No Girls Allowed

A group of ladies from the White Memorial Church arrives in Atlanta
to attend the 59th session of the General Conference.

Machismo and sexism were the marks of the 59th session of the
General Conference in Atlanta.
Twenty five people were appointed to positions of leadership as
secretaries and treasurers in the 13 international regions of the church.
From those twenty five positions, guess how many were assigned to
women. The answer is only ONE. Yes! Only one. This was clearly
outrageous and a European delegate strongly protested this gender
imbalance. He correctly pointed out that sixty percent of the church
members are women. Therefore they deserve to be represented fairly
in the top leadership. The protests by Dutch delegate Jarrien den
Hollander were received by strong applause on repeated occasions.
He then made a motion to reject the list of appointees and to send
it back to the nominating committees. His motion was defeated. Why?
Because the great majority of the voting members are men, of course.
They want to see the SDA church as their private club for men only.
Having women in the church leadership is important not only
for reasons of fairness, but also because women bring fresh ideas and
innovative solutions while men continue to think inside the box. Also
men are not likely to make it a priority to address issues that are
relevant to women. There are some issues that women hold dear
to their hearts and those same issues are completely ignored
by men. Finally it is important to have women in the church
leadership because other women need to be able to discuss their
problems with leaders of the same sex. It is extremely difficult
for women to open up and discuss private or very personal matters
with a male pastor.
The next five years will be very challenging years for women
in the SDA church. Our leaders have shown a total lack of sensitivity.
They have demonstrated that they are absolutely blind and deaf to
the needs of sixty percent of our members. We will need to pray
earnestly and without ceasing to bring about the changes needed
at the leadership level.

God bless you all.