Buried Talents: Overcoming Gendered Socialization to Answer God's Call

Reader's Choice Award Winner

If God is calling women to lead, what's holding them back? Susan Harris Howell has spent years helping students investigate this question. In Buried Talents, she makes clear how gender disparity in leadership is directly connected to a larger, less overt issue: gendered socialization. Howell examines gendered messages people encounter inside and outside the church in each stage of life, showing how they often createmisconceptions about who women are, what they're capable of, and how they fit into God's work. As these messages pull men toward leadership, they push women away from it.God's call to leadership doesn't come in a vacuum. It comes to particular people who have, from childhood through adulthood, been shaped by subtle forms of socialization. Using social science research and interviews to explain these forces, Howell offers psychological and practical tools for both women and men to make more balanced vocational decisions. A discussion guide and suggested reading lists are also included to help readers engage and apply the content.As opportunities for women continue to expand, too many still hold back in responding to God's call. Buried Talents provides compelling guidance for how we can remove obstacles that keep women from fully using their gifts.

Susan Harris Howell (EdD, University of Louisville) is an author, speaker, psychologist, and retired university professor. Her book, Buried Talents, focuses on the subtle ways women are discouraged from entering many male-dominated occupations. She and her husband, a Baptist minister, have worked within the church throughout their forty plus years of marriage to create more inclusive communities in the congregations in which they have served. They have two grown children, a daughter-in-law, and grandson who give them tremendous hope for the future of gender equality.