They should be at the club!
Misogyny and Mormonism in Hulu's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
A phantom phrase haunts my thoughts throughout my waking hours: will Momtok even survive this? There is genocide and murder and a cost of living crisis pouding people down across the globe, and yet, I am consumed by the plight of Momtok.
In case you are not experiencing the same thing, Momtok is a group of Mormon moms on TikTok who recently became reality TV stars in Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. You may have previously seen them in the news cycle for their swinging scandal or the time Whitney did a TikTok dance next to her newborn that was sick with RSV.
This show is a truly fascinating anthropological study of misogyny and women’s roles in a highly restrictive religion. Mormonism preaches traditional roles for women: they are valued primarily as wives and mothers rather than actual human beings in their own right. But these women all operate outside of those traditional roles - though at varying degrees.
In the first episode it’s revealed that every single member of Momtok is the breadwinner of her family, whether through their influencer work or various entrepreneurial ventures. Their husbands react very differently to this throughout. Some husbands are only peripheral characters, leaving their wives to do as they please, simply supporting and showing up when they’re supposed to show up. Some, who are more frequently featured in the show, are obviously threatened and emasculated by their wives.
There are two that really fall into this category: Dakota (boyfriend and babydaddy of queen bee Taylor) and Zac (husband of Jen - also alleged second cousin of Ben Affleck though this has been disproven). The insecurity in these men is palpable - it comes to a head when the women take a girls trip to Vegas and another mom (Demi) surprises them with VIP tickets to see Chippendales. Dakota and Zac have both tagged along on the girls trip (barf) and are irate about their women going to the show. While Dakota eventually apologizes, Zac and Jen fight for days about it - he threatens to divorce her, calls her terrible names, and disrespects her friends. It’s important to note here that Taylor and Jen both left the show before it started - meaning that Dakota and Zac were upset about them just being in the same building as the Chippendales. It’s also important to note that while Zac is texting Jen heinous things, he is at a casino gambling her money - she gave him an allowance to keep him amused, even though it is revealed that he has a gambling problem.
Zac’s behavior shows off the contradiction of trad men in a modern world - he doesn’t fulfill any of the traditional male roles of a marriage (namely being a provider) but expects his wife to remain submissive while she supports him financially and otherwise through medical school. And the thing is - it is very clear that she actually does fulfill the traditional wife role. At 24 she has two kids, and in one of the early episodes the women joke about Jen being a “pornstar” for her husband - she has perfectly cracked the trad man’s Madonna/Whore complex: Madonna in the streets and whore in the sheets. And still, while being the perfect wife and mother and again completely financially supportive of him, she is not enough for him. Because she dared to go to a show she didn’t know she was going to. Zac is an archetype of religious toxicity - it’s clear that he just hates women and sees her as his property.
The misogyny in the show does not only come from men, though. The women (except for Layla) have been raised in the Mormon church, and have internalized a lot of that misogyny as well, and it shows in their relationships with each other. I want to clarify that I don’t fully blame them for this, because it’s deeply difficult to undo the beliefs you were raised with, and I believe all of these women are victims to a degree.
That being said, if you’re thirty years old and still acting like a slut shaming bully, some of that is on you.
I’m speaking of course, of Whitney, the quasi villain of the show. Whitney is obviously deeply insecure, a narcissist who hates herself and so hates all the women around her. She is constantly in competition with Taylor because she wants to be the queen bee, but doesn’t have Taylor’s magnetism or sense of self. She becomes a sort of lesser queen bee when the group splits themselves into the Saints (Good Mormons) and Sinners (Bad Mormons). Obviously, this was a split brought about by the Saints. Whitney positions herself as being morally superior to most of her friends, and refuses to take accountability in any of their conflicts.
She is also deeply hypocritical. The women say throughout that Momtok is all about empowering women, and I believe some of them. I do not believe Whitney. She talks most about empowering women when she gets offered a $20k brand deal to post about a vibrator. She makes it very clear that she wouldn’t even consider using it, but wants to “use her platform” to “empower women”.
A few episodes later she publicly humiliates one of the other women, Demi, by playing a cruel prank on her and gifting her a box of fruity pebbles, which allude to a sexual story Demi told her in confidence once. Demi is extremely upset, especially because the whole thing occurs at a Galentines Day party she’s throwing for the women.
The scene before Whitney gives her the “gift” is honestly brutal to watch - Whitney tells Mayci and Mikayla (two of the other Saints) Demi’s secret, and the women laugh and scream and say that they’d never do anything like that. The scene alludes to the fact that the sexual act is Demi sitting on her husband’s face, which… idk, that’s just not deviant enough for them to be doing all that.
Despite the fact that they are all mothers, they’re all very weird about sex. This show is a buffet of the contradictions that make up women's roles in traditional religions. All of these women are inherently sexual beings based on the fact that all of them have kids, and yet their sexuality is a constant grounds of conflict. Again, I know it’s a Mormon thing, but it feels like you need to get over that if you’re a 30 year old preaching female empowerment. I would say that the only two that aren’t are Demi and Jessie, who coincidentally seem to be the only two with healthy relationships and a healthy outlook on life.
Demi and Jessie, at 30 and 31, are also two of the oldest in the show. Which is crazy! A group full of 20-something moms to multiple children just isn’t something you see a lot outside of Utah. They’re so unbelievably young. They should be at the club! All of them, but most specifically Layla, the youngest of the group, who turns 23 during filming.
Layla is a 22 year old mother of 2 in the middle of a divorce, and in the first episode it’s revealed that she has never had an orgasm. My heart aches for these women and the way they’ve been taught to devalue their selfhood for the sake of men.
The show is deeply entertaining and frivolous, but it does a really great job of showing the conflict between patriarchal religions and the modern women within them. The Mormon church has denounced the show and almost certainly is working overtime to get it shut down, but I hope they fail because I would watch 20 seasons of it.
And yes, if you were wondering, Whitney did end up doing the vibrator brand deal.
yaaaas for this piece!! i too am hooked and love the tensions and contradictions it shows. i am looking forward binging season 2 this weekend!!
there seems to be huge drama with demi!!