With the Olympic spotlight on Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is choosing to stay largely in the background. Some assume that's nothing new for the women of the church, but members and experts say that assumption is just one of many myths about Mormons.
"Mormons are a conventional, established religious group," says Rodney Stark, a University of Washington sociologist who has studied the church extensively but is not a Mormon himself.
Yet the church's strong focus on family skews the general population's perception of Mormon women. "The emphasis on family life is protective of women, and some feminists would say that limits their options," Stark says.
Here are some common perceptions about Mormon women and the reality behind those perceptions.
Perception: Mormon women share their husbands with other women.
Reality: Polygamy was outlawed in 1890. The church since that ruling has conferred renegade status on polygamists like Tom Green, who is serving a five-year prison sentence and facing a felony charge of child rape because one of his wives was only 13 when he "married" her, says Terryl Givens, a University of Richmond English professor and author of "By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched A New World Religion" (Oxford University Press, $30). "One cannot endorse or condone plural marriage to be temple-worthy," says Givens, who is a Mormon. Even further, spousal abuse and negligence in child support or financial obligations to a family are grounds for excommunication, Givens says.
Emi Edgley, a 28-year-old Lombard resident and Mormon, says her husband, a medical student, is bombarded with questions about polygamy. "Those things are behind us," she says.
Nevertheless, the polygamy issue hasn't gone away. It's estimated that anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 people in polygamist situations live in Utah and other Western states, including California. The first marriage is performed legally, then ceremonies for successive wives are performed in secret and recognized by neither the church nor the state.
In Utah, Vicky Prunty, a former wife of a polygamist, is lobbying to pass a bill that would crack down on polygamists (in part by making it a third-degree felony for an adult to enter into such an arrangement with a minor.)
One of her foes is Mary Batchelor, who with two other women has published a book of positive stories about polygamy. At one time, Batchelor and Prunty were married to the same man.
Such divisiveness isn't new, Stark says. When polygamy was newly outlawed by the church, rural women complained. The average farm woman was lonely, they said, and having other wives around to share the work kept that loneliness at bay.
Perception: Mormon families are huge.
Reality: The birth rate for Mormons is 50 percent higher than the national norm, due in part to the centrality of the family in church teachings, Givens says. Mormons buck another demographic trend as well: While wealthier couples in the general population tend to have fewer children, wealthy Mormons have big families. "They can afford them," Stark notes.
Perception: Mormon women don't attend college.
Reality: "People are surprised that I have a degree and that I'm applying for law school," says Emily Lippincott, a 23-year-old Aurora woman.
Indeed, the Latter-day Saints have a long tradition of educating women. Women accounted for half of the first graduating class of Brigham Young University, founded in 1875, according to Stark. Brigham Young himself sent women back east to become doctors, and by the end of the 19th Century, almost all the women attending U.S. medical schools were from Utah, Givens says.
Emphasis on family
The point, however, is not so much education for education's sake, but to solidify the church's emphasis on the family. "By educating women, you're educating children, so the next generation will be smart," Lippincott says, adding that both her grandmothers had college educations.
Perception: Mormon women are stay-at-home moms.
Reality: Tell that to Brigitte Madrian, 35, an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the mother of two. "The biggest misconception about Mormon women is that we stay home with the kids and do what our husbands tell us to and that's our lot in life," says Madrian, who lives in Oak Park. Not so: Madrian has worked full time since finishing graduate school, taking only a few months off after the birth of her children.
For others it's a matter of choice, as it is for women who have the financial means to choose to stay home. Emi Edgley, who has a degree in business management, chooses to stay home with Ella, her 11-month-old daughter. "I had the difficult decision of continuing my career full time or taking care of the baby and I made the decision to stay at home," Edgley says. "It's a great privilege to have the ability to have childbearing and the work of family be my life's work."
Perception: Mormon women are meek and docile.
Reality: "People are stunned when they find out I'm Mormon," says Cathy Stokes, a 65-year-old health-facilities regulator for the state of Illinois. That's partly because only 1 to 2 percent of the church's membership is African-American. But also, she says, "I am not at all shy. I would like to say I'm assertive, but other people use the `A' word, aggressive."
Stokes believes the perception of women as docile comes from role models such as Marie Osmond, arguably the most visible Mormon woman on the planet. (Gladys Knight, by the way, also is Mormon.)
"There are lots of Maries, but there are lots of other women too," Stokes says.
Perception: Mormon couples don't divorce.
Reality: The divorce rate for couples married in one of the church's 100 or so temples is tiny--about 5 percent, Givens says. But couples do divorce, a situation that can prove awkward in a church that so strongly stresses family.
"There is some stigma," says Ginny Batt, a 48-year-old Glen Ellyn woman who divorced a few years after she and her husband became Mormons. "Since we're such a family-oriented church, [divorced] people can feel like they're not a part of things," she says.
Indeed, a few years back church officials realized the family emphasis was alienating unmarried members, Stark says. "They figured out adult Mormons who weren't married weren't coming to services," he says. A program for singles of all stripes--widowed, divorced and never-married--soon followed, he says.
Batt says she felt neither shunned nor ignored during her divorce. She and her sons received emotional support from their bishop, and the church's visiting teachers stopped by her house each month. "I can't say enough positive things [about the church's efforts]," Batt says. "They've been there every step of the way for me."
Relating to outside world
Perception: Mormon women are isolated from the rest of the world.
Reality: On one hand, Mormon women are encouraged to go on missions to other countries, not so much to evangelize but to do community work. "I rarely knocked on doors," says Emily Taylor, a 28-year-old Chicago woman who served an 18-month mission in Japan. (Women's missions span 18 months; men's are two years.) Instead, her group threw Halloween parties and gave English and cooking lessons, activities that usually ended with an invitation to participants' homes. "Through service, people would open up the discussion, and it was an effective tactic," Taylor says.
On the other hand, the church's women's organization, the Relief Society, exists largely for members to help each other. Although it engages in some community outreach, "we are here to make sure the needs of the women within the boundary of our congregation are cared for," says Mary Ellen Smoot, president of the Relief Society.
Madrian agrees with the perception that the church is somewhat insular. "The church has a lot of programs that require time commitments, and once you add up all that time, there isn't a lot of time for you or the [outside] community," she says. But the internal focus serves a greater good, she believes. "If you build up the church community, that benefits the community at large."