Monday, June 29, 2009

Gender and Work: The Case of the Clergy

In 1993, Ed Lehman published a sociological study entitled Gender and Work: The Case of the Clergy. Lehman’s research focused on whether male and female clergy had different approaches to pastoral ministry. Lehman’s work was a response to the assertion by cultural feminists that women were inherently different in their leadership styles and understanding of pastoral ministry than men. He used the cultural feminists definitions of male and female styles of leadership to frame his research questions. Lehman’s study focused on approximately 500 clergy from 4 primarily white mainline denominations in the United States. The sample was comprised of half male and half female clergy with about 20% of the sample representing non-white ethnic groups. His primary research method was a phone survey to clergy. In addition, surveys were mailed to laity in a number of congregations to see if clergy self-perceptions were similar to that of laity perceptions.
Lehman’s work did not produce very clear results. Differences were often minimal and rarely located along lines of gender. While Lehman did find that female clergy are slightly more empowering than male clergy and tend to lead with rather than lead over, he found that both male and female clergy tend to use more feminine approaches to leadership. In addition, both male and female clergy were incredibly varied in their approaches. Lehman’s work highlighted the complexity of the issue of leadership. Unfortunately, his work is often cited as proof that women lead differently than men using a more empowering and relational approach. Lehman would most likely not support this assertion. Instead, he would shift the question from whether male and female clergy approached pastoral ministry differently and begin asking under what conditions gender differences emerged.
Lehman found the clearest differences among clergy of large congregations. He found that female senior pastors with multiple staff members often led in more feminine ways while male clergy in the same positions led in more masculine ways. He suggests that these female clergy had more freedom to express their true style of leadership while those in smaller congregations were more limited to cultural expectations of male roles. This has been one of the more challenged findings in his work. Zikmund, Lummis and Chang in their work Clergy Women found few differences between male and female clergy in large congregations. At the moment, it is difficult to find a large enough sample of female senior pastors in large congregations to come up with any definitive themes or conclusions. What is interesting is that Lehman’s work challenges stereotypes that suggest that women must lead like men in order to move ahead and be successful in ministry. If what Lehman suggests is true, I have wondered if these women lead in ways that are more acceptable to the culture. By not challenging gender roles, they are seen as “safer” and less threatening even though as pastors of large churches they occupy positions of power. Must you be a certain type of woman leader to get ahead? It seems that further research in this area would be helpful.
Lehman also found differences among those right out of seminary and more veteran pastors. New pastors tended to exert more power over the congregation while veteran pastors were more empowering. This perhaps suggests that new pastors are trying to establish their authority or that seminaries are training them in more masculine styles of leadership. Lehman also found more differences between white clergy and African American clergy, both male and female, than between male and female clergy of either race. African American clergy as a whole were less empowering and more likely to exert power over the congregation. Lehman does not expand much further on either of these results, suggesting that further research would be helpful. In particular, Lehman’s results suggest that the cultural context in which pastoral identity is formed would be an important site for further research. This includes seminaries, the congregations that form pastors, and other significant forces such as race and class. One of the aims of my research is to include these variables more explicitly in my work.
Lehman's work is clearly difficult to interpret, but it provides a good starting point for discussions regarding gender and pastoral leadership. Whether you agree or disagree with his results, they are worthy of being engaged and discussed. Where have your experiences supported his findings? Where do they contradict what he has said? The next post will consider some additional studies on women clergy that build on Lehamn's work.

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