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. ...
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.” ... 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?
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