Deborah
I found this quote a while back:
Deborah occupies a unique role in Israelite history. Not only is she a judge in the sense of a military leader, but also she is the only judge in the law-court sense of that title (Judg. 4.5) in the book of Judges. Of all the military leaders of the book, only Deborah is called a “prophet.” She is also the only judge to “sing” of the victory, illustrating the creative role played by women as shapers of tradition (cf. Exod. 15.20-21). While some would see Deborah, a female, as an anomaly in all these roles, her contributions should be set alongside those of other women who are pivotal figures in the premonarchic period (Miriam, Jael, Jephthah’s daughter, Samson’s mother). All emerge as strong women with no negative valuation, perhaps because during the period of the judges, a time of social and political crisis, able people of any status could contribute to group efforts. In the rural, agrarian setting of the period of the judges, with the family as the dominant social institution, the important role of women in family life was more readily transferred to matters of public concern than during the monarchy, with its more formal and hierarchical power structures. Deborah as a strong woman reflects her own gifts as well as a relatively open phase of Israelite society.
—Carol L. Meyers, “Deborah,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 161.
It does seem to be the case that in smaller and less “sophisticated” communities, women have greater freedom in exercising their gifts–even if nobody thinks of what they’re doing as “leadership.” Certainly the growth of the early church, when Christians met around the dinner table rather than in a cathedral and “family” was a principle metaphor for what they were doing, it seems women’s gifts flourished. Sociologists tell us that in new religious sects there is often a greater degree of gender equality than a generation or so later in the movement’s history when things start getting institutionalized.
If that is the case, perhaps Deborah should be a sort of “patron saint” for the Christian egalitarian movement. She exercised her obvious skills in leadership, religious instruction, and jurisprudence (not to mention poetry!) in an era when those skills were needed and therefore welcome.
