Women and the Church is a group of women and men who have been campaigning for gender equality (and especially for the ordination of women

Ordination of women

Ordination in general religious usage is the process by which a person is consecrated . The ordination of women is a regular practice among some major religious groups, as it was of several religions of antiquity...

 as bishops) in the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. The group was initially created during the 1990s as London WATCH in order to ensure the acceptance of female priests in the Church of England. The organization traces its origins to the Movement for the Ordination of Women

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...

, which campaigned for the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England