From Political Misogyny to Biblical Truth: Reclaiming Women's Month
March marks Women's Month, a time intended to celebrate gender sensitivity and honor women's contributions. Unfortunately, the observance began on a deeply troubling note. Congressman Bong Suntay recently made inappropriate remarks expressing libidinal desires toward actress Anne Curtis, displaying no remorse despite significant public backlash. While his behavior is deplorable, it represents just one instance in a long pattern of misogyny among public officials.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte's numerous rape jokes and the disturbing incident where legislators watched a fake sex video allegedly involving Congresswoman Leila de Lima demonstrate how deeply entrenched this problem remains. Rather than continuing to catalogue these offensive behaviors, this Women's Month we turn to a more constructive discussion about women's roles in religious history, specifically within the ministry of Jesus.
Challenging Patriarchal Stereotypes in Biblical Interpretation
This exploration will be elementary for those engaged in feminist biblical studies but is intended for laypeople who often accept patriarchal stereotypes that cannot withstand scholarly scrutiny. One common misconception is that all of Jesus' apostles and disciples were male. This assumption collapses under examination when we properly distinguish between these terms.
An apostle means "someone who is sent," while a disciple is "a learner." Neither term was exclusively male in Jesus' ministry. While the twelve apostles were indeed male, the Gospel of Luke clarifies that Jesus "called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles." This statement logically doesn't limit apostleship to only those twelve individuals.
Women as Apostles and Disciples
Today, Mary Magdalene is officially recognized as an apostle in Catholic liturgy, thanks to Pope Francis. She earned the title "apostle to the apostles" after encountering the resurrected Jesus and being commissioned to announce the resurrection news to the remaining eleven apostles. Beyond Mary Magdalene, Jesus had numerous female disciples.
Luke 8:1-2 documents that "the twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary called Magdala, from whom seven demons had come out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others who provided for them." These women weren't peripheral figures but active participants who supported Jesus' ministry.
Jesus' Revolutionary Approach to Women
Jesus maintained close friendships with women like Martha and Mary, challenging the stereotype that "a woman's place is in the kitchen." When Mary sat at Jesus' feet to learn—a position traditionally reserved for male disciples—and Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help with domestic tasks, Jesus responded that Mary "had chosen the better part," affirming women's right to education and spiritual development.
Jesus consistently broke social conventions by engaging meaningfully with women from diverse backgrounds. He had an extended conversation with a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and was living with a man she wasn't married to. In another instance documented in Mark's Gospel, Jesus initially resisted but ultimately acceded to the pleas of a Syro-Phoenician (Canaanite) woman, demonstrating his willingness to listen to women's voices across cultural boundaries.
Compassion Beyond Convention
Jesus' miracles often centered on women's wellbeing. When he raised a widow's only son from the dead, the Bible doesn't record the woman asking for this intervention. Jesus likely recognized that without her son, this widow would face a lifetime of loneliness and vulnerability in a society that offered little protection to women without male relatives.
Finally, we must reconsider the Virgin Mary, often domesticated as a paragon of docility. Her Magnificat proclaims a revolutionary God who "casts down the mighty from their thrones, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty." These powerful words of social transformation come not from a modern feminist but from the mother of Jesus herself.
This Women's Month, as we confront contemporary political misogyny, we can draw inspiration from the historical reality that women played central, active roles in the foundational moments of Christianity—roles that biblical scholarship continues to illuminate and celebrate.
