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| Title: | Women's Leadership Roles in the Early Protestant Church in Uganda: Continuity with the Old Order |
| Author: | Dimock, Liz |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Periodical: | Australasian Review of African Studies |
| Volume: | 25 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 8-22 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Uganda |
| Subjects: | Protestant churches women Religion and Witchcraft Women's Issues History and Exploration Historical/Biographical Sex Roles Cultural Roles |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the extent to which women leaders in the early Protestant Church in Buganda (now Uganda) reflected a continuity in women's leadership between precolonial and colonial society and for how long. The arrival of Christianity in the 1870s with the introduction of mission teaching at the court of the 'Kabaka' of Buganda was the start of a period of great change for many Baganda, opening the way for women as well as men to acquire a range of new skills, especially literacy, which became linked with upward social mobility. The paper first examines the royal women who, in the first 20 years after the missionaries' arrival in precolonial Buganda, straddled two ways of life while retaining their royal leadership roles; and the ways in which those who were converted managed to change to a Christian life. Next, attention is paid to the Church's 'Women's Work' which began with the arrival of female missionaries and which saw women from foremost Ganda political families emerge as leaders in the Church of Uganda. Finally, a third phase between 1910 and the 1930s became a period of institutionalization. The pioneering evangelists were slowly replaced by a new, boarding school educated generation of women. Annual Women's Conferences gave Ugandan women Church representation, enabling elected women from pastorates, along with female missionaries, to discuss issues of significance to them. Mothers' Unions were formed at pastorate level and from the start they had an educative role. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
