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Worthy “Gods” and “Goddesses”
Avance, Rosemary
Avance, Rosemary
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n2010-5.pdf
Adobe PDF, 185.26 KB
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Abstract
Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), the rejection of sexualized bodily display has been institutionalized and dogmatized, reflecting a gendered paradigm in which modesty functions as a necessary element in members’ temporal (hetero-) sexual practices, and in broader beliefs about the nature of the afterlife. Through a pervasive bureaucratic communicative model, Latter-day Saints are socialized to internalize and appropriate both Church dogma and Church-sanctioned standards of modesty, normalizing both temporal and eternal gender-based roles. Using LDS primary sources, I demonstrate the ubiquity of institutionalized messages on the body and sexuality, and the relationship of these concepts to LDS cosmology that serves as the institutional justification for the clear demarcation of gender roles and the division of gendered power. Through an emic understanding of the meaning of modesty, I argue that the normalization of modesty and chastity through immersive socialization acts to enforce the patriarchy of not only the temporal Church hierarchy but of Mormon concepts about eternity.
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2010
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With permission of the license/copyright holder