Jesus was a feminist, that is, a person who promotes the equality of women with men, who treats women primarily as human persons and willingly contravenes social customs in so acting. The gospels give no evidence of Jesus ever treating women as inferior to men. When the restricted state of women in the Palestinian Judaism of that time is recalled, even this mere absence of a male superiority attitude is extraordinary.
Women, for example, normally were not allowed to study the Scriptures (Torah); one first-century rabbi, Eliezer, put the point sharply: “Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman. Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her lasciviousness.” Women were not counted toward a quorum (minyon) for worship. Women could not bear witness. A good man would not speak to a woman in public; a rabbi would not address even his wife or daughter in the street. A menstruous woman was ritually unclean, as was anyone or anything she touched.
Jesus, however, publicly, repeatedly rejected these oppressive customs.
Though a rabbi, Jesus often addressed women, even women of ill repute, in public, and he spoke to them as primarily human persons, not as “sex objects,” as for example, the thrice-married Samaritan woman, the woman “taken in adultery,” and Mary Magdalene. Moreover, he regularly taught women the Torah.
Jesus also very deliberately rejected the Jewish prohibition against women bearing witness. For example, his first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman, whom he then commissioned to bear witness to the Eleven.
Likewise, Jesus went out of his way to reject the ancient blood taboo publicly, as with the woman who had a twelve-year issue of blood. Jesus was not content to cure her quietly, which was his custom, but deliberately called everyone’s attention to the fact that she had touched him, showing that he did not shrink from the ritual uncleanness incurred, and by immediate implication, that he rejected the “uncleanness” of a woman who had a flow of blood, menstruous or continual.
Also contrary to the current attitude, Jesus clearly thought that the “intellectual life” was proper for women, that the role of women was not limited to being “in the home.”
This was made clear during his visit to the home of Martha and Mary. Martha took the typical women’s role: “Martha was distracted with much serving.” Mary, however, took the supposedly “male” role: she “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.” Martha apparently thought Mary was out of place in choosing the role of the “intellectual,” for she complained to Jesus. But Jesus’ response was a refusal to force all women into the stereotype: he treated Mary first of all as a person (whose highest faculty is the intellect, the spirit) who was allowed to set her own priorities, and in this instance had “chosen the better part.” And Jesus applauded her: “it is not to be taken from her.”
Another rejection of limiting the woman’s horizon to Kinder and Kuche occurred when a woman in a crowd complimented Jesus by referring to his mother. But her image of a woman was sexually reductionist in the extreme: female genitals and breasts. “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” Jesus clearly felt it necessary to reject this “baby-machine” image and insist again on personhood being primary for all: “But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.’”
Jesus strove to communicate the notion of the equal dignity of women in many different ways. Once, in response to a challenge, he related three parables in a row, all of which contained an image of God. The first story was of the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to seek the one lost – the shepherd is God. The third was of the prodigal son – the father is God. The second story was of the woman who sought the lost coin – the woman is God!
It is clear from the Gospels that Jesus vigorously promoted the dignity and equality of women in the midst of a very male-dominated society: Jesus was a feminist, and a very radical one. Can his followers attempt to be anything less?
Reprinted by permission of the Boston Globe.
Dick and Joyce Boldrey were contributing editors of the Post American when this article appeared.
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