Female Ministers Research Articles

Ministers' Understanding of Battered Women: Differences Among Catholic Male Priests, Protestant Female Ministers and Protestant Male Ministers

Domestic violence does not stop at the threshold of the churches' doors. Domestic violence not only endangers victims' physical and mental health, but also their spiritual health. In this study Protestant and Catholic ministers' beliefs and attitudes on the issue of wife abuse and the possible effects of their beliefs and attitudes on interventions with battered women were examined. Results showed that the degree of ministers' adherence to fundamentalist religious beliefs and the gender of the minister may affect the breadth of their definition of wife abuse, their attitudes toward gender roles, whether or not the minister asks women about wife abuse, and the degree to which a wife or husband is judged responsible in the abuse.

The Personality Characteristics of Methodist Ministers: Feminine Men and Masculine Women?

A detailed questionnaire was mailed to every Methodist minister engaged in circuit ministry in Great Britain. Each of the 1,339 respondents completed the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQR‐S). The male ministers recorded lower psychoticism scores than the male population norms. The female ministers recorded lower neuroticism scores than the female population norms. These findings support the view that ministry may appeal particularly to men who value and display the tender‐minded personality characteristics associated with femininity and to women who value and display the stable personality characteristics associated with masculinity. Implications of these findings for ministry are discussed.

Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775.

More than a thousand Quaker female ministers were active in the Anglo-American world before the Revolutionary War, when the Society of Friends constituted the colonies' third-largest religious group. Some of these women circulated throughout British North America; others crossed the Atlantic to deliver in courthouses, meeting houses, and private homes, to audiences of men and women, to Quakers and to those of other faiths, to Native Americans, and to slaves. Utilizing the Quakers' rich archival sources, as well as colonial newspapers and diaries, Rebecca Larson reconstructs the activities of these women. She examines the ways their public, authoritative role affected the formation of their identities, their families and their society.

Social Support and Compensating Differentials in the Ministry: Gender Differences in Two Protestant Denominations

In keeping with the compensating differentials argument, we posit that higher levels of social support for female clergy than for male clergy could serve to compensate women for their lower material rewards (lower pay and placement in small, low-budget churches). To test this hypothesis we study 1819 full-time male and female ministers from a national sample of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Disciples of Christ (DOC)). Consistent with the compensating differentials argument, female clergy do receive more social support than their male counterparts; women receive greater congregational support, greater informal benefits, greater colleague support, and greater denomination hierarchy support. In addition, a positive personality, which characterizes female clergy more frequently than male clergy, is one of the major factors that leads to increased support.

Lay Leaders' Views About Female Rabbis and Ministers

Lay Leaders' Views About Female Rabbis and Ministers

Quakerism and its Implications for Quaker Women: the Women Itinerant Ministers of York Meeting, 1780-1840

In York Monthly Meeting, women ministers were to become dominant by the end of the eighteenth century, having been outnumbered by men since the beginning of the century. The Meeting for Ministers and Elders appears to have degenerated between 1726 and 1768 under the stewardship of Nathaniel Bell and Daniel Peacock. At the same time, female influence in the Meeting suffered a hiatus, the Meeting ceasing to send female representatives to the Quarterly Meeting in about 1718. This situation continued until 1783, when women once again began to feature strongly in the Meeting of Ministers and Elders; they were appointed to the positions of elder and minister and resumed sending representatives to Quarterly Meetings. From 1706 to 1775, York Meeting had 7 male ministers, of whom 4 were itinerant. There were 5 female ministers; 3 made more than one journey in the ministry. From 1775 to 1860 there were 11 male ministers, 2 being itinerant. There were 20 female ministers, of whom 11 made regular journeys in the ministry.

Are Women Changing the Image of Ministry? A Comparison of British and American Realities

Increasing numbers of women are entering the ordained ministry of the Christian Church. Whether they embrace or challenge traditional female roles, clergywomen are changing some aspects of the ministry, not least through their skills at counselling and their person-centered focus. By comparing British and American data, this paper argues that female ministers differ from their male colleagues in terms of their personal characteristics, their reasons for choosing the clerical profession and the factors they find rewarding and costly about their service to the church. While their numbers have increased, clergywomen still face a variety of obstacles to their ministry. These include structural barriers, placement difficulties, resistance amongst laity, opposition from clergymen and the traditionally masculine symbolism and liturgy of the church.