In response to Sister Dalton’s assurance that LDS Young Women don’t need to lobby for rights, it occured to me that today’s saints are quite disconnected from our own history, sadly, even our leaders. Women’s rights leaders of every stripe paved the path for the rights certain women seem to take for granted these days. Some of the most prominent Mormon women of their time were tireless advocates for the rights of women and their personal accomplishments aside from motherhood stand in direct opposition by example to the formulaic boxing in of women into proscribed roles. Here, I’m offering a prime example of a woman who found a way to ally with the women’s rights movement, while preserving her connection and devotion to a then, universally unpopular new religion.

Susa Young Gates

March 18, 1856 – May 27, 1933

Susa Young was the second daughter born to Lucy Bigelow, Brigham Young’s twenty-second wife. Her mother had been hoping to have a son, which had some bearing on Susa’s determination to assert her worth as a daughter. This she accomplished in spades.

Brigham supported the education of his children, male and female alike. Susa, at the tender age of 13, attended the University of Deseret, where she served as editor of the school paper. She married Dr. Alma Dunford in 1872, when she was 16 years old, and bore him two children before divorcing him in 1877.

Young founded the music department at Brigham Young Academy, which she entered in 1878. By 1880, she married Jacob Gates, after she renewed her acquaintance with him in Hawaii. Although this relationship yielded 11 children, only four of them survived. When asked how their marriage was so successful, she cited, “mutual respect for and support of, one another’s work”. This may offer some insight to the failure of the first marriage and her enrollment at Brigham Young Academy the very next year.

Susa served as her father’s secretary for a time, and was sometimes jokingly referred to as the “thirteenth Apostle”. She wrote nine books, including the first Mormon novel. Gates also founded the Young Woman’s Journal and the Relief Society Magazine, which served as the official publication for the organization.

She eventually became a member of the Board of Regents at BYU and Utah State Agricultural College. Susa organized Utah chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of Utah Pioneers and the National Woman’s Press Club.

Gates not only promoted women’s rights and suffrage, she was personally courted by Susan B. Anthony to serve on the National Women’s Suffrage Association. While Gates declined, by virtue of her unwillingness to refute her religion (namely the practice of polygamy), she actively engaged in the advancement of women’s rights by serving as a delegate to five Congresses of the International Council of Women. She spoke by invitation in London on “Equal Moral Standards for Men and Women,” followed by a tea given by Queen Victoria and also attended by Susan B. Anthony.

While Susa did not speak against polygamy, recognizing its advantages to women who wished to pursue a profession – she noted that there were many women within the polygynous framework who independently owned businesses and were the breadwinners for their families- she also supported a woman’s choice not to marry if she so chose. She did acknowledge that the majority of women preferred to marry and like herself, also pursue education and career goals. In the 1800’s, Utah was one of the few areas a female could practice medicine or law, were allowed to sign contracts, and own property. Her father was largely responsible for this fact.

As 1900 approached, Susa experienced both a psychological and physical breakdown that left her ill for three years. It was a time of introspection and prayer, where she later wrote of learning to master herself. A priesthood blessing predicted her recovery and service in the temple. She became very active in geneology, personally cataloguing 16,000 names on the Young side alone. Her contributions included managing the geneology departments for the Inter Mountain Republican and The Deseret News, while also writing columns for these publications.

Sisters, I have a testimony of gratitude for a heritage rich in women who asserted that part of recognizing our eternal worth is in improving our temporal conditions, indeed, including lobbying and advocating for the rights of women. Revelation such as the WOW proceded from a woman speaking up for herself, wondering if was right to be relegated to cleaning up after filthy habits of otherwise good men.

Susa Young Gates is only one example of this determination to advance women’s rights to a point of tangible equality that drastically improved the lives of individual women, and was a large part of advancing our fledgling faith into the future. I believe hearing another influential woman advise a group of Young Women to cease lobbying for rights would have caused great agitation to the early LDS women anxiously engaged in the advancement of women, including Susa Young Gates, who worked to the point of physical breakdown to ensure them.

*This quote is said to be one of Susa’s favorites

Sources (a relaxed bibliography)

Feminists for Choice 8/19/2010 http://feministsforchoice.com/susa-young-gates-this-is-what-a-suffragist-looks-like

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/people/susa_young_gates.html

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_Young_Gates