In 2016 Elizabeth Schrader brought some curious textual variants (mainly in Papyrus 66) in John 11:1-5; 12:2 to our attention. She argued that Martha was originally absent from the whole of John's gospel. This theory has been presented numerous times on the internet, but has insurmountable problems.
Others have suggested that the textual variants are just random errors, but the disruption is simply too great and too themed.
A third view is that the variants were caused by a tendency to reduce the status of women relative to men. This view is now presented in a Journal article here: Richard G. Fellows, "Early Textual Variants that Downplay the Roles of Women in the Bethany Account," TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (2023). Thanks to those, including Schrader-Polczer, who engaged in discussion of the data.
There are two important implications of this research. Firstly, it provides further evidence that sexist textual variants predate our earliest manuscripts, and probably occurred in the time period when the (sexist) pseudo-Pauline "letters" were written. Secondly, it shows that NA28 and the NRSV translation have the wrong pronoun in Mark 6:22: it was Herodias's daughter, not Herod's daughter, who danced.
