And What the Book of Ruth can say to our Political Moment
The book of Ruth is a remarkable little text. It’s a story about two women where everyone else (including the love interest, by the way) is really a supporting character.
It’s a story where the central character arc belongs to an older woman, Naomi, who doesn’t remarry. It’s also a story from thousands of years ago that actually passes the Bechdel test. If you don’t know that term, it comes from the writer Alison Bechdel, who in 1985 created a little test for films. All you have to do to pass is have one scene where two women have a conversation together about something that’s not a man. Sounds pretty easy.
You’re probably not surprised by how many films fail it, though. By the way, Bechdel often calls it the Bechdel-Wallace test1, because she wants to give credit to her friend Liz Wallace, who helped her come up with the idea. Which means the Bechdel-Wallace test actually passes the Bechdel test. Which is nice.
Anyway, for all these reasons, there has always been a lot of scholarly speculation about who wrote this text. It’s about a woman. It’s named after a woman. Was it written by a woman?
Continue reading on Substack
