Single Voices: A Candid and Uncensored Interview with a Mormon Career Girl

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Q. Our readers are interested in knowing more about single professional women in the Church. Tell us about your background.

A. I’m from a small Utah community. I went to college in Utah and to graduate school in the east.

Q. What do you do with your spare time. Do you cook or sew for example?

A. Don’t you think that question is beside the point?

Q. Not at all. I’m sure our readers would like to know—

A.—that I’m a genuine Mormon woman? O.K. I’m not a freak. I cook—make jam, bottle fruit on occasion, but I don’t seem to get the right spice balance in my Pakistani curries; commercial curry power just isn’t proper. And I sew. I made both of my winter coats; they are lined, underlined, and interlined; and I love to throw parties and entertain. I once gave a surprise baby shower to which husbands and single men were invited. We had a folk-rock band. Some friends of mine who happened to be in town came by. And the oven caught fire and the refrigerator warmed instead of cooled. It was a great party! But I wander. Let me guess: your next question was going to be whether anybody had ever proposed to me.

Q. Well, this was to be a candid interview, but I wasn’t quite going to get that personal. Uh, has anyone?

A. I’ve left a trail of broken hearts across three—no four—continents. It may interest you, though, that I have never had a proposal from a Mor mon. I am not certain of all that says, either about Mormon men or about me. I think that it reflects the relatively young marriage age in the church and the fact that Mormon men are guided to seek wives who fit into a particular mold. On the other hand, maybe I have chronic halitosis and my best friends won’t tell me.

Q. What about your childhood and home life?

A. I had a lovely childhood, and my parents encouraged me in my career ideas. My mother returned to teaching when I was about four years old. My father thought that was just fine, and he never felt any threat to our home life. From what I can tell from talking with other women, I had a closer relationship with my father than most girls do, and I know that this helped to influence me to develop as much as I could professionally. I remember when I was about three my father decided to raise some pigs for the bacon. I went out to help build the pigpen. When he hammered the nails, his hammer left an indentation on the wood which I thought was like a ruffle or lace, so he made sure that he left hammer marks by all the nails. It’s a little thing, but it always made me feel very happy to be with a father who understood a three-year-old’s idea that pigs, like little girls, needed ruffles. I grew up feeling there was no contradiction between being a girl and developing to the fullest whatever talents I had.

Q. Do you think you’ll marry?

A. Probably. It’s a very great burden to break hearts all the time. Actually I prefer the company of men to that of most women. The most lasting and meaningful relationships I have had with people—particularly with men – have been where we both had deep intellectual curiosity. Few women are encouraged to explore the world of ideas, and I am happy in their company for only limited periods of time; the new rap groups are an even worse drag because of the ideas they think they explore. I prefer to be off doing something.