"Sugar and Spice..."

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There is a tendency to focus on all the dudes of the Bible and gloss over the ladies.
Why?

Because, for most of recorded history, dudes have called the shots.
"The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob..."
(Exodus 3:16)

So we remember Eve as a sinful apple eater, Delilah as a sneaky temptress/barber, and Jezebel as... well... Bette Davis!

It just isn't so!

In the very beginning of the Exodus story, Pharaoh kills all the male Israelite babies (1:22), Moses kills the taskmaster (2:12), and God (traditionally portrayed as male) kills many people in the ten plagues and the Red Sea--
"The LORD is a man of war... Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea..." (15:3-4).

Meanwhile, two Egyptian midwives Shiphrah and Puah "feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive" (1:15); and Yocheved hid her son and saved his life (2:3), the infant's sister watched over him to make sure he's be okay (2:4) and Pharaoh's daughter adopted the infant and raised him as her son (2:10).

So all the MEN in this story are murderous and blood-thirsty, and the WOMEN save lives!

Hm.

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