Modern Women Modernizing Men: The Changing Missions of Three Professional Woman in Asia and Africa, 1902-69

Sara Stratton, Ph.D., is the education network coordinator at FAIROS:
Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

In this short, sometimes dense history, Ruth Compton Brouwer deftly
describes the “liminality of the interwar missionary enterprise.”
Using three female missionaries as her exemplars—Choné Oliver in
India and Japan, Florence Murray in Korea, and Margaret Wrong in
sub-Saharan Africa—Brouwer sketches a picture of a venture caught
between Christian zeal and increasing secularization in the West;
between Western colonization (of which missions were historically an
integral part) and indigenous nationalization movements in the colonies;
and between ethnocentrism and a growing, if sometimes halting,
recognition that the colonized be seen and treated as equals.

All missionaries in this period faced these transitions. Oliver,
Murray, and Wrong faced another that their male counterparts did not:
the conflict between “women’s work” and early 20th-century North
American feminism, which sought to move beyond the restrictions of
“separate spheres.” Thus they “did not devote their careers more
single-mindedly to those of their own sex.” An intriguing question
surfaces: Did this aspect of mission’s liminality contribute to the
ongoing neglect of women in development work? Brouwer has no answer, but
she does suggest, quite powerfully, that Oliver, Murray, and Wrong
believed their crossing the margins would have “long-term benefits for
communities of men and women.”

Brouwer notes that she writes from a “scholar’s perspective rather
than a faith position, but … takes seriously, and [she hopes] treats
respectfully, the religious beliefs of [her] three subjects and of the
women and men … among whom they worked.” This clear yet critical
appreciation of these women’s commitment to the missionary enterprise
enriches the book as much as the comprehensive archival research and
large number of personal interviews in it.