Elspeth Kernebone
10 April 2024
Leadership of the Anglican Church in Australia remains dominated by men, with just one in every six current Diocesan or Assistant bishops a woman.
Advocates for women’s leadership say the ratios force questions about the systems and processes that have created the disparity.
It comes after March Workplace Gender Equality Agency Statistics showed women make up just 35% of those receiving the top quarter of salaries in the Australian workforce.
Eighteen of Australia’s 23 dioceses do not have a woman in the role of Diocesan Bishop or Assistant Bishop, according to statistics drawn from diocesan websites on 8 March.
Of the 38 Diocesan or Assistant bishops 32 are men and six are women. Australia has one woman serving as archbishop, and four men.
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Melbourne diocese Diversity and Inclusion Working Group chair Genieve Blackwell said the national gender ratios reinforced the picture of male dominance in the church, forcing questions around the systems and processes that created that outcome.
She said to improve gender ratios in national leadership, each diocese needed to include women meaningfully in the life of the church, in a way that used their gifts.
In Melbourne, Bishop Blackwell said the working group hoped to collect diversity data that would tell a story about the situation and guide effective solutions.
Bishop Blackwell said the church in Melbourne could only be a compelling, outward-looking presence in its communities if it lived out its faith with integrity. That meant it needed to hear everyone’s voices, remembering they were equal in the eyes of God.
Bishop Blackwell said the group hoped to see an equal representation of male and female vicars, and members of governing bodies, with at least 40 per cent representation of each gender.
The group hopes to collect data on gender balance and other aspects of diversity across spheres such as the year of discernment, selection conferences, curacies, paid employees, licence holders, leadership in governance bodies, wardens and parish nominators.
Bishop Blackwell said the data would influence recommendations to Archbishop in Council around systems, processes and reporting arrangements, to increase the proportion of clergy from diverse backgrounds in the Melbourne church.
Read more: Historical first as women priests ordained in Diocese of the Murray
Movement for the Ordination of Women president Elaine Lindsay said many members felt that women priests were not given all the opportunities afforded to male priests in the early days of their ministry.
She said many were posted to small parishes, received only part-time stipends, had fewer opportunities for further training, and were sidelines in decision-making.
Dr Lindsay said having women in leadership enriched decision-making in the church, and helped younger women to see there was a place for them in the church.
“If the church is the family of God, you’ve got to have everybody in there. The parishioners, the congregations, represent a huge diversity of people, so surely the leadership should also represent a huge diversity of people,” Dr Lindsay said.
Dr Lindsay said her dream was to see an equal representation of women and men in leadership in the Anglican church in Australia.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency published data on the gender pay gap for every Australian employer with 100 or more employees in February.
The data relating to bishops in leadership includes only bishops in a Diocesan or Assistant bishop role in a diocese.
The Anglican Diocese of Southern Queensland has announced it will consecrate the Reverend Canon Sarah Plowman as Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Brisbane.
This article originally incorrectly stated that Perth had no male bishops. It has been updated to reflect the fact that the diocese recently appointed two male bishops.
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