Episode 220: The Women Are Not Okay | A Conversation About the Male Gaze

At Last She Said It

Cynthia Winward

Religion & Spirituality, Feminism, Motherhood, Ldswomen, Spirituality, Lds, Thechurchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints, Mormonwomen, Religion, Marriage, Mormon, Faith

5 • 900 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How much in the Church is still, in 2025, coming to us through the male lens? Pretty much all of it. Our scriptures, doctrine, ward boundaries, curriculum, conference talks, local leadership, and decisions are almost entirely by and/or about men. A women’s organization made and presided over by men is not really a women’s organization, is it? How could men ever describe or define women—our roles, attributes, or experiences—not as they see us, but as we actually are? In Episode 220, Cynthia and Susan wrap the season of zooming-out conversations by examining how the male gaze continues to shape and distort women's religious experience.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll never forget when it finally dawned on me that like every descriptor we have of a
0:09.4	righteous woman was a man describing what a woman is or should be.
0:15.0	Right.
0:15.5	Or can be.
0:16.4	And I was like realizing that men defined who I should be my entire faith life in this church was a real
0:23.6	wake up call to me. It was like, oh, okay. It's like writing a script for somebody else. Like,
0:29.7	that's why we love watching movies and TV shows because it's fake. You know what I mean? Someone wrote
0:35.1	and made up these characters. And so so often I feel like, oh, this is a made-up character.
0:40.7	Like you just said, that's the ideal, but I mean, ideal for who?
0:46.7	Hello, I'm Susan Hinkley.
0:49.1	And I'm Cynthia Winward.
0:51.2	And this is Alas, she said it.
0:53.3	We are women of faith discussing complicated things.
0:56.0	And the title of today's episode is, The Women Are Not Okay, a conversation about the male gaze.
1:03.2	It's our season finale, Cynthia.
1:05.3	I can't believe it.
1:07.1	We made it.
1:08.8	We made it.
1:10.4	You and I are already talking about what we're going to do this summer
1:14.2	or not do this summer because we're so excited to not do anything talking about both but before we
1:20.1	get to doing nothing this summer we wrote a book and so we have to go on a book tour we just want
1:26.8	all our listeners to know if you want to
	...

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