And she has done quite well for any women’s movement. Seeing that at least 15 posts have been almost exclusivley about her, and collectively, I estimate she has generated over 2000 comments in just a mere two days.

“As it was, I put on my freshly laundered quilt on my bed, realized it was backwards and upside down, and burst into tears because one of the best homemakers in the world wouldn’t do that. And then I ate a lot of Oreos, and told myself I was being ridiculous”

Wait, your quilt was freshly laundered? I’d say you deserve more Oreos as a reword for getting the heavy linens through the wash.

I’ve decided to try and make housework meditative since the teleology or a dustless floor still evades me somewhat. I just cleaned both bathrooms, swiffered the whole durned house, washed a sink of dishes, and folded clothes while trying to use the repetative movements such task require as a means of calming my mind and focusing on ….baby crying, focus gone now. But it sort of worked. The sweeping = quite so bad.

Katie–I agree with you in part. Housework is seen as uncool (or as a necessary drudgery rather than something requiring a great deal of skill. To be fair, it does require less skill than it did when one had to know how to make soap out of the rendered fat of a dead pig. Thank goodness, as Julie says, for preshredded cheese. And Ivory.). Homemaking, on the other hand, currently enjoys something of a revival. That revival is even couched within certain segments of feminism–I recall a international feminist conference at which I presented a talk on the female rhetoric of quilting. I feared everyone would throw heavy objects and the deluded little mormon, but instead everyone loved it. AND there were presentations on cookbook marginalia as autobiography, gardening, and (hehehehe) making bread. The cool part is that these scholars placed domestic tasks into an ideological framework privildedging the coalesence of art and nurture. Even the oft-times irritating Martha Stewart illustrates that making a home is a wee bit cool these days. Sweeping the floor, not so much.

Julie–I emphatically enjoyed your revision of the “best” line. I may print it out and past it into my Ensign by President Beck’s talk.

The Lib–you’re a peach.

You are welcome to think we are overreacting. I’m not even saying you are wrong. I’m prone to overreactions all the time. I’m just saying that in a context like this, where Julie is trying to bring out the better points of Sis. Beck’s talk and discuss it in an uplifting and helpful way to those of us who had trouble with it, a blatent dismissal of a person’s overreaction is not helpful to the discussion.

Prayer is not quantifiable. You can not compare your prayers with somebody else’s prayers. Pray is an extremely personal thing, and, although one does get better at prayer with practice, it is not something you have to have skills to accomplish.

Homemaking, or housekeeping (for that is really what is getting us all riled) is immediately evident. It takes time. It takes skills, and for many of us, acquiring skills for a job we feel we were not blessed with innate talents to accomplish is overwhelming and seems difficult. Housekeeping is also not private or personal. Everybody can see if you are a slob, and judge accordingly. Comparisons abound. Feelings of inadequacy result. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And Ardis- #159

FYI, telling somebody that she has overreacted is not helpful. It may be true, but it does not decrease somebody’s reactions, rather such a dismissal of her feelings makes her feel more defensive, more angry, and closes off communication completely. From what I have read around the blogs, many women who were initially negatively affected by Sis. Beck’s talk are doing what they can to work through their reactions, trying to come to a better reading and a better feeling about a leader they have sustained and want to support. Cut these sisters some slack as they do their best to reconcile the messages of power and influence paired with words that left them feeling discouraged and hopeless.

And Wiz–pass the oreos.