From Housewife to Heretic

New York: Doubleday and Company, 1981. First Edition. 406pp. Duodecimo [21.5 cm] 1/2 maroon cloth over tan boards. Very good/Near fine. Closed tear to foot of jacket's cover. Warmly inscribed on the front free endsheet: "To Ila, To do wonderful, courageous, and outrageous things for women all the days of your life. Your sister, Sonia Johnson." Sonia Johnson (born 1936), who was a member of the LDS Church from birth, began speaking out in support of the ERA in 1977. National exposure occurred with her 1978 testimony in front of the U. S. Senate's Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, and she continued speaking and promoting the ERA and denouncing what she perceived to be her church's political activities against the amendment. After a well-publicized church trial in December 1979, Johnson was excommunicated. Afterwards, she continued promoting the ERA as president of the Mormons for ERA group. She spoke at numerous functions throughout the country and appeared on a number of television talk shows.

"Sonia Johnson's roots in the Mormon church went back five generations. She'd been married for twenty years, was a dedicated homemaker and the mother of four children. Then, suddenly, her life began to come apart. Awakening feminism brought her into conflict with the church fathers, who, finding her guilty of promoting false doctrine, excommunicated her. Her husband wanted a divorce, because he was, he said, 'tired of working on our marriage." Sonia Johnson was shattered. But she has prevailed. Sonia Johnson is now a heroine of the Equal Right movement." - blurb from jacket.