Sexy Healthy Wealthy

One thing that always drove me *crazy* growing up in Utah was that I was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning, for the rest of my life,  just because I have a vagina.  That’s it.  For no other reason.  Because I truly believed in this–that being a wife and mother and cooking and cleaning were my sole purposes in life–if I was not able to either cook or clean I would suffer a supreme meltdown of ridiculous proportions.  Once I made a recipe that literally only had 3 ingredients–graham crackers, butter, peanut butter and powdered sugar.  Wait-that’s 4.  I’m not good at accounting either….anyway- I blew it.  I doubled the butter.  My boyfriend at the time had to witness my realization that I was *never* going to be able to get this down–and then WHAT?!  I am worthless.  As a woman, I am meaningless.  There is nothing else.  There is nothing else to expect from me.  If I can’t even do THIS simple thing, there is nothing.  And I am nothing.  I ended up sobbing on the kitchen floor in a hot mess.  He broke up with me soon after that.  Huh…I just realized those 2 may be related….

Kristin from Logan, Utah wrote me the following:

“Thank you so much for your blog.  I’m an ex-Utahn, ex-mormon also.  I don’t remember how many times throughout my life I was told I was selfish, etc. for wanting basic things out of life beyond mormon marriage and children, e.g., an education, a career, and heaven forbid, marriage as an equal partner.  I had ZERO validation from my family after earning a PhD, and a JD, becoming a partner in a law firm.  I never accomplished anything until I had a child.  - Makes me rage.”

She never accomplished anything until she had a child. 

But how much better is the rest of America…or the world?  This clip is hilarous but makes me sad.  And not just because my swiffer mop misses me.

I’ve found this fascinating audio clip of an interview with Princeton University Historian Neil J Young entitled “Marriage, Law, and Society Part 1:  Marriage and the Mormons.”

He discusses Mormon’s political involvement in Prop 8, and what I found interesting is the Mormon role in defeating the ERA movement- and particularly how Mormon women were basically gleefully losing their rights as the rest of women in America were fighting for more.  Listen to how the church brilliantly defines gender roles for women.  How could women argue against that?  And don’t forget for a second who is benefitting from these roles. (Yes, I am still fired up from my rant yesterday).

I’ve always grown up knowing and believing “The Prophet will NEVER lead us astray” but I hadn’t known that this version of loyalty to the president of the church is a relatively new development.

I was going through my pictures to find the right one for this post…sorry, I couldn’t find anything related ;)  This was taken in a boutique on South Street.

If you have a few minutes, there’s some great stuff–click here.  You know you want to….