Women exerted church power by judging ministerial literacy, not seeking ordination

Evidence

The movement challenged male hegemony on several levels. The “seneral awakening” in the study of the Bible on the part of women proved threatening to ministers who feared the intellectual development of the women and assumed that their claims to prophecy and revelation portended the demand to preach in the near future. The women’s efforts to establish separate women’s societies did not include the demand for ordination to the clergy; rather the women attempted to exert power by insisting upon literacy and theological training for men who would preach to them. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 352

Categorization

• QUESTION: A striking inversion: by setting literacy and theological standards that preachers must meet, women who could not preach nonetheless controlled who preached — does this instance a broader strategy of subordinate groups converting excluded channels into gatekeeping power?
• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: A woman preacher legitimized prayer leadership through juristic disagreement, not gender equality; Women justify religious leadership through juristic disagreement, not gender equality — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 619; Women’s Bible study armed them to judge preachers rather than to seek the pulpit. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1253 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Women’s Bible study armed them to judge preachers rather than to seek the pulpit. #corroborates (0.95) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1253
• Black women leaders contested the equation of church authority with ordination #expands (0.85) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 367
• Women justify religious leadership through juristic disagreement, not gender equality #qualifies (0.75) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 619
• A woman preacher legitimized prayer leadership through juristic disagreement, not gender equality #qualifies (0.70)