Token women - good or bad?
Well I thought it was a while since we outraged all of the women in the blogosphere and/or emerging church scene while simultaneously plunging the men of the blogosphere and/or emerging church scene into a discussion they can never seem to “win”. Plus there is always a real prospect in these discussions that people who actually agree with each other almost entirely end up in a blood feud over fine interpretations. Bring it on.
The topic for today’s stoush is “Emerging women in leadership and tokenism - good or bad?”
If you are interested in joining the fray, continue reading over the fold.
So, there seem to be a number of facts or opinions which are fairly widely observed but which don’t necessarily fit together neatly:
A. There are currently more men than women in leadership (or visible in leadership) in the emerging missional church.
B. It would be a good thing if the numbers of women and men in leadership (or visible in leadership) in the emerging missional church were more equal.
C. The emerging missional church bears some responsibility (in whatever shape) for encouraging, resourcing and developing women in leadership.
But how do you reconcile A, B and C? How is the emerging missional church to encourage, resource and develop women in leadership without making the endeavour look farcical and condescending?
You see, a simple way to be seen to accomplish C is to include women prominently in all groups, committees, presentations, speaking events, discussion forums and so on. Hence the ongoing search for and highlighting of women emerging bloggers. But it also means that, because of the effect of principle A, you get a relatively small number of women being showcased. Or alternatively, women who have less experience, expertise and knowledge than men are pushed to the fore.
Now the first might not be a problem. After all, on a slightly larger scale it is fair to say that the group of male speakers who are featured and showcased is not a constantly changing kaleidoscope. And if you only have a small group of appropriately qualified women to choose from (or point to) then we can’t just snap our fingers and change that situation.
The real boggle comes when we talk about preferring womens’ voices over mens’ (or a particular woman’s over a particular man’s), even though the particular women involved aren’t the most qualified to talk about a particular issue. Depending on whether we are in favour or against this, we can call this tokenism, or affirmative action or any number of other labels. To save us talking in the abstract, here is a concrete (albeit mostly fictitious) example:
Bill and Jan are married. Bill is a fully trained ordained minister with ministry experience in a range of ministry contexts from house churches, to small struggling churches, to large contemporary worship churches to missional projects. He is the ministry team leader of an established church (MCCC) which is engaging in some missional endeavours which other people in the emerging missional church are interested in and which they might be able to learn something from. Jan has some theological training but is not a minister. She works full time in a secular job. She has significant lay leadership responsibilities at MCCC but on in relation to one area of the ministry of MCCC (ie one group of congregations - the circus workers congregations - and one missional team - the annual circus outreach community performance). Bill and Jan also operate a website (Pointers) which generates a lot of discussion about the emerging missional church (and the church as a whole). Bill and Jan are equally qualified/capable to talk about Pointers. Bill is more qualified/capable of talking about most areas of MCCC. Bill and Jan are equally qualified/capable of talking about some areas of MCCC. Jan is more qualified/capable of talking about very few areas of relevance to the emerging missional church (”experiences of lay leadership” or “dealing with Bill’s ego”, for example)
So, you are the leadership team of a new conference aimed at missional church leaders (”McClarenfy”) both existing and prospective. You are trying to juggle positions A, B and C above and you have the opportunity to invite Bill or Jan (or both) to speak to your conference participants. Bill is more generally qualified, but Jan has the added advantage of no Y chromosome. Who do you invite to speak, and why? It is tokenism to put Jan on the bill program despite the fact that she has less experience and expertise? Or do you tailor a topic for her which is in one of the areas that she is equally able to speak (the circus clown ministry or “Pointers”) or in the areas where she is more qualified than Bill (the lay ministry thing)? Or do you just get Bill to speak and decide that Jan can earn a spot on the bill program if she wants to?
July 25th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
One practical problem with changing the leadership style of seminars like FORGE is that while I get a lot out of discussion, it is much more difficult to see why I should pay to attend something where people are purely doing discussion - as there are so many ways that I can engage in that in my own life.
So to a certain extent, it has to be about promoting particular personalities in order to convince people that the seminar has something to offer that holding the same discussion with your mates doesn’t.
I have certainly been to places where people have spent time in discussion and the feedback has been that it would have been nice to hear more of the speakers.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Dan, isn’t part of the reason you go to Forge things the fact that it offers a space where people exploring similar things meet? That’s certainly why I go - which suggests that it *is* doing something I can’t organise on my own.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
check out how long this thread is - and we haven’t yet mentioned either of the H words once!!!
July 25th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
This is getting a little off topic, but actually I don’t go to forge all that much. My forge history is that I normally go to a day or a session of the intensives and go to a postcards night every now and then when we can make it a congregational event at Tangent. The times that I have been to forge events have often been guided by whether I want to hear the speaker or whether I have particular plans to connect with friends there or whether it is one of those times when I haven’t managed to see my husband for a week or so and sitting with him in a seminar is a good way to do that.
I would spend more time directly with forge people than with them at forge events (if that makes sense). For me, most of the interest in going to an event like this (whether forge or whatever) would be to support the people organising it, to support someone who is speaking, to listen to someone who I want to hear speak or “misc”.
I love forge and I reckon it is a great organisation, and I really like the forge people, but I am not really the best example of attendance at the events.
July 25th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
‘H’ words? Oh no… you don’t mean… !!! (gasp!)
Hey Bec, I keep learning more and more about you. Your comment (bottom of page 3) ‘But just personally, I’d rather be patronised than excluded. I see tokenism is the beginning of a journey to a more inclusive place’ I found intriguing. Very pragmatic..
I dunno - maybe I thought you’d be more idealistic than that based on other comments…
I guess tokenism affects me differently because I am ‘one of us’ (white male). Therefore, maybe I have the ‘luxery’ (?) of seeing tokenism as being ‘rude’ or something, because at the end of the day, I’ve got the ‘package’ that ‘equips me’ to strive to be included. I can be selected on merit without bumping my head on the glass ceiling.
Those who have concussed themselves by persisting to try to get through to the top will take any route to get through, regardless of the intention of the offer.
Food for thought Bec, ta. Oh - being the busy lawyer person that you are, how do you have time to stay with us throughout the day? I’m being a house-dad today (wife doing Elijah House course in neighbouring town and kids out of school til Thursday) and it suddenly struck me - what are the rest of you doing?
Of course, being dial up at home means that Indian Telstra workers can’t get through to me while I’m here!! HA HA HA !!!
July 25th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Toddy - pragmatic, maybe. But it’s also about the distinction between beliefs/thoughts and actions. For example, I have friends who would state that women should submit to their husbands, but their beliefs as to the practical ramifications of that would vary. Similarly, someone who comes to our dinner might think that people who live on the streets “need” them, but that doesn’t necessarily have an impact on the people they’re hanging out with.
I have time to do this because I get distracted and bored easily and because I’m not very busy today…
July 25th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Nice chatting - good points re beliefs and actions.
Gotta go - kids video is nearly done, and I’ve got to do stuff around the place so my wife thinks I’ve been busy all day!
(Yes, I know how that sounds, and I know what thread I’ve said that on!
)
July 25th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Toddy,
please feel free to call me the, or rev, or john, or any derogatory term that comes to mind, call me anything, just call me
Bec,
I don’t know why I even try.
the rev
July 25th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
What have I done now?! I had to trace back through the thread to find out what I last said to you, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s so offensive! I just said I was asking a serious question, and said my friends would qualify as hip inner city men!!
July 25th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I think it can be quite good to let the speakers decide the mode of “instruction”. In the opportunities I’ve had to teach, and present at conferences, I just find that different topics lend themselves to different styles of presentation. Sometimes you can get a particular point across best using a group activity, sometimes by standing up the front, explaining it, and then taking some questions, sometimes by handing out reading material and having a discussion, etc. Having the seating in a circle can be great for discussion, but rows are usually better if you are doing a slideshow, powerpoint, or whatever.
Of course, some speakers won’t change their style, regardless of topic, audience or type of forum, and there’s probably not much you can do about that, other then to tell them how much time they have. But if you allow the presenter to do things in their own way, it would seem to me that you are on the right track.
July 25th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
there are so many layers in all of this… how do people learn? how can people best communicate their wisdom? what will people pay to hear?
i’ve been in the car a lot today, and had a long time to think (i was organising the blessing for a new prison chapel in Marngoneet, near Lara… there’s a whole other story…)
i think my problem is with the word ‘tokenism’.
i would hate for anyone to be chosen to speak at a conference just because they were a woman / indigenous / inner-city / poor etc. etc.
but any event that only has male, white, middle class speakers is missing out on a whole realm of experience and perspective. women look at the world differently to (white) men. indigenous people even more so. we shouldn’t invite female / indigenous (etc.) speakers to create equality. we should invite them because without their wisdom and perspective, we’re only getting half (at best) of the story. and we need to create events that are designed to get the best wisdom from those people.
(this is such basic stuff that it’s probably already been said…sorry…)
July 26th, 2006 at 10:22 am
hey, speaking of women and stories…check out the blog of my friend. She’s currently in New Orleans doing research. Only, unlike most of the academics in our field who do research by lining up interviews, she goes into a community and becomes a part of it, and learns a lot by doing that. She’s worked in East Timor, Bangladesh, Phuket immediately after the tsunami (still getting counselling because of it, too), trekked through the mountains in Laos to do evaluations in remote villages…and she’s not even 30 yet! She says New Orleans is the worst situation she’s ever seen (yep, worse than Phuket!), and her reflections make for interesting (disturbing) reading…
http://www.chasingdisasters.blogspot.com
August 14th, 2006 at 9:37 am
[…] I know that in my experience so much of the comments in the article ring true. We’re peddling a message (if you’ll excuse the crudity of the terminology) of how great it is to be in love with Jesus, and missing the call to action - we’ve lost the adventure that this Christian life is supposed to be. Which is perhaps why we’re seeing the opposite issue in the Emerging church arena (particularly in leadership) - the people who are most disillussioned by the way church is working at the moment, are the people who are getting out there and doing stuff. […]