In Romans 16, St. Paul greets twenty people. Six of those who are named are women who are considered as “fellow workers” by the Apostle and who “worked hard for the Lord.” Included on that list is Phoebe, the deaconess. All of which shows how mistaken the notion that St. Paul was somehow or other a misogynist, or anti-women. He obviously collaborated closely with women. Some passages taken as evidence of his prejudice against women, for example his admonition that women should wear a head covering in prayer (1 Corinthians 11:1-16), simply reflect the cultural expectation of Roman society that a married woman in public wore a headdress to show her status as married. Like St. Paul we must value the contributions of women in the church.
