The first Anglican female bishop to sit in the House of Lords doesn’t like being officially referred to as “right reverend mother”.
An initial version of Bishop Rachel Treweek’s writ of summons to be read aloud to the House of Lords referred to her as “right reverend father in God”.
Bishop Treweek, from Gloucester, sent this back and now a revised version refers to her as “bishop”.
“There may be women who’d be happy with ‘right reverend mother in God’, but that doesn’t sit comfortably with me,” she said.
“There’s something about the whole connotation of ‘mother’ that has a sense of dependency for me.
“It’s not how I want to be looked at. I see myself as a leader, as leading from among people.”