Unduly Conscious of Her Sex: Priesthood, female bodies and sacred space in the Church of England

Between 1910 and 1935 there was a vibrant and active campaign for the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England. Despite convening major historical and theological commissions into the ministry of women, the Church of England struggled to arrive at any coherent theological objections to the ordination of women. Nonetheless, the Church refused to countenance women priests. This paper argues that a gendered spatial analysis of the debates about women performing priestly roles in the pulpit and chancel can reveal the underlying assumptions about gender, power, theology, and sexuality that informed the debates about women's ordination in the 1920s and 1930s.