Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ukma!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sexism in the church?? (was: Re: Gay Ordination) Message-ID: Date: 27 Mar 91 04:34:47 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: State University of New York at Binghamton Lines: 49 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article carlson@abcfd01.larc.nasa.gov (Ann Carlson) writes: >> >>Comments? Opinions? >Yes, some Christian women feel that they are treated less than lovingly >because of their gender. This has been particularly true of late in my >own denomination (Southern Baptist). The subject of women's ordination >has come up in our national convention for several years running and there >is great disagreement. I don't think disagreement is a problem or necessarily >bad, but the way some of the women delagates have been treated is. They >have been hooted down when they stood up to speak, have had their microphones >turned off, been subject to derogatory comments, and treated generally as if >their opinions are not worth being heard. The antics have sometimes gotten >so bad that the stories have gotten into the newspapers. What a sad witness >from a group claiming a desire to demonstrate God's love to the world! Our denomination (The United Methodist Church) has been ordaining women for some time now. (I think our local congregation had our first woman pastor in the 50's. We are now on our second (it only took a few decades ;-)). Nancy has been well accepted, (some of the men admitting that she "preaches as well as a man."), indeed Nancy is a great pastor. I have a number of female clergy friends and acquaintances, not all parishes are as accepting as ours. I know that some of them have felt sexually harrassed. I know at least one was sexually assaulted. Recently, one of our denominational newsletters published results of a survey of women in the church (layity and clergy) dealling with sexual harrasment. The percentage responding that they had experienced sexual harrassment in the church was shocking. (I do not remember the exact figures, I'm sorry, I want to say that it exceeded 2/3's of the respondants for both categories, but that's an incredible figure.) In any case, yes I would say there is discrimination against women in the UMC. This is a little more surprising when you look in the pews. It is the women who make our churches work. The pastors tend to be men, the ushers tend to be men, but the people in the pews tend to be women. In our denomination, we are broken up into areas by "Annual Conferences" (somewhat analagous to the Roman Catholic Diocese). Each Annual Conference is required to have a "Commission on the Status and Role of Women". "CoSRoW" also exists on a general church level, and (in theory) on a local church level. CoSRoW is supposed to be a monitoring organization, and is supposed to work closely with the bishop, and the cabinet to further the cause. The activity level of CoSRoW varries from conference to conference, I would rate our conference's CoSRoW (of which I am a member) at moderately inactive. Tom Blake SUNY-Binghamton