Here's what it's like to be a woman in the Church: you are expected to be warm, nurturing, kind, constantly available, and motherly to your flock. If you don't, they call you a Bitch. But if you're TOO nurturing, you're a "bad leader." #AOCstrong

Here's what it's like to be a woman in the Church: You are expected to have a command grasp on all aspects of leadership from A to Z. There is no saying "I'm new here," or "I'm still learning" (the way your white male colleagues do two years into their job).

Otherwise? You don't have good leadership skills, and if you dare not be "nurturing enough" at the same time, they call you that word again.

Here's what it's like to be a woman in the Church: your male colleagues feel entitled to physically grab you at Diocesan Convention, to berate you in front of rooms full of colleagues for daring to speak up at Annual Meeting.

They will rarely (or never) use that same privilege to speak out on behalf of BIPOC, queer folks, trans folks, or others with less privilege. Oh and when you get the committee assignment they wanted? It's because you are filling a "quota."

Here's what it's like to be a woman in the Church: you will be the skilled professional called in to follow a deeply damaging male predecessor. You will work long and hard to begin to heal the trauma, and find a way forward.

All the while your leadership will be compared to his, and the institution will continue to choose the man who has caused harm over the healing you are trying to bring.

Here's what it's like to be a woman in the Church: Your male colleagues publicly undermine your leadership in front of hundreds of people, and no one holds them to account. Not your boss, not the Bishop or your judicatory leaders, not his colleagues.

Not the many, many men who watch this behavior unfold and remain silent. So men who are reading this, I want to invite you to sit with whatever discomfort you feel.

I want you to think about the times you may have participated in this kind of behavior. I want you to sit with the reality that *most men* are part of the problem, and invite you to think about how to be part of the solution.

Spoiler alert: you can't stay quietly in your comfort zone, and do so.

I will never, ever not speak up when I see women and femmes in my life being treated this way. I won't participate in the culture of giving men a pass, because "they mean well." Gendered violence is never okay.