The unexamined patriarchy of the Mormon Wives

Women who hate each other and the baby elephants in the room

Season two of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives paints an agonizingly disempowering portrait of (Mormon) womanhood, made even more harrowing by the oft-repeated MomTok maxim that they’re “fighting the stigma of the patriarchy” (??)

There’s a small amount of truth to the notion, given that Mormon women have historically not been financial breadwinners or able to have a voice that extends beyond one compartmentalized part of their own brains for the majority of The LDS Church’s history. (Thanks to explicit teachings that tie their submission to their worthiness.) But outside of that, it’s sexist turtles all the way down with these beautiful hair-laden sickos.

First, there’s the obviously toxic friendships between the women, who constantly shame and bully each other in upsettingly brutal ways. The target is always moving depending on the current social politics of the group, but the unkindness, power hunger, and commitment to bad-faith interpretations of the people they claim to be “empowering” stays the same. All the butt cakes in the world can’t convince me this is a group of women committed to “supporting and uplifting” each other.

More grace is extended to Zac after showing genuine signs of abusiveness toward his wife Jen than to Whitney for daring to leave the MomTok group chat when she was struggling after her husband’s cheating reveal. (Have none of these women ever been spiraling and felt like nobody loves or cares about them regardless of whether that’s the case? I thought it was a universal female experience that we could all empathize with but apparently not.)

Taylor Frankie Paul, the most likable person you’d hate being friends with

Hothead Taylor is the only group member with enough social power to openly show kindness toward whoever the villain du jour is—the others risk alienation for going against the mean girl grain with such open contempt. “Judge not, that ye be not judged” is as absent as their sacred underwear, lest they be crucified for . . . pride? The Mormon woman submission training continues to serve them, it seems, while their resistance to being controlled comes out in weird attempts to grab power by shaming each other, almost always amounting to them all being as bad as each other.

The lower down they are on the totem pole, the more they must hate to survive. This season, the curtain is pulled back more on MomTok’s underclass only to reveal that they aspire to the same kind of tyranny we’ve seen from the elites. I wasn’t expecting anyone to call for a new kingdom built on radical love and hierarchy-dissolution anytime soon, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

Empathy and a willingness to forgive are costly traits in MomTok, and no one but Taylor can afford the right. Participation in social pile-ons is mandatory unless you inspire the kind of fear only she seems capable of inspiring. (Imagining her being mad at me has me crawling in my skin; she’d turn me to dust in seconds.)

It was nice to see Taylor standing up for Whitney in Arizona—she remains a likable character despite everything—but she was the only one who could, and it came with an expectation of blind future loyalty. Her unique combo of belligerence and self-loathing makes her the natural alpha of the group regardless of what’s going on, giving her the greatest capacity for kindness in situations where no one else has the chips for it. Also, she seems to like being a contrarian and she’s really good at her job.

The Atonement has left the group chat

Me grandstanding as a Mormon

On the Arizona trip, outcast Whitney is asked (via their omnipresent truth box overlord who’s definitely received his second anointing) whether she regrets not going to Mayci’s business launch event last season. (All of the girls hated her at the time so she’d texted Mayci saying she wasn’t going to come and then didn’t—a crime only Satan himself could have inspired.)

She responds earnestly, saying she doesn’t regret it because her transgression was what allowed her to gain understanding of how her behavior could be hurtful, thereby changing her for the better. As contrite a response as I can imagine someone giving, but MomTok isn’t having it. They latch onto the "don’t regret” piece of her answer with no interest in the obvious sackcloth and ashes she sat wearing while she offered it. In this villa we do not respect a growth mindset.

A woman showing anything but total self-hatred when under the ire of the group is unacceptable, and Whitney seeming to have made peace with her past “mistakes” apparently registers in the women’s minds as complete psychopathy.

Time and time again, Whitney’s ability to communicate and self-reflect goes down horrifically with her castmates, who mocked her last season for confessing (while on therapeutic ketamine) that her desire for social media engagement was partially responsible for the infamous RSV TikTok.

Never mind that all of these women use their personal traumas for online fame, or that Whitney was used to communicating with her audience via dance videos combined with text, or that she was going through it and there was nothing genuinely harmful about the video. Never mind that it was her own experience to share, however bizarrely, or that her ketamine confession to a friend was a vulnerable display of contrition. No, as far as MomTok is concerned, Whitney is uniquely evil and should hang herself in the town square for as long as the spectacle appeals to them. Which is until a new villain enters the scene, obviously.

The tragedy of Jen, who has no connection to Ben Affleck

Not Zac speaking more truth than we’ve heard all season

In season two, we watch Jen receive similar treatment from her fellow moms for socially withdrawing—something she’s clearly doing out of overwhelm and terror. Despite all the evidence that Zac is controlling, it only takes one hot chocolate with him for Demi and Jess to determine that Jen is, in fact, the problem. That Jen might feel she has to bend the truth at times to not have Zac’s unchecked wrath unleashed on her (something that’s clearly a regular part of their dynamic, though they do their best to conceal it) isn’t considered, because why would it be? Women-as-objects-to-be-owned is still, for all their insistence to the contrary, the waters these women swim in. Their idea of “fighting the patriarchy” is looking sexy, getting rich, and being famous—not developing abuse literacy.

This brings us to the most disturbing part of season two for me personally: Jen’s unplanned, unwanted pregnancy and subsequent suicidality. Watching a 25-year-old mother of two who’s considering divorce find out that she’s pregnant—in a culture that’s adamantly against abortion and a state that barely allows it—was heart-wrenching, to say nothing of the parallels to Taylor’s pregnancy last season. No wonder she took to her bed for weeks while she struggled to process the new emerging nightmare she had to find a way to survive in.

Mormonism has historically condemned birth control and has never said anything supporting its use. As a teenager at BYU-Idaho, church leaders regularly taught me that waiting to get married and have children until after you’ve graduated college is selfish. When I was a 22-year-old preparing for temple marriage, I read quote after quote from Mormon prophets and apostles who considered it “an evil.” (I didn’t buy into that because I was raised in England with decent sex education, thank God.)

So it’s unsurprising that the Mormon Wives don’t seem eager to collab with Nexplanon any time soon. But the impact is heinous: young, already overwhelmed women feeling forced to bring new children into unstable, emotionally violent homes, further hollowing them out in the name of a patriarchal ideology they claim to be fighting. Showing this is surely the most important thing TSLOMW is doing?

Of course Jen withdrew from MomTok—this is serious shit, snapping her back into the controlling arms of a man who doesn’t love her fully for who she is, thanks to Mormonism’s patriarchal ideas about women. Any dawning awareness she had about that fact presumably had to be shut down ASAP in order for her to keep going, and that’s an insane cognitive stress to bear.

We’re watching a reality TV show, of course, so every read is up for debate—and relationship dynamics are always co-created, one way or another. But the speed with which MomTok turned on Jen and swallowed Zac’s narratives felt familiarly unsettling. That’s what happens when people don’t understand patriarchy properly, and it’s frustrating watching these women claim to be anti-patriarchy warriors when they can’t even spot the most obvious potential signs of its worst abuses.

I’m not trying to sound insufferable but don’t they feel a responsibility to learn a little bit more about the topic given how often they invoke it as part of their brand?

*Cries in feminist A cups*

MomTok regularly reiterates that they’re “breaking the Mormon taboo around sex” while continuing to shame swinging between consenting adults as inherently wrong and gross (not just the stuff that happened with questionable consent, which is obviously worthy of reproach.)

They’re unable to watch a burlesque show with diverse bodies without recoiling at having to see a vulva, with one of them fearing that’s she’s “going to have PTSD” after the experience. Yet they’re obsessed with their own bodies and embrace an aggressively hypersexualized aesthetic, already two boob jobs in by the time they first have an orgasm, if I’ve read the Layla situation correctly. Their idea of sexual empowerment seems to be mostly gimmick-based, and I’m very curious whether that party did anything to help Layla embrace her own pleasure.

That Taylor was apparently blackout drunk when sexual stuff went down with her friend’s (sober) husband was never really focused on in season one, and when it was, Taylor was careful to ensure he wouldn’t be labelled as predatory, despite all the information we were given suggesting otherwise. Her exposing her friends’ private sex lives (especially given the purity culture they existed within) is a far bigger ethical violation than the consensual group swinging that happened, but it doesn’t seem like she views it that way. She’s singularly focused on how abhorrent she is for her (developmentally normal, given the circumstances) sexual deviance.

MomTok invokes the concept of “sisterhood” but acts more like a dysfunctional family system under the traumatizing thumb of a controlling father and a mother who’s losing her mind. Which they are, really. People love discussing “how Mormon” the Mormon Wives are, but they’re products of Mormonism through and through. And Mormonism is a proudly patriarchal religion; there’s no getting away from that.

The Mormon Wives are challenging orthodoxy. Patriarchy? Not so much

I want to support these women because they do challenge Mormon orthodoxy to a certain extent and that’s worth something, but we can’t ignore how large their influence is or how problematic it is that they genuinely seem to believe they’re using it for good. There are moments of value—like when Mikayla opened up about her sexual abuse with (my former!) sex therapist this season—but they’re the exception.

If this is just a trashy reality show, it’s realistically a net negative for the world. But if we can use what it portrays as a springboard for cultural discourse, there’s potential for it to do some great things. I would personally love for women everywhere to get more serious about birth control when they’re in unstable relationships, for example, because children deserve better than to be brought into that kind of environment.

Ultimately, none of this is MomTok’s fault. We’re all the products of our conditioning and it can be impossible to spot what we’ve never truly stepped outside of. Money, fame, and surgeries don’t create feminists, and claiming to be something can often be the biggest barrier to us actually becoming that thing, because we don’t see any of the evidence that we’re not, so we can’t learn.

I want to see the Mormon Wives advance in their understanding of patriarchy, but we don’t currently have reason to believe they’re truly interested in that. You never know though—perhaps they’ll summon the ghost of Simone de Beauvoir in season three, or the ketamine will shake them into a fourth wave awakening.

The two wolves inside of me

To conclude, some random thoughts that didn’t have a place in this essay:

• Whichever member of production taught MomTok the word “accountability” before the confession cameras has a lot to answer for. Accountability is now cancelled, we’re not pursuing that anymore.

• The BBQ scene, where Taylor’s dad shamed her for having sex with Dakota outside of marriage, was nauseating. Way to show the world how much Mormonism objectifies women, Jeremy. He won’t say “fuck” but he will ask his daughter if her Halloween costume is slutty before unloading his sexist bullshit onto her. No wonder she’s so messed up. The grown man who chose to have sex with another woman while lying to his daughter gets a pass because as far as he’s concerned, her behavior didn’t deserve respect. He’s the human embodiment of “What were you wearing?”

• Dakota’s basketball friend was an unexpected ray of wisdom in an otherwise dark season!

• The Big Chippendale sprinting to attack Chase after Demi alleged that he “lay his hands” on her (which, eh, not really) was so cringeworthy, as was the Little Chippendale screaming at Chase to take accountability. What’s with women wanting men who’ll get violent at a moment’s notice over even perceived slights against their partners?! Does it really help them feel safer?

• What in the Walgreens ad campaign was that pregnancy test roulette? Will the seriousness of bringing new humans into the world ever be confronted on reality TV shows? The Kardashians, the Mormon Wives—they all seem so flippant about it. Even unmarried, edging-a-breakup Layla mentioned her period being late like it was nothing. What gene do these women have that makes them so casual about procreation?!

• I found it interesting how almost all of the women, at some point in the season, expressed feeling like they always show up for their friends and don’t get the same care in return. None of them seem like particularly great friends, but are they also projecting the general Mormon woman sense that they’re overextending and underappreciated onto their fellow women because they’re wired to never question the patriarchy in any meaningful way?!

• Jenna Jarvis having to sit with Taylor while she appeared to be having a genuine trauma response to learning more about Dakota’s lies was really something. Hell of a situationship fallout.

• For all of my issues with him, Zac dropped some truth about the toxicity of MomTok in the later part of the season.

• Miranda seems nice.

• Does Whitney’s disinterest in adding five pounds of hair extensions to her head contribute to how easily the other women hate her? It’s just kind of a powerful visual marker, that’s all I’m saying.

• Whitney’s support of Jen was one of the only times I’ve seen any of them embody MomTok’s alleged mission to support each other.

• Demi’s cease and desist toward Jen—um, what?

• The crazy in the eyes of so many men on this show feels so disconcerting. Conner seems nice though?

• Alleged affair as a season closer? Powerful stuff! That guy seems suspicious as hell, though. See the above bullet point.

Ok, now let me know what YOU thought of this season, because I’ve been thinking about this way too much for the last few days. My nervous system needs to recover, honestly, but it’s all I can think about!