After some one thousand years, in December 2012 Dean Vivienne Faull was appointed as the first woman Dean to York Minster, breaking a tradition and legacy of male appointments to this position in the Anglican Church.

She was ordained deaconess in 1982 and priest in 1994. From 2000 she served as Provost, then Dean, of Leicester Cathedral – becoming the first woman Dean in the Church of England.

Asked whether women have to work harder than men to be seen as successful, she replied:

“In my first twenty years or so, you had some independence, but if you did something badly, it tended to be put down to the fact that you were a woman. And if you did it well it was simply down to you as an individual. Performance is always being judged, but as a woman you are more vulnerable in this judgement.”

Sources:

In Conversation with the very Reverend Dean Vivienne Faull. Dr John Neugeberger, Centre for Employment Studies Research (CESR), University of West England, uwe.ac.uk.

Yorkshire Post