Gossip and Gender

The frequent comments about gossip in the Pastoral Epistles are noteworthy, and it often has gender implications. Insights from the growing field of gossip studies from multiple disciplines help to interpret what role gossip plays, especially in relation to how power and authority are distributed and promoted. A presentation of various texts from antiquity shows that the relation between gossip and gender is multiple and complex: to gossip was typical for all women and risky for elite men who constantly had to defend their masculinity. The ancient gossip discourse helps to understand more of the social dynamics of early Christianity, to fill in the imaginative picture and generate ideas to how Christian identity and theology were constructed.

Auteur

Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, University of Oslo, Norwegen.

Résumé

This book suggests that gossip can be used as an interpretive key to understand more of early Christian identity and theology. Insights from the multi disciplinary field of gossip studies help to interpret what role gossip plays, especially in relation to how power and authority are distributed and promoted. A presentation of various texts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin shows that the relation between gossip and gender is complex: to gossip was typical for all women and risky for elite men who constantly had to defend their masculinity. Frequently the Pastoral Epistles connect gossip to false teaching, as an expression of deviance. On several occasions it is argued that various categories of women have to avoid gossip to be entrusted duties or responsibilities. Old wives' tales are associated with heresy, contrasted to godliness in which one had to train one self. Other passages clearly suggest that the false teaching resembles feminine gossip by use of metaphorical language: profane words will spread fast and uncontrolled like cancer; what the false teachers say is tickling in the ear, and their mouth must be stopped or silenced. The Pastoral Epistles employ terms drawn from the stereotype of gossip as rhetorical devices in order to undermine the masculinity and hence the authority, of the opponents.