Practicing Gender Justice as a Faith Mandate in India

Introduction

Let me begin my reflections on the theme of women and leadership in the Indian church by narrating an incident that happened in Bangalore, about six years ago. I was invited to address a gathering of women who were actively engaged in different forms of ministry in various churches in South India. I soon realised that there would be a parallel conference held for the pastors in another venue but I was expected to address only the women. Though I was conscious of the implication of this invitation, which meant that a woman could never be good enough to address the male clergy, I told myself that I would be happy to motivate the women to plod on until we achieve gender justice in the church, no matter what struggles and resistance women faced in a patriarchal church and society.

As I was halfway into my presentation on that morning of the programme, about ten women walked into that hall, looking quite angry and disappointed. I recognised them as fellow sisters of the Association of Theologically Trained Women of India (ATTWI).¹ A few minutes were given to the women to share their concerns, and what they said certainly provoked me also. As these ten women had received individual letters of invitation addressed to pastors, they had travelled long distances to beat the meeting. However, when the organisers of the program realisedthat there were women pastors, they advised these women to attend the women's conference that was organised at another venue. Even if they were ordained women, they simply had no right to be called pastors, leaders and theologians. The conservative Lutheran Church in America that had sponsored the programme obviously did not believe in women's ordination, and therefore the organisers felt obliged to obey the 'tradition' because financial power was stronger than any theological or faith mandate!

Looking through the Gender Lens at Women and Leadership

The gender factor comes to the surface every day in the experience of every male and female living in a patriarchal society in different forms. However, seldom does one take the time or the energy to name one's gendered experiences in everyday life. For example, from the above experience it seems that women's leadership was considered good enough only to address women's gathering, but not the men. At the root stands the patriarchal notion that men are on a higher rung of the status ladder and that a woman simply cannot preach or teach the men, even if she holds a doctorate in the field of theology! It is important to raise these questions of delimiting the roles of leadership because of one's sex/gender. Patriarchal experiences are written off as trivial or non-issues because patriarchal experiences are considered to be normal, normative and ideal experiences for women and men. The majority of women have found it easier to accept, explain and legitimise the gendered experiences because the patriarchal structures and experiences continue in the home, state, community, church and the society. Most often the explanations and legitimisation of patriarchal issues are internalised uncritically by women and men, helping patriarchy to remain hidden and silenced. To elaborate on this, let me share some of the reasons, excuses, explanations and legitimisations that I – an educated, gender sensitised, theological educator – consciously or unconsciously subscribed to in perpetuating patriarchy in context.

Perhaps I told myself that I did not have the right to offer an opinion to the organisers as to how a programme could be gender sensitive and point out the blatant sexism in the invitation card and the programme content, especially when the organisers had come home to invite me. The thought that voicing my opinion would probably put me on a list of complainers or be interpreted as a mark of bad hospitality prevented me from pointing out to the blatant sexism in the brochure itself! Did I think that it was more important for me to be considered a courteous and hospitable person? Did I consider social acceptance more important than gender justice?

I did not want to...