Women Missionaries Research Articles

Tecnologías y género en los proyectos de desarrollo destinados a las mujeres indígenas chaqueñas

This article takes up the contributions of feminist research to the field of Social Studies of Science and Technology. From an ethnographic perspective, it places the focus on the technologies aimed at indigenous Chaco women in development projects implemented by ecclesial initiatives in the last two decades of the 20th century that were aimed at promoting the participation of indigenous women in the public sphere. It analyzes the implications of the joint action of two technologies –the pedal sewing machine and the community room– in the work undertaken by missionary women with indigenous women from Chaco that allow us to explain the adoption of these technologies as a socio-historically situated phenomenon. The article uses the concepts «fluidity», «agency», and «functioning-non-functioning» of technologies from a gender perspective.

ACO Women in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Transitions and Persisting Patterns

After the independence of Syria and Lebanon Protestant missionary work in the Middle East changed dramatically. The women missionaries who worked in the service of the ACO had to come to terms with new realities such as the social and political turmoil of decolonisation, missiological shifts, and partnership agreements with the local churches. Drawing on written memoirs and oral history sources, this article explores their female agency and leadership in a changing context. It also analyses the perception of these missionaries by local agents.

Decomposing the source of the gender gap in legislative committee service: evidence from US states

AbstractExtensive research on gender and politics indicates that women legislators are more likely to serve on committees and sponsor bills related to so-called “women's issues.” However, it remains unclear whether this empirical regularity is driven by district preferences, differences in legislator backgrounds, or because gendered political processes shape and constrain the choices available to women once they are elected. We introduce expansive new data on over 25,000 US state legislators and an empirical strategy to causally isolate the different channels that might explain these gendered differences in legislator behavior. After accounting for district preferences with a difference-in-differences design and for candidate backgrounds via campaign fundraising data, we find that women are still more likely to serve on women's issues committees, although the gender gap in bill sponsorship decreases. These results shed new light on the mechanisms that lead men and women to focus on different policy areas as legislators.

The nuns’ story: Empirical research into religious, post/colonial, and gender power issues as illustrated by the lives and work of the missionary congregation, the Zusters van de Jacht

Abstract This article is based on interviews carried out with sixteen members of the Zusters van de Jacht, a congregation founded in Belgium, and whose Belgian Sisters are today a mainly retired community. The Sisters served abroad as missionaries throughout the world, during and in the aftermath of colonial rule, and this article investigates issues of power using a three-fold lens of religion, post/colonialism, and gender. As nationals of the colonising country of Belgium and as members of an established church, the Sisters had a certain power and authority in the mission field, which they exercised in different ways. As foreign women and members of a religious congregation, they held roles of leadership and influence abroad, which allowed them to be effective bringers of change and help as well as active entrepreneurs. These roles transcended the gendered roles of submission they would have held as religious Sisters in the Roman Catholic Church back in Belgium. This article examines where and how power was exercised and experienced in their frequently adventurous, sometimes dangerous, missionary lives. It situates the life stories of the Zusters van de Jacht in the context of ongoing debates about the role and influence of missionary women. It makes a contribution to the oral history of religious missionary women by presenting extracts from their life stories in their own words.

The Urgency of Regulation in the Case of Online Gender-Based Violence in Indonesia

The National women's commission 2020 Annual Notes noted a new type of violence against gender, namely cyber-based or online gender violence. These cases of violence have continued to increase over the past six years, an increase of 300% in Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV) compared to the 2019. The OGBV case was found on various popular social media platforms. The most common incidents occurred on Facebook, where 39% of women experienced harassment. This figure is then followed by Instagram (23%), Whatsapp (14%), Snapchat (10%), Twitter (9%), and TikTok (6%). This study uses a quantitative approach. The data collection technique used was the survey data collection technique with the self-administered questionnaire method. The number of respon­dents are 109 respondents. The result of this study is that online gender-based violence is influenced by two factors, namely regulatory factors that are still unable to protect women in social media and social factors that have been cultured. There is a perspective that views women as having a weaker position than men. These two factors are the most significant in promoting online gender-based violence in Indonesia. Based on this study's results, the authors recommend the government immediately issue regulations regulating violence against women, especially violence in online media.

Katharine Massam: A Bridge between: Spanish Benedictine Missionary Women in Australia. Canberra: ANU Press, 2020; pp. xix + 390.

Katharine Massam: A Bridge between: Spanish Benedictine Missionary Women in Australia. Canberra: ANU Press, 2020; pp. xix + 390.

A Phenomenological Study on Women Missionaries’ Experiences of Interpersonal Stress in the Mission Field

본 연구는 선교사의 선교지에서의 대인관계 스트레스 경험과 그 의미에 대해서 이해하고자 하였다. 선교지에 파송되어 5년 이상 사역한 여성 선교사 6명을 연구 참여자로 선정하여 Colaizzi의 현상학적 방법으로 연구하였다. 그 결과, 선교지에서의 대인관계 스트레스 경험에 대해서 총 52개의 의미단위, 10개의 주제, 5개의 주제군과 3개의 범주가 도출되었다. 3개의 범주는 ‘스트레스에 대한 개인 내적인 반응’, ‘스트레스에 대한 대인관계적 반응’, ‘스트레스에 대한 하나님과의 관계에서의 반응’이었다. 5개의 주제군은 ‘스트레스로 인한 신체적, 심리적 반응 경험’, ‘스스로를 보호하기 위해 다른 사람과의 관계에 거리를 둠’, ‘다른 사람들에게 마음을 풀어냄’, ‘주어진 상황을 견디면서 상대방을 품기’, ‘하나님께 집중함’으로 정리되었다. 또한, 여성 선교사의 선교지에서의 대인관계 스트레스 경험에 대한 의미는 총 23개의 의미단위, 5개의 주제와 2개의 주제군, 1개의 범주가 도출되었다. 1개의 범주는 ‘성장’이었고, 2개의 주제군은 ‘선교사 자신의 변화’와 ‘하나님과의 깊은 관계 안에서 회복됨’으로 정리되었다. 대인관계 스트레스 경험을 통해 얻은 의미는 선교사 자신이 변화하였다는 점과 하나님과의 깊은 관계 안에서 회복이 일어났다는 것이다. 본 연구는 선교사들이 선교지에서 겪는 대인관계 스트레스에 대한 이해를 증진시켜 선교사를 다각적으로 돌볼 수 있는 토대를 마련하였다. 마지막으로, 본 연구의 한계점과 제언점을 제시하였다.

Christian Women in Chinese Society: The Anglican Story

This book originates from a conference in 2015 of the same name, and contains eleven of the papers presented. It explores the roles and contribution of women, foreign and Chinese, in the Anglican community and the wider society of modern China, within a context where Christianity could be seen as collaborating with but also liberating from oppressions of colonialism and the patriarchal culture in Asia.The book begins with a section on cross-cultural partnership. Kwok Pui-lan’s broad-sketching conceptual paper sets the scene by suggesting a transnational, cross-cultural approach set against the progressive womanhood emerging in a global modern era. This is followed by two chapters on education enterprises across decades of political and social turbulence: one on the St. Hilda Girls’ School in urban central China, by Judith Liu, which aimed originally at evangelization but eventually emerged as a vanguard of Christian women along the lines of social gospel, and another on Bible Women in rural southern China, by Zhou Yun, in which women missionaries and converts formed intimate personal relationship, facilitating cross-cultural interaction and the forming of a local Christian identity.The second section centers on women and ordained ministry. Peter Cunich traces how three southern dioceses in China (Fukien, Kwangsi-Hunan, and South China) implemented the Lambeth resolution of 1920 and ordained female deaconesses during the 1920s–1930s. Philip Wickeri then provides a historical reconstruction of the life of Florence Li Tim Oi, portraying her not only as a spearhead for female priesthood in the Anglican community, but also as a person, with weaknesses, sufferings and hurts. Angela Wong closes the section by investigating the ordination of the five female priests by invitation of Bishop Hall and Bishop Baker and identifies the unique intercultural position and progressive characteristics of China and Hong Kong that paved the way for such pioneering actions.The third section offers a collection of life stories. Frances Slater and Jennifer Lin, respectively, tell of the Wolfe sisters, single women CMS missionaries and daughters of Archdeacon J. R. Wolfe, and Zhan Aimei, a rural farm girl whose course of life led her to become the matriarch of a prominent Christian family. These two accounts draw on family histories and provide different personal perspectives on the lives and ministries of Christian women in southern China, complementing the scene of previous chapters. Then Ruiwen Chen describes the life of Kuo Siu-may, who worked closely with her husband K. H. Ting (later bishop) and served in education and academia from the early decades of Communist China, through the Cultural Revolution, until the opening of China in 1980s.The last section addresses the community service of Anglican women. Duan Qi’s paper, translated by Janice Wickeri, states the development and ministries of the CHSKH Women’s Missionary Service League from 1921 through to 1947, extending the legacy of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Episcopal Mission Board. The book concludes with Jane Lee’s chapter recounting the women’s work of the church in Hong Kong since 1860, highlighting its efforts in education, significant incidents such as the anti–mui tsai movement, and individuals such as Dr. Judith Hall and Rev. Dorothy Lau.The historical contexts of these narratives are often challenged as being synonymous to imperial, colonial, and patriarchal oppression. And yet, individuals and enterprises narrated in this volume come across with a subtle, egalitarian spirit. It would be interesting to know how this plays out across the social stratum of different classes, and when venturing beyond coastal China (from Shanghai, Fukien province, down to Canton province, Hong Kong, and Kwangsi province) and the inland port of Wuhan, known as “the thoroughfare of nine provinces.”Fourth in the series “Historical Studies of Anglican Christianity in China,” this book contributes both to the religious history of modern China and the history of Christianity in China by providing detailed documentations. As such, it is mainly descriptive, except for Kwok’s paper at the start. While centering on the same theme, the chapters are rather independent, and could be read both separately or in sequence. Seven of the papers also appear in the Chinese edition (聖公會敘事：基督教婦女與華人社會).

Interchangeable Bodies: International Marriage and Migration in the Eighteenth-Century Moravian Church

This article investigates the extent to which the theology and structure of marriage within the German Moravian Church functioned to connect and grow the Church as an international network across the Atlantic world in the eighteenth century. Specifically, it argues that Moravian conceptions of marriage facilitated intentional international partnerships that led to the relocation and migration of many European women as Moravian missionaries throughout the eighteenth century. In some instances, early Moravians lived in sex-segregated communal housing and viewed sexual intercourse as a sacred unification with Christ, free of human desire. Part of the Moravian impetus to be “everywhere at home” required preventing individual congregational differences in order to create a larger international community. If the Church aimed to view all brothers and sisters as productive bodies to serve the growth of the community, then these bodies needed to be interchangeable and unrooted to a specific space. The premeditated practice of intermarriage between congregations meant that there were not individual groups that practiced the Moravian faith, but rather a singular global church family. Based on an analysis of Moravian missionary women's memoirs, this article begins to delve into the social and geographic mobility available to these eighteenth-century women through a nonnormative marital structure.

Perception of gender discrimination among spine surgeons across Latin America: a web-based survey

BACKGROUND CONTEXTFemale physicians rarely choose spine surgery as their specialty. Although the specialty's nature and its associated lifestyle are potential barriers, gender-related issues may play an important part. PURPOSETo evaluate the gender discrimination among spine surgeons across Latin America. STUDY DESIGNCross-sectional survey. PATIENT SAMPLEThe participants in this study were 223 AO Spine Latin America (AOSLA) registered members who answered the web-based survey. OUTCOME MEASURESPersonal and professional demographics; gender-related objective and subjective experiences regarding career and personal life. METHODSA survey link containing a 24-item questionnaire was sent to the members’ e-mails in September 2019. The survey was designed to evaluate the perception of gender discrimination by spine surgeons during their academic and professional lives. RESULTSOut of 223 members who answered the survey, 196 (87.96%) were male and 27 (12.11%) female. Most were orthopedic surgeons (64.13%), ≥40 years of age (55.16%), and had <20 years of experience (69.95%). Gender discrimination was more frequent among women than among men (66.67% vs. 1.02%), as did discouragement from becoming a spine surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, or neurosurgeon (81.48% vs. 0.51%). Females reported higher rates of sexual harassment (44.44% vs. 7.65%) and more often felt disadvantaged because of gender (55.56% vs. 2.55%). Working harder than men to achieve the same prestige and lack of female mentorship were the most common obstacles reported by women (55.56%). Residency/fellowship influenced the decision to postpone/avoid having children for 66.67% of women but only 37.75% of men. Creation of a Women's Committee in AO Spine was supported by 74.07% of women and 38.78% of men. CONCLUSIONSGender-based discrimination affects women more frequently than men in spine surgery. These experiences likely contribute to the low prevalence of female spine surgeons. Efforts to mitigate bias and support the professional development of women in neurosurgery, orthopedics and spine communities are encouraged.

“We Followed the Lord Alone”: The Arduous Journey to Secure Woman's Missionary Societies in the Evangelical Association, 1839–1884

“We Followed the Lord Alone”: The Arduous Journey to Secure Woman's Missionary Societies in the Evangelical Association, 1839–1884

Deaconess Movement and Women Missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in Korea: a Preliminary Study

Deaconess Movement and Women Missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in Korea: a Preliminary Study

Towards gender equity in emergency medicine: a position statement from the CAEP Women in Emergency Medicine committee.

As of January 2019, over half of all doctors working in Canada under the age of 40 were women. Despite equal representation in the profession of medicine, women still experience harassment, discrimination, and pay inequity when compared to their male colleagues. Gender discrimination is present at all levels of medical training and negatively impacts women who want to become emergency physicians. The right to gender equity is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The World Health Organization states that "gender inequities are socially generated and, therefore, can be changed." CAEP recognizes that gender equity is important to its members and that it intersects with inequities experienced by other minority groups. This position statement from the committee for Women in Emergency Medicine (EM) is intended to support women and those who identify as women who have chosen EM as their career. Furthermore, it is meant to inform and support policy makers as they consider the unique challenges that women face in their pursuit of excellence in EM.

Imagining an Anti-Racist Cosmopolitanism: Localization, Imperialism and Transnational Women's Activism in Interwar Japan

Imagining an Anti-Racist Cosmopolitanism:Localization, Imperialism and Transnational Women's Activism in Interwar Japan Noriko Ishii On 18 April 1934, Kobe College, one of the first women's colleges in Japan founded by the American Congregational women missionaries, celebrated the dedication of its new Okadayama campus, built in a beautiful Mediterranean style. This was a product of a thirty-year transnational collaboration of American Protestant women's networks across the Pacific. Japanese women of the Kobe College alumnae association provided the land and American women of Protestant churches provided the buildings for the one-million-dollar expansion. At the dedication ceremony, Mrs Hazel Thorne Wilson, representing the Kobe College Corporation in Chicago, declared that the corporation would continue promoting Kobe College as "a symbol of international friendship and goodwill."2 Hashimoto Hatsue, Class of 1926, speaking on behalf of the Japanese women alumnae, said the alumnae's success was due to "a burning love for the college" and "the loving kindness of many American friends,"3 inferring Japanese women's deference to American women's friendship. This case study of the Kobe College expansion campaign provides us a window to examine how the notions of internationalism, friendship and cosmopolitanism were imagined and used as we historicize the campaign against the backdrop of the shifting world order and the changing landscape of the American foreign missionary movement between 1905 and 1934. The thirty years of the expansion campaign coincided with the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the 1924 US Immigration Act prohibiting Japanese immigration, the Great Depression of 1929 and the Manchurian Incident in 1931 and the emergence of uneasy tensions between the United States and Japan, each with their Pacific empires. Both Japanese and American missionaries were forced to face the controversial question of how to deal with the Japanese empire's religious policy of encouraging the three major religions, Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity, to evangelize among the colonized in order to assimilate them into the Japanese empire. In addition, during the 1920s, women of the American foreign missionary movement faced an internal crisis in which most of the separate women's mission boards were merged with their male-led denominational parent boards. These mergers epitomized the decline of female autonomy in American Protestant foreign mission enterprises.4 Robert also points out that after the First World War, "'World Friendship' decisively replaced 'Woman's Work for Woman' as the missiology of the woman's missionary movement." Robert explained that "World Friendship assumed that western culture no longer had a monopoly on virtue" and that "what was needed of missions was not paternalism, but partnership and friendship: united work for peace and justice,"5 suggesting that such partnership entailed an equal relationship between the western missionaries and their Indigenous counterparts. This article argues that in the Japanese mission field, the transition was more complex. In the Kobe College expansion campaign, the nineteenth-century mission ideology of Woman's Work for Woman remained salient and coexisted with the ecumenical notions of internationalism, friendship and cosmopolitanism. David A. Hollinger links the concept of what he called "missionary cosmopolitanism" or liberal internationalism in the missionary movement to Wilsonian internationalism. He also called for more attention to study the role of missionary-connected individuals in postwar American diplomacy, including the so-called "mish kids" or the missionary children, because they served as the informants of prewar Asian history and culture, and became the key purveyors of liberal internationalism in the United States.6 This article argues that such was the case in the Kobe College expansion campaign, for both American and Japanese women often used the notions of Wilsonian internationalism and friendship and the concept of Christian internationalism interchangeably. Moreover, Kobe College was imagined to be an ecumenical space of aspirational cosmopolitanism and friendship by both American and Japanese women, especially under the leadership of missionary president Charlotte B. DeForest, herself a "mish kid" born in Japan. Drawing on the conceptual framework of "aspirational cosmopolitanism" defined as "the pursuit of conversations across lines of difference, between disparate socio-cultural, political and linguistic groups, that provisionally created shared public worlds,"7 this article examines how the Kobe College expansion campaign...

Mexico - The Mysterious Sofía: One Woman's Mission to Save Catholicism in Twentieth-Century Mexico. By Stephen J. C. Andes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. Pp. 450. $65.00 cloth.

Mexico - The Mysterious Sofía: One Woman's Mission to Save Catholicism in Twentieth-Century Mexico. By Stephen J. C. Andes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. Pp. 450. $65.00 cloth. - Volume 78 Issue 1

Mobilising People, Places, and Practice: Public Health Care in Samoa, 1920s to 1950s

The post-Second World War environment brought tremendous infrastructural change to the Pacific region. However, changes had taken place much earlier in Samoa under the New Zealand administration in the 1920s, with the enactment of the Samoa Act (1920), which established the health system, as a result of the influenza epidemic crisis of 1918. By the 1920s, Komiti Tūmamā (Women's Committees) emerged with a key focus on ‘village health and baby care’. However, certain health practices remained in the postwar period such as racial discrimination within health services. By the late 1940s, diseases such as hookworm, filariasis, and yaws along with tuberculosis, typhoid, and pneumonia remained areas of concern. In considering this period, the key themes focus on community development and the introduction of new health systems, the changing gender roles, and impact on Samoan health practices. Drawing on these histories, this paper outlines the dynamic characteristics of Samoa's medical history in the early part of the twentieth century.

In the Socio-Economic life of Uzbekistan the role of Women: Changes and development trends

Among the comprehensive reforms being carried out in Uzbekistan, measures to increase the role of women in the life of the state and society reflect the current image of a renewed Uzbekistan. As a clear pro of of this, the attention paid to women confirms that one of the noble features of our people, historical work of state importance is being carried out to strengthen the role and status of women in society. After all, paying attention to women, respecting them in society is one of the noble features of the Uzbek people. There is a deep historical basis for the fact that Uzbekistan is carrying out historic work of national importance to strengthen the role and status of women in society. It is no coincidence that the stability and development of the political, socio-spiritual environment in society has always been determined in many respects by the attitude to women and the family. It should be noted that the Women's Committee of Uzbekistan, a self-governing non-profit organization, was established on a voluntary basis on December 27, 1991 at a conference of women of Uzbekistan in Termez to protect the rights and interests of women has been carrying out large-scale activities. Also, the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated February 3, 2018 "On measures to radically improve the activities in the field of support of women and strengthening the institution of the family" served to fully support the role of women.

To the Ends of the Earth: 1000 Norwegian-American Missionaries ed. by Torbjørn Greipsland

Reviewed by: To the Ends of the Earth: 1000 Norwegian-American Missionaries ed. by Torbjørn Greipsland Gaylan Mathiesen To the Ends of the Earth: 1000 Norwegian-American Missionaries. Edited by Torbjørn Greipsland. Ottestad, Norway: Ventura, 2017. 339 pp. Based on Greipsland’s exploration of ELCA archives and his historical research on The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), the book’s primary objective is to illustrate the extensive missionary passion and commitment of Norwegian-American Lutherans, something Greipsland identifies as a lacuna in history books about Norwegian-Americans. Greipsland divides most of the book according to geography: China, Madagascar, India, Zululand, Swaziland, Alaska, and Mongolia. The book’s thirty chapters cover a wide range of topics, such as the relationship between Norwegian and Norwegian-American churches and mission societies, the role and place of women missionaries, the formation of Lutheran denominations, and the severe challenges and sacrifices that missionaries and their families experienced. The main contributors to the work are Gracia Grindal, Sigmund Edland, Erik Kjebekk, and Torbjørn Greipsland. Those familiar with Grindal’s biography of missionaries Thea Rønning and her brother Halvor will recognize their inspiring story in the first chapter. Grin-dal writes of their faith journey as youth and their growing passion for missions, most especially for China, which steadily grew through their reading of Hudson Taylor and in response to visits to Norway by some of Taylor’s associates. Grindal then introduces their call to study and missions in America and their eventual call to China at a Hauge Synod meeting in Minnesota in 1890. Grindal brings the reader an intimate account of Thea Rønning’s spiritual life and her growing love for China and its people as well as the stresses of adjusting to China’s climate, culture, and the physical strain of battling serious illnesses. Thea Rønning’s career in China ended after eight short years when she succumbed to meningitis, but the effects of her work and that of many like her are inestimable. In chapter two, Greipsland interviews Grindal, giving the reader a more extensive knowledge of the human and spiritual resources that made possible the stories in this book. There are many similarly inspiring examples including Malla Moe from Hafslo in Sogn or the Nestegaard brothers from Hallingdal, but [End Page 371] the reader will notice that writing quality and chapter length varies. Several chapters are rather short, at times only two to three pages long, and some read like a brief essay in a biographical dictionary or a missionary’s journal entries. At times, material gets repeated, either in other chapters, or in at least one instance, within a chapter. Still, the reader will certainly sense the passion and commitment that these Norwegian-Americans brought to their missionary calling, often against very great odds that would be quite daunting for many of us. This book will be useful to those wanting to explore the missionary contributions of Norwegian-Americans, especially those who are of Lutheran heritage. It also serves as a biographical resource for those wanting to do further research on Norwegian-American missionaries. [End Page 372] Gaylan Mathiesen Lutheran Brethren Seminary Fergus Falls, Minnesota Copyright © 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc

Transitional Justice Standards on Reparations for Women Subjected to Violence in the CEDAW Committee’s Evolving Legal Practice

Abstract Violence against women continues to be one of the most pressing global concerns. Reparations for women victims of violence have been addressed by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Committee over the last 15 years. This article critically examines the evolving practice of the Committee on reparations, in light of the transitional justice doctrinal and normative acquis on gender-sensitive reparations. We systematize legal interpretations, identify trends and milestones, and link them to transitional justice elements. We also suggest that the transitional justice reparations framework can be, and is in fact being, applied to non-transitional contexts, independent of armed conflict and authoritarian regimes. Further, we propose recommendations for the Committee to engage in a more explicit ‘dialogue’ with these ongoing developments to the benefit of women in their everyday lives and in recognition of the structural dimension of violence against women, even in what are other so-called peaceful and stable societies.

Attaining the correct balance: Exploring the challenges and spirituality of single women missionaries in the Victorian era

This comprehensive account analyses the issues of the role of single women missionaries in the Victorian era. In mission history, the moreover complex place of these women in the whole spectrum of missionary life has been dominated mostly by male authority. We meet several personalities who, in their own person, promised to follow God’s lead and to give their utmost energies to accomplish God’s highest plans. Recently I saw a leaflet with the names and pictures of all the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) missionaries in Africa and those who are on home assignment. A quick view shows that most of them are single women. This pamphlet affirms the thesis, that of all the missionaries sent to foreign countries, the majority are single women. Having been overlooked for a long time, in the last decades of the 20th century, more attention is being given to their involvement in mission work and the role of single women missionaries is highlighted. Missionary attitude is an essential dimension of the spirituality of these women. This article explores the tensions, the critical issues and direction of single women missionaries in the Victorian era. This serves as a contribution to the continuing research to understand the history of ‘half the church’. Being involved in mission does raise special challenges, and women’s spirituality should reflect these. Today many people are ignorant of their existence, and it is as though they had noiselessly tip-toed out of the pages of history and had been removed to page-less oblivion. Stanley reports that their contribution was rarely acknowledged, and hence has left little historical record. Murray is also very clear when talking about women’s missionary work, namely that their contribution in mission was little recorded, little regarded, and little known. In examining their experiences, I turn to the key theological frames of motivation: call, purpose, vision and suffering in order to make a contribution to the debate about the role of single women in missionary work, and to incorporate their experiences in the debate. These women, for a long time overlooked in the prevailing missionary debate, show a professionalism in missionary issues, which were overlooked for a long time.