04:13] And that's actually one of the things that I, we talk about in my, in our women's studies classes is because, you know, we have a lot of students who come in and one of my favorite lines is like, you get a lot of students who are doing the I'm not a feminist, but.

John Dehlin [01:04:31] And then what do they say? What do they say after the but,

Serafin [01:04:34] But I'm for women's equality. But I, but I think women should have more rights. But I think these things that feminists are fighting for are good.

John Dehlin [01:04:48] Yeah.

Serafin [01:04:48] And you know, even, even if students don't, you know, we, I'm okay if students don't walk out of, out of women's studies classes and say, yes, I'm a feminist and I'm gonna, you know, go be a feminist. But if the students come out of the class and say, you know what, I think domestic violence is a bad thing and I'm going to go volunteer at a local shelter in order to support these women who are there. Or if they say just things like that, even if they don't identify as a feminist, then I feel like they're going to make the world a better place for women. That's good. And that's one of the things we really talk about in the classes. We spend a lot of time sort of talking about a broad range of issues and what's going on. And, you know, the students do get disheartened sometimes, you know, because we talk about things like rape and eating disorders. And there are some weeks where you just sort of feel the energy sort of. Of the sort deflating out of the class as they talk about these really awful things. And, you know, we constantly have to say, okay, now what can we do about this? What small change can we go make in our own life to sort of address these issues?

John Dehlin [01:06:12] So what are some things that our audience can do to help make some of those small steps? Do you have any recommendations or tips?

Serafin [01:06:22] Well, you know, it's what I mean, what I would tell people to do is, you know, find. Find and find issues that are important to you. And, you know, if it's, you know, if it's like, you know, the example I gave before, you know, if domestic violence is something that you're saying, you know, if you want to say, you know, this is unacceptable, you know, you can go work at a volunteer. You can go volunteer, you know, at a shelter, small things like that. But, you know, it can just be in, you know, it can just be in terms of, you know, educating people, you know, on women's issues.

John Dehlin [01:07:09] Or maybe not. Maybe not going to the movies or watching the TV shows, the. That objectify women.

Serafin [01:07:19] Yeah, exactly. Or women who are mothers, for example, can talk to their daughters about the problems in the media. And obviously we critique the media as Mormons in terms of there's a lot of promiscuity and stuff like that, but also having conversations with their daughters about. About how this media imagery makes women feel and why that's a problem, and trying to help their daughters understand that their worth is not determined by how they look. I mean, that's a great feminist thing to do.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] So maybe watch your discourse at home. Maybe, you know, don't focus on shopping with your daughters and that they look cute all the time and that they make themselves look pretty for the boys. Don't always comment about whether someone's fat or heavy or not that cute, because it sends a message to the kids that that's where their value lies as well.

Serafin [01:08:30] Exactly. And by, you know, you can, you know, encouraging, encouraging daughters or nieces or, or whoever to see their value not in what they look like, but in doing well in school or being passionate about art or. The person that they are. I mean, that's one thing that's great about the gospel, is that we recognize that we're children of God and that's where our value comes from. From not from these sort of, you know, how we look. But I still think that even, even though we know that, you know, we sort of know who we are, we still get caught up in, you know, I have to go to church and I have to look a certain way and I have to, you know, you know, appear, you know, you know, women, you know, women in the church still worry about their weight and diet and, and make their daughters anxious about how they look. And, you know, we still face those problems. And, you know, that's, you know, addressing those things is something that is a feminist thing to do.

John Dehlin [01:09:45] So this has been wonderful. I appreciate you taking the time. I thought of a question that we might close with. We'll talk about this in the series to come. But since I have you here, talk a little bit about maybe what you love about being a woman in the LDS Church and what has been really reaffirming or faith promoting or making you feel really good about your church affiliation and being a woman, then if you have maybe times when you struggle or things that, that grate on your nerves at times, what do you do? Or what are some coping mechanisms you use in the hard times to keep a chin up and to keep the perspective and the end goal in sight?

Being a Woman in the LDS Church Today

Serafin [01:10:41] Okay, well, being a woman in the church, this is actually something that I've struggled with just because in a lot of ways I sort of haven't fit the norm. I've always been a little bit strange. You know, I wanted to go to school and get a graduate degree when all, you know, all my friends were sort of talking about going to CYU and getting married. I was like, I want to go to, you know, Harvard or whatever to get this great degree. And so, I mean, I think what I'd have to say about being a woman in the church is a lot of my positive experiences of the church are just sort of probably less about being a woman and just more about positive experiences in the church. You know, realizing, you know, the, a lot of the teaching, you know, realizing that I am a child of God and that that's affirming and it's not necessarily about being a woman. But it, you know, it is about being a child of God. And so I think a lot of my positive experiences in the church are

John Dehlin [01:12:00] probably more gender neutral.

Serafin [01:12:03] Probably more gender neutral than they are than they are today. Strictly, strictly gendered experiences. No, I mean, I have certainly, you know, met fellow. I have met fellow women in the church. You know, especially I. When I was a. When I was an undergrad and sort of going through my crisis. You know, I met, you know, other women who are sort of pursuing graduate degrees who were really inspirational to me, and I was able to really get to know them and talk to them. And the way our church is structured, you know, there's Relief Society where you can. And visiting teaching where you can sort of associate with women. And I was able to get to know these women a little better. So that was a positive experience. But by far, it's sort of been more of a gender neutral. A gender neutral, positive experience. As for how I deal with frustration, I mean, when it comes to dealing with frustrations rooted in the church, a lot of it just sort of goes back to my faith in. And my relationship with God. You know, this is. These are issues that I really struggle with a lot, as I'm sure probably will come up in later episodes. There is a lot of tension between Mormonism and feminism that just, you know, even though I think they can be compatible, there is sort of an inherent tension there that I don't know will ever go away. And it's a struggle to sort of reconcile those things. But things being, you know, this is going to happen, or any revelatory answers that have answered my questions. But I have found a certain amount of peace from doing that. When it comes to sort of more broadly, when it comes to sort of getting discouraged about women's issues at large, when I see the media and when I see things like women who have to deal with things like domestic violence and rape and feeling overwhelmed by all of these big issues that are changing only very slowly, I really. I go back to trying to focus again on sort of the small changes that I see in my own life and the small changes that I can sort of enact. And I really found a lot of fulfillment from actually teaching women's studies, you know, talking to students and having them, you know, get excited about the changes that they can make and see them understand about how to better women's lives and, you know, understand how to do that better. That gives me a lot of fulfillment, too.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] When you think about any tension that there might be between feminism in the church, you could probably make a pretty good argument that your strain or your approach to feminism is 100% gospel or even Christ compatible. Is that true?

Serafin [01:15:28] Yeah, it's definitely Christ compatible. But I mean, feminism pushes for social changes, you know. You know, a lot of feminists look at the LDS Church and say, this is a patriarchal organization. The men are in charge, the women don't have any voice. And while I may not necessarily agree with all feminist critiques of the church, I do think that there are, you know, inequalities in the church that we haven't really fully addressed. And I don't know what the answers to that are, but there are ways in which I have struggled in the church. And so I think that, you know, I think that feminism can be compatible with the gospel, but I think that a lot of times feminists want changes that kind of more traditional Mormons are going to be like, ah, those are not changes that we want to have made. And feminists in the church are going to have to kind of negotiate that and figure out how to deal with that.

Feminist Role Models Within the Church

John Dehlin [01:16:40] Do you have any, just to close, do you have any positive role models for feminism in the church at all? Scholars or figureheads or leaders? Are there any public females in the church that you feel like really represent your beliefs and thoughts? Well,

Serafin [01:17:03] I really like Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and I really like the way in which she sort of managed to. I mean, she's definitely a feminist and not, you know, in a, you know, you know, we need to work for feminist goals. We need to eliminate inequality. And there's a certain way in which she's dissatisfied with the church, but at the same time, she's really trying to combine that with being a member of the church and being a faithful member and figuring out. Trying to figure out how to balance that, which is what I'm trying to do. So I would have to say her. And I've seen. I've had women kind of in my. More in my own life that I've just sort of met who are well known, who have been doing the same kind of thing that I'm certainly inspired by.

John Dehlin [01:18:00] Any good blogs or websites people can go to to commune.

Serafin [01:18:07] Well, aside from our blog, I mean, the biggest feminist blog is Feminist Mormon Housewives. It's a huge. There are lots of. There's lots of people there. And, you know, if you're less academic and sort of, you know, you know, a lot of the bloggers, there are women who are feminists, but, you know, living the domestic life, you know, they're stay at home, mothers raising children. I mean, the person who started the blog, that's what she does. And so that's a great place to go. And the other kind of feminist blog in the blogger NaCl is exponent2.

John Dehlin [01:18:45] What's the URL for that? I put you on the spot. People can look for Exponent 2 or Women's Exponent 2 blog, and they'll find it in Google, I'm sure.

Serafin [01:18:58] Yeah, I'm sure if they went to Google and typed in Exponent 2 and blog, that it would pop up.

John Dehlin [01:19:05] Okay. Okay. Well, fantastic. Well, Serafin, I can't thank you enough for coming on Mormon Stories for sharing with us this contextual historical overview. A scaffolding. A historical scaffolding is critical for providing people with the framework that they need to start understanding their history better. And you've done a great job at providing us with that scaffolding. So again, I want to plug your blog, Zelophe Hadz. That's Z E L O P H E H A D S daughters dot com.

Serafin [01:19:43] Wow, that's really great.

John Dehlin [01:19:46] I'm looking at a piece of paper.

Serafin [01:19:48] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:19:49] But Serafin, thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories and congratulations and good luck to you in your studies and in your advocacy for equality and goodness for women.

Serafin [01:20:03] Well, thank you for allowing me to do this. I appreciated the chance to talk about these issues.

John Dehlin [01:20:11] Thank you. Take care.

Guest [01:20:13] Okay, thanks again for joining us on Mormon Stories podcast. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. To comment on this episode or on any of our past episodes, please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com or visit us on the blog Mormon MormonStories.org we'd also like to take the time to thank my daughter Anna for providing us with the bumper music. Thanks again for joining us, and we hope to speak again with you soon.

Serafin [01:20:54] Sa.

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