There's a new calendar out just in time for stocking stuffer season, one that showcases women in an unexpected line of work.
It features Jennifer Swanson, a young woman with long blond hair and confident smile, positioned beside a radio microphone and posing for the December page. Only a small group of people know that she is, in fact, Rev. Jennifer Swanson, minister of the Ioco United Church.
She agreed to be part of the Calendar Reverends as a way of breaking down the stereotypes - and even the stigma - that surrounds the work of ministry.
"There are a lot of times when people say, 'What do you do?' and I'll talk about the other half of my life," Swanson said. "Sometimes it's easier to just say I'm in sales."
The "other half" of Swanson's life includes working as an instructor at Vancouver Community College (human relation skills and medical terminology); she is also the force behind Communication Diva, writing a blog and delivering podcasts and training workshops on conflict resolution, personal coaching and workplace issues.
But it was at a United Church conference in Toronto that Swanson, a Langley resident who was ordained last May, was convinced to join the calendar. She was talking to a fellow female minister, Trisha Elliott, who told her about having her photo taken for the church wall. The photographer asked her not to tip her head, and to pull her hair back so she looked "less like a movie star and more like a minister," Swanson said.
The experience started a social media conversation among colleagues across the country, who started questioning the stereotypes surrounding ministers and female ministers in particular.
"There are still expectations about how a female minister should look," Swanson said. "In the public's perception, in the media, in movies, it's usually a staid-looking old white guy who's very serious, or they make a farce of it.
"You don't often see a woman represented as a minister...and definitely not somebody who's young, and a person who has a personality or a life."
The calendar, full of images of real Canadian women who are not only ministers but are also scientists, army lieutenants, belly dancers, hunters, mothers and wives - and even a dedicated wearer of stilettos - questions what a minister is "supposed to look like" and shows that the "one-dimensional stereotype" just doesn't fit, Swanson said.
"I thought it would spark a conversation...and also do some good while we're at it."
The calendar, available online for $18 through www.calendarrevs.com, is raising money for the Malala Fund for Girls Education.
