Ulrich’s claims about the power of separate spheres and the problems that often accompany attempts at male/female integration immediately captured my attention. We need to find a way to work together as full partners.”

I’m simply pointing out that a kind of integration that leaves women unrepresented in the authority structures end up with a continuing invisibility problem. I’m definitely not arguing for separate spheres and to go back to nineteenth century. “…when men and women are integrated and brought together, women tend to disappear, and that’s what happened to the Relief Society in the twentieth century. The pattern she sees in the 20th century, however, is this: In contrast, she reflects, “During a period when there was a notion of separate spheres, women… created amazing things,” discussing the temperance movement as an example and saying, “women’s voluntary activity was very powerful” in those days of separate spheres.

However, as the 20th century wore on, the Relief Society lost much of its autonomy, as male priesthood channels took over many of these endeavors.Īs Ulrich describes it, Relief Society history “from 1969 to the present was a history of the disappearance of Relief Society.” She mentions that these last forty years of Relief Society were in some ways an attempt to integrate men and women together, as they both learned from the same (androcentric) manuals, read the same (male-dominated) Church magazines, and more. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, this organization opened hospitals, published its own newspaper/magazine, developed its own curriculum, participated in promoting women’s suffrage, managed the Church’s social services program, and engaged in various economic endeavors. In her talk she documented the rise and decline of this organization, originally developed in 1842 as a parallel to the men’s priesthood quorums.

Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Harvard professor, Mormon feminist, and founding member of Exponent II, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, recently gave a talk in which she examined the history of theLDS Relief Society.

Good Wives by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich