Shauna Adix Oral History Interview

Oral history interview of Shauna Adix by Marilyn Warenski about status of women in Mormon culture.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Mormon Women SHAUNA ADIX Interviewed by Marilyn Warenski on March 25, 1975 UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 307 West Second South Suite 1000 84101 Salt Lake City, Utah ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM INTERVIEWEE: Shauna Adix INTERVIEWER: Marilyn Warenski SUBJECT: Mormon Women INTERVIEW DATE March W: 25, 1975 This is an interview with Shauna M. Adix on the subject of Mormon We are at the Women's Resource Center at the University of Women. Utah in Salt Lake Warenski. City. The date is March Shauna, let's begin by having background and your education. you tell me 25, a 1975. I little bit am Marilyn about your A: I was born in Salt Lake City in 1932 to Frank Blue McLatchy and Charlotte Ulke McLathcy. My father was not LOS, my mother was, so it was one of those mixed religious experiences living in this Mormon community. I was one of five children, the second oldest, and grew up here, went to school here through high school and the university and then went on to Ohio University to get a master's degree and I'm now in the process of finishing a Ph.D. here since I've come back into higher education. finished CEdi tor's note: it in September 1976) W: Are you active A: No. I'm not. now in the Mormon Church? 3 ADIX W: Is your A: y family, your children and your husband active? are husband is not a member of the Mormon Church, so he of course is who a son I have two children, not active. 12, who surprised me when he was baptized because I didn't think he would But the bishop came over and had a conversation with want to be him and he was baptized, but he really does not like organized activity; so he had not graduated from primary or done any of those kinds of things, although he does attend MIA occasionally and the scouting program. My daughter is a sometimes at tender. If you asked her about her religious background, she would say the sort of and she is the one who is she's Mormon family conscience and when they have a lesson in Primary or Sunday School about eternal salvation, she comes home very worried that we're 1S blowing hers. W: My next question has to do with how you feel about yourself as a woman, but before we get into that, perhaps, you should explain the job that you now have, the kind of acti vi ty that you are currently involved in. A: Well, my job is as Director of the Women's Resource Center at the We're in our fourth year of the Women's University of Utah. Resource Center. I was it's first director and so one of the pioneer foremothers, I guess, if you will, which puts me very much in a full-time occupation as a feminist. In fact, one of my colleagues introduced me as the University's Resident Feminist not too long ago. You know you still can't tell with those kinds of introductions if you're being ridiculed or honored, but I choose to thank him and I went on. really are in the business here in the Women's Resource Center dealing with breaking down the sex role stereotypes within the University counseling women who are interested in making new changes. We have come, I think, over the years to the philosophy We of that we don't believe she ought to do. But a whole range of role choices to make W: or it's our role to tell any woman what think it's terribly important to provide models so that women really have realistic that we alternatives to make choices from. I'm interested to know whether Mormon Church has affected your woman. A: Well, W: Perhaps you asked me not your background in the attitudes about your role as a or first how I felt about you would like to explain myself that further. as a woman. 4 AOIX A: me talk about that because I can go back two or three I that. in my background in the church and relate really like being a woman. I haven't always. As a chlld, I was a I remember at some age, maybe 10 or 11, very chunky, big, child. when there was a younger sibling being rocked and my saying to my When I was really mother, "Gee, that looks fun, rock me next." too old to be the rockable age and she said, "Of course I will my We've li ttle ten ton truck " Well, you know that really hurt. Somehow talked about that since and she doesn't even remember it. I we didn't talk about what girls do and what boys do a lot that recall, but being a ten ton truck was absolutely the violation of I felt awkward, everything I thought was okay for girls to be. ugly, cumbersome, all kinds of things and that's my first memory about experiencing a sense of not okayness for me. Yes let plaes o have really felt a lot over the years about who I am and what I I've often said I was born in 1932, but really came together in about 1967. It took me 35 years because that ten ton truck image was with me for a long time. So what I did was to evolve a kind of life style in which I was very active, in which if I did enough things people would value, they would value me; but underneath it all was that kind of haunting suspicion that no matter how much value I seemed to achieve, it was always empty because it was contrived and if people really took a look at me I they couldn't like me, and I couldn't like myself very much. had a lot of successes because I worked very hard and I was bright and smart and pretty articulate and developed a lot of skills, but the accomplishments always seemed rather empty. I am. I recall very early, oh at about 15 or 16 in MIA a conversation with a teacher in which we were asked if we would date boys who were not Mormons and I was the only one in the class who said I I received about a 45-minute lecture about how would. wrong that was and how really not too bright because one then ran the risk of marrying outside of the church and, you know, somehow doing all the terrible things that invalidate one's future salvation. I can remember even then not wanting to go back, thinking it was so stultifying, that what was important for me could not be prescribed by that teacher or somebody else. I'm sure I was a difficult person in the class because I would speak my mind and my mind didn't usually jibe with where others were, but I attended. I did the whole Oh, yes, trip and for a long time was very active, was on stake boards and taught classes and a lot of that kind of stuff W: Your home was a very traditional father was not LOS? one except for the fact that your 5 ADIX A: my maternal grandmother, Edna Pope Taffee Ulke, lived with sense. it probably was not very ordinary in that My You know, as I look at it grandmother was a reigning matriarch. how to deal with know mother didn't having really now, I think my so she did a lot of her mother in the home with my father, Well o us activity things, outside the home, grandmother much more as a child grandmother) was there making a lot strong woman. My mother is a strong and take on her own mother, so my with us that I think was days. Consequently, I remember She than mother. my of the rules and my (my very but she won't stand up had an influence grandmother hard for my mother to deal with in those was a woman, My father was one of the most honest men I've ever met. He worked at KSL, he was told numbers of times he could rise much higher in the hierarchy at KSL if he would join the church, was asked by two presidents of the church I know of to join the church, but he liked to go hunting on Sunday. And he liked to drink coffee. And liked to have an occasional drink. He didn't think he could the church as long as he did things that were outside of the church's interest. He did not join and that was a real sorrow to my mother. he join very supportive for all of us, to be involved and he would to the programs we were a part of and he would take part in the ward beautification committee and do things he could do without having to affirm a faith, so he was really supportive that He was come way. But there was always a kind of haunting void. You'd kind of sense my mother really felt that she was somewhat disenfranchised cause she really hadn't quite done the thing right. that W: you think that non-Mormon women, Do anything A: you Mormon women, as a group, are different from elsewhere? Is there just in Utah, but perceive as unique about them? not I think for one, the Well, yes, I think there are some things. Mormon Church with it's whole range of activities involves people so totally that what happens to members, both men and women, is that they really end up not being available very often for very If you move into a significant friendships outside of the church. Mormon neighborhood and are non-Mormon, you can really feel I don't think other people (non-Mormons) do that so ostracized. much because there isn't generally as strong an enclave on a street of any other religion that is so demanding in terms of people's time. 6 ADIX There are not I do think there is that consistent reinforcement. many systems that I know of that brainwash as effectively as the If you don't do what the church says, then you run Mormon Church the risk of losing your eternal salvation and that's a very strong I think many churches, Catholicism, maybe Judaism may sanction. have some of those same kinds of holds, but in them you're not really blowing eternity in the same way as Mormonism teaches, so I I think the guilt that gets think there'a much stronger hold. engendered for not doing what those who are supposed to have the direct pipe line to the Lord say to do is really much stronger, than in many religions, at least as I hear other people talk about their experiences and their religions. W: In what way do you think that effects women aside from the fact that they feel guilt in not following the teachings of the In church. situation? A: other words, is there anything unique about their Well, I think the one thing about the Mormon Church, wi th its unpaid ministry so that their husbands are often having important positions of power within the church, creates an interesting If husbands really do their jobs in the church, they are dilemma Mormon women very often are left away a lot doing church work. much more alone to raise their children and have to support an absentee father in ways that other women do not. given the same support to do things outside of the they are doing church work themselves, and then if they are, you know, in the Relief Society or on a General Board or doing something (in the Church) that takes them out of the home, then they are sainted. I think otherwise they are made to feel that anything they do that is not fundamentally geared to supporting their husbands and their families is secondary and if anything goes wrong, then they are given or take the brunt of the responsibility for things which go amiss. They home not unless are W: That then would be A: think the system is oppressive. For people hearing this tape, I need to explain that, I guess, because I do think it is but I think it's oppressive; It oppressive systematically. occurred to me when we were doing battle for the equal rights amendment here and the church published the editorial opposing it with and all that furor arose, that it was a very logical stance for the church to take because patriarchy and are not I a kind of oppression that you perceive? do synonymous. They are antithetical. If you equality really want to have a 7 ADIX patriarchal system, then you patriarchs reign be equal. It that's what the system is like. over the those whom let can't is oppressive by its nature because W: I was about to move into your at ti tudes about the ERA and the Would Mormon Church involvement in that campaign, if you will? you like to talk about that a little bit more? A: a supporter of the Equal Rights church editorial came out I think what made me They got really angry was how smart they were politically. what they wanted without being tainted with it, without ever this is There was real our stand." confusion really saying, "Yes, about whether an unsigned editorial in the Church News is really a The most anybody would ever answer from the public church stand. information office was that what's in the Church News generally reflects the attitudes of the First Presidency, but doctrinally, unless there is a signed statement by the First Presidency, it is not considered to be an official statement of the church, so there is that great ambiguity. I think very clearly the change on the part of the legislators was a clear indication that it was taken by most people in the church as being a church stand and that's a You know if you really very hard thing to fight, it seems to me. don't want to lose credi tabili ty wi thin the church, you don't I saw many people I knew, who oppose it on the stand it takes. had been supportive of the ERA, silenced. They may not have changed their views, but they would no longer speak out in support for it. The words I used then were gagging and intimidation, which I really felt. I think the church probably has the right to do that, to protect its own system, but that is one of the reasons for me, why the system doesn't fit for me because it really doesn't allow me the personal freedom that is espoused by my having to adhere to what the church says is right for me. I think I have to be the arbiter of that in my own life. W: and was am When Amendment. I The church policies. A: definitely the talks a lot about free agency How do you feel about that then? as one of its major think the anachronism for me is that what I really think the church is all about, I could subscribe to: one's salvation and free agency to make choices hopefully But I enlightened choices. think what happens is that in the way the church announces it's and programs policies, that really isn't allowed. Free Agency may be allowed but none-the-less it inadvertently, is really circumscribed by stances and losing one's credibility if you don't I remember when a home teaching pamphlet came to agree. my home oh, this is probably five or six years ago, signed by the I the 8 ADIX who said in it that the president of the Church, President. Lee, Well, I'm not opposed church is unalterably opposed to abortion. stance that I to it, so as a member of the church, that is not p I think, in There are a lot of those instances, subcribe to. stance which the church stance may be different from an individual want to and even though you do have your free agency, if you remain credible and in tune and be given offices and seen as a think you have being a tried and .true member, I don't really leeway to state opposition or disagreement. W: You mentioned that you think the Mormon Church opposed Right Amendment on the grounds that it's a patriarchy? A: I don't know the actual W: I'm the Equal grounds. wondering if you have any other ideas about why they they did. took the stand A: to talk to Barbara Smith, not really about that, but that Barbara Smith, the president of the Relief Society, is a up. I used to direct the MIA camp for this area for a friend of mine. It seemed to me her number of years and knew her from those days. thought we could stance was that she was opposed because she the same ends without an amendment and that there might I went came accomplish Generally my be things in the amendment that would be harmful. of her feeling was that if there were anything in the sense amendment that wonl.d encourage women to leave their homes, that would really make it more attractive not to be homemakers, that They were not response could be a major threat to a family. They would support equal pay for equal willing to run that risk this point be work, credit a lot of things which might at discriminatory to women, but they really were not willing to I support anything that might encourage women out of the home. because stance a of kind understand that can certainly the sancti ty of the family and that of its being the basic unit of society is a major concern of the church. leadership working women? W: Do you think the church A: Well, if you read the pronouncement from the Church, at first My impression of the stance would glance it would look like that. be yes, they oppose women who work if they work because they want But they would certainly support the woman who works because to. her family needs the income and would want her to earn equal pay for her efforts because of her family needs. opposes 9 ADIX to acknowledge I think the church is just now really beginning of the way people that there are pluralisms wi thin it in terms failed to be li ve. Single women, for instance, have generally the santity of marriage, recognized. Everything you hear is about If you don't have any of eternal salvation, children, families. I have long felt that a those attributes you don't seem to exist. in the church was a form of life lower than an woman single women Recently, the church has begun programs for single and single men. They've had programs for widows for along time. would There have long been Christmas parties at which the bishop that recognize the widows. I think there is a growing recognition I think that widows are not all the single people of the church. which take recognition is dawning and programs are being developed The into account the di versi ty of singleness wi thin the church. So I major rhetoric, however, still revolves around the family. think people who are not involved in families are still relegated but relegated none-the-Iess to second amoeba. again maybe inadvertently, class status within the church. W: chooses to go into a profession such as a or demanding archi tecture, something, have difficulty with her Would she place in the profession. Mormon Church by making that choice? Supposing A: Well, that have I or law, girl the same difficulty I just described always had, moreover, my guess is she would much counseling against doing that that she would have to think single so Mormon a medicine would have she women have be twice as committed to pursue it the Mormon Church. she'd been medicine or offered a someone who didn't come from the one of brightest years ago, to me in absolute agony because It wasn't in marvelous graduate fellowship. remember, three or four graduates of this institution I as law, nothing came that far out, but in English leading to a Her parents were that she could have in two or three years. telling her if she accepted it that she would be too smart ever to get married and if she went away she would not be where Mormon There is a real conflict that arises from not wanting boys were. to be counted out in the social market, the human relations, on Ph.D. interpersonal relationships market, and yet one's education, one's skill, one's knowledge. wanting to enhance Matina Horner, who isn't restricted just to Mormon women. used to be a psychologist at one of the Michigan Schools (Michigan State, I think) and now is president of Radcliffe has done a iot She states that bright women are of work on the fear to succeed. are bind because mixed messages double in a given to women That 10 ADIX because I think Mormon women get a double dose of that favor of woman's position still is so very strong in Whatever else she does major role as being a wife and mother. I think a Mormon woman going into needs to be secondary to that. counteract medicine or law would really have to believe in it to receive. the pressures and the counsel against it she would generally. the Mormon Mormon women are achievers in fields other than homemaking. Do you feel that they experience a lot of conflict while achieving than other in other fields or do you think they are fulfilled more women? W: Many A: I'm not I think if you look at the history of Mormon women, sure. there have not been many women who have been more outstanding, I think of those early pioneer women, who were not only raising in while families, but often doing things to keep money coming I mean supporting their- husbands on missions someplace else. have would Mormon women had to achieve or the whole structure collapsed in the early days. like Virgina 5atir an internationally known family has been to Utah, who said to me that she thought Her concern was what she discovered here was very strong women. that if we didn't create equally strong men, we would end up with not really a generation of strong women and the whole system would because we just shift balances of power. be I think much therapist who equalized W: Yes, this is described perhaps. A: getting at the Mormon women strong women. Therein lies some what I'm very as their strong. and are husbands 50 the more are answer often been sort of paradox before, about Mormon women today very much by themselves. active in the church, they have to be to the question about whether they achieve I've met a lot of I'm not sure. or not, I think going back to what really raising their families If have fulfilled angry, who we said even are doing it because that seems to be I only option, but really don't seem to be very fulfilled. woman chooses guess the pivotal point in that must be whether a the role or how accepting she is of that role as being right for I think if women accept it and really think that's what they her. They believe ought to be doing yes, they probably are fulfilled. they really are doing the Lord's work and if you do the Lord's I think if you really work, there is no greater fulfillment. don't buy the premise, that that really is what is right, then If your basic premise is that the fulfillment would not follow. Lord has decreed what is right for people and you think you're women their who are 11 ADIX where that I f you think the Lord is, you're probably in good shape. what is right, people have some responsibility to determine then that won't work as W: Do you think the Mormon home and be homemakers? A: Yes; well it Church seems to me. encourages women to simply stay at I I think the church encourages women to be homemakers. I think think it encourages them not just simply to stay at home. there's been a recognition for a long time that women need to have their own of sense some being and I think that's probably It reflected as well as anywhere in the Relief Society program. Cultural but home Refinement, not includes training, only There is recognition that and so forth. International Lessons, home and need to enlarge your you need to do more than just be at horizons and have other outlets, but I do definitely think that the church encourages mothers to be a homemaker first. W: Yes. will and Do you have the feeling that the change it's policies toward women as A: feminist movement? in Utah in anyway? international effect women Mormon Church leadership a result of the national will that Do you think What I think is happening instead is that I wish I thought I did. the women leaders of the church from the Relief Society and Young Women's program all have seats on the National and International women their believes church the think I women. Councils of leaders are better articulators of what's happening for women than vice versa and so hope to lead, rather than follow, national trends. think my general sense, particularly after this ERA thing, is that the Church for the present time is going to try to maintain its status quo regarding women and try very hard to make our little cultural island what the world "ought to be" and sort of I don't think it can ignore a lot of what's happening else where. do that forever. My own personal belief is that the extent of the exhorations toward the rightness of the church position on women I is probably indicative of the fact that they know It seems to me there must be their holding power. in the church who are not full time homemakers. You know, we have in Utah one We also have a very nation. of indicators that life I don't about. hearing of they a are lot of losing women the highest divorce rates in suicide rate. There are a high the lot is not the idealized version we keep think the church can create the ideal 12 ADIX through exhortation, W: don't see going to anticipate Do you Church or A: No W: The way A: I don't so anything in happen soon. holding I the think it will have to but change, I that's present leadership that indicates moving into the leadership of the Mormon priesthood? women the , they are doing in the Episcopalian Chruch, and some others? Of course, I only then. I 11 be burned out by to be about 67. If you look at other I don't really think so. (Laughter) No. a long evolutionary systems, Catholicism for instance, it took tolerate time before it ever got to the point that it could an As questioning its procedures and established practice. expect time. expect that to happen in my life ' to live Institutions really pretty young. They seem to have to hold on to their a for base ethnocentric long time before they are ready to I don't think the Mormon Chruch is ready consider major changes. The line we sell is that women are equal for that kind of push I hear a lot of Mormon and exalted by supporting their husbands. because who say they wouldn't want to hold the priesthood women added that would mean fifteen more meetings each week (Laughter) on to their already too busy lives. Mormonism is still institution, are slow change to wonderful. W: It wouldn't be A: I don't think there is any W: Thank I A: you, so Shauna. great ground swell within the system. you have anything to add on this you and exploring your attitudes. Do enjoy talking with subject. I find a am asked sometimes about my membership in the church. I think the lot of women who are really angry about the church. dilemma for people who feel they are not allowed to do what other I don't feel people do, normally, or automatically, is anger. I I think I can understand why the church is where it is. angry. to agree with it, but I don't really feel that kind don't I of happen anger. I think the thing that happens in systems which generate anger is that the anger often becomes internalized until it becomes hostility and then depression to the point that people don't recognize it as anger but become turned off for reasons they can't identify. 13 AOIX It seems to me what would be much healthier would be if we could talk about how systems wi thin the church to allow people to off when they they feel rather than feeling they have to shut that is an expectation about how go in the front door because there There is no open climate for talking they're supposed to feel. I think the church has a marvelous organization and exchanging. system that would allow people to dialogue about things if anybody ever would really trust that by dialoguing they would not It seems to me that is absolutely be forced to leave or quit. what we've done in the church, whether's it's been toward women or use the word of wisdom or whatever issue. I can't tell you the number of people I've counseled, who've taken drink and then have had to kill the bottle to justify the a guilt I think the system creates a lot of guilt again probably If it could be made a inadvertently, but none the less, real. not always dictating what people ought to feel, more open system, many more people, I think, would stay, would not feel as guilty, would not feel the need either to be outside or inside justifying It would be a much stronger system because people the qui I t I would really be allowed to function in it more realistically. It may take more maturation and don't know if that can happen. and more distance down the road, but I think a lot of more time, could remain as members and/or could be more involved if people that could happen. acceptable to open up. W: If it could be A: If you could be allowed to be who and what you were without having your values or your belief questioned, if you were ever seen with a cigarette or went to work or did something that somebody in authority questions as being acceptable behavior. W: Do A: No. W: And did she understand that? A: She more you think your job would be one that is compatible with the You said you're not particularly active right now, Mormon church? but would you feel in conflict with it because of your job here? In fact, I said to Barbara I don't feel in conflict with it. Smith that I thought she and I were doing the same job only maybe working in different quarters. didn't challenge it. what we're working for church is about, really to be more actualized, fact she seemed to agree. I think is really the essence of what the helping create the possibility for people if you will, more fulfilled, to make the In here 14 ADIX be. most of their talents without dictating what that ought to a We're as interested in the Women's Resource Center in supporting that's really what she wants woman who is a housewife at home if that to do as encouraging women to go to work, but it seems to us it's really very important to give people some kind of climate in to test it and to come to a conclusion which to think about that, belongs to them. We support decisions not dictated church or a school or a parent or a husband or a child but those which emerge somehow as a composite of all those things that The real sense of a are part of what all of us work through. those being must come as a product of people having thought about issues and then integrating their own value system into something The other side of that, of course, is then to try to that fits. about by it that a this like institution an influence university to make those We can no longer say, for example, women can't choices possible. be married and have kids go into medicine because they're going to We and therefore, it isn't productive to teach them medicine. To have systems must open up the system and remove those biases. the have to personal are which got you've open, really responsibili ty for deciding what people want to do then open up institutions to make such personal choices possible of reaching reality. W: Have you the university. are active in influencing women at thought about working within the Mormon Church about these issues that in creating the kind of open dialogue and so on you speak You about? A: I directed camps for the I guess not for two or three reasons. Mormon Church for six or seven years a number of years ago and I really liked that, once you marry outside of the Mormon Church, which I you are automatically suspect and there are certain did, I will keep having conversations levels to which you cannot rise. with Barbara Smith and keep trying to tell people, I'm not angry. If it doesn't happen to fit I'm not trying to destroy the church. my need for fulfillment at the moment, that doesn't mean it's a I think to have credibility wi thin bad system for other people. the church you really have to be more part of the systems than I at this School for am I remember the last time I went to Sunday point. We were any length of time was a few years ago. iconoclusts who really wanted to talk about things as I can remember saying at one point on the question of thought of openly and population that I thought it was immoral in this day and age to be It just happened the bishop's wife encouraging large families. was there and pregnant with her eighth child and very offended at If her brand of morality is to have eight children, what I said. that's her privilege; but I wass really told that I shouldn't 15 ADIX still wanted to get all of those A t another time when there was a or early demonstraction at the University of Utah in the late 60's must be like. We were talking about what those students 70' s. think li t tle that because spirit the children church here. to me they were probably Althought I hadn't been there, it seemed No one could felt. dealing with a lot of oppression that they feel that identi fy with that and someone told me I ought not to There's no how to fell! (Laughter) way and when people tell me what I'm told to feel I feel how I feel way I can manage to feel them in, and and if they can't allow my feelings, and at least let that is not I am told instead that I have to feel some other way, a place where I want to spend my time I have to deal with how I have it feel and be the captain of my own feeling state and not I know a lot of people moni tared and ordered by somebody else. the who tell me the Mormon religion is right, it's just the way That maybe, but if it's the system works that gives problems. then I need to find a system that is that is stultifying, system I can support it for freeing me rather than stultifying for me. people for whom it is helpful, but I do think it gets stultifying for W: a lot of folks. If it were it's been a END opened up a little more. pleasure to talk with you. OF Thank THE you very much Shauna, INTERVIEW