The story of Mary (a.k.a. Marinos) in many ways typifies the ambivalent attitude of the early church toward women.?

This policy of? exclusion extends even to female members of animal species.

In such a setting, why would Mary, a “crossdressing” female saint, have been lauded as an exemplary model for the male monastic life?

For a largely patriarchal (and often misogynist) church, the image of the transvestite female saint was certainly full of contradictions: a compelling sign of the hostility and yet at the same
time lurid fascination with which early Christian men viewed their female counterparts

These Lives each exhibit subtle variations on the same theme. Some of
the heroines (Apolinaria, Eugenia, Euphrosyne, Hilaria) take on male
dress in order to escape their parents’ inflexible expectations of marriage
and to travel incognito to monastic areas.

In all cases, the act of crossdressing enables the women to enter the monastic life unhindered by binding familial or social prejudices.