d&c blog #6

I'm kind of a feminist I suppose. I actually just checked out a ton of books from the library on feminism because I feel like I really ought to know more about it. I've just discovered the movement of ecofeminism and I think I will like it very much. that said, growing up in the D.C. area, I've always noticed the prevalence of phallic symbolism in monuments and stuff, like the Masonic temple and the Washington monument.



I've been noticing a similar prevalence in church memorials. because my family vacations in vermont, I've been to Joseph Smith's birthplace a couple of times, which includes an impressive granite obelisk. I just learned at the church history symposium that similar obelisks were built in memorial for Hyrum Smith and John Taylor.


I guess I'd always imagined it to be a rather undesirable hold-over of the male-dominated western society we've inherited. which is really a male-dominated world history, since phallic symbolism existed thousands of years before Christ's birth. what I didn't realize was that this was not necessarily an all-bad symbol. as we were reading in class about the institution of the temple ordinances in nauvoo and the prophet Joseph Smith's preparation of the people in the days before its institution, we were looking at some of the symbols in the facsimiles of the book of abraham. let's take a look:

number 7 is upside down, but using your wonderful brain capacities, imagine it turned around. the figure sitting on the throne has a clear phallic symbol on the back of his head. professor holzapfel said that the phallic symbol here represents eternal seed. the figure on the throne is God and, being an exalted and celestial diety, God has the right to eternal procreation, which is a blessing companion with exaltation. suddenly, it all makes sense. though I wouldn't mind a feminine symbol of eternal fertility, our religion is patriarchal, organized through God's priesthood authority, and referring here to abraham's promised seed, so I guess I can handle it.