We need to talk about the elephant in the room (sacristy?). And by elephant, I mean the way we women in the church sometimes treat one another. I know about it. You know about it. But no one wants to talk about it.

Over the last several years we have become more comfortable raising the issues of patriarchy and structures and how misogyny has made it hard for women to flourish in the Church. We have said we need to work to change these structures and make the church a better place for all people on the margins. This is good and holy work, work enough to keep the church very busy. But those aren’t the only conversations we need to have and not the only work that needs to be done if we want to make real progress. It’s true that those barriers are real, they can be ugly and painful and downright stubborn to try to work around. But (there is vulnerability in admitting this), even if we somehow eliminated all of them, we would still find ourselves missing the good destination we hope to arrive at: women flourishing in their roles in our churches.

Though it is an uncomfortable statistic, when it comes to women being bullied in the workplace, a large proportion of it is done by other women. I have witnessed and experienced this to be true in my own life.

I have known women to snub, exclude, gossip, and spread some pretty nasty rumours. Instead of using their leadership position to help the women below them, they’ve used it to prey on those they’re intimidated by to keep them from advancing. I have been on the receiving end of some pretty denigrating (though oh so subtle) name calling, often accompanied by being gaslit and isolated. Then finally set up to fail by the significant increase of workload and pressure to complete projects. This from women I had hoped would empathize with me and understand the significant cognitive and caregiving load that most women carry.

In their defense, it has been hard work for most women to reach leadership positions. Some have sacrificed their work-life balance so they can prove that they are committed to their role and to the church. Some have experienced their own share of oppressive and unkind behavior from those in leadership over them. The obstacles have been huge, and the cost has been high. They are arguably victims of a system that requires a certain type of leader- white, male, authoritarian; in a patriarchal system often the biggest threat to a women who has ‘made it’ as a leader is another woman who might take her position. Instead of working with their sisters, they work against them, viewing them as their competition.

So yes, you could make a solid case for the argument that when a woman bullies or belittles another woman a system of patriarchy that demands toxic masculinity is still to blame – women are forced to embody a system that oppresses women in order to reach the top positions in our church. Maybe. Probably. But we are not passive in this process. So what are we going to do about it?

In her powerful 1979 commencement speech at Barnard College, an all-women’s university, author Toni Morrison said the following:

            I am alarmed by the violence that women do to one another: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women. I am alarmed by a growing absence of decency on the killing floor of professional women’s worlds. You are the women who will take your place in the world where you can decide who shall flourish and who shall wither; you will make distinctions between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor; where you can yourself determine which life is expendable and which is indispensable. Since you have the power to do it, you may also be persuaded that you have the right to do it. I am suggesting that we pay as much attention to our nurturing sensibilities as to our ambition. You are moving in the direction of freedom, and the function of freedom is to free somebody else.

It is worth doing the work to become women who empower and uplift other women because there is so much to be hopeful about, and so much transformation to usher in. Here is the beautiful truth: women in leadership bring flourishing to their workplaces. When there are women in leadership there is greater job satisfaction, more meaningful work, a decrease in burnout and better staff engagement and retention.

I have witnessed and experienced this to be true. I have seen women encourage, uplift, mentor, challenge and make sacrifices so that other women can excel. I have felt friendship instead of competition and found nurturing love instead of gossip and name calling. The fruit? So much joy! and a church that is journeying toward flourishing. The church needs women in leadership. Women leaders need other women to support them. So let us commit to tearing down barriers instead of erecting them. Let’s encourage one another and love as Christ loves us.

You are moving in the direction of freedom, and the function of freedom is to free somebody else.

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Feminist Leadership

There are countless courses on Women’s Leadership. Many of them focus on the need to foster diversity within organisations, most often through training in intersectionality.  Of course, as Anglicans, we accept the Gospel imperative to build spaces where equity is promoted and differences are embraced. And the research shows that this kind of environment benefits everyone. According to a study by the Harvard Business Review, the more diverse an organization is, the higher their innovation and their financial performance.

The concept of Intersectionality is a fairly recent addition to feminism, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, it acknowledges that women cannot simply be defined by their gender, we carry with us multiple social identities: race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. There is no one way to be a woman and there is not one way to define what a woman is. Intersectionality highlights the intersecting systems of oppression that individuals may face based on their multiple social identities.

According to feminist academia, advocacy, and policymaking, women leaders with a feminist worldview will work to include the myriad parts of a woman’s world that make her who she is. There is a widely held belief that feminists are the best at advocating for and practicing intersectionality in organizations.

If we see the work of feminism as dismantling those systems of oppression, discrimination, and inequality that perpetuate gender-based hierarchies and privilege, surely any type of women’s group or leadership training that claims feminism as its worldview must be beneficial for all women.

The problem is that, at its core, feminist leadership is a paradigm for the white, middle-class woman. It is presumed that the subject in mainstream feminism is a straight, white, middle-class, and non-disabled woman. Adding intersectionality to white feminism doesn’t change the leadership worldview, it just adds a little something extra to it. The Western white woman is the baseline and any other way of being a woman is viewed as “additional”. Kimberlé Crenshaw did not intend her concept to be used like a seasoning to make white feminism more palatable. She intended it to be used as a tool to understand oppression and the way our lives are impacted by what the world assumes of us because of where, how and to whom we have been born.

What does good leadership training look like?

In his book “Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.” Miraslov Volf argues that effective leadership involves navigating the tension between exclusion and embrace. Exclusion refers to the tendency we have to define ourselves and the groups we belong to as though they are in opposition to other individuals and groups, often leading to conflict, division, and the marginalization of anyone we see as different. Embrace, though, is the capacity to recognize and engage with the Other in ways that bring understanding, reconciliation, and solidarity.

The goal of any leadership programme should not be merely to educate leaders on how to “include” all people, but rather to offer a transformational worldview based on love, peace and joy embodied in relationships that care for all people. This must be at the heart of any kind of radical revisioning of the present and of the future.

Read Part 1 of this series Here

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A Mātauranga grounded approach to women’s leadership might change our priorities and help our outcomes.

Many dedicated people have been working for years to advocate for women leaders in the Anglican Church, and because of their tireless work there’s a growing consensus that our statistics need to change. Our challenge now is to turn this awareness into the implementation of actions that will result in better outcomes. A Mātauranga grounded approach could provide a framework for flourishing whose results would speak for themselves.

It’s easy to get caught up in numerical goals: aiming to place the same number of women in leadership positions as men. This is a worthy aspiration, and one that changes in policy could certainly play a role in achieving. However, making this our primary goal might not have the intended effect.

A recent study found that when organisations increased the number of women on their boards it simply shifted the power ratio so that a smaller number of men were holding relatively greater power. Women were less empowered in these scenarios than they had been before.

If our focus remains solely on numbers, we risk neglecting the formation of Te Oranga Ake – flourishing for all.

Khylee Quince (Dean of AUT Law School) gave a powerful keynote address on mana wāhine and feminism. She posed some questions that could help the Church turn their focus to empowering, equipping and improving the outcomes for women leaders:

How can we, as part of a post-colonial or decolonization strategy, elevate the status of wāhine Māori?

How can we ensure their well-being aligns with the principles of Te Tiriti?

And crucially, how can we leverage their journey towards mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga, the self-determination of wāhine Māori?

It may be that we discover that when we grapple with these questions we get beyond goals of gender quotas and open ourselves to possibilities we have yet to imagine.

Perhaps our churches could become spaces where diverse familial structures and obligations are recognized, where colonial gender hierarchies are denounced, and where collective well-being takes precedence over individualism.

At the heart of mana wāhine lies a rich heritage and wisdom, offering hope for the future of women in leadership within our church communities.

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