Throughout the month of March, the BYU L. Tom Perry Library’s Special Collections hosted an exhibit celebrating 50 years of the magazine Exponent II, a non-Church sponsored newspaper for feminist members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What may seem to be a harmless historical exhibit, however, is cast in an interesting light when one realizes that President Boyd K. Packer and even Elder L. Tom Perry, the Apostle for whom this collection is named, were not in favor of the magazine’s existence nor of the strong feminist viewpoint which it supports.
To best understand what the Exponent II is, and why its celebration in the BYU Library exhibit is problematic, a look at history is in order. In 1974 a group of female members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Boston met to create a newspaper to address the “dual platforms of Mormonism and Feminism.” They named it the Exponent II after the Women’s Exponent, a periodical in Utah that existed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Things became interesting however, when in 1975 Elder L. Tom Perry traveled to Boston and asked the women to stop producing the newspaper.
Why would the First Presidency ask an Apostle to personally fly across the country just to ask some church members to stop the publication of a feminist newspaper? After all, many lauded figures in the Church’s early history like Emmeline B. Wells and Sarah Granger Kimball advocated for a number of women’s issues, from suffrage to improving the national image of polygamist wives. The answer lies in the fact that what the founders of the Exponent II wrote and believed (then and now) is distinctly different from what these women in the early Church advocated for. The Exponent II arose during the second wave of feminism, which advocated for women stepping outside of their traditional family roles, an equality of the sexes, and legal access to abortion. Many of these principles are, or if taken to an extreme can be, contradictory with the teachings of the Church that would later be enshrined in The Family: A Proclamation to the World.
Church leaders recognized the dangers of many second wave feminist beliefs and the even more dangerous third wave ideologies that would emerge. President Boyd K. Packer was quoted in 1993, saying, “Religion faces the greatest threat from three groups: feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals.” Compare this quote to the Exponent II’s tagline: “A feminist forum for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum.” There is a deeper level of irony in the fact that the Exponent II is currently being showcased and celebrated in an exhibit dedicated to the Apostle who was sent to shut the publication down. Were these church leaders right about the Exponent II being problematic? Or was this just a group of white men trying to shut down a publication that has done nothing but empower women? An analysis of Exponent II publications can help shed some light.
Upon visiting the Exponent II website, it becomes glaringly obvious that this is not an official Church publication and that there is no fear to voice frustration with Church policy and teachings. On the more tame side we have an article titled: “The Come Follow Me manual asks the wrong questions about ex-Mormon Leman Copley.” The Come Follow Me manual poses the question, “Have you ever suffered disappointment when someone you depended on didn’t keep their commitments?” in regard to Leman Copley’s leaving of the Church and denying many saints their promised homes on his farm. The Exponent II feels that this question is too judgemental and that instead we should be asking questions that will help us better empathize with those who leave the Church. Rather than focusing this week on the importance of keeping covenants, the writer of this article would have us focus on love and empathy for others. So far, this is pretty tame. One might point out that we need not throw out respect for covenants in our love for our fellow man, but what harm is there in a slightly different focus for one week’s Come Follow Me Discussion?
The blog posts and articles grow progressively more radical as one digs through their publication. The article “Sisterhood for a Season” by Jennifer Thomas (who is also known as David Andersen) is about the experience of a man who transitioned to be a woman recounting his experience of going to Relief Society for the first time, to being denied the opportunity to attend after policy changes in August 2024. Here we see the first evidence of the Exponent II championing the stories of the “gender minorities” mentioned in their tag line. This article is ridden with lines conveying the belief of the author that the Church’s policy on transgender individuals is incorrect, outdated, and based on far right conservative traditions. Some of the lines criticizing the change include “it felt as if they were willfully ignoring all of the relevant data and taking their cues straight from the playbook of the far right’s culture warriors” and “were they alarmed at the powerful, positive effects that proximity was having?” One cannot help but walk away from this article feeling that the Exponent II fully endorses the message of this article that Church leaders are wrong and that transgenderism should be fully embraced in the Church. Would they have published it otherwise?
They, at the very least, seem to endorse other publications critical of Church leaders and church doctrine. For example, in “A Prophetic Prescription Goes Rogue,” a guest author writes how following President Nelson’s invitation for women to study more about the priesthood led her to conclude that “the Church’s policies about women’s authority at home and at church are cultural baggage that the Church has been dragging around for more than 200 years.” She further writes, “In September 1995 the Church published ‘The Family: A Proclamation to the World’ that professed marriage to be an equal partnership, but I could now see that this is simply not the Church’s true position on the issue.” Perhaps this author has forgotten the parts of the Family Proclamation discussing men’s and women’s differing roles in a family. Or perhaps she failed in her study to read this line from the Church’s General Handbook: “God’s priesthood power flows to all members of the Church—female and male—as they keep the covenants they have made with Him.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg unfortunately when it comes to articles and blogs from the Exponent II blatantly contradicting The Church’s doctrines in favor of activism and modern feminist ideology. On the Exponent II’s blog one can find articles that question if garments really are designed to help us focus on Jesus Christ, or whether they are just a whim of Church leaders to enforce dress codes and allow Church members to judge one another. There are multiple articles about God’s pronouns suggesting using only “they/them” pronouns or switching between “she” and “he” when referring to God in hymns. Finally, and probably the most troubling one, there is a blog post titled “In Defense of Soaking,” which turns out to be an excuse to criticize “technicalities” in the Church and confessing sins to a Bishop.
Reading articles like these challenges one’s ability to believe that this is a publication by and for faithful Latter-day Saints. Sadly many of them seem to be criticizing Church leaders as old men who are stuck in conservative traditions. They forget who guides the Church and that, as D&C 1:38 says, “Whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” In addition, it makes one reflect back on the warnings of President Packer and Elder Perry about the dangers of the ideologies currently being championed by the Exponent II. When the prophet Ezekiel was called by God he was told, “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me” (Ezekiel 3:17). These inspired men who have been called, as was Ezekiel, are watchmen on a tower. They see the potential for apostasy and loss of faith in the ideologies of the world and warn us.
If we ignore this warning, or laud the accomplishments of those that do, we will only have ourselves to blame when spiritual disaster strikes.
Written by: James Haymore
Senior Contributor at the Cougar Chronicle
The Cougar Chronicle is an independent student-run newspaper and is not affiliated with Brigham Young University or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Cover Photo: https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement
