The Gendered Organization of An Australian Anglican Parish

Abstract

This paper uses Acker's theory of gendered organizations to identify the processes involved in the construction of the male and female domains in an Australian Anglican parish. Participant-observation in the parish provided unique insight into the production of these domains. Though the parishioners lack theological agreement on gender ideologies they have consensus on the essential opposition of male and female. Men are decision-makers and leaders whereas women are nurturers, carers, and servers. A permeable boundary exists in the parish social organization between the male and female domains; some women are allowed to enter the male domain of parish administration if they are perceived as having male attributes. An examination of the parish social organimation (parish administration and small groups), and of the interactions between men and women, illustrates the gendered nature of social processes in the parish. These interactions create and reinforce the subordination of women to men. Women involved in the Anglican Church of Australia have multiple views of the relationship between the Church and women. Some believe that women are oppressed by the institutional patriarchal Church, while others deny that the Church marginalizes them because of gender. Based on anthropological fieldwork in an Anglican parish, this paper identifies the social processes involved in gendering the parish as first step in understanding the ways in which women may be marginalized in the church. Bliss (1952) points to the existence of the female domain in religious organizations, which for some women becomes a within church, or alongside (Bliss 1952: 31). What are the social processes which create and maintain this female church or domain? Recent work on modern economic organizations provides path for helping to understand the social processes involved in the production and reproduction of gender differences within work organizations, but it sheds little light on the way genderedness arises in religious organizations (Lewis and Morgan 1994; Mills and Tancred 1992; Mills 1988; Hearn 1994; Alveson and Billing 1992). However, work of Acker (1990, 1992), which develops theory of gendered