An ornament depicting mother and infant, against a pale background. Photo: By Sincerely Media on Unsplash.
Behind every man: Rebecca Hardy wonders where all the women are in the nativity
‘The Christmas story is still mostly a male affair.’
I’ve always identified as a Universalist, but, at the first whiff of cardamom, the first snap of frost, the first jingle of ‘Deck the Halls’, and I suddenly transform into the most devout Christian on Earth. I love Christmas. Never mind the jarring consumerism and the hell of Sainsbury’s in mid December, I love the scents, the carols, the fairy lights, the tinsel. I love the re-runs of films I’ve watched a zillion times before. I love the mulled wine, Christmas pud, and all that stilton.
And yet, there is one thing that jars – that has always jarred – ever since my first nativity when I was five, holding a twig and pretending to be a tree outside Mary’s stable. And that is its relentless ‘maleness’: the preponderance of men surrounding a lone woman, who has just undergone, arguably, the most female act of all.
Even as a pint-sized infant, the sexism leapt out at me. Most of the speaking parts were assigned to the boys (the inn-keeper, Joseph, the wise men and shepherds with tea-towels wrapped around their little heads). The girls, on the other hand, were lined up to see who would make the prettiest Mary, while my best friend Helen got to play the ‘Star’ because of her golden flowing locks. (I was cast as ‘Twig’. I’m not bitter.)
The nativity story is dominated by men. The shepherds, the wise men. Joseph, the inn-keeper. Even the angels are referenced as male. To mention this, of course, risks stating the obvious. Of course the nativity is dominated by men. It reflects the patriarchal power structures in place at the time, and how the Bible was an overwhelmingly male endeavour. According to the blog Exponent 11, described as ‘a feminist forum for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum’: ‘One of the many problems with men being in charge of written and oral histories through the centuries is that not only do women and their lives and contributions get erased, but that things that are unique to the female experience don’t get recorded, whether because they are viewed as distasteful, as inconsequential, or because men are ignorant of them.’
Some of this is shown in how Matthew and Luke mention Jesus’ birth in a sentence or less, the blog argues, ‘glossing over the messy and vital work of women with a euphemistic, “and she brought forth her first born son”.’
Mary, of course, is at the centre of the nativity and the story revolves around a woman (a mother). This has led some people to argue that Christmas celebrates motherhood – and yet, in the nativity story, Mary seems to me quite a passive figure, her voice rarely heard. In true patriarchal fashion, she is defined by her relationship to a man – not just Jesus, but by her fiancé Joseph, who is also, we are told, ‘a descendant of David’.
‘We first encounter Mary as a young unmarried teenager, but for many of us she remains fixed in our imaginations as a remote “other worldly” figure, with the faint glimmer of a smile talking to an angel or holding a baby. Held up by some as the unattainable ideal of purity or the example of perfect motherhood,’ writes Amy Orr-Ewing, author of Mary’s Voice: Advent reflections to contemplate the coming of Christ. ‘Mary’s point of view is seldom considered… Mary is usually a mute figure, saying nothing as the story of the journey to Bethlehem, the search for accommodation and the birth of the child surrounded by animals unfolds... I once played the role of Mary in a school play and for the entire show I did not utter a word.’
‘In true patriarchal fashion, Mary is defined by her relationship to a man – not just Jesus, but by her fiancé Joseph.’
It’s this criticism which has led some feminist thinkers to see the nativity as perpetuating harmful stereotypes about motherliness and ‘feminine sacrifice’, as well as the erasure of women’s sexuality that underlies the ideas of immaculate conception and the virgin birth. These stereotypes were arguably echoed in Francis the pope’s words this September when he said: ‘Womanhood speaks to us of fruitful welcome, nurturing and life-giving dedication’, as if a woman’s greatest task is in how accommodating she can be to other people.
Luke in his gospel, however, gives Mary a voice, depicting her as a woman who, in the words of Amy Orr-Ewing, ‘exercised choice, questioned things, reflected, responded, spoke up and demonstrated great faith’. ‘I can remember exactly where I was when I was first truly struck by Mary’s voice,’ she writes. ‘I had slipped into a pew in one of Britain’s most beautiful Cathedrals on a Wednesday at dusk for evensong. I was chilled to the bone in the moment of the service when the choir sang the words of Mary’s Magnificat recorded for us in Luke’s gospel: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.”’
Karen D Austin, from the University of Evansville and Southern Indiana University, writes that, after many passages foreshadowing the birth of Christ from male voices in public venues, ‘it’s Luke who describes specific women, their gestating bodies, and their conversations in domestic spaces’.
She goes on: ‘The Gospel of Luke includes accounts not just of Elizabeth and Mary but also the prophetess Anna, the sisters Mary and Martha, the woman who washed Jesus’s feet, the woman of faith who had the issue of blood, several stories about widows – including the widow’s mite – and the women who went to prepare Jesus’s body for burial.’
Yet, even in Luke, many of these women appear defined by their shadowy lives exiled from men and ‘normal’ female roles (the long-childless Elizabeth and the widowed Anna) who are somehow redeemed by encountering the male infant Jesus. Like Mary, the elderly Elizabeth is defined by her relationship to a man, as the wife of a priest. For a long time she has also been childless, which in the world of the Old Testament seems to render her almost insignificant and causes her to feel shame. And yet it is Elizabeth who appears to be the first who recognises that Mary is not only pregnant but ‘the mother of my Lord’ (Luke 1:43).
Meanwhile Anna, a very old, long-widowed prophet who, with Simeon, greets the newborn Jesus when he is presented at the temple with rapturous recognition, speaks ‘to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2:38).
Yet the Christmas story is still mostly a male affair. There are no midwives, no networks of women who might have kept Mary safe and warm. In The Women of the Nativity, Paula Gooder reimagines the event through the voices of nine women, including: Mary, Elizabeth, Rachel, and the inn-keeper’s wife. (Rachel is often considered to be a woman exercising agency in the Bible. While not directly appearing in the nativity, she is referenced as the ‘weeping mother’ who foreshadows the grief Mary will feel at Jesus’s death, and the death of all the children at Herod’s hands. Crucially to some, she refuses to be consoled.)
Photo: Yelletee on Etsy
Other thinkers, including an article in The Tablet some years ago, have asked whether women were deliberately excluded from the nativity. In ‘The Mother God Experiment’ blog, Susan McLeod-Harrison weighs up evidence for the presence of women in the infancy gospel stories, including as Magi and female priestesses (which she argues existed at that time), shepherdesses, and midwives. ‘In first century Palestine, it would have been inconceivable for a woman to give birth without the care and comfort of other women, and in particular the care of women the French call sages-femmes – wise women – the French word for midwives,’ Christine Schenk, a nun and former midwife, is quoted as saying, in the National Catholic Reporter.
‘Hospitality was pretty much the prime directive for the peoples of Palestine who were not far removed from their own desert wandering days,’ she adds. ‘So I’m guessing the innkeeper, or more probably his wife, saw Mary’s plight and sent for the wise women of Bethlehem to come and tend to her.’
Of course, all this presupposes that the nativity is an accurate historical document of the birth of Jesus, and not a symbolic retelling. Yet symbols matter, as any young child enjoying their first nativity can attest. Only last year a woman slammed her daughter’s school for ‘everyday sexism’ after her six-year-old was cast as ‘someone’s wife’ in the nativity play.
According to the Mirror, the woman posted on Mumsnet: ‘My daughter has been cast as “someone’s wife” in the nativity play – the “Innkeeper’s wife” to be precise. This is not OK! Normally I am pretty relaxed about all things school, and I certainly feel sorry for the teachers’ workloads, but come on people. No woman should be identified by her relationship to a man? Surely. I’m itching to call them out on this.’
For me, my early part as Twig was probably my first dawning realisation that the female of the species is judged so relentlessly, so obsessively, on their looks.
‘It was a very interesting lesson in how the ultimate woman might be someone who’s sitting there being looked at,’ Samira Ahmed, the broadcaster, similarly told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in 2016.
Being cast as Mary at three years old was ‘disturbing’, she said, describing it as her ‘feminist awakening’. ‘I was sitting on stage and holding a plastic doll, when I realised, “I don’t actually have anything to do”.’
‘It also teaches a really important lesson about the whole idealisation of being a mother,’ she went on, mentioning a girl who told her that her only line as Mary was ‘I’m so tired’. ‘I felt for a long time, through the seventies and eighties, Mary represented everything that narrowed down women’s choices.’
‘I will keep the faith that, as history unfolds, new nativity versions will emerge with fresh insights and exciting interpretations.’
I still love Christmas though, and maybe it is churlish to over-politicise the deeply lovely nativity in this way. The story moves me in a way that transcends contemporary mores, with its celebration of fragility and innocence, and the ageless, stirring reverence of a mere child: ‘the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger’ (Luke 2.12) – a much-needed reminder that gentleness and love have their own quiet force. I will keep the faith too that, as history unfolds, new nativity versions will emerge with fresh insights and exciting interpretations. Only last year, a nativity sparked controversy by including two mothers, with the priest saying it was in line with Francis the pope’s recent ruling that priests could bless same-sex couples. ‘I wanted to show with this scene that families are no longer just the traditional ones,’ said local priest Vitaliano Della Sala. ‘In our parishes we see more and more children from the new types of families that exist and are part of our society: children of separated and divorced people, gay couples, single people, young mothers.’
Other churches too are offering ‘scratch nativities’, as one Quaker reported recently, where people could dress as their favourite character. His friend was going to go as a twenty-first-century time traveller, he said, which five-year-old me would have loved – and I bet no one goes as a twig.
