Book Description

"When people are committed to gender equality, what gets in their way of achieving it? Why do well-intentioned people reinforce sexist outcomes? Why does dissonance persist between organizational actors' good intentions of equality and sexist outcomes? This book provides answers to these questions by applying the critical lens of gendered organizations to moderate-liberal congregations that separated from their mainline denomination in support of women's equal leadership yet remain predominately male in positions of authority. This critical methodological study investigates congregations affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) with some dually aligned with The Alliance of Baptists. Although the CBF identifies the equal leadership of women as a core component of its collective identity and women are enrolling in Baptist seminaries at almost equal rates as men, only five percent of CBF congregations employ women as solo senior pastors. This book provides an organizational analysis investigating gendered congregational processes on the individual, interactional, and organizational levels including themes such as gendered hiring criteria, a perceived incongruence of women's bodies and leadership, unconscious biases of organizational actors, and how women pastors' experiences of discrimination influence their more risky approaches to leadership"--