For 2000 years, societies have projected onto Mary Magdalene a wide range of roles – witness, prostitute, priestess, goddess, wife, witch, mother – archetypes that adhere closely to attitudes held about femininity.

I am the utterance of my name gives first-person voice and agency to each of these, while illuminating the problematic nature of labels given by male authors and religious systems to venerate and denigrate women. Using ancient texts and primary sources, the piece uncovers roots of our present gender inequality, male privilege, body rights, etc. – our social inheritance. It also highlights the erasure of female-empowered texts such as “The Gospel of Mary”, and the appeal of Mary Magdalene as an icon of the modern Goddess movement.