Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and
Equal Rights by Martha Sonntag Bradley hardback. 584 Pages. /
156085-189-9 / $39.95 Almost from the beginning, the women’s
movement has been divided into two factions–those wanting full
equality with men (Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul) and those
seeking legal protections for women’s particular needs (Julia
Ward Howe, Eleanor Roosevelt). Early Utah leaders such as Relief
Society President Emmeline B. Wells walked hand-in-hand with
Anthony and other controversial reformers. However, by the
1970s, Mormons had undergone a significant ideological turn to
the mainstream, championing women’s unique roles in home and
church, and joined other conservatives in defeating the Equal
Rights Amendment. Looking back to the nineteenth century, how
commited were Latter-day Saints of thier day to women’s rights?
LDS President Joseph F. Smith was particularly critical of women
who “glory in their enthralled condition and who caress and
fondle the very chains and manacles