you can call me pants, but i'm not going to wear them to church

i have been trying to write this post all morning. or maybe i should say, i have been writing and rewriting this post all morning, on paper, in my head, everywhere. but i think i should just cut to the chase. 

mormon feminists are wearing pants to church on sunday. i am planning to wear a skirt.

i was blessed to grow up in a home and environment where men and women were partners and treated fairly. i was never not allowed to do something, or made to do something else, because i was a girl. i was never told i couldn’t do one thing, or that i had to do another thing, because i was a girl. my potential was limitless and my worth was connected to me and me alone. i didn’t call myself a “feminist” until i got to college because i didn’t know there was a special word for what i assumed was the way everyone thought about the world and treated each other.

i recognize that not everyone was blessed to grow up like this. that breaks my heart. 

i have had to find my own peace about things i do not understand and cannot explain easily in my own faith tradition. i have felt frustrated, confused, offended, marginalized, misunderstood, out of place and judged. 

i have also felt loved, empowered, supported, recognized, seen and heard. always by my heavenly father, often by others. 

i believe that men and women are different, just as every person is somehow different from the next. i do not believe that different means “better” and “worse.” i think traditions and untruths that try to explain differences between men and women as the result of one gender being more righteous, more holy, more pure or somehow more “special” than the other are offensive, condescending and damaging to women and to men whether it is women or men perpetuating them. i would like to see those ideas go away entirely and forever. i hope i am playing my part to help that happen.

i believe that men and women can be fair and balanced partners in marriages, in congregations and in any other type of pairing or interaction. i do not believe that fairness equates to sameness. and that is ok with me.

i recognize and understand the desire—the need—to make your voice heard, to reveal yourself, to feel solidarity and shared purpose. i do not judge anything about that, or any way that anyone might settle on to make it happen for them. wearing pants to church is not the way I have settled on to make it happen for me. i hope that is equally respected and embraced.

there is certainly, i think, more to say. but every way I have tried to say it has come out sounding wrong. so i have decided to just say this: i am behind the great and glorious cause. i have, and will continue to fight for it in my own way. this is not my way. but if this is your way let it be known that you, your heart, your purposes and your dreams are seen, heard and safe by me.