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