According to Keller’s (1996) gender role analysis, many patriarchal societies expect women to represent specific functions: (a) the life mission of a woman should be focused on marriage, family and children, (b) a woman should continue to rely on a man for her material provision and status, (c) a woman should put emphasis on her nurturing, loving function, and relationship orientation and a woman should only be placed in roles such as mother, teacher, nurse, and other-helping roles, (d) a woman is encouraged to have an external rather than an internal locus of control. For example, if a female pastor is assigned to serve and work in a different city than her husband works, she is challenged with traditional values and expectations that a wife follows her husband to where his work resides, and she must prioritize her husband’s career choice before her own career choice. Despite being church leaders, they also must find ways to balance church responsibilities and their traditional roles as wives and mothers.
The female pastors often need to survive not only the traditional culture but also the patriarchal church system they work within. Besides being paid less than their male counterparts, Taiwanese women who work as female clergy in churches and church organizations face even more challenges for economic independence. The women had to work an extra 65 days over a year’s time to receive the same pay ( CNA, Taipei Times, 2012 ). Taiwanese women on average earned 17.6% less than men. A recent poll showed that more female than male workers in Taiwan feel they have suffered discrimination in the workplace because of their gender. Not only in the United States have women been unequally paid a gender pay gap also is an issue in Taiwan. Sandberg (2013) further reported that women earned an average of 0.77 for every $1.00 men made in 2010.
However, Francine and Lawrence (2007) wrote that discrimination and gender pay gap still continue to exist. Kennedy signed in 1963 prohibited gender-based wage discrimination ( staff., 2017: para. In this study, the Bible’s story of Ruth was used and interpreted in feminist theological perspectives to address the related issues of Taiwanese female pastors’ economic independence and autonomy and their mental wellness living within a culturally patriarchal society and male dominant church system.
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