the entire St Ignucius speech is a series of jokes on various religions, which is indeed risky business. the one at hand was playing with the christian cult of Mary's virginity. whatever sexism is found in there is drawn from that faith, rather than from richard, who actually criticizes it and reverses it in the joke.
now, someone gave it a maligned interpretation, blew it out of proportion, and tried to paint him as sexist over that. he really is the victim there.
now, joking with religion is risky business, so some might argue he deserved it. but no, the issue was not about religion, it was about attributing to him sexism that isn't there.
now, though Mary's being a woman wasn't essential for the joke, it loses some of the humor and much of the punch of the criticism to the cult of women's virginity (men's virginity is not in the religious radar), so I speculate that this is the reason why he went for female's emacs virginity at first. alas, the misrepresentation and the overreaction demanded him to drop the humor and the criticism.
as a feminist myself, I find it disappointing that women would stand against a denunciation of religious chauvinism and turn against another feminist. failing to recognize the humorous denunciation and mistaking it for chauvinism reeks of prejudice to me.