Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, All the Best. Throughout the past year and a half of podcast episodes, I've shared a lot of the struggles that I've encountered as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Recently, I was with some friends from grad school and the topic of Mormon polygamy and the history of racism within

the LBS church came up.

And one woman asked, sorry to say this, but how could anyone be a part of that church?

And I totally understand and respect that question.

Today we're going to confront some of the really hard things about being a woman

in the LDS faith tradition. And we're also going to highlight some of the beauty and the goodness

and the moral rightness that is found there in the church. And to illustrate one aspect of the many

complicated factors of what it felt like to be a Mormon kid,

here's a scene from my childhood.

When I was little in the 1980s, my parents drove a huge blue suburban.

My four younger siblings and I would listen to cassette tapes in the suburban on road trips

and just driving around town to piano lessons.

And we listened to the same cassette tapes over and over and over again, often reading a

book along with the audio track.

And one of the classics was a musical that was called My Turn on Earth.

It came out in 1986, and it was about a girl who lived with God and with the whole human family before being born in a human body on earth.

And she has adventures on earth, and she has to learn how to treat others kindly by living the golden rule,

and she has to be a good steward of her body, and she learns how to write her own story, being in control of her life, and trying

again when she makes mistakes.

And one thing of many that I internalized from that My Turn on Earth book that I would

read as I was listening to the tape was, it was a page that showed all different representations

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