Movement for the Ordination of Women
The Movement for the Ordination of Women was an organisation which campaigned for the ordination of women as deacons and priests in the Church of England. It operated from the late 1970s until women were ordained as priests in the early 1990s. Its first Moderator was Stanley Booth-Clibborn, Bishop of Manchester, who served from 1979 to 1982. MOW was effectively succeeded by Women and the Church.
MOW followed in the footsteps of the League for the Church Militant, the 1930 re-grouping of the Church League for Women's Suffrage.The Movement for the ordination of Women can also refer to a women's ordination organization founded within the Anglican Church of Australia by Patricia Brennan in the 1970s.
There were differences within this Australian group about styles of protest and activism. Some members were uncomfortable in the public arena and feared that "engaging in political strategy and power games" might divert the issue from its spiritual path.
