The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church

by Katie Gaddini

Evangelical Christianity is often thought of as oppressive to women. The #MeToo era, when many women hit a breaking point with rampant sexism, has also reached evangelical communities. Yet more than thirty million women in the United States still identify as evangelical. Why do so many women remain in male-dominated churches that marginalize them, and why do others leave? In each case, what does this cost them?



The Struggle to Stay is an intimate and insightful portrait of single women's experiences in evangelical churches. Drawing on unprecedented access to churches in the United States and the United Kingdom, Katie Gaddini relates the struggles of four women, interwoven with her own story of leaving behind a devout faith. She connects these personal narratives with rigorous analysis of Christianity and politics in both countries, and contextualizes them through interviews with more than fifty other evangelical women. Gaddini grapples with the complexities of obedience and resistance for women within a patriarchal religion against the backdrop of a culture war. Her exploration of how women choose to leave or remain in environments that constrain them is nuanced and personal, telling powerful stories of faith, community, isolation, and loss. Bringing together meticulous research and deep empathy, The Struggle to Stay provides a revelatory account of the private burdens that evangelical women bear.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Theology, Gender, Christian

291 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2022

About the author

Katie Gaddini is a sociologist at the Social Research Institute, University College London. She is also an affiliated researcher in the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Sociology. Gaddini previously worked in the prevention of gender-based violence in Peru, South Africa, Spain, and the United States.

Reviews

[Roxana Chirilă · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I used to be in a cult controversial spiritual movement affiliated to a yoga school.

Now, obviously, my own experience with being in a spiritual group was very different from evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity draws on a tradition, and some women in Katie Gaddini's book left the Church when they were young and returned to it later in life; my group was new, formed in 1990, and has no such back and forth. Evangelical Christianity places great importance on female purity and modesty; my group fully believed in the power of sexuality and in polyamory. Evangelical Christianity has power and recognition in the world, as well as millions of followers; my group thrived on feeling persecuted and hated, and it consisted of (at most) a few tens of thousands of people.

Superficially, there's very little resemblance between my experience and that of evangelical Christians; but I felt drawn to this book's premise and its title, "The Struggle to Stay", which reminded me so much of my last two years in my group.

Katie Gaddini is a former evangelical Christian, and her research on single women struggling with their role in their communities comes from a place of understanding and empathy.

I don't normally look for good style in academic writing, because information is information, and style is secondary in research, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well-written "The Struggle to Stay" is. It's almost a page-turner, and how many academic books can you say that about? I unexpectedly found myself engrossed in the story of these women who deeply believe in God, but who find themselves overlooked or even looked down upon by the wider communities around their Church - either for choices they've made, or simply who they are.

I have so many thoughts and I don't know how to express them all succinctly.

Here's a list of the top three things in my mind.

1. I love the ambivalence. Is being an evangelical Christian woman all good or all bad? Neither. Both.

One thing that happens when you read about cults is that they're always presented in negative terms. But the actual experience of being in a religious movement (whether a cult or not) isn't all negative or even all straightforward; it's always a bit of a struggle, a bit adjusted, a bit interpreted.

Katie Gaddini shows us the border between wanting to fit in and wanting to be yourself; between believing the core ideas of your faith and wanting to innovate the practice; between loving something deeply and it making you suffer.

It's indeed a story of struggle - not just against the larger community, but also inside one's own mind and soul. And it's not all good, or all bad, but it's painful and meaningful.

2. I love the respect. Gaddini respects the women who are still with the Church, even if she herself has left it.

This has numerous consequences, all of them good. The most important one is that you can understand these women and their motivations on a personal level. You aren't kept outside their experience through accusing or negative language that makes it unclear why they're there in the first place; instead, you're brought in to see who they are and where they difficult decisions and positive experiences lie.

The most important consequence *to me* is that this gives me a different framework to explain my own experiences more accurately. Where cult literature uses terms like "love bombing" and "brainwashing", Katie Gaddini describes community, a desire to help others become better, friendship, an openness both beyond that in normal society, and containing taboos of its own.

3. I love the discussion on the ideal woman. What even is the ideal woman?

The evangelical Christian ideal woman is white, young, attractive, dresses stylishly, but not overtly sexily, powerful but subservient, calm. The ideal is never stated, but somehow known by all involved.

(My group had an ideal woman, too. We also knew her. The ideal woman is young, attractive, plump, playful, very sexy and uninhibited, not bookish, subservient (it's funny how some things coincide).)

As Katie Gaddini says, the ideal is a problem both for those who cannot and will not conform to it, and for those who embody it, because they need to keep performing it even when it doesn't coincide with their lived experience and becomes harmful to them.

Overall, this is a wonderfully written book, and Gaddini approaches the subject with subtlety and grace. It's an interesting read even for those such as myself who have no connection to (or, to be frank, much knowledge of) the evangelical Church, because some experiences are deeply human, and deeply relatable.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kylie Vernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a hard read. cried my way through the end. gaddini is brilliant. yet this book was incredibly painful to read. evangelical churches have been a source of strength and a source of pain to every woman i know, myself included. i feel like this should be required reading for men and women alike entering into ministry.

i’ll be processing this one for a long while to come. i also think i’m going to go on a hiatus of evangelical/purity culture books after i finish this thesis. my spirit is tired.

[Jonathan Puddle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important, timely work on the factors women face in church and faith engagement. Recommended reading.

[Karen Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and thought provoking book. I would like her to do a study of married women in the church and their struggle to stay and conform to expectations

[McKenzie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The truth is, I did not finish. I just stopped reading. It is not well researched nor well written. It was such a disappointment, and a stain on an important conversation. Scripture was used out of context. The word evangelical is quite ambiguous these days, and that was apparent in this book. The author has little understanding of hermeneutics and exegesis. I could go on and on. Christian, single women do find it hard to stay and engage in their local church; however, this book didn't explore that in any meaningful way.

[Rebekah Snyder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book assuming it would be written from the perspective of a single evangelical woman who is struggling to find a sense of belonging in the church. Instead, I find the author is someone who left the church long ago and is struggling to understand why anyone else is still there.

While the writing itself is quite lovely, the author’s obvious disdain for the faith of her youth often seeps through. She writes of bracing herself for this research, fearing that evangelical Christianity and that unique sense of community that can only be found within the body of Christ might suck her back in even though she repeatedly refers to Christianity as “oppressive.”

The concept is wonderful. The subject is important. It’s just really weird to read from someone so obviously on the outside. Sure, she interviews women who are living with this state of discontent, but her translation of those conversations carries the heavy bias of someone who doesn’t grasp the faith that makes staying essential.

I’d love to read this same book from the perspective of someone who still holds onto her faith.

[Annalise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is relatable on so many levels and written in a very accessible way for a piece of academic research. Although I left Evangelical Christianity at a younger age than the women interviewed, I found Gaddini's exploration of purity culture/ the ideal woman and the problem of lack of female leadership in most Christian churches to be precise and accurate without being too clinical. I remember the men in my congregation not understanding the concept of consent, touching and hugging random women without asking. I remember being told my tank top, slightly below my collar bones, was too low and revealing at the age of 12 when I didn't have any breasts to speak of (not that it would matter). I never felt comfortable, was always criticized for speaking "too loudly", "too passionately", and out of turn. This all before I turned 16.

Even now, I notice the subtle sexism ingrained among women and men in the church when I have discussions with my family. Even though I speak in an emotionally neutral and level voice, the women around me urge me to speak more "positively" to not be so "angry" when I'm merely passionate. My male partner will relate the same points in the same tone and be listened to raptly and respectfully, as if what he is saying is completely original and has never been spoken by me before.

All this said, Gaddini captured an ambivalent view of Christian womanhood in a way that laid clear her critiques without condemning women who choose that life. As someone who aspires toward a higher education degree and career in religious studies, I am in awe of Gaddini's scholarship and ability to captivate lived experiences in such an accurate way.

[Diana Castaneda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, well documented, great book

I started reading because I am friends with the author, but this reading have been great, from the specific topic of evangelical churches you can relate the story of the 4 women to so many other settings and understand how different powers interplay and shape how women experience the world.

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still mulling it over; I may have more to say later. There were some parts that I couldn't relate to ... and then there were some parts that I could relate to all too well.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book on this topic published so recently (2022), I was expecting fresh, unique insights into this topic and, as the main title suggested, reasons why women stay (although the subtitle spoils it all because the women do leave) As it stands, as someon who's been a single woman in the evangelical world for years now, nothing written here is new. Not sure who the target audience is, but I don't think it was me 😅

If you've spent any amount of time in the past decade casually browsing any articles or small-talking with any women who fit this book's cohort, you will already be familiar with pretty much everything posited here.

That being said, it doesn't make the message any less poignant or timely. And, I guess, it's just more sad than anything else that I can read an entire book on this topic and replace all the women interviewed with my own friends/colleagues and know people who experienced all the same frustrations or job loss for similar reasons.

Also, grain of salt here, I went into reading this blind. I was expecting more of an academic non-fiction read, but the style here is more disillusioned-with-the-church memoir told parallel to the woman's studies. Not bad, just not what I had wanted.

[Jessica M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a white Evangelical woman (although not single) I found this a respectable and nuanced telling of the lives and struggles of single evangelical women. I would recommend this book to all Evangelical women. I found that the stories caused me to consider how I would respond to my friends who've gone through similar things. It leads me to think about how I can be loving and supportive to women no matter what they decide. And I felt represented in the stories. It felt good to not be alone in my frustrations with the Evangelical church. To have some of my own thoughts reflected back to me so that I can consider how to interact with them.

[Julica_m · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in two days and really enjoyed it. Although and academic book, it reads almost like a novel. The author offers a careful analysis of a sensitive topic, namely the struggles that single Evangelical women face in their church communities which, often, lead them to leave. One strong point of the book is how the author inscribes her own personal story in the narrative. I recommend it!

[myaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has never grew up with any type of faith or forced into attending church, this was an interesting insight into women who belong to evangelical communities and have complicated feelings about the conservative views of the community. Regardless, to be an evangelical christian and a feminist sounds like an oxymoron

[Laura Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really readable, but in depth and honest look at women's experiences in evangelical churches. Following the lives and experiences of women across a decade. Would highly recommend.

[Carmen Gaddini vavra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended reading for all trying to understand the intersection of evangelicals, the patriarchy, and feminism! A true page turner blending research and storytelling. Bravo!