Feminism In The Testament Of Mary

The mother of Jesus Christ, Mary, has influence on the people who read her stories. Throughout the ages she has been responsible for many different views, mannerisms, political movements, and deaths. Which is clearly odd because the Bible portrays her as such a passive woman. She has singlehandedly created the ‘rules’ for how a ‘proper’ woman should act physically, sexually, and even emotionally. Though it was only Mary’s actions as by the Church’s interpretations of the Bible that caused these standards, she cannot be held accountable, since these ‘Marian moral rules’ came into play long after she was dead. Although, as can be quite easily read in “The Testament of Mary”, a novel by Colm Tóibín, Mary was not the perfect woman, nor the …show more content…
We’d still be in the era of women cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, not holding a job, and being ‘under’ a man. Which I think should never have been in the first place. Women should be able to go through every stage of their lives without ever once having to be held up to the standards of Mary. Virginity does not mean a women is ‘pure’, and she definitely does not have to be passive and subservient to a man either. In today’s Canadian society, the thought that any woman would have to live like that is unacceptable and if, to anyone, it is acceptable they have to be shown things from a different perspective. Because that way of thinking is not healthy for the current world, women deserve everything that they were not allowed just one century ago. They are people too, and they have the same rights as any given man—as well any man has the same rights as any given woman (which is also a problem for some people—viewing it that way). A perfect example of what we actually need stems from the Feminist movement: woman demanding to be treated the same way as men (Kumar). That is not possible, because men and women are different from each other they cannot be treated in the exact same way—equality. So, equality does not work, but if women demanded equity in the way the world treated them, it will work. That is because they are not demanding to be treated like men, but to be given the same rights that men have as human