Reflections at the End of a Year

An article published by UN Women in the last days of the year looking at sixteen defining moments for gender equality in 2021 caught my attention yesterday. We tend to hear more about all the bad news, but some things have been good for women in the past year. I would like to reflect on some of the developments and events.

The Political World

We already have several women in the leadership of nations, but in 2021 eight more countries elected or swore in their first woman Head of State or Government, with Barbados, Estonia, and Moldova even having women as both President and Prime Minister for at least part of the year. Kaja Kallas took office in January as Estonia’s first woman Prime Minister. Samia Suluhu Hassan became Tanzania’s first woman President in March. In May, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa was elected Prime Minister of Samoa. June saw Robinah Nabbanja nominated to the role of Prime Minister of Uganda. Najla Bouden Ramadhane was named Tunisia’s Prime Minister in September, making her the first woman to lead a country in the Arab region. In the first presidential election of Barbados in October 2021, Sandra Mason became the country’s first-ever female President. Sweden’s parliament voted in Magdalena Andersson as Prime Minister in November. In December, Xiomara Castro was elected President of Honduras, and she will officially take office in 2022. In January Kamala Harris took office as the first woman Vice President of the United States. Harris is notably also the first Black-American and Asian-American to fill the role.

In some of these countries electing a woman to a national leadership position is something we would not (yet) have expected, considering their culture. For women in politics, 2021 was a good year. Albania has a cabinet with 70% women and Germany managed to get its first gender-equal cabinet, and Iraq and Kosovo exceeded their gender quotas for parliament. In May, Chile elected the world’s first gender-equal constitutional assembly, which activists say could help set a new global standard. In the Icelandic parliament, 47,6% of the members are women. Just five countries in the world currently have parliaments where women hold at least half the seats. Rwanda leads the way, with women making up 61,3% of the members of its lower house. It is followed by Cuba at 53,4%, Nicaragua at 50,6%, and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates at 50%. There is still room for improvement in many countries. Women make up just 34,2% of the members of the United Kingdom's House of Commons and just 27,6% of the House of Representatives in the United States. In the new German Parliament, 34,7% of the members are women.

On March 1, 2021, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria started as Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This choice is unique in several ways. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman in this position. She is also the first African to lead the WTO. The International Monetary Fund also named its chief economist Gita Gopinath to become its second-ranking official in early 2022.

UN Women has seen some great women leading the organization and it is good to know that women’s empowerment is a central issue at the United Nations. In 2021 United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan as Executive Director of UN Women succeeding Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, continuing the tradition of looking for the best possible persons.

With more women in positions of leadership, we hope that that legislation will be passed that will eliminate many of the misogynic attitudes and traditions that still exist in our world. Spain approved a bill defining all non-consensual sex as rape. The bill also reclassifies street harassment and female genital mutilation as criminal offenses and introduces imprisonment for work-related sexual harassment.

The Higher Islamic Council in Lebanon approved a Family Law amendment, including a new chapter on the marriage of minors. The new legislation bans the marriage of children under the age of 15 and stipulates that girls must give their consent to marry, or else the marriage can be annulled.

Looking back at 2021 is not possible without mentioning the devastating impact of the COVID-19 virus. Women have made an immense impact as healthcare workers and doctors, but they have also been leaders in research and innovation. In the development of vaccines, the research done by women like Kizzmekia Corbett, Katalin Karikó, Özlem Türeci, and others, has been a critical tool in combating the pandemic.

The Generation Equality Forum, convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of France and Mexico, marked a critical moment in women’s rights and equality movements, especially as the world assesses the impact of COVID-19.

These are a few of the good developments in the past year. I could mention more, like the most gender-balanced Olympic games of history in Tokyo. But other things break my heart when I think of the women involved. The Afghan women who have experienced 20 years of freedom have been stripped of all possibilities of making an impact in their country. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, their lives were drastically impacted. Girls are banned from attending secondary school, women are unable to continue work, and violence against women is on the rise. And still, many Afghan women took to the streets in protest, and others, particularly judges, fear for their lives. In Belarus, women attempted a peaceful revolution and many, like Maria Kolesnikova, are paying a high price for their struggle for democracy and freedom. We should not forget these brave women just because the newsreels have passed on to other events.

The Religious world

On February 21, 2021, the Sunday preceding the annual Catholic Bishops‘ Conference in Germany, women of the Maria 2.0 initiative nailed new theses on church and cathedral doors throughout Germany. In their seven theses, they demand among other things equal rights for men and women, common responsibility, respectful treatment, and transparency. The Catholic Church is waking up to the need to involve women and give them greater roles.

In an interview broadcast on Vatican Radio in September 2021, Cardinal Walter Kasper said, "You can't just exclude half of humanity! Women have a great contribution to make there; they see many things differently and tackle many things differently than we men do, and that can then complement each other." However, the German cardinal does not consider the topic of women's ordination to be ripe yet because it can only be decided universally by the church. However, the Fall Bishops‘ conference 2021 met under the leadership of the new secretary-general, Dr. Beate Gilles. Pope Francis has been calling more and more women into top leadership positions in the Vatican, hoping that this involvement will be seen as a sign that the church is opening up for women. Sister Anne Béatrice Faye, a nun from Burkina Faso, is a philosopher and member of the theological commission at the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church. She says, "It's women who carry the church in Africa... I think it's natural today to recognize women's participation at the level of decision-making bodies within the church." 

The Lutheran World Federation welcomed its new General Secretary Rev Anne Burghardt (45), a theologian and pastor from the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church who took over the leadership of the global Communion starting on November 1, 2021.

In Germany, the Evangelical Church (EKD) is now also being led by three women. The Synod of the EKD elected the President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, Dr. Annette Kurschus (58), to lead German Protestantism for the next six years. Her deputy is also a woman, the Rt Revd Kirsten Fehrs. In May, a 25-year-old humanities Master’s student, Anna-Nicole Heinrich, was the youngest-ever president of the EKD’s Synod. This highest lay office in German Protestantism was previously filled by prominent politicians and academics.

In Switzerland, the Evangelical Reformed Church elected Rita Famos as its president in November 2020, which does not quite make it into what happened in 2021. But it shows that women are being called into leadership in many churches.

What about Seventh-Day Adventists?

The Adventist Church is known for making it difficult for women to reach church leadership positions. The SDA church has been struggling with the question of Women’s Ordination for a long time. The official position of the General Conference is that commissioned pastors, be they men or women, can do practically everything that an ordained pastor does. But female pastors, are not ordained. Ordination, however, is required for presidents of church administrative units. In 2015, delegates at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists session voted against allowing divisions to decide whether or not to ordain women pastors in their regions.

In 2021 some Union Conferences have given up their effort to be compliant in this matter and have voted to treat both males and females equally. The North German Union voted on April 25 to implement a decision already made in 2012 that had been on hold. On December 6, the South German Union Executive Committee voted to allow the equal ordination of men and women in pastoral ministry. In doing so, the Church has made ordination practice uniform throughout Germany. The Inter-European Division Administration stated that it “does not support an action against a vote taken at a General Conference Session.” On the other hand, they also stated that “one of the most important lessons that the Adventist Church should learn is that the best way to find a solution for such a sensitive matter is to entrust its resolution to the administration of each World Division, in a similar way to the decision regarding the ordination of church elders made about half a century ago.”

The Mid-America Union also voted in 2021 to accept ordination recommendations from its Conferences without regard to gender, joining the Columbia Union and Pacific Union with this stance.

The decision by the South American Division executive committee on July 8, 2021, to approve the ordination of women as local elders in all its territories was a huge step towards gender equality.

There is an increasing number of women in leadership positions in many parts of the world. South Puerto Rico Conference hired its first woman pastor: Abigail Babilonia was appointed as Director of Youth Ministries, Director of ADRA, and pastor of a church.

Sandra E. Roberts, who is the first-ever female executive secretary of a Union Conference in the North American Division was elected Pacific Union Conference Executive Secretary in the North American Division. Celeste Ryan Blyden (51), was elected as the new executive secretary of the Columbia Union Conference on November 11, 2021. She is the first woman ever elected as executive secretary of the Columbia Union Conference. Leading Adventist universities and colleges have women serving as presidents. The Australian Union has strengthened support for women in ministry. Not only have women been accepted as pastors for quite some time in the South Pacific Division, but the pacific islands are leading the way in women's leadership. The Trans-Pacific Union Mission (TPUM) has appointed Naomi Booia as the secretary of Kiribati Mission—the first female secretary appointed within the TPUM. Ms. Booia, who is currently a theology lecturer at Fulton Adventist University College, will take up her appointment in the middle of next year. TPUM president Pastor Maveni Kaufononga welcomed the appointment. “For me, this is a great achievement for our work in Kiribati,” he said. “We are short with pastors in Kiribati and Naomi will be a role model for our women to step up to a pastoral role which will boost the work in Kiribati. There are lots of women in Kiribati who are contributing to the running of the government and private sectors, why not within the Church?” This is a valid question and the church should find a good answer if it wants to be relevant.

Conclusion

We will have to wait and see how the General Conference Leadership reacts to some of these decisions. Can they still refuse to acknowledge God’s calling and the gifts He gives to women? We are called to pray for the influence of the Holy Spirit on the hearts and minds of church leaders so that they can see how God wants to use women‘s gifts of leadership and service.

While there have been many developments we can be thankful for, there is still a lot to be achieved to make the world more gender-inclusive. Let us not give up but rather start the year 2022 with new courage and enthusiasm, even though we may not see much progress.