Same calling, different chances

A review of the literature on the situation of female pastors

Abstract

Our study provides an account of the approaches and problem-setting characteristics of the

international literature on female ministry in Protestant churches as well as of the most important

results of academic research regarding the activity of female ministers; moreover, we introduce the

relevant academic discourses which we can incorporate when investigating the conditions of Protestant

female ministers in Hungary. We focus on how gender-based inequalities are presented in the research

conducted on female ministers, and in what ways inequality in the churches is different from or similar

to that of the secular professions. We investigate what mechanisms promote or impede female ministers’

harmonizing their professional and family roles as well as establishing their work-life balance, and we

also investigate how these mechanisms influence women’s engagement in the ministerial profession

as well as how they produce disadvantages for women in the ministerial career. We also explore how

women can assert themselves in this ecclesiastical profession and what impact the activity of female

ministers has on the role of being a Protestant minister and how that impacts the relation between men

and women in the church