“Biblical womanhood: that’s triggering for me”: an examination of identity negotiation in Baptist women in church leadership

Abstract

Baptist woman leaders occupy an intersectional identity space. This intersection is due to their Baptist socialization with submission and the gendering function of Baptist organizations. This socialization can conflict with their performance of their leadership role identity, especially when viewed from the dialectical perspective as playing a role in organizational resistance and transformation. This study, therefore, seeks to understand the identity performance of Baptist woman leaders using a nested identities framework. Findings suggest that when individuals are raised within a totalistic organization, religious doctrine becomes the material from which they begin constructing all their other identities. Thus, they conceptualize their understanding of all their nested identity layers through the lens of totalistic doctrine. The findings of this study advance the notion that when identities conflict, individuals will lean on their doctrine over the organization's norms, due to the high level of subjective importance.