This chapter examines the “who” of support for women’s ordination: who supports and who opposes female clergy in their congregations? It examines the nationwide Gender and Religious Representation Survey to uncover which factors are associated with support and which with opposition, paying special attention to things like personal demographics, religious behavior and attitudes, congregational context, and political orientations. The results show that support for female ordination is much more a function of congregational context and religious and political orientations than it is of demographics, most notably gender. Political and theological liberals as well as those currently attending congregations that admit female clergy support women’s ordination regardless of whether they are male or female. Also, those who have lower levels of sensitivity to “sanctity/purity” moral reasoning are more supportive of women’s ordination.

This chapter begins to explore the second research question of the book: what effect do female clergy have on those in the pews? More specifically, it examines whether female clergy can serve as positive and influential role models for children and adolescents in ways that enhance their levels of personal and societal empowerment as adults. The results show that girls and young women are indeed affected by both the regularity of female clergy in their youth as well as the presence of influential female religious leaders in their lives such that their levels of psychological, economic, and religious empowerment as adults are improved. In particular, the presence of a female religious leader during a girl’s childhood adds approximately one year of education compared to girls whose primary religious leader in childhood was a man.

This chapter provides a brief overview of both the historical and contemporary “lay of the land” of women’s ordination in American religious congregations. It shows how the extension of ordination to women has progressed throughout American history and examines recent statistics about how many congregations theoretically permit women to serve in the pulpit and how many currently have a clergywoman in the main leadership role. Drawing on the Gender and Religious Representation Survey, it also takes a brief look at stated preferences for gender and leadership in these congregations: how many people say they would prefer a man or woman as their personal religious leader? The study finds that female clergy are more common in theory than in actuality. Whereas more than half of respondents say they are supportive of women pastors, fewer than one in ten attends a congregation that is led by a woman.

This chapter asks whether it is reasonable to expect that the data is revealing a fully accurate picture of the prevalence of support for female ordination in the United States. When asked by a telephone surveyor whether they are in favor of women being allowed to serve as clergy in their own congregation, respondents might feel social pressure to say “yes” when in actuality they are more hesitant. This chapter takes advantage of a survey tool called a “list experiment” (or “item-count technique”) to examine whether there is any evidence that support for female ordination is either over- or underreported in our public opinion surveys. It finds this is indeed the case: support for female clergy is likely overreported among our survey respondents, especially among women, meaning that there are fewer supporters of female ordination than our public opinion surveys would lead one to believe.

This chapter focuses on how gender leadership affects people’s interactions with their religious congregations. Based on political science research on representation, the chapter develops a theoretical explanation about how gender representation in religious contexts might exert changes in the religious attitudes and behaviors of those in the congregations. The results find that while people are eager to say that the gender of their particular pastor or priest does not matter, they are also quick to offer observations on the many ways in which they have observed that it does matter. These include the empowering effect it can have on young girls, the way that women clergy can often provide better pastoral counseling on gender-specific issues such as pregnancy or miscarriage, and that women pastors can attract more families and youth.