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Heavenly Mother/ Mormon Feminism

A small step for man: Apostle Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Oaks & the Grammar of Inequity
While Elder Oaks addressed his wife as "Kristen,” she addressed him as "Elder Oaks.”

By Matt Christensen
June 2005

Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Sister Kristen McMain Oaks took one step forward—and one backwards—as they spoke about dating during an event in Oakland last May. Elder Oaks, who has recently expressed serious concerns about Mormons waiting too long to marry, pointed out that women should not be expected to feed men who, on the excuse of a cheap date, end up eating at a girl's apartment all the time. "Don't subsidize freeloaders," counseled Oaks, who married his second wife in 2000, two years after his first wife died.

We're happy that Oaks suggested that women should not always be expected to cook, and even happier that he gave his wife three minutes to bear her testimony in the middle of his long speech. Yet we wonder how equal he and his wife are in their own marriage. While Oaks addressed his wife as "Kristen" during his talk, she addressed him as "Elder Oaks."

In a 1990 essay, Lavina Fielding Anderson suggested that actually it is progressive for LDS leaders to refer to their wives by their names. "A name is an individual expression of personhood," wrote Anderson, "whereas 'wife' (like 'husband') is a role automatically created by marriage."

To learn more about sexism and language inclusiveness, read Lavina Fielding Anderson's, "The Grammar of Inequity," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23:4 (Winter 1990), pp. 81-95.