Hey friends! I just wanted to share something kind of cool: I was recently interviewed in a French magazine about Mormon women in social media, and it was published this week!
The reporter ran across the Mormon Women Project and got in touch with the editor, who patched her through to me as the in-house token French person 😉
You may or may not remember last year’s Allure article and other surrounding media coverage of “Mormon Mommy Bloggers.” This reporter had read it and had already noticed before that a lot of the social media fashion/lifestyle accounts she followed happened to be Mormons.
It was a really interesting conversation, and she came prepared with thoughtful questions. I found the reporter to be really respectful when I spoke with her (although her impression of the Paris temple as a pimped-out Snoop Dogg crib cracked me up!) and she seemed genuinely curious to understand the beliefs that drive this phenomenon of “Mormon (mommy) bloggers.” The gist of the article is much like the press in the US a few years ago, I guess these IGers are getting a lot of traction in France too now.
Anyway, if you speak French and want to read, here you go!
If you can’t get that link to work, here are screenshots, hopefully this is legible enough.
Also pretty cool to be quoted alongside Rachel Hunt Steenblik, whom I admire quite a bit. I recently read her Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother which was lovely and truly thought-provoking. Some of her earlier academic work is great stuff too. And Carter Charles was in my home ward growing up, we’ve worked together over at TSOS — it’s a small world in Mormonism! And I’m so glad she included the ladies from Beauty Redefined in her spotlight list, they are doing such good and necessary work.
Mormonism in France is not very well-known, and there aren’t that many of us compared to in the US (an estimated 20-30+ thousand, depending on how you count activity levels). The LDS Church got a good little blitz of media coverage when the Paris Temple was dedicated last spring, but still. A lot of French people confuse Mormons with the Amish or think we live in communes away from modern technology. You can imagine how interesting it was to be a teenager in a misunderstood religion growing up in France! A lot of mockery (the French are generally very distrusting of religion — even though most people are catholic there, few are actually active participants), awkward conversations and weird questions… but also some friends who were at least respectful of my beliefs.
Anyway, I’m always happy to get a chance to talk about our beliefs and the awesomeness of Mormon women, especially if it’s to a French audience! I’m grateful the journalist was respectful and treated the subject seriously and quoted me accurately. Mormon women have so much to offer, and I’m grateful people are taking note!
Cartwheeling down the aisle 