As a Nicaraguan-born girl growing up in Miami, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez remembers going to church five times a week. Her father was a pastor, and their fundamentalist evangelical faith taught that a woman’s role was to serve her husband.
At the same time, Mojica Rodríguez saw how essential women were in keeping the pews filled and the church running. Ultimately, dismayed by the subservient role of women and the church’s harsh restrictions on girls, she would leave her faith – and her husband – in her late 20s.
“Women are less inclined to be involved with churches that don’t want us speaking up, that don’t want us to be smart,” said Mojica Rodríguez, who went on to earn a master’s degree in divinity. “We’re like the mules of the church – that’s what it feels like.”
Though the Nashville-based author and activist is now 39, her experience reflects a growing and, for churches, a potentially worrisome trend of young women eschewing religion. Their pace of departure has overtaken men, recent studies show, reversing patterns of previous generations.
Say what?
Edit: Never mind. I skipped over the phrase “for churches,” which explains to whom this would be worrisome.
You left out the “for churches” part, which is important context
You’re right. I was considering adding more of the quote so it didn’t look like I was leaving out context, but I wanted to highlight the phrase that confused me. It looks like I just ignored “for churches” mentally for some reason. I will edit.
No worries. I do the same sort of thing all the time