Evangelical Non-Profits Are Not Sexist

on November 12, 2014

Editor’s note: The original version of this article was published by the Christian Post and is co-written with Penny Nance, the CEO and President of Concerned Women for America.

A couple weeks ago, the Washington Post sent a shudder up the spines of its female readers by running a story featuring a new study that found women hold fewer leadership positions within evangelical non-profits than they do in the general marketplace. Pundits are using this study to point to a struggle between submissive women and sexist men within evangelical’s supposedly patriarchal community. But more facts need to be known before broad brushing us with the accusation that evangelical non-profits “ignore the gifts of women in leadership.”

As easy as it is to demand greater gender diversity within evangelical non-profits, we risk minimizing the professional sacrifices many women choose to make for the sake of their personal lives. Women’s juggling of jobs and family at the same time is called work-family balance, and workplace flexibility is the only thing that makes it possible.

As two women, we represent very different seasons in life through which most women go. In our single 20-somethings, women have the time to put in the 12-hour work day the non-profit world often demands, and then commuting the hour-long train or car ride home before driving through Taco Bell and finally calling it a day. The next day, we wake up and do it all over again. This is often the lifestyle it takes for a woman (or man) to climb the career ladder in the public and private sectors. But that’s not a preferable lifestyle for most women with children at home.

Evangelical women and many others see caring for our families as a God-given responsibility for which we will one day be held accountable. (Our husbands operate under an even stronger Biblical mandate to love, provide, and protect their family).

Our situation is not really different, except that having children changes us. This is why many of us turn down leadership promotions once we start families. We understand that the raise and position of authority often comes with a price. Whether it’s more travel or longer hours, greater responsibility at work will mean less time to drive carpool, watch soccer practice, and care for our children. So we often choose less responsibility, part-time work, or step out of our field altogether. Incidentally, a group of well-heeled Capitol Hill women recently shared similar stories of negotiating for more flex time in lieu of less money at a GOP networking event. Same story, different audience.

Priorities are key. Evangelical women understand that both choices have a price, but that fact extends way beyond the evangelical world.

Take PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi, whose leadership in the marketplace compromised her parenting duties at home. Nooyi admitted, “If you ask our daughters, I’m not sure they will say that I’ve been a good mom.” Congrats on her success at Pepsi, but that’s not a bargain most of us are willing to make.

We know that our proverbial house has some dust balls. We can’t pretend that sexism doesn’t exist among evangelicals. It’s true that there are some born-again men who dismiss women’s leadership skills in the workplace simply because of our gender. It’s arrogance, and it’s sin. But it’s also true there are some secular men working for Fortune 500 companies who don’t take women’s talents seriously.

Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella is just one example of a secular man who demeaned women with patronizing career advice. Nadella came under fire after encouraging women not to negotiate raises saying, “It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along.” He continued, “That, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have.”

Sexism doesn’t exist because women work with evangelical men at faith-based non-profits. Sexism exists because we work with imperfect human beings — male and female — who struggle to keep their greed, pride, and competitive nature in check (as illustrated by the photo above).

We don’t want to see any man — evangelical or secular — degrading women’s abilities outside of the home and Church. But we also don’t want evangelical women painted as victims and men as barbarians. As born-again Christians, we know that our identity is in Jesus Christ, and it is with great joy and confidence that we ignore the world’s view of success.

On our death beds, we aren’t going to say to ourselves, “I wish I had a more prestigious job title and bigger salary.” If evangelical women have any regrets at all, it will be whether or not we loved and nurtured our families well, shared the Gospel with our neighbors, or cared for the vulnerable and suffering. At the end of the day, leadership for women isn’t about promotions and pay raises; it’s about personal investments.

How many lives are you investing in?

 

Penny Nance is the CEO and President of Concerned Women for America. Chelsen Vicari serves as the Director of Evangelical Action for the Institute on Religion & Democracy.

  1. Comment by brookspj on November 13, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Just a few assumptions here I would challenge. First, you assume that women are deciding to devote more time to raising children even
    though you cite no statistics or evidence that women working for evangelical non-profits are having children or starting families at a rate higher than those working in secular professions. You are also assuming a correlation between women’s positions or careers peaking with the point in their lives when they choose to have children or start a family. Where’s the evidence? Even if women working in evangelical non-profits are more likely to cut back work hours to raise children you still would need to show that their career trajectory correlated with their decision.

    Secondly, while you point acutely to a paradigm shift in work lifestyles that is making more and more demands upon average workers’ time
    and commitment than previous generations, instead of stopping to ask whether this paradigm shift has been good or dangerous, you assumed a sort of fatalism concerning it. The fact of the matter is that work-related anxiety and fatigue among all Americans (male and female) is going up as demands upon workers to do more for less pay has gone up. You’re suggesting that women trying to be full-time mothers shouldn’t try to meet the demands placed upon them in these careers. Guess what, I’m saying no man or woman wanting to be a full-time parent should be subjected to this. In fact I don’t even think childless adult workers should be subjected to it. What’s more I think Christian non-profits more than any one should be critical of this new paradigm and if anything more sympathetic and compassion toward the spiritual and emotional needs of their employees. This is where we should be going against what most analysts agree to be unhealthy contemporary work patterns, but instead we’re blindly accepting
    them. Finally, you made the classic depravity excuse. This is
    something I noticed among some Christians unwilling to admit the existence of institutional evils in the world. Basically, it tries to explain these away as simply personal vices of individuals, ignoring social factors that reinforce and often encourage such behavior. You say sexism exists in the workplace because sinners exist in the workplace. Fine, but you must also admit that such behavior would not be prevalent or widely accepted unless mechanisms were in place that made it easier to be a sexist in the workplace. Also saying something is a result of our own engrained sinfulness should not become an excuse not to challenge or confront such behavior. If our demands upon workers make it increasingly difficult to be a parent while having a career I think it means we should be changing our demands.

  2. Comment by Vegan Taxidermist on November 20, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    Are you familiar with life at a small non profit, especially in leadership? There’s too much work to go around and not enough money. What would you have anyone do?

    Anyone at a nonprofit is free to go work somewhere else.

  3. Comment by brookspj on November 20, 2014 at 4:33 pm

    Actually I am familiar with the non-profit life. I’m in my four year working for one. I wasn’t really calling for an easy solution or suggesting that Christian non-profits were in the best position to shift the paradigm (though they should certainly try where they can). I was only pointing out that workload, stress, and the demands of leadership aren’t simply a problem to married women with children. Even conservative, hard-working fathers are sacrificing more time and commitment to family than previous generations. I hope people realize that. I think the demands are too high for anyone trying to maintain good physical, mental, and spiritual health. And are those the people you want working for your churches and non-profits?

  4. Comment by Vegan Taxidermist on November 21, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    In my faith tradition, nobody is paid/on salary from church. Generally speaking work/life balance at nonprofits I would support (eg Christian Aid Ministries) is fairly decent, albeit places like CAM are well funded.

  5. Comment by brookspj on November 13, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    I would also love to see research on whether women who choose not to marry or have children are more or less likely to be hired or advance in evangelical non-profits. I know churches that have refused to hire musicians simply because they were unmarried. Whether the evangelical community is ready to admit it or not, it has an issue with singleness, or at least singleness as a chosen and preferred state of being.

  6. Comment by Vegan Taxidermist on November 20, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    Many churches (including mine own) require anyone in leadership to be married. That’s not “having a problem with singleness”. The again, we don’t “hire musicians”.

    There are plenty of opportunities to serve The Lord for single people. I engage them in almost every day.

  7. Comment by brookspj on November 20, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    I think you pretty much just confirmed what I’ve been talking about. I just have one question: why? Why shouldn’t single persons be entrusted with church leadership. I don’t see any possible rationale for it. It certainly isn’t Biblical.

  8. Comment by Vegan Taxidermist on November 21, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    Elders are told to be the “husband of one wife”; that would knock out single men.

    I myself am quite careful about quasi leadership roles I might enter into – for example, I like working with the youth, but without a wife it’s hard to engage in much ministry with teenage girls. That should be obvious.

    Instead I leave the mantle to well married couples who can minister well to both boys and girls.

  9. Comment by brookspj on November 24, 2014 at 3:17 pm

    I believe the scriptures you’re referring to say elders (as well as bishops and deacons) should be married “only once” and is meant to exclude polygamists and divorcees. At least that’s the way about oh 99% of theologians have interpreted it. Considering Paul himself wasn’t married, he’d have a hard time justifying excluding single people from ministry. Considering Jesus was also unmarried, he’d have really hard time justifying that.

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