Misogyny Is Real, But It Cannot Be Used to Deflect Attention From Safeguarding Failures
- guardingtheflock
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Bishop Sarah Mullally DBE legally became the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury on
Wednesday, 28 January 2026, during a Confirmation of Election service at St Paul's Cathedral.
This should have been a momentous day for the Church of England. For many women in ordained ministry, the confirmation of the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury represented the fulfilment of long-held hopes.
I know female clergy colleagues and friends who have dreamt of this day; they have prayed for it, persevered through resistance and marginalisation, and trusted that the Church would one day recognise women’s leadership fully and unequivocally at its highest level.
It ought to have been a moment marked by collective celebration, renewal, and moral clarity.
Instead, it was overshadowed by unresolved safeguarding failures and by public disquiet about how those failures have been handled. What should have been a day of joy was, for many, accompanied by unease and a feeling that matters remained unresolved.
On her first day in office, Sarah Mullally spoke publicly about misogyny in the Church. Misogyny is real. It is embedded within ecclesial and diocesan structures, just as it is within wider society, and it causes genuine harm.
Misogyny in the Church is not theoretical; I experienced it directly while working at the Diocese of London. It shows itself in subtle dismissals, in disproportionate scrutiny, and in the way women who raise challenge are too often characterised.
Naming misogyny matters. Challenging it matters. The Church must do better. Society must do better. We all need to do better.
I am conscious that writing this may hurt some who have long hoped for this day. This is not an attack on women’s leadership, nor a denial of misogyny. It is a refusal to allow progress for women to be used to obscure safeguarding failure.
At this moment, Sarah Mullally led with misogyny, obscuring the Church’s most immediate and pressing concern; its safeguarding failures.
I am not suggesting that sexism should be minimised, excused, or deferred. However, questions of priority and context matter. When an institution is facing sustained and credible concerns about its safeguarding practice, the sequencing of its leadership’s response is itself significant, suggesting a reactive pattern rather than a protective one.
To centre misogyny at such a historic moment risks shifting attention away from accountability, learning, and repair, and towards questioning the motivations of those raising safeguarding concerns. Legitimate scrutiny is then at risk of being dismissed as prejudice rather than heard as a call to faithfulness, transparency, and justice. This serves neither women nor survivors.
Safeguarding competence is not a matter of sex or gender. Sex or gender does not make someone a safe pair of hands. Safeguarding is about judgement, accountability, humility, and moral courage. It is about how power is exercised, constrained, and scrutinised. It is about what happens when harm is disclosed, when difficult questions are asked, and when institutional reputation is at stake.
There are women within the Church whose safeguarding practice is exemplary, just as there have been men in senior leadership whose decisions have fallen short. The reverse is also true. Gender does not explain safeguarding failure; culture does.
There is a particular danger when misogyny, a real and serious injustice is perceived to function as a shield against scrutiny.
When safeguarding challenge is met with reframing rather than transparency, attention is diverted from systems and responsibility. Over time, this corrodes trust and weakens the Church’s moral authority. The Church must be able to hold two truths together: misogyny exists, and safeguarding has failed. One cannot be allowed to obscure the other.
Leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury carries profound symbolic and spiritual weight. That authority is not strengthened by avoiding the most difficult questions, but by engaging them openly and honestly. Historic moments require moral clarity. Without it, even the most significant milestones risk feeling hollow, not because they lack symbolic importance, but because symbolism alone cannot bear the weight of unresolved harm.
Misogyny must be confronted wherever it is found. But it must never be used, intentionally or otherwise to deflect from safeguarding failure or to silence necessary scrutiny. The Church will not regain trust through symbolism alone, nor simply by changing the face of leadership.
Safeguarding is not about who we are. It is about what we do when power is tested.
Until safeguarding failures are met with transparency, accountability, and humility, words alone will never be enough.
Survivors deserve better.
The women who hoped for this day deserve better.
The Church deserves better.
