Women have pretty much always attended church more than men.
Christianity started off as a religion of “women and slaves”, which was a common insult hurled at the fledgling new religion by the Romans.
And it has continued to be a religion with more women than men.
Until now, among young women. We’ve talked before on the blog about how Gen Z women are abandoning religion, in ways that Gen Z men aren’t. But a new study now says that well-educated women of all ages are abandoning it faster too.
Sociologist Ryan Burge has been crunching the numbers, and gives a fascinating series of graphs here. I’ll let Religion Dispatches summarize Burge’s research into what’s going on with women, and how it’s changed in the last 15 years:
…at least for college-educated people, men are more likely to attend church than women. In 2008, 36% of college-educated women went to services at least weekly, versus 34% of men. As Burge notes, higher levels of education correlate with greater church attendance: that same year, 27% of men and 30% of women with a high school degree or less went to church.
But in 2012, something interesting happened—for the first time, the level of church attendance more or less evened out for college-educated men and women, with 31% of men and 32% of women going weekly. Notably, while both men and women were less likely to go to church than four years earlier, women’s attendance dropped slightly more.
But following that, men’s attendance held more or less steady, with the same 31% attendance in 2016, 30% in 2020 and 2022, and 32% in 2024. But women’s attendance declined precipitously, dropping five points between 2012 and 2020. Since then it’s been holding steady at 27%. Overall, women’s weekly attendance dropped nine points between 2008 and 2023, according to Burge, while men’s dropped a mere two points. So by 2023, college-educated men were five points more likely than college-educated women to attend religious services at least weekly.
Religion Dispatches believes the culprit is largely politics and the sexual abuse crises, and I don’t disagree.
But as someone outside of the U.S. who has been going through a lot of similar feelings about the evangelical church, I think there’s another force at play, and I want to talk about it today.
At one point, women were treated badly everywhere, but at least at church you heard about Jesus.
My mother has often told me about the sexual harassment and discrimination she encountered working for the municipality of Toronto in the 1970s. Let’s remember that women couldn’t get credit cards in their name until the 1970s and 1980s. Pretty much everywhere women went they were dismissed or looked down upon.
So when the church dismissed women, that was normal. But at least at church you heard about the Jesus who loved you, who cared about you, who talked to women. You heard about how Jesus treated Mary Magdalene, and how he talked with the Samaritan woman. You could fall in love with this God who cared about you deeply, and develop a deep relationship with Him.
Church was your haven, because even though evangelical churches still treated women badly–everywhere else did too. So at least you had Jesus.
Now the rest of the world has improved–but the church hasn’t.
The dichotomy between how women are treated in the world versus how we are treated in the church is so stark. Can you imagine what would happen if a teacher complained about a “shady little girl in a miniskirt” causing him to feel tempted?
In her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr talks about how she could literally lecture at university to adults, but in her SBC church she wasn’t allowed to teach the junior high Sunday School boys. (she and her husband later left that church).
When Keith and I were attending a Baptist church with male hierarchy, we realized that we could never invite our work peers to church, because they would be so offended that women weren’t allowed to be in leadership. If we ever did have friends in church, we had to make sure it wasn’t on a week with communion, when it was blatantly obvious that all the elders were male. And it wasn’t just women who would be offended–men would be horribly offended on women’s behalf too.
And this isn’t even including all the ways that the church has utterly failed sexual abuse victims, restoring the pastors who abuse and villainizing the victims who speak up.
It’s not including all the talk about how women are responsible for dressing so men don’t sin; for having sex so men don’t cheat; for respecting men so that they can feel good about themselves and act like Christians (since we can’t expect men to do the bare minimum without women’s help).
When church treats you worse than the world, then church is no longer your shelter in the storm.
It is the storm.
And most people don’t want the storm.
She Deserves Better!
Because we all deserve a big faith.
Your daughter deserves better than what you likely grew up with in church.
What would it look like to prepare the next generation without toxic teachings about modesty, sex, or consent, and instead set her up for a big faith?
Why would women stay?
About 15 years ago I attended the funeral of my mother’s best friend.
She had been high up in government in the city of Toronto, and had spent her career making sure there will social supports for women and families in crisis. She had basically been doing the work of the church, except she’d been doing it under government auspices.
But she had never set foot in a church, and often spoke critically about church.
My mother was floored when, at her funeral, which was very well attended by the highest up in Toronto circles, there were multiple hymns and Bible passages read. Apparently her friend had specifically requested this.
I tried to sing the hymns as loudly as possible because it was clear that those around me didn’t know the tunes at all, and I tried to help.
She had never abandoned God; she had just felt that the church had abandoned her.
I have seen so many male commentators talk about how it is politics that has pushed women out of the church. Again, I’m not saying this isn’t a factor.
But I think there’s just something more basic going on.
It’s so, so hard to drag yourself to church and hype yourself up to not be hurt by the fact that your safe space is now going to dehumanize you. That the main time and place where you will be dehumanized is Sunday morning at 11 am. That’s difficult to take. It wears on you, week in and week out.
And even if we love Jesus, we can’t keep subjecting ourselves to that.
What can we do to keep faith?
This is the nuanced truth, though, that we can’t escape from, and that Rebecca talked about in episode 247 of the Bare Marriage podcast. Going to church, overall, is good for you. You have better relationships. Better mental health. You’re happier.
But a lot of these benefits disappear if you’re going to a toxic church. (In fact, women’s health is worse off attending churches with male hierarchy).
I’m not saying we need to abandon church. I’m saying that women need to realize that, if we banded together and insisted that things be better, we could change things.
Here are just a few suggestions:
- Find smaller churches near you that do affirm women. They may not have fog machines or great children’s programs, but if enough healthy people join, programs can grow again.
- Listen to my convo with Beth Allison Barr about how to find a good church
- Listen to my convo with Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer about how to influence your church for the better–and how to know when it’s a lost cause
- Check out our Toolkit to help churches see where they’re hurting women and giving the wrong message
- Form an in-home fellowship group with other people who love Jesus and want health (this can also be tricky because these types of groups are vulnerable to being taken over by someone charismatic, or to a lot of heresy. But sometimes it’s the only option!)
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We can’t let people who don’t respect us steal Jesus and steal church from us. It’s not right.
We are co-heirs with Christ; we don’t get to be pushed out.
So let’s change things! Let’s shake things up. That means not putting up with people telling us our voices don’t matter (more on this in chapter 10 of She Deserves Better). It means holding churches accountable for sexual abuse scandals. It means stopping supporting churches, volunteering at churches, or giving money to churches that hurt women.
But there are so many churches, especially smaller ones, doing the work of Christ. Let’s find them. Let’s encourage them and build them up. Let’s be the church again, and leave the toxic ones to themselves!
Let’s make the church our shelter from the storm again, because that’s what it was always supposed to be.
The Deconstruction Series
- 8 Things to Know about Deconstruction and Ex-Vangelicals
- PODCAST: The Ex-vangelicals feat. Sarah McCammon
- PODCAST: Rift feat. Cait West--and how courtship got so out of hand
- PODCAST: Hurt and Healed by the Church feat. Ryan George
- PODCAST: Spot the Propaganda and Logical Fallacies feat. Scott Coley
- When Deconstruction Means Losing Family
“…church is no longer your shelter in the storm.
It is the storm.”
Well dang, that’s harsh… but so incredibly accurate in many cases. Great points you mentioned.
We found something safer in a small church. Don’t get me wrong, there are a small handfull of old men who have hung on to some misogyny though they claim they believe in females preaching… but I think a lot of that is cultural in this part of the world.
Most of the men in this church have been affirming and think women fully as capable (or more), and several men take on the stereotypical roles of women- teaching kids, cooking, etc. It has been strange to be able to joke around with men and have to remind myself they are not all sexist like a previous SBC church where a female joking with any male was considered flirting regardless of marital status. I’m not seen as a threat simply for talking with a guy, married or not. Thankfully that inward feeling and questioning is getting weaker as time and positive experiences pass.
I’ve heard people lecture how important it is to be a part of a church community, and I know the research backs that up for the greater part, but I will not blame a person that has been hurt so deeply by the church if they cannot bring themselves to enter the storm. It’d be like demanding someone go into a category 5 hurricane because you know there’s a safe eye in the middle… not many would be willing to do that, but especially not those who have never known peace. If a church isn’t willing to think about and address why they are a storm, then what’s the point in seeking one out?
“If a church isn’t willing to think about and address why they are a storm”
A church with all-male leadership is unlikely to recognize their church IS a storm. After all, the MEN in the church haven’t been affected by whatever this “storm” is that women keep bringing up in their ridiculous, overemotional, illogical, typical female complaining.
Nathan Pyle recently posted one of his comics on his FB page that speaks exactly to this situation. I don’t have a link so I’ll summarize. Two eagles are discussing whether an owl of their acquaintance is a predator. The conclusion is of course not, as the owl has never bothered either of the eagles. Then one says something like “I don’t know what Mr. Mouse is talking about.” 🙄
Yep! I love that cartoon!
Your first point is sadly too often true.
N. Pyle has had some fantastic cartoons! I haven’t seen that one yet but it seems apt.
I’m glad you’ve landed in a safe place! That sounds lovely.
Even generally egalitarian churches can have gendered undertones that are off-putting.
Here’s something simple to make things better: Don’t use gendered language when asking for volunteers when the gender truly doesn’t matter.
Don’t: Ladies, you can help out with the men’s Kairos weekend, too! We need 100 dozen home-baked cookies.
Do: Those of you who can’t volunteer for the Kairos weekend can still support us. We need 100 dozen home-baked cookies.
Don’t: We’re catering a potluck, but we’re asking the ladies to bring the desserts.
Do: We’re catering the potluck, but we’re asking you in the congregation in bring the desserts.
Don’t: Men, we have a church-repair weekend coming up. Ladies, we’re asking you to help by bringing lunch. If you want to come earlier, you can wash windows or other easy tasks.
Do: We have a church-repair weekend coming up. Even if you’re not skilled at home repair, you can still help. We’re looking for volunteers to bring lunch, wash the windows, give the carpets a good vacuum, etc.
This is GREAT! Thank you!
Our church is planning a small women’s conference. It’s asked two men (both of whom happen to be used to cooking for large crowds) to coordinate the lunch.
I LOVE it.
Abso-freaking-lutely agree with doing away with gendered language surrounding volunteering, or even group activities if applicable. My husband is a welder, so he’s physically very strong and good at working with his hands. He’s also a skilled baker and gardener and enjoys contributing that way. I myself am good at cooking and caring for children, but I’m also highly skilled in data analysis and outdoor stuff like hiking and identifying native plants.
I could probably make a decent dessert for the potluck, but it would pale in comparison to what my husband would dish up. And he would be totally lost if asked to make a budget projection for next year based on last year’s data, but I’d be all over it.
Church, we must stop assigning gender to what we ask the congregation to help with. Not everyone’s talents line up perfectly with stereotypes about their gender!
Amen!
If my husband wasn’t the pastor, I wouldn’t be attending church. I go for him. The little church we’re at now is nice, and I don’t see any signs that they’ll mistreat us. But I’ve been wrong about that before.
It’s all the things you said. It’s the dehumanization. The hypocritical sexism that betrays our foundation. And in my case, the toxic (and sometimes abusive) way the congregation/elders treat the pastor and family.
Add bias and misinformation for neurodiversity, and the racism I’ve seen leveled at dear friends, and you can see why church isn’t my safe space anymore.
>> Eagle says owl is not predator, doesn’t understand the mouse
A bit off topic, but this is sometimes how school bullies operate. They’re target one kid, so that if a situation comes up, the other kids will honestly say “Fred’s never bullied me. I don’t know what Jim’s talking about”.
The Boston Strangler didn’t kill every woman he met. He was still a murderer. Same concept with bullies.
> > Women couldn’t get credit cards in their name until the 1970s and 1980s.
That’s similar to a book I read in high school “A Doll’s House”. The main character had to forge her husband’s signature on some documents because, at the time, women weren’t allowed to do things like write checks, have bank accounts, etc. without their husband or father co-signing.
You know it’s bad when non-Christians are doing better at loving their neighbors than supposed Christians. We are supposed to be good examples. Shame on those Christians that are deliberately not treating women like Jesus would treat women.
Reading the article, it appears that issues regarding women as decision makers and office bearers in the church, as well as gender roles were considered in the article – as women”s issues are generally considered “political”.
The premise of this blog post is interesting to ponder … but are these the only parameters that need to be considered?
What about race and immigration status for example?
Fundamentalism versus other forms of “church” – either orthodoxy or more loosely woven gatherings? Are the numbers of women leaving still even, across the board?
I’m concerned that framing other significant contributors as women’s issues only, could miss our own blind spots.
Are these statistics true for everyone, or is this a predominantly “white church” phenomenon?
I’m not sure that I could articulate what the most important or hotly debated issues are in non-white dominated churches – and that REALLY bothers me.
I feel like I’m guilty of only understanding and accepting people who look or think exactly like me … and that’s what I’m rejecting in the white male supremacist church model.
I feel that I am either a hypocrite, or at least at risk of becoming one.
What else could we be missing?
K,
Thank you for your thoughtful self-criticism for us to see and consider. It is important to not close off the conversation to our non-white sisters and brothers. You have given me food for thought to ponder on and hopefully take better action.
Great questions! I find it hard to answer that because the Canadian church is so different from the American, and I’m in the Canadian context. But I think these are great questions!
Yeah… It does wear down on you when you never see a woman allowed to do any sort of leadership in a church. It was wearing down on me before I even realized why, but that’s why – it’s dehumanizing going to church where you know your voice has to get filtered through a man’s voice to mean anything. I’m extremely serious about my faith and devout, but I really don’t want to go some weeks and I’m stuck at my church.
There is something deeply wrong when Christ’s church would put chains on us, and it is the world that sets us free.
I can’t and won’t take it. I spent years not going to church, not because I had stopped loving Jesus, but because I was busy to the point of exhaustion and hadn’t found a church that felt like home after moving to a new city. When I did finally decide to go back, I was so out of touch with church politics that I had to look up the word “complementarian” to find out what it meant. I was completely taken aback to discover that this debate is such a hot topic in the church decades after the rest of the world figured it out. I am now feeling that I was lucky to spend so many years outside of a church. It was healthier and safer. When I did go back (and I chose a church that was close to me and that was non-denominational) because I was missing the community of faith, I did not find a community. If I had announced that God had gifted me with a talent for making coffee, I am sure I would have been welcomed and shown where the coffee machine was, but otherwise, no one was interested in whatever gifts I might have brought to the church, or interested in me at all. It took a couple of years for me to figure out what was going on, because it just didn’t even cross my mind that the church could be sexist. But oh boy, is it ever. When the pastor preached a sermon on the submissive role of women and had the nerve to say from the pulpit, “We [men] actually have it worse than you because we have to take care of you,” I was done. I pulled my tithes, and although I attended for another year, hoping I could be an agent of change, when it became apparent that this wasn’t going to happen, I shook the dust off my feet. I now attend a wonderful Anglican church where the lead pastor is a woman and the assistant pastor is a man. It’s almost an hour away from where I live, so I don’t make it every Sunday, but my tithes are going there, and although I will probably never really like the liturgy (I do appreciate a lot about it, but . . . they are not my words, so they feel artificial and impersonal to me), I am very grateful to be able to be where the overall culture is one of unquestioned equality. I don’t have to negotiate a minefield of hidden sexism. I have wondered whether God may be wanting me to set up a home Bible study/worship group, but I think that the time is not yet, so I wait and see. In the meantime, at least I can financially support a church that does God’s work without harming people. Because truly, I would choose to go back to not attending any church before I would support with my money or my presence any church that treats me in the slightest as “less than” or that makes me complicit, through my support, in the damage that it does. As Sheila pointed out in the most recent podcast, I can hear wonderful sermons online (I am currently binge-listening to The Bible Project — it’s wonderful!!), and I can play my favourite hymns in the car as I drive, and I can pray anywhere. I don’t need to surround myself with toxic people. And I won’t be a part of keeping such destructive institutions going.
I think that’s wonderful you’ve found a church you can support!
Maybe God is raising you up to be a missionary in your community, to bring others back to Jesus. And maybe one day you will have that small Bible study, where you feed people into a church like the one you support!
I think you’re on to something here. I wonder too how much of it is simply related to our secularizing culture in general. I suppose it could be that even as society was getting secular more women still held on to church as a beneficial social network, etc, while men more quickly dropped out. Then, more recently, as church has become less cultural and socially beneficial the women are dropping out too, leaving more of a closer ratio of men and women. I don’t know if this plays any part or not, and I think the scandals, politics, and the concerns you bring up certainly play a part as well, even if it’s to make nominal church attendance not of value anymore.
The number of comments shared already in this blog post is staggering. I wish I could add something that resounded with hope, even a tremendously small effort moving a church in the right direction. I cannot. My family has tried to fit into the church setting. When there was AWANA and AWANA bucks were introduced to reward good behavior, our children gathered a $1 or $5 for knowing their verses but saw the bullies and the disruptive children receiving $5, $10, and $20. As parents, we were horrified. Our children, only 6 and 8 at the time, decided on their own to give back all of their AWANA dollars to their leaders. Their leaders in turn came to us, the parents, and asked us why we were punishing our children – they didn’t believe us when we said it was their decision. Then came youth group and the Purity series – after one invite for parents to come to their children’s group, again, as parents we were horrified at the LARGE discrepancies in Biblical teachings and gender roles. We all made a family decision to home church each Sunday and it has been a good fit for us. We live in a small community and we did try other churches – small and mega (our tiny community has 3!) – and each left us not wanting to go back each week. We thought it was us. We just learned this year that that church – when the pastor retired – the entire staff went to the leaders and said, “Pastor so-and-so was emotionally abusive. Other pastors on staff knew and did nothing. We are prepared to walk if you hire within.” The elders hired a pastor from Texas. The last church we attended I was told had a good pastor, would help with marital/family situations, and the tiny church would support us with love and hands-on help. After going to the pastor seeking wise counsel on a marital disagreement, I was told, “You need to go home. You need to pray to Jesus first and invite him into your bedroom. I want you to see Jesus at the foot of your bed and have sex with your husband; he is hurting, too. I want you to make a sacrificial offering to Jesus. I want you to make several sacrificial offerings to Jesus.” For me, where I was at, THAT was the definition of dehumanizing. Later, I called him out for his response and he defended it and I was the one in sin, quoting me chapter and verse. After sharing with my husband, he took accountability big time, he felt so bad that the marital disagreement caused me to seek counsel and then I received more abuse. This church was supposed to be nondenominational. Back to home churching we went. It is just where I am at and I do at times hope this changes but I will never step foot in a church again. My family knows my feelings and respects them. Our children now young adults are so much more spiritually mature than their friends are with whom they were in AWANA with so long ago. Our children have discussed with us that there is no depth, only that God loves everyone and so should we. That there is no purpose except “waiting on the call of the Lord to tell me what to do.” Many of my daughter’s friends married at 18 and you start to see their struggles on social media. “Marriage is hard but we’re committed all the way!” I am extremely overwhelmed by the choice we made a long time ago to remove ourselves because it would have been sacrificing our children and serious deconstructing in their later years.
Max, I’m so sorry you went through that. It seems that home churching really worked for you and your children, though, and I’m glad of that. Good for you for having the wisdom and the strength to pull your family out of those unhealthy places. Oddly enough, this post with the report on how women are leaving the evangelical church does give me hope. The worst thing would be for this very toxic institution to continue as is. If it can’t and won’t change, then the sooner it dies, the better, so that something healthier may begin to grow in its place. I’m recalling John the Baptist’s words (in Matthew 3): “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Hearing that people are “voting with their feet” gives me some hope. Blessings on you and your family.
Oh, wow! I’m just so sad that there are no healthy churches in your community! I feel like maybe part of this blog’s mission is to raise up missionaries all over the evangelical world to call the church back to Jesus!
This really strikes a nerve for me. The church I have attended for decades has made a great show of affirming women in ministry, and one year made a point of “ordaining” the wives of all the elders. I notice that none of the wives ever have much to do with the daily workings of the church, and that the only women regularly invited to speak on Sundays are the pastor’s wife or daughters. (They don’t have any better things to say than anyone else in this place, so it’s not due to gifting.) (This and other things make it obvious that we are party to a very nepotistic set-up, but that’s for another day.)
I spent decades BEGGING for help with a very difficult marriage, and nobody ever had time for me. Now that I’m free, they have all kinds of time for my ex. (This may also be partially due to my “outsider” status in this particular section of the country; but it also stings because I was pushed back on about being a rather ungrateful wife. Never mind that the husband actually lost his job at the church because of ugly attitudes that were the same ones I was seeing at home; I — the woman — was obviously the problem and really needed to shut down.)
I had thoughts about how the church operated, that I freely shared with the pastor, and that was like tossing sand into a pit. We had good conversations and nothing ever came of them. I wonder how that would have gone if one of his favorite men had been sharing those thoughts.
In August of 2021 when I reached out to several people for help because of the discovery of my husband’s porn use, people prayed with me that day and never asked again how I was doing. In the last two years while I have struggled with separation and impending divorce, not one single person ever contacted me to see how I was doing. Two ladies called to encourage me that counseling from the elders could help, and one person asked after church one day why the ex and I weren’t sitting together any more, but no one asked after my heart. As I said, they currently seem to have all kinds of time for the ex. None for me; I guess it was my fault that he started using porn at age 11 and developed such an addiction that our marriage was doomed from the start.
Sometimes being a woman in church really kinda sucks. I haven’t been back since May, and I don’t think anyone has even noticed.
I’m so sorry you’ve been going through all this. First that your husband failed you, and second that your church did.
It’s wrong, pure and simple. I’m glad you’re out of BOTH relationships.
Hugs if you want ’em.
Thank you, Jo.
Oh, Lisa, I’m sorry! It sounds like this was such a toxic church for you. If it’s ever possible, I hope you can find a community that values you and that values women! They are out there, but I know it’s hard to look.
Thank you. I’m in East Tennessee — the buckle of the Bible Belt — so finding a better church might take some doing. But I am looking!
I’m in SWVA. If you ever want to get together for a beverage and a chat, ask Sheila for my email address.
That would be lovely!
In my case, I left religion at a young age because it seemed that the church, god, and Jesus valued men much higher than women in many instances. Women never measure up. Why would anyone want to go somewhere or worship something that demeans them? Church was not an uplifting place to me.
I understand, SB. I’m sorry. It should nver have been that way.
I’m a little late to comment, but feel this with all my heart! I’m relieved that young women are not tolerating what earlier generations endured. They are leaving! I’m quite elderly, and voted with my feet, too; many times. I refused to stay and be abused and minimized, or (later) to let my young children be. At times I simply changed churches, at others it was years before I felt safe enough to try again. From Protestants to Pentecostals, these evangelical patriarchal structures are often so anti-biblical. Examples of my story: 60’s -open racism towards POC (they used another word). 70’s -siding with my extremely abusive parents who didn’t even attend there, after being a runaway teen. 80’s -literal shunning for “lack of faith”, refusing even prayer, when my youngest baby was born disabled. 90’s -blaming and shaming me and my eldest 9 year old daughter, for her sexual abuse by my husband, her father. Rebuking me for kicking out and divorcing him. 2000’s -branding me a troublemaker for refusing to cooperate with unbiblical wrongdoing by pastoral staff, when I was on low level staff there. I resigned. 2017 -yelling (literally) at me for spending Christmas with my Grandchild, instead of attending service. 2023 -hopefully have found my church home! Am still in this kind, tiny church that lives out Jesus. Loving and ‘does’, not just ‘says’!