Clash Of Cultures: Re-Emerging Of Women Leadership Roles in The Religious Context in The Philippines

Abstract Book of the 8th Global Conference on Women's Studies

Year: 2026

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Clash Of Cultures: Re-Emerging Of Women Leadership Roles in The Religious Context in The Philippines

Doreen Benavidez, Charis Abigail A. Benavidez

ABSTRACT:

Women have leadership opportunities equal to men in the pre-Spanish Filipino society. Before the Spanish colonizers came, the native woman of the Philippine islands did not hold a subjugated role in society, rather she was a leader equal to men leaders. She also occupied a significant position in the religious practice of the community as a babaylan (woman priest). The pre-colonial people in the Philippine islands cannot generally be described as a patriarchal society because of their very high regard to women (mothers and women leaders). Masculine superiority and patriarchal subjugation of women was brought into the psyche of the pre-colonial people in the Philippines by the Spaniards, and later the Americans (both from the West). When Western Christianity came, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, women were given limited roles in the religious practice. They were not allowed to have leadership positions in churches. Some allowed women to have leadership roles but not in positions equal to those occupied by men.

However, the coming of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement in the Philippines paved the way for women leadership to re-emerge in the Filipino religious context. Though both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches remained resistant to the idea of women having leadership roles equal to men (priest, pastor, evangelist, deacon, elder, Bible teacher), Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have women pastors, evangelist, deacon, elder, Bible teacher, and in some congregations, women have equal leadership opportunities with men.

This paper presents a description of the pre-colonial view of women in leadership particularly in the Philippine religious context and traces how Western biases impinged upon Filipino religiosity that discriminates against women in relation to their religious roles. Also, this paper explains how and why the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement was instrumental to the re-emerging of women leadership in the religious context: first, the understanding and experience of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement of the empowering of the Holy Spirit to both men and women; second, the compatibility of the Pentecostal and Charismatic view on women and the Filipino religious consciousness; and third, the acknowledgement of the significant contribution of women ministers/leaders in the growth of Pentecostal and Charismatic movement in the Philippines as history informs us.

Keywords: Women Leadership Religious Roles