Cynthia Lynn Lyerly is associate professor of history at Boston College in Massachusetts. She has written about women in Southern churches.

Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale is associate professor of theology at Boston College in Massachusetts. She is author of Women Shaping Theology.

Dina Najman is rosh kehillah, or “head of the community,” at Kehilat Orach Eliezer Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan, N.Y. She was given the position even though she is not an ordained rabbi; Orthodox Judaism does not ordain female rabbis. Read an Aug. 21, 2006, New York Times story about her.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and a professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

The Rev. Sharon Watkins is general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination.

The Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. A megachurch, it is the largest woman-led church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, whose Faith and Message statement states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by […]

The majority of senior megachurch pastors are male, according to research from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Read the research report.

Read a June 12, 2009, CBS News story that notes that Gallup Polls found that 52 percent of Americans said they would support a woman for president in 1955, 73 percent in 1975 and 82 percent in 1987.

A January 2006 CBS News/New York Times poll found that 92 percent of Americans said they would vote for a qualified woman for president, and 55 percent said America is ready for a women president. Read the poll.