Sexism and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife

I was impressed when I read Eva Mroczek's critique of the sexist rhetoric that surrounds the scholarly discussion of the fragment that mentions Jesus' wife.  Very impressed. 

I was also concerned because I have written on feminist issues on this blog in the past, and have endured public shaming for it.   I knew there would be backlash from Eva's feminist assessment, and that it would get personal very fast.  Which it has, overnight (for instance HERE). 

My opinion is that we really need to slow down with this fragment.  And we need to back off making the analysis of this fragment personal and gendered, whether intentional or not.

Sexism is insidious as I argued in my book Holy Misogyny.  Because of this, sexism is difficult to detect, and when it is, we immediately move to proven strategies to make sexism disappear as if it were not there in the first place. 

The worst part of this strategy is that we often project the sexism back on the offended party, in this case a woman, as if she were the cause of the sexism.  She has either made it up, not been able to take a joke, made a mountain out of a mole hill, or just plain doesn't know what she is talking about.  Shame on her.  This is the oldest strategy in the book.  But it is still used because it is so effective in shutting people up and making the dominant majority feel better about itself.

When a woman comes forward with the observation that something is offensive and sexist, instead of shaming her, maybe we could try to listen to her instead.  It may raise our personal awareness about how we all are a part of a society built to maintain sexism.  And it may prompt us to be inspired to try to do something about it.