The church has had a lot of questions about what role women should play over the years. How much power should we have? Scholars think women held pretty active leadership roles in the early church, but that those were diminished after a few hundred years. The Reformation saw some leadership by women (especially the indomitable Katherina, Martin Luther’s wife). Still, Reformer John Knox was not a fan of women leading. In 1558, he wrote a pamphlet called “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” He believed women having that kind of power was unnatural and “abominable before God.” He wrote this with folks like Queen Mary I of England, a Catholic, in mind. Little did he guess that later that same year, Elizabeth, a Protestant, would become Queen of England.
Women were also brought up at a Presbyterian General Assembly in America in 1811. Men bemoaned the existence of women’s groups. They didn’t mind ladies saving and collecting money for good causes. But, they said, “when they met and sewed, they listened as one of their number read aloud from an improving book, and sometimes they prayed, also aloud. A few seem even to have raised their voices in general prayer meetings, where both sexes were present.” Gasp, education and prayer! From such radical beginnings to today, we’re certainly proud of the good work that Presbyterian Women do across the country and around the world.1
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knox
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23327961?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents