This study deals with the historical development around the arguments for women's eligibility for the priesthood in the Church of Sweden between the years 1923-1950. Based on two government investigations in 1923 and 1950, I present the argument that emerges and how this relates to the gender order and social structures of the time. My purpose of the study is to provide an insight into the multifaceted debate that this issue gave rise to. My questions are: what arguments for or against the female priesthood were put forward in these investigations and how were these related to understandings of male and female? I will methodically use a qualitative text analysis based on the hermeneutic spiral and take as a starting point the gender theories of previous research to answer these questions. The study shows how the presented arguments in several ways formed a distinction between men and women. The argument was also developed during these years and the study shows how it is connected with an overall changed gender order and societal structures.