The Iron Lady

For years Margaret Thatcher has been held up as a model of a certain kind of woman leader.

One which most women don't want to emulate. She has singlehandedly given rise to a stereotype of woman leader: the 'Iron Maiden' - see Stead and Elliott, 2009.

Yet the film released last week seems to have confounded her critics.

Meryl Streep is an astonishing Thatcher, convincing in both hairstyle and voice. What sounded like a bizarre way of structuring a film, around a person's mental decline, has turned out to make sense.

Like many other women I have long pondered whether Mrs Thatcher did women many favours when she became Prime Minister. She seemed so unlike most women. Yet this film has made me rethink. It reminds us she did not have much choice in that era but to behave like a man. And perhaps behind the persona there was more of a real person than most of us realised.

There is a good review of the film on the Sophia Network website, and resources available from Damaris. It will be interesting to see what discussion it generates about women leaders.

The Iron Maiden stereotype seems to reinforce the idea that 'real' women can't be leaders. Femininity is inherently not suited to leadership.

But a human 'Iron Lady' might force us to think differently.

In the image of God

In the Image of God is the title of a booklet recently published by the Sophia Network.

It's an 8-week course exploring what the Bible says about men and women, and is based on the course run by email last autumn. A booklet of 52 pages clearly can't go into a huge amount of detail, but I was impressed with the range and scope of the studies, and I hope it's widely read and used - see the Sophia site for details of how to buy a copy.

This resource was launched at the Sophia Network's excellent day conference last month, where Maggi Dawn, Howard Worsley and Lis Goddard spoke on different aspects of the debate about women. Lis had some extremely helpful and striking things to say about 'how to disagree agreeably', as well as providing some useful insights into the texts so often under discussion.

We need to keep discussing, and where we disagree, to do it agreeably!

At the conference I also found out more about the resources being produced by Restored, to help churches to understand more about domestic violence, and to help young people avoid getting into abusive relationships. I'm impressed that they are not just dealing with the results of violence but trying to stimulate wider thinking about relationships generally. It's also got an international dimension. Take a look!

Do Christians believe in equality?

This is one of the questions asked at a consultation I attended recently.

At the Sophia Network's consultation, Thriving in Ministry, there were a number of provocative questions asked. Do men and women thrive in ministry? Do Christians believe in equality? What barriers are faced by women in youth work, or in other kinds of ministry in the Church?

Unfortunately I missed 2 of the presentations, but in the morning I enjoyed the opportunity to take a wider view. In 2009 we are still celebrating a number of 'firsts' for women, and the number of women for example featuring in the sports pages of newspapers or as FTSE 100 Directors or even MPs is lamentably small.

Within the areas I'm most interested in, I was reminded that there seems an increasing emphasis in some churches on segregated ministries (good for women to develop as leaders - as in the days of women's mission societies? Bad in terms of integration, real leadership, and fully accepting women as leaders).

One of my own beefs is Bible translation, and that came up too (click here for a link to a downloadable article on why Bible translation matters - scroll down to 'Inclusive Language Bibles').

And for me, one issue which struck me was self-imposed constraints. I am passionate about helping women take their place alongside men as leaders in the Church - but I'm subject to the same pressures as other women. How much more could I have done so far if I was not sometimes thinking, 'but I don't think I can do that'?

For many women that's where role models, mentoring and networking comes in. Congratulations to the Sophia Netywork on passing the 300 member mark, and for their creative programme of events. As we all work together, one day maybe we will help the world to see that Christians do believe in equality - in the sense that we believe women and men are equally called, equally gifted, and can be leaders in God's church.