Women bishops, women's ministry

As I've been reading about (and commenting on) the Church of England and the ongoing debate about women bishops, I've been thinking about the United Reformed Church's contribtuion to women's leadership of the church in our country. As I thought about it I realised that even with Roberta in place as general secretary and with a couple of generations of women moderators, women's leadership is still quite fragile even within our own denomination.
Being a leader in the church today is not easy for anyone, woman or man. Perhaps it is much clearer to those of us in ministry today in western Europe that we are on the edges of society.
I am shocked by the misogynistic invective used in some of the debate. Rachel who is starting out training for ministry in the Anglican Church is also trying to make sense of all that on her blog which I enjoy reading.
So how can we support the women in leadership in our churches, both in the UK and elsewhere? Are we in solidarity or just too busy getting on with our own work?

Here's an extract from Judith Maltby's piece in the Guardian

A friend of mine is the dedicated parish priest of a busy and demanding urban parish in east London. The parish is proud of the fact that a number of its post-war vicars have gone on to serve as bishops.
She told me recently of a meeting of the management committee for the play group associated with the church (just the sort of ministry to the wider community that the Church of England excels at) made up mainly of young professional women. One of the lay women present remarked that my friend would surely become a bishop as well. Besides her natural modesty, she informed them that it isn't possible yet for women to be bishops in the Church of England. My friend's remark was met with complete incredulity by these young women as one of them responded, quite reasonably when you stop to think about it, "Is that legal?!"
It is legal, of course. It is perfectly legal for woman priests to be rendered ineligible for certain posts in the church simply because they are women.

Jane