Gender and Religious Work

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2000 by Zoey A. Heyer-Gray

While much recent work in this field explores the experiences of female members of the clergy and the work that they do as pastors and formal leaders of the church (for example, Lawless 1988; Lehman 1993; Nesbitt 1997; Wallace 1991) there is comparatively less work being done that explores the work and experiences of lay women in the church.

Furthermore, much of the research that does take into consideration the experiences of lay women in the church is quantitative and primarily concerned to explicate gender differences in religiosity (for example, DeVaus and McAllister 1987; Miller and Hoffman 1995; Thompson 1991). There is comparatively less qualitative work that explores the experiences of lay women in the church and even less that explores the work that they do (but see Pevey, Williams, and Ellison 1996; Gillespie 1992; Gilkes 1985 for some important and notable exceptions).

Although the aim of this note is to articulate the theoretical framework of this research and the ways in which it begins to address gaps in the existing sociological literature, I would like to conclude by offering some preliminary (and partial) answers to my research questions. The data discussed below is derived from fieldwork conducted at three different sites -- a Catholic church, an independent Christian church, and a Southern Baptist church -- over a period of several months.

WHAT KINDS OF RELIGIOUS WORK DO WOMEN DO?

At the Catholic church women performed a greater variety of tasks during the worship service than at either the Christian or the Baptist church. Women read, assisted in serving communion, brought the gifts to the altar, and read the prayers of the congregation -- tasks that only men performed at the other two churches. Males would occasionally perform these tasks at the Catholic church, as well, but women were more likely to carry them out, and when a male did undertake one of these particular tasks he did so in tandem with a female partner -- a wife, sister, or mother. The only task performed exclusively by men, aside from those performed by the priest himself, was the collection of the offering.

In contrast, women were much less visible at the Sunday morning worship services of the other two churches, despite the fact that over half of the people in the pews were women. Women did not perform any "public" roles in these churches other than singing and/or playing an instrument. Occasionally a woman might make an announcement or a prayer request, but they did not lead or say prayers during the worship service itself. Nor did they assist in the serving of the Lord's Supper or read from the Bible.

If we look beyond the Sunday morning worship service, however, we begin to notice that women at all three churches perform a similar array of tasks. Women teach Sunday school, clean the church, staff the nursery, and cook, serve, and clean up after church meals. The preschool at the Christian church -- one of the church's key outreach efforts in the community -- is, for example, staffed almost wholly by women. And the Catholic church's annual fall spaghetti supper -- an important fundraiser -- is the responsibility of the church's women's group.