February 7th, 2020

Introduction

2019 was the 25th anniversary of women being ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England. These ordinations were spread from March to July, and were celebrated in various ways throughout the year: some dioceses held services of celebration, many women celebrated in their own parishes or places of ministry, a service from the chapel of Lambeth Palace was broadcast by Radio 4 and the “class of ‘94” were invited to two garden parties at Lambeth Palace by the Archbishop.

We also noted that July 2019 was the 40th anniversary of the founding of MOW, and the 50th anniversary of women being licensed as Lay Readers (now Licensed Lay Ministers).

Seven more women were appointed as suffragan bishops out of eight appointments. None of the three diocesan appointments were women. By the end of 2019, 17 out of 63 suffragan bishops are women, whilst the number of diocesan bishops remains at five.

It continues to be vital for women to be represented in all forms of leadership in the Church of England, and this is of wider importance than just within the church. Research in the USA* discovered that experiencing the leadership of women religious leaders could close the self-esteem gap between men and women equivalent to a year of college education.

This finding would suggest that the self-esteem gap between men and women might be eliminated entirely in a world where women have female clergy at least “some of the time” in their formative years. It would boost self-esteem for women to levels equivalent with men (if not slightly higher) while not perceptively changing self-esteem for men one way or the other.
She Preached the Word p.131 Benjamin Knoll and Cammie Bolin OUP 2018

TABLE 1: Proportion of stipendiary incumbents/incumbent status clergy who are women

This table shows the proportion of stipendiary incumbent and incumbent status roles in each diocese.

In 2013 half of dioceses had 23% of parish clergy who were women; in 2018 the median figure was 27%

In 2013 only seven dioceses had 30% or more (stipendiary) parish clergy who were women

In 2018 14 dioceses had 30% or over parish clergy who were women (15 dioceses in 2017)

We note some dioceses with the lowest proportions of women continuing to increase this proportion (eg Chichester, London)

We note other dioceses with no significant change in the proportion of women eg Rochester, Chester

Ely continues to have the highest proportion of stipendiary women incumbents. It is one of the only dioceses with a conscious strategy to encourage and support women, particularly young women, in stipendiary ministry.

The proportion of incumbents/incumbent status who are women

TABLE 2:  Different roles within diocese

This table shows the proportion of stipendiary incumbent status clergy, the proportion of SSM clergy and the proportion of Area Deans who are women in each diocese.

NB Data for Stipendiary clergy and SSM clergy based on 2018 figures. Data for Area Deans updated to Dec 2019 (proportions for number of Area Deans are based on a small number of people so a change of one person can make a significant difference)

SSM data does not distinguish between SSM clergy who hold another job (often paid); and those who have significant parish responsibilities

There is no correlation between the proportions of incumbent status clergy who are women and the proportion of Area Deans. WATCH would be interested to hear of any dioceses who give conscious consideration to gender balance when making appointments to this role.

London is in the bottom grouping for both SSM clergy who are women and stipendiary incumbent status clergy who are women.

Women are more than half of all SSM clergy in 26 dioceses. This leads to a significant question about the value a diocese places on women’s ministry where women are a high proportion of SSM clergy but a low proportion of stipendiary clergy, eg:

• Rochester: 20% stipendiary clergy are women; 78% SSM clergy are women
• Channel Islands (not a diocese but data given separately): 14% stipendiary clergy are women and 67% SSM clergy
• Winchester: 21% stipendiary clergy are women, 60% SSM clergy are women

The different categories of SSM are not collected centrally. Does your diocese know (and publish)  how many SSM clergy are in the different categories described above?

TABLE 3: Ordained women in senior leadership roles in diocese

By December 2019, 22 dioceses had at least one woman among their bishops. Only two dioceses had more than one woman among their bishops. Some 27% of suffragan bishops and 12.5% of diocesan bishops are women.

There are still 16 dioceses without women among their archdeacons, although at least three of these currently have a vacancy for an archdeacon. Five dioceses have no women at all among their  “ex officio” senior clergy: bishops, archdeacons and cathedral dean.

WATCH knows several dioceses find ways of ensuring that women’s voices are heard in senior staff meetings. Does your diocese have a means of ensuring that women’s voices (not a single woman’s) are heard when making decisions at a senior level?

TABLE 4:  Age and gender of ordinands beginning training 2017 and 2018

The Church of England wishes to increase the proportion of women among younger individuals who train for ordination.

2018 data show an increase in this group, but still only 41% of the ordinands under 40 were women. The younger the cohort of ordinands, the smaller the proportion of women it contains. From the age of 45, the number (and proportion) of women ordinands equals and then overtakes that of men.

One implication of this continuing imbalance is that the proportion of women and men in licensed ordained ministry will be very slow to reach a gender balance, if it does so at all.

2018 is the first year when numbers of men and women training with the intention of stipendiary ministry were nearly the same, as were the numbers of those training with the intention of being an incumbent. We hope to see a similar pattern in future years.

However, no table is published which links age, gender and expected future role. This is an important link to investigate, as both the data we currently have, and anecdotal evidence, show women are being selected for training later in life than men, and more are selected for SSM and assistant roles. It seems unlikely that fewer women are of the calibre to be incumbents, and so this continuing correlation should be investigated further. See tables in Statistics for Ministry for more information.

Other authorised ministries

Church Army Officers are trained as evangelists, often working in areas of social deprivation or on the margins where church and society meet. Women have been trained as CA evangelists along with men for nearly 100 years. Today some are ordained while others remain lay. In 2018, 31% of all CA evangelists were female.

Readers/LLMs. The majority of Readers/LLMs are licensed after the age of 40. In this, they follow the pattern of ordained women. It is noticeable that between the ages of 40 and 70, the proportion of women LLMs is higher than that of men – a pattern similar to that of female SSMs.

Note that the proportions of men and women are very similar to the proportions of women and men SSM