Female clergy face ‘institutionalised discrimination’, campaigners claim

Women and men campaigning outside a General Synod meeting for the introduction of female priests, November 1992. The first 32 female priests were ordained in March 1994. Photograph: E Hamilton West/The Guardian

Thirty years after the Church of England took the historic step of allowing women to become priests, equality campaigners say female clergy still face “institutionalised discrimination”.

Fewer than one in three paid clergy are female, according to 2020 data – the most recent published – although the same source showed more women (55%) than men had begun training for the priesthood.