HomeGood morning!
Happy Mother’s Day to all—to those who are mothers and to those who have mothers. I had originally planned to preach this sermon last march, during Women's history month, but various things intervened and so i chose to preach it today on Mother's Day.
This is another sermon in my historical series connected to the 150th anniversary of this congregation. Last year I spoke about the Women’s Movement in the 19th Century and about the reaction and relationship of this congregation to that movement. This year I want to speak about a more general topic, the history of women in the Unitarian ministry with a reference or two to women in the Universalist ministry.
Astronomers have recently sighted a supernova, an exploding star of the kind that spews heavy elements out into the universe, elements which are in essence, the seeds of life. They are metals like iron and elements like carbon that are necessary to give rise to creatures such as ourselves. In the dying of this star, new life, new hope, new possibility comes into being.
The light from this event was sent out into the Cosmos about 240 million years ago, only reaching us now.
A mere one hundred and thirty or so years ago, a number of women burned with an intense brightness that filled the world around them with new hope and new possibility. After a brief period of time, their light was dimmed and only later re-emerged to shine upon us once again.
By 1920, there were 88 Universalist women ministers and 42 Unitarian women ministers. And yet, very few women were ordained in either denomination between 1920 and 1960.
What happened? Why was there a sudden decline? Women’s Suffrage was achieved in 1920, how can it be that at the moment of victory the numbers of women in ministry suddenly declined.
To explain that, we must begin with the 19th Century.
The Women’s Movement made great progress during the 1800's. It ended up putting most of its focus on two goals, temperance and suffrage, but women advanced in many different fields opening the door to acceptance in a variety of professions including ministry. The first woman ordained by a national body was Olypia Brown, ordained in 1863.
Rev. Mary Safford, beginning in 1878, and Rev. Eleanor Gordon were key figures in what became known as the Iowa Sisterhood. This was a loose association of women ministers who, especially in the 1880's and 1890's organized or reorganized dozens of Unitarian congregations throughout the west—Iowa, the Dakotas, Colorado and other states.
The Iowa Sisterhood is considered to be an offshoot of The Women’s Ministerial conference of 1875 organized by Julia Ward Howe.
The Western region of the country was more open to new and even novel things than was the East. This was partly out of necessity and it was based in a “make do” philosophy. While for many people, women serving as ministers was a good thing, for others the willingness to “make do” was seen as a circumstantial necessity, one to get rid of when things improve. Remember that Rosie the Riveter of World War II was expected to return to the kitchen after the war.
In any event, by the end of the Nineteenth Century, women had made much progress in many fields of life, including ministry.
This progress continued into the 20th Century, but then things began to change.
Following World War I, there was a strong desire to return to “normalcy”. And in the old Western areas of the country, progress had raised social standards and therefore social expectations. As recently as 1889 there had been no male Unitarian ministers in the Dakotas, but as men became available, expectations changed.
Then too, the women’s movement achieved most of its goals in the early Twentieth Century. Temperance was passed in 1919 and Women’s Suffrage in 1920.
Now, when a movement achieves its goals, what does it do? usually, it stops and relaxes; after all, there is nothing more to do. But that is precisely when the forces of counter-movement begin to styrengthen.
My contention—that is my uneducated guess--is that Temperance and Suffrage together were important in ushering in the Roaring Twenties. They actually created that era. This era brought a changing view of the role of “modern woman”, which now included not only political equality but sexual and social liberation. Ironically, the modern woman—picture the Flapper—now rejected the very Temperance that the Women’s Movement had made a key part of its program. Imagine the two figures side by side: the Flapper and Carrie Nation dressed in what now was deemed "grandmother's clothing".
Then came the Depression. Massive unemployment raised concerns about family survival and, combined with gender stereotypes, compelled those with jobs to offer to be more likely to give them to men, not to women.
There also was a social reaction to the culture of the Nineteen Twenties, much as decades later there was a social reaction to the culture of the Nineteen Sixties.
There is one benchmark moment: Congress created the Hays Commission to change the entertainment industry, to review and approve or disapprove of movies.
Remember Betty Boop? Betty Boop was originally a flapper. She wore a very short skirt, wore a garter on one thigh, and had a top that bearly covered her breasts. A Betty Boop cartoon that had been released in 1931 or 1932 was intended for re-release in 1933 but was rejected by the Hays Commission as being inappropriate. so, what did the Betty Boop of the nineteen thirties look like? She wore a blouse that covered her arms and had a collar that came high up her neck, and she wore a skirt that covered her down to her ankles.
Betty Boop, of course, was merely a cartoon character; but what happened to her happened to all female characters in the movies. This was part of an effort to “restore moral values” (my words) following the perceived excesses of the twenties. But note how much of that restoration depended upon reigning in women, particularly women’s sexuality.
In any event, “following an appeal for ministers in the November 1937 issue of the Universalist Horizons, Rev. Eleanor Gordon wrote, ‘what disturbed me was that it made it very plain that no woman need apply….Since the world war there has been a distinct trend in both the professional and industrial worlds…against woman’s place in both. Positions of trust, authority, leadership, are being taken from her and given to men.”
The general tenor of society was to “restore” (that word in quotes) what we today might call traditional values, and that included traditional roles for men and women.
As Rev. Clara Cook Helvie wrote in 1936, “of course a woman gets only the most difficult posts, but this challenge adds zest to the work….I can think of no greater blessing that could come to them than to have a group of mature women ministers take over their pulpits for a few years and nurse them back to life and service. When that time comes, however, like all adolescents, they will grow too superior for ‘mother’s ministrations’, and will long for a man minister.”
More specifically, within both Universalist and Unitarian circles, women were being actively discouraged from entering ministry.
Many of the schools that had accepted women in the 1800’s began to close the door to them, and those that continued to accept women tended to urge them to become Parish Assistants rather than Parish Ministers.
Rev. Samuel Eliot was President of American Unitarian Association from 1900 to 1927 and was a key individual in the decline of women entering into Unitarian ministry.
He believed that Ministry required a “manly” presence. This was his bias about what “real’ ministry is. And we each have our own bias in that area, we each have our sense of what a real minister is and what a real minister does, and those are not all in agreement.
Eliot believed further that ministry should be professional, that ministers should have the social authority to speak on the issues of day—a task he believed belonged to men, and he believed in the science of corporate management and in applying that science to congregations.
Eliot also felt that the ministry should be Professional, and he regretted the fact that there were ministers without a high degree of professional training. This idea is not sexist in the abstract, but it was in context. Today, it is part of our assumption about ministry; if you wish to be in Fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association the expectation is that you will have at least a Master’s Degree from a recognized divinity school. But remember that at the time he was pushing for this, women were increasingly being denied entry into divinity schools where they could get an education for professional ministry.
It was not until the nineteen-sixties that women once again began entering into the ministry in significant numbers.
By 1975 there were 41 UU ministers, of whom 24 were “active” in the denomination.
As of this past Friday (May 12, 2007), the UUA data base of ministers listed 998 men, 975 women, and the guesstimate is that there are 2-3 transgendered people in our ministry. (It is very difficult to identify all "Transgendered" ministers. the word "transgendered" is a catch-all term that not everyone identifies with. If someone has gone through transition from physically male to physically female in order to "match" their bodies and minds, after transition--and maybe before--they will usually name themselves "female" or "woman", not as transgendered.).
Mullah Nasruddin was a Sufi master and he wore the tattered cloak that identified him as such. One day Nasruddin's neighbor invited him to a formal dinner. When Nasruddin arrived at his neighbor's door that evening, the neighbor opened the door and blanched. "Mullah", he said, "I have invited you to a formal dinner party. I have many important people here tonight. Please, Mullah, change into some better clothes." Nasruddin agreed and went home. He returned a little while later dressed now in fine silks.
When the neighbor saw him he grinned with pleasure. "thank you Mullah", he said.
A short time later, the neighbor noticed that nasruddin was standing by a table set with food. he was talking into his sleeve and every once in a while he would drop a bit of food down the sleeve. The neighbor came over to him and said, "Mullah, what are you doing?". Nasruddin answered, "I am entertaining these clothes; it is clearly they whom you have invited to dinner, not me".
We are judged by our clothing, but we also use our clothing to present ourselves to the world. Whether I choose to wear a tie or a red kerchief around my neck; to wear dress shoes or boots, or high heels or Birkenstocks; to wear suits or overalls; to wear what are deemed male clothes or female clothes; each of these sends a message to the world about how I wish to be seen.
Our bodies are similar. We are judged by them and we use them to present ourselves to others. The style in which I wear my hair, whether I choose to pierce of my ear or have tattoos, each of these says something about me both to myself and to the world.
At another level, our bodies tell the world our gender, our age, and some of our physical capabilities.
And yet, the body, like our clothing, remains an outward presentation that goes only so deep. We make a mistake when we judge the inner core of a person by the outward manifestations of their bodies. We make a mistake when we judge someone’s heart or soul, or someone’s mind or ability to lead on the basis of their clothing, their age or their genitalia—or our assumptions about these.
The history of women in this country and in our movement tells us how fragile a thing is human progress. What is achieved in one era may be lost suddenly in another. That is always the hope of social counter-movements, of those who would restore traditional roles and values over human freedom.
May it never again be that human beings are denied their right to try, to teach, to preach, based upon their gender or gender identity or other outward manifestations.
May we strive to tear down all of those false barriers that limit and proscribe human life, denying not only a full life to the individuals whose lives are kept from service or leadership, but denying also goodness and value to those whose lives would have been uplifted and changed by those who are barred from such service.
May we honor those who strove against injustice, who overcame false and foolish prejudice and who found the work of voice, hand and heart despite the restrictions others attempted to impose upon them.
And may we, like a community of supernovae, spread light and the elements of truth and hope throughout our world.
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