The Women’s Ordination Movement in the United States: A Literature Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT This literature review examines the scholarship on women’s ordination across several Christian traditions in the United States from an intersectional feminist perspective. It comments on the problems of centring patriarchal church institutions in these histories, the lack of feminist analysis, and the problem of ‘firsts’. It also includes a case study on women’s ordination in the Methodist movement to demonstrate the erasure of women’s networks and advocacy and the advocacy-and-rejection cycle that women experienced in several denominations. Finally, there is a discussion of women in churches that do not ordain them and reflections on further directions for scholarly study.