Dangerous Women and their Legacy for Us Today #48 #cong24 #legacy

Reading Time in Minutes

4

1. Recognise the misrepresentation of women, hiding in plain sight.
2. Question your own unconscious bias in relation to historical narratives.
3. Be brave enough to call out socially accepted stereotypes.
4. Stand together in solidarity with others to change the narrative going forward so that women’s legacy is recognised and valued.

Former teacher who has returned to study in later life, and is now exploring possible ideas for research. Recently certified as a Spiritual Director/Companion, with particular interest in Spiritual Traditions and representations of the ‘Divine Feminine’.
Passionate about challenging the difficulties faced by women, particularly the gender pay gap and poverty through caring. Member of the Fawcett Society, and a feminist finance and philanthropy group.
Keen volunteer in parish Food Hub/Cafe, promoting social justice through outreach in the local community, including Women’s Refuge.

You can connect with Laura via email

By Laura Read

I believe the historical narratives of women have frequently been misrepresented, with the consequence that important wisdom is lost and their legacy compromised.  What are some  possible reasons for this distortion? Two examples from Early Christian history and one from the Middle Ages pose questions regarding the legacy of historic women and the impact on our lives today.

Mary of Egypt, a ‘forgotten’ Desert Mother 

Mary of Egypt is recorded to have been born in the fourth century. An ancient commentary states that she lived a dissolute and sexually promiscuous early life before seeking repentance, and spending the next half century as an ascetic, wandering alone in the desert.  Her story became popular and remained so throughout the Middle Ages, as a model of repentance for ‘fallen women’. Many other stories of so-called ‘courtesans’ and ‘women of ill-repute’ also became conflated in this one story, so that in time, through art, plays and retellings, she became entangled as ‘Mary Magdalene’ and other ‘unnamed’ ‘sinful’ women in biblical tales.  Whilst the ‘rediscovery’ of the wisdom of the Desert Mothers in recent years has been a positive step forward, many questions remain regarding the way in which these women have been represented and their lives portrayed.

What is Mary’s legacy? How has the retelling of her story served as a model for control over women’s behaviour?

Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala – or actually something quite different?

Mary Magdalene has widely been described a former prostitute, often depicted as being ‘in love’ with Jesus of Nazareth. Yet research recently carried out by Elizabeth Schrader Polczer at Duke University has revealed that changes made by an ancient scribe to the text of Papyrus 66, the oldest know copy of John’s gospel, may have completely altered our understanding of who this woman was. It was a sermon by Pope Gregory in the sixth century which first described her as a prostitute, despite there being no evidence of this, biblical or otherwise.  Some have argued that she should be referred to as Mary of Magdala, the name of the her home town, although further research has shown that the village wasn’t known by that name in the first century. What ‘magdala’ did mean in ancient Aramaic was ‘tower’, and some scholars have now postulated that Mary the Tower was her title, in the way that (saint) Peter was called ‘the Rock’.

What is Mary’s legacy? What is the implication for women if a society only wants to define them ‘in relation’ to a place or a father/husband, not by their own title referring to their power and influence?

Helena Sheuberin, the Witchfinders’ witch 

Helena Sheuberin was one of the first so-called ‘witches’ prosecuted by Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer in the 15th century. Sheuberin asserted that Kramer’s interpretation of church doctrine was heretical, and refused to attend his sermons. She was tried, yet found innocent of the charges against her. Following her acquittal, Kramer began writing the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, the witch-hunt manual known as The Hammer of Witches, leading to the deaths of an estimated 60,000 women across Europe.

What is Sheuberin’s legacy? To what extent did she provoke Kramer? And to what extent does that remain a dilemma for women today, when faced with men in positions of power?

What is the legacy of the lives of these three women? 

I am writing this on the day Donald Trump has been re-elected as US president.  In recent weeks Trump has promised to “protect women…..whether the women like it or not”.  His narrative is one of protecting ‘good’ women from ‘bad ones’, in the same way that the State and Church carried out witch-hunts which resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of (mostly elderly) women.  Kamala Harris has been described by Trump supporters as a ‘Jezebel’, the biblical figure characterised as a ‘wicked temptress’, ‘witch’ and ‘prostitute’. The narrative returns once again to ‘dangerous women’, who are regarded as a threat to both moral and political stability. If accusing women of immorality and witchcraft has been Christian patriarchy’s way of demonising women through the centuries, how do we change this narrative now?