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Natalie Brown is a former By Common Consent blogger. She is currently writing a memoir on the stories we tell about houses. You can follow her on Twitter @BtwnHouseHome.
The prophet invited Mormon women to take a break from social media, and they listened. My networks went silent with friends gone ghost. I know this, because I logged on occasionally to check announcements. What I discovered was a wasteland of quiet. I began logging on deliberately to process the silence, sharing my thoughts about the fast into the void it left behind. Wondering occasionally what other Mormons might think when they saw the dates and timestamps of my posts.
I learned in the silence that it is primarily Mormon women who amplify my voice. With Mormon women mostly absent, fewer people engaged with me. Although my networks include men and women, Mormons and non-Mormons, it is disproportionately Mormon women who comment, retweet or like what I have to say. I can’t fully explain why this is so, but my voice is diminished in their absence.
I learned in the silence that social media is a business as much as anything else. I know, of course, that companies sell the data they collect from me. I know that they make money from the uncompensated work I do of updating friends or writing hard-won thoughts. The fast made visible, however, other kinds of businesses closer to home. Particularly, it showed how many Mormon women use social media, as Meg Conley tweeted, “to heed the church’s call to stay home with their kids while also making enough money to live in a two wage household world.” I already knew this in theory, too. I’ve been invited to makeup or book parties many times before. I was sometimes annoyed. But the silence showed how Mormon women rely on each other for their emotional and sometimes economic support. Mormon women can be each other’s market. I am not annoyed now. I find these networks admirable alternatives that have something to say to more traditional pathways.
I learned in the silence that many of us are lonely. I instinctively reached for the social media apps I deleted from my phone whenever I needed a break, craving adult conversation that I couldn’t find. Because I was the only stay-at-home mom at the park, and everyone I had texted or called was too scheduled or too indifferent to respond.
I learned in the silence that I need Mormon women. I need the baby pictures, the life updates, and, mostly, the posts where you get real and say it was a hard day. I relate. But I could use less opposition, fewer voices telling me I am wrong when I want to say a hard thing, too. Sometimes, I need to hold my emotions until they can teach me what I must do. Mostly, I just want to be heard and to hear you. I want to feel that our words matter.
I learned in the silence that I need Mormon men. I need more men who will listen to and amplify what Mormon women have to say. We rarely get to speak with you as peers outside social media, and you often have access to resources that Mormon women don’t. I need you to share our voices.
I learned in the silence that we need Mormon women to speak. I learned in the silence that they need us to listen.
*Photo by Josh Adamski on Unsplash
