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Policy: The Bibleand WelfareReform
85
Women’s Virtues: Which Women? According toWhom?
It is not an effortless task to arrive at an interpretation ofMary that is lib
erating for women and others who are poor. It requires a journey down a
path that is crowded with subordinating messages about women’s auton
omy, sexuality, and spirituality.21 Many traditional theological interpreta
tions of Mary that carry these subordinating messages are instructive for
examining specific accusations about contemporary poor women’s lives.
Some of the same issues about gender and motherhood are raised in both
places, but with differing conclusions.
Throughout centuries of Christian theological writings, art, and music,
Mary has most often been celebrated as a model of faith-filled womanhood
because she exemplifies passive, humble obedience based upon her sexu
ality and spirituality. Feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether
summarizes traditions developed by church fathers in late antiquity who
understood Mary as the New Eve because she is “the obedient female who
reverses the disobedience of the First Eve and thus makes possible the
advent of the New Adam, Christ.”22 In addition, Mary is honored for
being a virgin. She is worthy of veneration because she did not make use
ofher sexuality. Again, when contrasted with Eve, who is blamed for bring
ing sin into this world, Mary represents “a decisive break with carnal sex
uality” and thus with sinfulness.23 For some, Mary’s sinlessness means that
she abstained from having a sexual life throughout her entire life. There
fore, through the image ofMary, women are encouraged to link assertions
of their sexuality with sinfulness and non-use of their sexuality with faith
fulness to God. Passive subordination of her will and self-interests as well
as a lack of embodied sexual activity is considered to be the ideal Mary
holds up for women. As feminist biblical scholarJane Schaberg succincdy
notes, “Man exalts Mary for the virtues he would like woman to exhibit,
and projects onto her all that he does not resolve to be.”24
Few groups ofwomen have been represented by media, politicians, and
religious leaders as having strayed further from some of the virtues attrib
uted to Mary than poor women and girls who are black and Latina and
depend upon public assistance for the basic survival needs of their fami
lies. On the one hand, this cultural backdrop of patriarchal Christian
interpretations exaltingMary’s moral status because of the absence of her
carnal sexual expression is clarifying. It fills in some of the unspoken cul
tural assumptions underlying the charges of poor women’s immorality in
public policy discussions. It helps to explain why poor women’s assertion
of their sexuality through sexual reproduction has been branded by many