General William Booth said it plainly in 1885: “No woman is to be kept back from any position of power or influence merely on account of her sex. Women must be treated as equals with men in all the intellectual and social relationships of life.”

In an era when that declaration was genuinely radical, it was written in the Orders and Regulations for the Officers of The Salvation Army as an expected standard. That matters. The co-founder of this movement settled the question of women's inclusion in leadership before most of the world was willing to ask it.

And yet, here we are.

The standard has not always been upheld. While gains have been made in recent years, gender equity in The Salvation Army is unfinished work, and the unfinished work belongs to all of us.

As a male officer, I could treat this as someone else's concern. The temptation to step back from issues that do not appear to affect you directly is real. Privilege, by its nature, makes it easy to opt out. But discipleship makes it impossible. A commitment to following Jesus Christ, who consistently elevated and included women in ways that scandalized his contemporaries, runs counter to that. So does serving alongside my wife in shared ministry. I am accountable for this. It is my privilege to make it so.

Advocacy for gender equity, for those of us who hold positional or social privilege, begins at home and works outward.

When our youngest son was born, I took parental leave. That might sound unremarkable, and the hope is that one day, it will be. The Salvation Army Canada and Bermuda Territory's updated Parental Leave Policy made it possible, and I used it deliberately, not just because I wanted to, but because the choice to leave all of that to my wife would have communicated something about whose time and whose role mattered more. Small decisions carry weight. Parental leave taken by fathers and co-parents normalizes the idea that caregiving is shared and that a woman's career and calling are worth protecting in the same season.

At home and in our appointment, my wife and I divide responsibilities according to our respective gifts. We have examined where tradition was doing the organizing for us and have made conscious decisions together. This is less tidy than a clean division along conventional lines, and it is better for it. Our congregation sees a model of partnership in which leadership and service flow from calling and competency. That visibility matters. People notice when our actions are congruent with our values.

In the structures where I have leadership influence, such as local boards and committees, I pursue gender equity as a design principle. When I have a voice in who sits at a table, I use it to ensure that women are present, that their voices carry and that their leadership is sought rather than tolerated. This is not a matter of quota. It is a recognition that decisions made without diverse leadership are demonstrably poorer decisions and that rooms full of people who look and think alike serve no one well.

None of this is exceptional. That’s the point. These are ordinary, available actions: policy, partnership and purposeful invitation. They require more awareness than heroism. For those of us with privilege, the threshold for meaningful advocacy is lower than we sometimes imagine, because our choices carry institutional weight. When a male officer models shared parental leave, it signals to the men around him that this is acceptable, even expected. When a leader actively builds equitable committees, they shift the culture of those rooms and those that follow.

Booth's 1885 standard was and is a founding conviction. The Salvation Army has, at its best, been a movement in which women preached, commanded, and led. The work of advocates today—women and men together—is to close the gap between that conviction and current reality.

Privilege, used well, is leverage. The question for every officer, church member, employee or volunteer who holds it is straightforward: leverage for what, and for whom?

The answer, for disciples of Jesus Christ serving in this Army, has been settled for a long time.