Leadership Quote by Shirley Williams

Williams’s line lands because it’s both an indictment and a weary eye-roll. “Never really come to terms with women” isn’t theological nitpicking; it’s a political diagnosis of an institution that can canonize the feminine in theory while restricting women in practice. The phrasing is deliberately plain, almost conversational, which makes the critique harder to dismiss as ideological grandstanding. She’s not claiming the Church hates women; she’s saying it can’t handle them as full, complicated adults.

The Madonna/Mary Magdalene binary is the engine of the quote. It’s not just about saints; it’s about social roles: the pure mother versus the redeemed fallen woman. Both categories look flattering on the surface because they’re drenched in reverence and drama, but Williams exposes the trap. Each is a form of control. The Madonna is honored by being made untouchable; the Magdalene is “accepted” only through repentance. Either way, female personhood gets flattened into a parable for someone else’s moral universe.

Coming from a politician rather than a theologian matters. Williams is talking like someone who’s spent her life being filed into boxes: respectable nurturer, dangerous transgressor, or some rotating mix depending on who needs what. In late-20th-century Britain, debates over women’s roles in public life, sexuality, and authority were colliding with older moral vocabularies. Her objection isn’t to faith; it’s to a cultural script that offers women two costumes and calls it dignity.