Carol Howard Merritt at Tribal Church has a great post about "post-evangelical women" and the challenges of moving into leadership even when your new church circles officially welcome women's leadership. While I don't think of myself as a PEW, those of us raised in the Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod can certainly relate -- especially #5 about finding our voice and women's reluctance to self-promote. This post absolutely resonated with my years as a mission developer hanging out mostly with (post-)evangelicals.
Fewer and fewer denominations have policies that exclude women from leadership, but more subtle forms of sexism, unfortunately, are still very much alive -- even in church circles where women have been ordained for over thirty or more years. We're doing better with gender than we are with race or GLBT issues, but no, Virginia, we have not yet fully unleashed women's leadership gifts in the church.
I could give examples, but that begins to look like finger-pointing. And honestly, I've never found a way to write about such things without sounding whiny. Because, truth is, I benefit far more from being white, middle-class and straight than I am disadvantaged because of my gender.
