Abstract
The purpose of The Laywoman Project is to add to an understanding of the history of Vatican II in the American Catholic church. The book offers the perspective of laywomen as “faithful, committed and non-radical Catholic women leaders” (p. 16). The rationale behind the laywomen project was to “change the church laity while leaving the church’s understanding of gender and therefore its underpinning of its power structure in institutions and family sacrosanct” (p. 16).
A strength of the book is its focus on an alternative women’s history of the American Catholic church in the Vatican II era. The book uses an educated white middle-class and middle-aged lens through which to examine the role of laywomen involved in the work of exploring Catholic gender identity during this era of transformation.
These women capitalized on their privilege to undertake leadership within four prominent national Catholic organizations in the United States. This privileged lens, the author states, represents both the contribution and, at the same time, the limitation of the study.
The methodology of the research underpinning this book is unclear. There is reference in the Prologue to the consultation and examination of 41 articles between 1958 and 1964, and the author draws on a widely reported survey in the late 1950s about vocations. Yet, the book is primarily a historical account of a particular period in American Catholic history rather than a scholarly critique of these women and their advocacy during this period of time. The chapters in the book provide historical narratives about the different communities, tracing in detail the transitions each group of women makes over the 1960s and 1970s. It is mainly descriptive, and while adding importantly to the historic record, many assertions remain unquestioned and unchallenged. From a historical perspective, the photos are engaging because they provide a visual representation of the substance of laywomen that the text at times struggles to convey.
Discourse associated with concepts such as complementarity, essentialism, feminism, and gender identity is under-theorized and could be integrated into the accounts to present a more robust argument about the location and influence of these groups across the period. The premise of the book would have been thereby strengthened. For example, the author identifies American laywomen in the Catholic church as positioned as marginalized and located at the bottom of the church’s hierarchy while also noting that these women have considerable power to assume leadership in prominent national organizations. The inherent contradictions in locating these women as both powerless and powerful could have made a compelling thesis to argue, which the book lacks.
We see the importance of giving voice to the lived experiences of American Catholic laywomen. However, as two Australian academics—one a social worker and one a teacher—with Catholic histories who have moved beyond the practices of Catholicism, we were left wondering about the vision being espoused for laywomen in the 21st century. For us, the book sets up a false dichotomy between religious women and laywomen, feminists and nonfeminists, which does not acknowledge the potential power of women who spring from a wide range of persuasions.
The author writes, “rather than be disheartened at the continued exclusion of laywomen from positions of authority and the well-worn justifications of that exclusion I’d prefer to take what lessons we can from the women who have been here before” (p. 193). As feminists, we are mystified and confused as to why you would continue to pursue this agenda.
The book provides an insider’s account of four “moderate” women’s movements within the Catholic church. It is important to gain a better understanding of the lessons learned and the battles fought over gender identity within the hierarchy of the Catholic church during this era of women’s rights. This topic continues to be of major concern in current times with the final chapter articulating how little progress has been made in this area. However, the conservative agenda of the organizations depicted in this book are not representative, from our viewpoint, of the breadth and diversity of women’s everyday social justice concerns.
