JAC Online

Married Women's ghetto RANT
by Captain Danielle Strickland

So here’s the rub. There were many married women officers at the high council and not one of them was nominated. Do we think that out of all the women officers represented at the high council that only single women have the gift of leadership? Are married women less capable, less inspiring, less able? Most would insist, with some trepidation, that no married women possess the experience necessary for the Generalship. The rough part is this: they would be right. This problem is what might be called “the women’s ghetto of The Salvation Army”.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to stand up for the rights of the urban poor in the northern part of the United States, he ran into a movement of young black ghettoized youth that had assembled themselves into an organization known as the Black Panthers. They were a group of militant young people, so jaded and cynical that they scoffed at King’s non-violent protest methods. They wanted something done about the injustice they endured – they wanted it done now.

The injustice they experienced was somehow more humiliating than the black man in the south because it was in the land of ‘freedom’. In other words they technically could be free but found themselves still trapped and bound by circumstances and stuck in a ghetto. Even though they could hear about the freedom and see the freedom and even sometimes taste the freedom, they couldn’t live it. This infuriated them.

Married women officers are unlike the slaves in the south. They are more like the black ghettoized youth in the north. They are told they are free, and, indeed, they are free in many respects. They are free to learn, to grow, and to lead on a basic level (especially as Corps Officers), BUT they cannot have the freedom to truly lead in the full potential or capacity they offer in the current system of The Army because of the women’s ghetto. By women’s ghetto I mean that part of the system of The Salvation Army that allows men to exercise leadership within the formal system while deploying their wives into corresponding positions over other women in a weird parallel universe. The end goal in this corporate structure is to be married to a Commissioner – and ultimately be the wife of the General. It has no bearing on the election of a General whether or not his wife is even good at her job – as the position is not functional but positional. By that I mean it is not a merited position and is not considered an appointment providing leadership experience to become General (in fact, the wife of the General is the only Commissioner not allowed to attend high council!). Sure, a married women might one day aspire to be married to a man that can take her to higher positions on the totem pole of the women’s ghetto. It may be a nice place for her – but it does not matter if she is qualified, able, or even gifted for the appointment. Indeed, all the women ghetto positions in the world cannot offer a reasonable opportunity for women to learn, cultivate, or prove leadership qualities enough to get out of the ghetto. 

I am, of course, on dangerous ground. To even speak about these things so plainly will cause some leaders to consider me a whiner; will permit unsympathetic male officers to disdain me as a femi-nazi; and might persuade women who have bought into the ghetto and find comfort in it to treat me as a threat. But I think it’s time we, at least, spoke plainly.

Consider my life. I am a Corps Officer, celebrated in our system as a front-line, leadership position. I am free to teach, preach, lead, and learn. I can sort out all my leadership skills alongside my husband and we can ‘share the load’ and work it out together. This is the most extreme freedom I will ever experience in my officership. This is, in actuality, the promise realized… but it’s all downhill from here for me. It is true that the organization chants in response to this rant, “see, look at the front line… look at the trenches – Corps Officers are married women. They are leaders. They are free.”

Here enters the illusion that eventually gives birth to the anger. Every successful Corps Officer has proved his/her leadership abilities on the ‘ground’ and is thus considered able to offer leadership to larger areas of command. The problem is that the leadership at a Corps level is only credited to the male officer. “Oh, that can’t be!” you lament. “That’s not true – surely a shared leadership command would be credited to team leadership not just the male.” But alas, it is true. Women leaders – even after proving themselves in front-line appointments as a fully functioning, fully able, fully contributing Corps officers – active in the leading of the Corps Council, PR in the community, structure, and systems of the Corps, leadership training, preaching and teaching and training – are sent to the women’s ghetto and their corresponding husbands are given a job that is directly related to their ‘success’ as a leader on the Corps level.

Then you never hear from married women leaders again – unless you head to a women’s retreat! It seems we can’t match our walk with our talk.

The cause of this current system of imprisoning effective women leaders for generations is unknown. Booth was known to promote married women according to their giftedness, not their married-ness… call him crazy!  But even Booth ran into problems from the mainstream-informed officers in his ranks: In 1888, addressing a meeting in Exeter Hall, William Booth said, “We have a problem. When two officers marry, by some strange mistake in our organization, the woman doesn’t count.”

 

From what I can piece together it has been a subtle yet increasing theological and systemic shift that has managed to render a huge section of The Army’s leaders unusable and at best very limited to the larger war front. The Army has hamstrung itself, fighting a war against a well-armed enemy with an arm and a leg tied behind its back. 

Now, there are officers who believe that ‘headship’ is a scriptural principle and as a direct result keep married women in submissive positions as leaders. Married women officers themselves often have been taught and continue to believe this lie. When I have challenged it I realize that not only does The Army perpetuate it by its current system but has probably even established it by previous practice.

I don’t have time to dissect the necessary principles on women in leadership here. Suffice to say, Catherine Booth did it a hundred and thirty years ago in a little book entitled Female Ministry (which no recently commissioned officer, male or female, seems to have read), and recently Loren Cunningham (founder and president of YWAM) along with David Hamilton (Biblical scholar) offers a great overview of the new world winning strategy called Why Not Women? Good question.

I’ve met many capable married women officers – and an alarming amount of them are on anti-depressants. I’ve got a hunch they wouldn’t be if they weren’t so angry about their apparent freedom lost in a slave-like reality. The Apostle Paul offers that health in the body is in part due to letting people use their gifts. If someone has the gift of leadership, Paul suggests a good, godly idea – let them lead (Romans 12). I think he’s on to something.

I’ve recently seen a movie that reminds me of the situation. It was called Jarhead. I don’t recommend the movie but it may offer us some advice.  It was about some soldiers trained, equipped, and sent to the front to fight in a war. The problem was that they were never deployed. The government that sent them wouldn’t give them permission to engage the enemy (they were caught up in political talks) and so the soldiers sat on the ground. Trained, equipped, and stuck. Not able to engage the enemy, not able to shoot, or fight, or even die. So they started doing other things. Trying to keep in shape, wasting time on the decorations in their bunkers, learning to cook in different ways, and getting angry at each other. It was a picture of soldiers stuck. And every married women officer-leader lives the same reality. So we busy ourselves on the ground…. Taking courses, watching our weight, picking on each other, over-organizing every women’s event and project… all the while simply trying to create some meaningful existence for ourselves, convincing ourselves that it isn’t our fault that we can’t lead, but having no way to prove it.

Now I’ve had this conversation enough times with enough people to tell you the responses. Why do you need to lead on a positional level…are you hungry for power? This is a stupid response. It suggests that every leader wanting to stretch her ability to lead is hungry for power. It is an argument already lost by the practice of many godly men who long to lead well and lead bigger to mobilize forces and take more ground for God. Stop insulting us by considering any godly ambition for women leadership to be a ‘Jezebel’ type of control thing. It’s embarrassing.

How about this one: the women’s ministry department is a valid leadership area. Yeah. Good one. It’s so valid that even the top dogs in the ghetto can’t qualify to lead The Army, and any single women General can add the job description or World President of Women’s Organizations to her responsibility as international leader of The Salvation Army. Nice.

Here’s another: The Army’s great strength is in ‘team leadership’. Married couples should work together and the women shouldn’t need a position to be able to lead with her husband. Yeah, this one really works, except when it comes to any administrative position – where there is only one head, and except when it comes to an organizational culture that dismisses women from the boardroom and power positions. It’s such a nice offer to let us women ‘influence’ the final decision made by men anyway. No signing authority, no positional authority, and no real authority means no authority. Let’s be honest.

Don’t get me started on headship. Anyone who still holds to this view needs to check their own head and read the Bible again. Here’s a hint: look deeper. Not only that, but our movement has already established Army theology – (even if it remains unimplemented), so if you believe in headship limiting women leaders – join another movement.

It has the potential to wreck marriages. Nice marriage. There is nothing like a union that insists on one of the members stuffing her gifts and abilities down inside of her for fear of her partner looking smaller in light of them. This behaviour insults the purpose of marriage, and makes men look bad. Grow up and get a healthy ego. Stop needing your women to be smaller than you to feel good about yourselves. Actually, to take a more pastoral note: get some counselling.

I’ve heard there were some attempts to make some married women officers department heads and one couple was called in to see if they would accept. This is insulting. I’ve never heard of a couple being called in to see if it was okay to offer promotions to men. Never. Ever. The marriage is never considered, and often is compromised when it comes to promotions. Think about it. The Commissioner calls me up and says, “we’ve been thinking about promoting your husband but were concerned about how that would affect your marriage. Would it be okay with you?” Yeah, that’ll happen.  But when it has potential to work the other way – we ask first and then call it off! What happened to equality… what happened to the greater work of the war trumping our personal preference? Come on.

Women don’t want to lead. Yeah, sure. That’s a good one. The women’s ministry department in Canada has the most success at getting converts and then building disciples by making soldiers. This means that even from the ghetto women are leading and leading well. Perhaps the shrinking programme departments around the western world should take note. There might just be a married women who could grow a whole programme department… imagine!

While I’m on this one… does it matter if a male officer doesn’t want to lead? Don’t sign up. Kick women out who don’t pull their weight. Don’t use lame women leaders as an excuse to paint us all with the same brush. It’s pathetic. Honestly I’ve known some male officers who lack the muster to work hard… doesn’t seem to make a difference on the ones who do… hmmm.

Here’s the best one of them all. In many cultures and situations this is not culturally acceptable. I can’t help but chuckle as I imagine Catherine Booth in Victorian England scandalizing the country and even herself as she spoke the scriptures publicly for the first time. It was as counter-England in her century as you could find. Now go with me to America as 16 year-old Eliza Shirley leads the charge or how ‘bout The Marechale opening the Army as a young WOMAN in France. And on and on I could go ad nauseum. We have never been a culturally relevant movement… we’ve been the very opposite. We were a threat to the established church culture, we were a circus to the thinking class, and we were a sign and a wonder for the average person on the scene. When did we start thinking cultural sensitivity was our calling? If there is an evil part of culture – let’s do everything we can to offend it. I suggest that subjecting women to unequal treatment and opportunity is an evil to be challenged, not a relevancy to be followed. Let’s go buy ourselves some courage and return to the war ready to actually fight!

Here are a few ideas:

Teach good theology. Make every officer read Why Not Women? by Loren Cunningham to start. Not just the women – but all officers. We must teach on this subject. If we don’t give proper theology our officers will get it somewhere else. Most likely it will be the Baptists and most mainline Evangelicals teaching them WRONG theology on women. THIS IS IMPORTANT. What we think affects what we do. So this is not just a method problem but a thinking one.

Make changes FAST. We can’t wait. When my husband thinks of his potential and future he grins. When I think of it I grimace. It’s killing my dreaming potential for my place in The Army and the call God has on my life. Really. It sucks. Change it fast. Give many married women, whether they want to or not, leadership positions. Give them a chance to succeed and give them a chance to fail. Just give them a chance.

Use separate appointments/or separate tracking early. Follow the gifts and skills of officers. Do something easy to make this happen. Please don’t make another committee to discuss it. Just have married couples give a report of how they divide up the command and what their gifts are. It’s not rocket science. Get to know your leaders. Do you know how many times a leader has responded to husband on a letter I wrote him? It’s insulting.  I don’t even have the same last name. They just aren’t listening.

Dismantle the women’s ghetto. Put the women’s department where it belongs, in Program. Give officers appointments that match their giftedness, and/or capabilities. 

Dismiss officers who don’t work. Get on it. They are a drag on our system, our culture and our potential. It doesn’t matter their gender. Incompetence should be rewarded with a new job (just not with us).

Make it a must. Imbalance cannot be corrected without a counterweight. Create a reasonable minimum requirement of married women department heads in each territory. Do this for a minimum of five years to correct the initial imbalance. Whole countries do this in the workforce to create an equal setting from which the ‘best man for the job’ becomes more than a literal description of what’s happening. We should be leading the world – transforming the culture, and this will only happen by intention.

Invite good married women officers to actually speak at non-women events. I know a few if you need some suggestions.

Most of all, and above all let’s stop making excuses. Let’s stop pretending. Let’s be honest, real, and practical about what to do. I know I sound passionate, but it is our whole future we are talking about here. Do I think God can’t use me outside of structure and system, promotions and process? Of course not! He just can’t use me as General of The Salvation Army. Oh, and any kind of department head leadership possibilities, oh, and anything that might insult my husband’s ego, oh and…

Let’s start partnering with God in His great design for The Salvation Army… let’s really allow our workforce to grow in big proportions overnight and engage the enemy in a fight he hasn’t had to bear or to lose for a hundred years now. We did have him scared… now we have him sleeping… but I think if we started marching, full strength we could wake him with a fright. And he just might meet his end at last. Read Psalm 68:11 for details. [i]