Female Presidents but not Female Priests? Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Women’s Discourse on Female Ordination and Gender Relations in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania1

This chapter analyzes the relationship between gender equality and attitudes toward female ordination among Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian Lutheran and Catholic women. Using data collected from semi-structured interviews, the authors examine different attitudes toward female ordination, the arguments grounding them, and the informants’ understandings of the relationship between female ordination and gender relations outside of institutional religion as well as the relationship between female ordination and the principle of gender equality more generally. The analysis shows that the informants use a combination of arguments and their views toward female ordination, which are rarely precise either-or positions. Informants tend to separate gender relations within the realm of institutional religion and those outside of it. The different argumentation strategies and sources of authority employed to discuss female ordination as an instance of gender relations in institutional religion and gender relations outside of it signal that the conceptual boundary between the institutional and non-institutional, or the religious and the secular, is essential for a considerable part of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian Catholic and Lutheran women.