Where do women fit in the world of modern spiritualities and religions? What exactly does it mean for a religion to be matriarchal? In honour of Mother’s Day, Steph and Rachel chat about matriarchal religions, the Goddess movement, and a whole lot of feminism! Join us to learn more about Judaism’s matrilineal heritage, the “wild woman”, and more!
Looking for Shivarasa’s work? Check her out her website here.
Want to listen to the full episode on Witchcraft? Find it here.
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TRANSCRIPT
Rachel 0:10
You are listening to Nearly Numinous, a podcast all about the spiritual side of life. Every week we chat about different religions, spiritualities, and other beliefs. We do roundtable discussions, deep dives into histories and religious studies theories and interview different religious leaders and practitioners. For full transcripts and more information on each episode, you can find us at nearlynuminous.ca
Steph 0:45
Hello, hello, everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of Nearly Numinous. Today we thought in honour of Mother’s Day this past weekend, we thought it’d be great to talk about matriarchal religions. We’re going to talk a little bit about what a matriarchal religion is, especially as they compare to patriarchal religions. And we’re going to look at a few examples of these kinds of religions, both older and contemporary. And we’ll talk a little bit about their place in the world today and their relevance and why we thought it was worth talking about.
Rachel 1:16
So let’s first look at what patriarchal and matriarchal means. So I’m sure many of you know what the basic definitions are, but in case you don’t, patriarchal refers to a system that is primarily governed by men. And what this means is that you’ll usually see men at the forefront of that system. So for example, the man will be the breadwinner, or head of the family, or occupying all or the majority of places in government or other powerful systems. Patriarchal religions are ones that focus on male deities and you’ll typically see a social structure that places men in a position of authority socially, spiritually, and even economically. And matriarchal is the opposite of that where women are the head of the family, community, or the top of the religion, and therefore in a position of authority. So a matriarchal religion places women in the authoritative positions. Sometimes this simply means the women are at the forefront from an earthly level, but it can also mean a shift in the language around deities. For example, either replacing “him” as a term for God, you can refer to God as a “her.” Or in more common instances, matriarchal religions will place goddesses and other female deities at the forefront of the religion.
Steph 2:32
So what does this mean for today’s episode where we are talking about matriarchal religions? So this means that we’ll be talking about the religions and maybe ways of living in like kind of community that prioritize female power, autonomy, and authority. A lot of religions are frequently claimed to be patriarchal, most notably the Abrahamic religions, which are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. But it can actually get a little bit more complex with Judaism because of its emphasis on matrilinity, but we’ll talk about that more in a second. The language often used in these religions surrounds the male/ For example, we often hear the terms God the quote unquote “father,” or men are placed in upper hierarchies. For example, the Catholic Church only allows male priests or the pope is always male. This also occurs frequently in family structures within these faith communities. Obviously, things are shifted a little bit in reality and an individual interpretation. But from the perspective of most religious teachings in the Abrahamic traditions, the men are considered the head of the family. I’m sure you’re also familiar with the examples and emphasis of the Christian church placing women below men and telling women to be submissive to their husbands. Obviously, as we always say, you can’t throw a blanket statement over religions and expect everyone to fall under those definitions. There are plenty of ways that contemporary Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are finding ways to embrace feminism and matriarchs in their own ways, we’re just talking about the more like traditional teachings.
Rachel 4:04
Mhmm absolutely. And let’s first chat about the one Abrahamic religion that is most known for its matriarchal qualities, Judaism. So it’s important to note that it still contains much of the same patriarchal qualities that Christianity and Islam have, especially with the deity being primarily male-centric in most writings and depictions. But the reason Judaism is frequently attributed to the matriarch is due to the fact it’s matrilineal and seems to have been since about the second century, but that timeline is frequently argued depending on the location and lineage of teachings and traditions. Matrilineal refers to the fact that in Judaism, the faith is traced through the mother’s descendants. To put it in super plain terms, this means that if your dad is Jewish and your mom is Christian, you’re not Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, and your dad is atheist, then you can be Jewish. In the contemporary age, there are various traditions around this depending on each individual belief system.
Steph 5:09
So, again, Judaism has a bunch of different kinds of sects and branches of the faith. And so each one actually kind of practices this a little bit differently. Orthodox Judaism practices matrilineal descent and states that this belief system has been in practice since around 1310 BCE. They even go so far as to state that any woman who is Jewish remained so under Jewish law, even if they convert to another religion. Whereas Reformed Judaism in about 1983, they made a statement that they are now going to recognize the child from any Jewish parent who practices as being Jewish themselves. So whether or not your mother or your father is Jewish or both, you can be Jewish. Prior to this, the children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers would need to undergo a formal conversion process. Interestingly enough, though, this practice is not adopted by all Reformed Jewish traditions. Apparently Reformed Judaism in Canada and England both remain primarily matrilineal.
Rachel 6:12
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Steph 6:14
But there’s other forms of Judaism, that kind of like some of the smaller sects that go between being matrilineal and not. There’s plenty of Jewish groups around Canada that do actually practice that anybody whether their mother or father are Jewish can become Jewish.
Rachel 6:32
Mm okay.
Steph 6:33
Yeah. So what’s really interesting about this fact is that because of this tradition, a lot of people end up claiming that Judaism is inherently matriarchal, or you know, it, the tradition itself places a greater emphasis on the woman having a valuable role within the tradition. And so I think it’d be interesting to just chat a little bit about whether or not the fact that matrilineal means feminist, or even like, maybe not to that extreme, but like if matrilineal means that Judaism is primarily a matriarchal religion. So I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that.
Rachel 7:13
Yeah, I mean, a couple of things I was thinking about, well, before recording this where it seems like there are two interpretations of what a matriarchal religion is. One is, if it’s got a female deity at the head of everything, and then there are others that place more emphasis less on the gender of the deity they worship, but more on like, you know, who is an authority figure on earth? So that interplay is kind of really interesting. And I would say, I mean, I guess it like, it’s not really my place to have like an opinion about things about which is more…
Steph 8:02
You have a podcast, though, you have to have an opinion about things!
Rachel 8:04
I know, I know.
Steph 8:06
I get it. [laughs]
Rachel 8:07
So it’s not like, I guess it’s not up to us to say whether one is more valid. That’s the word I was looking for, valid than the other. But I think you see more often that matriarchy, when it comes to religions has something to do with the deity rather than who’s in charge on Earth. But often, it kind of reflects that power structure anyway.
Steph 8:35
Yeah, for sure. I think, from my perspective, anyway, um, I think this kind of goes back to that whole thing that we like, constantly come back to where like, you can’t just put a blanket statement on everything. And so I would say that, I think it poses an interesting point, because in Christianity and Islam, the power balance between men and women is very strict. At least historically. Again, contemporarily, interpretation-airily… uh… [laughs] Interpretation-airily is not a word. You can have… You can’t really have a woman at the head of the family. Whereas this does, it places the woman almost in a certain level of power, whether or not it’s, you know, a widespread power for sure. But I think because of that, it does kind of introduce a little bit more element of, like I said, almost like respecting the woman as having a valuable role within the religion. That being said, I don’t think that that means it’s inherently feminist. I think it’s very still open to interpretation. I don’t think having matrilineal qualities in a religion is necessarily feminist or matriarchal, but it does open the door for those opportunities, if that makes sense.
Rachel 10:08
Yeah, that does make sense.
Steph 10:10
Yeah.
Rachel 10:10
But then when it comes to more like modern matriarchal religions, we see a lot of those tied in with feminism more directly, which is really interesting. So, even though Judaism and some other niche sects of Christianity and Islam have their feminist and matriarchal elements, we do want to go more in-depth with the female-centric groups.
Steph 10:34
So I think another interesting point to look at as well though, is the fact that like, especially you bringing up like feminist religions, technically, Reformed Judaism is considered one of the like, lesser of the conservative versions of Judaism. So like, a little bit more liberal, a little bit more contemporary. Again, I don’t like to put blanket terms on it or for the sake of describing this. But that being said, then you look to the fact that Reformed Judaism is the one that says Like, actually, like, “we don’t care if you’re a child of a Jewish Mom or Dad, you can be Jewish.” Which I can kind of see as being a little bit more open and accepting. But then how would that play into the role of like, contemporary feminism? Because I wouldn’t say that a more contemporary evolving version of Judaism would look to take away the power of women, you know what I mean? So I think that kind of also goes to show that it’s like not necessarily black and white.
Rachel 11:41
Yeah.
Steph 11:42
So then maybe to move forward into more like feminist and like, very obviously, feminist religions. And I’m talking about ones that like, claim the title, want to be feminist, etc. As opposed to like Judaism, where it’s more like, interpretation up in the air kind of stuff. I think we could go more into depth on these, like, what makes up these more like feminist faith groups and spiritual groups, and etc, and look to kind of what the definitions are, because I think we’ll find that they’re actually a little different from what you know, like matrilineal Judaism proposes.
Rachel 12:22
So one of the things we see in a lot of these feminist religions in our modern world is an emphasis first on bodily autonomy, which is really cool. And one of the subjects that feminists in recent years have really grabbed on to with regard to like, for example, slut-shaming and embodiment.
Steph 12:48
I think the embodiment factor is really interesting as well, because I think in, you see embodiment across any religion. Like you can’t deny that. There’s certain practices of embodiment. But interestingly enough, you do often find, I can really only speak mostly to Christianity on this, I haven’t looked into other traditions, but there’s almost this desire to leave your body, whether that be through death and going to heaven, or whatever it is, like your divine body is prioritized over your human body. Whereas I think with this body autonomy factor, it’s really interesting to look at the fact that embodiment rituals have kind of become the forefront of these practices. So when I say that I kind of looking towards things like ecstatic dance, that’s become a huge thing lately, especially like people go to these like silent discos, or exotic dance practices, or even just like going to a nightclub. Whether or not like, you probably don’t look at that as like an inherently spiritual activity. But for some people it is because it’s getting into your body. And it’s like taking that bodily autonomy, being fully present in your body here and now. And then, I mean, you look at things like similarly like yoga, tantric sex has become extremely popular lately, both with yourself and with a partner. Even meditation, I don’t know if meditation is fully considered embodied, because you are trying to technically like ascend your body, but it’s also about being present in your body.?
Rachel 14:28
Yeah, hmmm… interesting dynamic there.
Steph 14:30
Anyway, that’s what I just found it very interesting that you are seeing, like I follow… Oh, geez, there’s this really great DJ that I follow from LA, her name’s Shivarasa. And she does ecstatic dance sets that she mixes with, like meditation and breathing practices, so you can actually listen to some of her stuff online. She has like YouTube videos, and like, I think she has stuff on Spotify as well, where it’s like mixed breathing and music and guided ecstatic dance.
Rachel 15:02
Oh, that’s so cool. Okay, send me that link. I want to check that out later.
Steph 15:09
Yeah, I’ll put it in the show notes for today as well.
Rachel 15:11
Okay. But kind of following from that bodily autonomy thing is, you see this element of sex positivity, which I think, again, is tied in a lot with particularly second-wave feminism. Romanticism of this sex-positive aspect of these religions seem to be like a driving force, or at least contributed to the second-wave feminist movement embracing the goddess religions, which is really cool.
Steph 15:43
Yeah, we’ll probably get into this a little bit more in a bit. But like, just to give you some background, when you look at a lot of the kind of ancient Greek cults, again, is what I can speak to, because that’s my research. But a lot of them were considered very sex-positive. And that’s why I mean, so my whole research was looking at kind of like the Christian perspective on the cult of Dionysus. And in the cult of Dionysus, they kind of always said that they were like, off having orgies is in whatever. Whether or not that was true is question. But basically, what was happening is like, these were female-led religions, they were frequently sex-positive. And so I think what’s now happened is there’s been an embrace… And you know, also, like you said, a romanticizing of it, because we can’t honestly say that, like, they were actually off going, having tons of sex with one another. And it was the greatest thing, everyone knows, no problems. But, you know, like, though the romanticization of that kind of ideal has kind of, I think, been why this kind of sex positivity and these goddess religions have kind of been embraced by a lot of the feminist movements.
Rachel 17:04
What keeps coming up is this sort of pitting I guess, of matriarchal religions versus patriarchal religions. And what you might see sometimes, and you might know, if you’ve listened to our witchcraft episode is matriarchal religions are often tied to, quote, unquote, worldly aspects like nature and the body, and femininity, in contrast to patriarchal religions, which often deliberately place emphasis on the value of other after worldly aspects like, you know, heaven and masculinity. So what you’ll see with a lot of female-focused female-centred religions is also a sense of environmentalism. So various goddesses are often associated with like different elements or values, or celestial bodies, like, you know, goddess of earth, or fertility or love. witchcraft, in particular places an important emphasis on the sanctity of nature and femininity, which are tied together. And you know, a bit more about the term “wild women” than I do stuff, if you could speak to that.
Steph 18:19
Yeah, just a little bit. I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert on it. But um, as always, I follow a lot of people on Instagram. And that’s basically where I get all my knowledge from. [laughs]
Rachel 18:30
That’s where we all get our knowledge from these days, though.
Steph 18:33
Yeah, it’s true. I mean, what a better way, like, there’s no better way to understand pop culture than Instagram. One of those things that I’ve been seeing a lot of is the idea of the quote unquote, wild woman. So I’ve seen, I follow a lot of these kind of like spiritual practitioners. They don’t tie themselves to any specific religious tradition. But what ends up happening is they specifically look to empower women in their own innate spirituality, to kind of use their words. And oftentimes, they promote kind of going into nature, like I said, ecstatic dance or other embodied rituals. It’s very hippy to kind of put a term on it. So like, you see a lot of women with like, long curly hair. Not me. That’s not me.
Rachel 19:26
Yeah, couldn’t be you, Steph.
Steph 19:28
Yeah, not me. I don’t have long curly hair that I haven’t cut in three years. [laughs] But no, like it is all about though this kind of being one with nature, being one with your most authentic self, letting your emotions run free, letting your imagination run free, your sexuality, your rituals, your movement, etc. And so you know, it’s often coined as being like the “wild woman” and in order to kind of… but yeah like you even look back, even as far as the research that I did, I had a whole section of my Master’s essay all about the Maidens which were considered like mad, manic women that would follow the cult of Dionysus. And they were considered like out of their minds, because they would just go and dance and let their hair down and God forbid you let your hair down. You know. So this isn’t a new concept. But I think it just goes to emphasize like this kind of modern cycle of returning to this kind of like goddess religion and feminist state. And I mean, we could even get into the whole conversation of like, the idealization of the past and wanting to return to what you thought was better time. So like the pre-Christian era, before Christianity took over and progress and development and men ruin the world, which they did.
Rachel 20:57
[laughs] Yeah, and that romanticization of the past and also, this sort of like, in the growth of this goddess movement, which we’re going to talk about, there has been some sort of like, rewriting a bit of the past to kind of state in that old, like prehistoric or ancient societies or religions were matriarchal when there isn’t that much evidence to show that they are, sort of just to sort of create this narrative that links current matriarchal religions to the past to create this sort of authenticity.
Steph 21:42
Yeah. I mean, that being said, like, having women in power is a great thing. But I don’t want it to sound like we’re saying like, “Oh, just because it’s not actually founded in history…”
Rachel 21:54
Oh God, no!
Steph 21:55
“…You can’t act that way,” by any means.
Rachel 21:59
No, no, no.
Steph 21:59
But, you know, I think it’s important to also say that, like, again, it’s that romanticization of the past, right, and like, trying to rewrite something to make some idealized natural state and this idealized wild woman that is, you know, quote, unquote, more authentic to history, versus maybe just more authentic to your own vision of yourself and how you want to be represented in history. So, we’ve kind of been talking about this idea of goddess religions. But kind of this notion of like, the goddess religion, or matriarchal religions and matriarchal power really gained traction during the second wave of feminism, kind of as like the 1960s counterculture and fascination with occultism and esotericism grew stronger. And since then, we’ve really seen a lot more grounded movements that have spread worldwide, the prioritize matriarchs and female power. Again, that being said, these traditions have existed in their own little pockets, but I’m just talking about like, mostly like the Western world overarching mass movements that have kind of spread quickly.
Rachel 23:10
Yeah, it’s become like a lot more international, and a lot more spread out within communities. There’s, it’s gained a lot more followers. So the Goddess Movement was one of the overarching movements that stemmed from the 1960s and second-wave feminism groups. It was born out of a need for women to gain back power, not only in law and politics, but in their personal, including spiritual lives as well. The Goddess Movement is basically a reactionary movement that originated with contemporary pagans, witches, and some scholars, attempting to identify and describe the ancient and prehistoric matriarchal religions like I was talking about a bit before. Some early accounts described goddess religions as like centuries old, and only recently in the past couple millennia so have they been persecuted and diminished by both patriarchal secular societies and religions such as Christianity, but more recent scholarship has disputed this existence of these matriarchal cultures and goddess-focused religions. By most academic and historical accounts, matriarchal religions, such as Wicca are a modern phenomenon born out of romanticism and fascination with the esoteric and the occult. So this narrative that’s created, even if it’s not, you know, totally true as found out by a lot of scholars, it does serve a purpose. It draws on and calls attention to a very real and very long history of female persecution at the hands of men, often religious authorities.
Steph 24:59
Yeah. I think it’s also important to talk about just like the empowerment factor. Because what ends up happening is a lot of women end up, you know, banding together, it’s a place for them to, like, share stories and share experience with one another, that they wouldn’t really be able to share elsewhere. So like, especially when you’re looking at second-wave feminism, at the time, a lot of those women were only just starting to get into the workforce and have, you know, male-centric positions and working in male-centric companies. I think we’ve all seen Mad Men. But you know, it really provides kind of a place for them to gather with one another and share those experiences. And I think it ended up empowering a lot of women to kind of push further, to speak out against, you know, assault and harassment. And like other forms of abuse that they were experiencing at the time, because they actually had other women that were empowering them. I think they felt empowered by some like form of ancestral knowledge that made them feel like they actually had a voice and had a place to kind of join in the experience, right?
Rachel 26:09
Yeah. So Wicca and witchcraft in particular, are important aspects of the Goddess Movement. And they’ve really helped popularize the idea of female spiritual power in our modern world. If you’ve listened to our show before, you might know that a while ago, we did an episode on witchcraft where we interviewed practitioner, Meghan O’Sullivan. When we interviewed her, she spoke about her beliefs surrounding the term, witch, here’s what she said.
Meghan O’Sullivan 26:41
So the history of the witch, the witch is a loaded term and has been a loaded term for a really long time. It’s been used as a weapon against a powerful, knowledgeable, wise woman who has a sense of agency. But I think what’s really cool is that modern witchcraft movements are reclaiming that title. And, you know, magic and spirituality aside, from a feminist point of view, being called a witch means that you’re a woman who is unapologetically herself. And I love this quote, there’s, I don’t know where it’s from, but “the biggest threat to the patriarchy is a witch, a slut, and a feminist.” And the women who like to follow, you know, modern witchcraft movements, at least the ones that I surround myself with really atone to that. So being a witch now is calling yourself now, a witch now would be honestly just taking back your power.
Rachel 27:54
Meghan also spoke a little with us about deities, and the one she identifies with the most, which is Artemis, the goddess of the moon. So if you’d like to hear Megan, talk more about modern witchcraft, and a lot of the topics we discussed are directly tied into what we’re talking about here today, go check out our episode titled “Modern witchcraft with Meghan O’Sullivan.”
Steph 28:17
So something that we kind of haven’t talked about yet that I think would be interesting to look at is a new phenomenon I’m seeing where people refer to their feminine energy and their masculine energy. And these are two separate energies within one person, if that makes sense. So basically, like, they kind of describe their feminine energy as being more in line with like, you know, for women, maybe like when they’re on their menstrual cycle, or when they’re doing creative, emotional kind of work, or if they’re taking care of someone and like, things like that. Whereas the masculine energy is kind of the more productive goal-oriented kind of energy. And what I think is really interesting about this is when you’re kind of looking at the equality factor, and… Okay, this is entirely my opinion. And it might be completely wrong. And might anger some people out there, but when you’re looking at the equality factor, I think what’s happening here is you’re actually getting a lot of women trying to almost like, justify, and argue for their ability to be successful, as not inherently feminine. And I have a really big issue with that, because I think that like, I don’t think that that’s a masculine or feminine thing. Especially when you’re looking at it from like, an empowerment standpoint. Like I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that, you know, as a woman, I don’t need to act like a man to be successful. You know what I mean? ANd I understand that I don’t think that’s what they’re trying to say. But that’s kind of how it comes across. And I think the reason I like kind of take issue to this is because I frequently see like, the people that use this kind of language are the women that are like, in Bali being entrepreneurs. Everyone in Bali, who wants to be an entrepreneur is like super-spiritual, which is fair. If I got to hang out on the beach and be under the sun all day, I probably would just like sit there and be like, “yes, spirituality.” But I think that… I watched these women who are very successful, and like, they’re doing things their own way, and they’re doing it well and they’re very in tune with kind of, like, their femininity, are then trying to use like masculinity to almost like, make it seem like they weren’t able to do that without tuning into this masculine energy. Um, but anyway, I just think like, you can channel your feminine energy, and it doesn’t have to mean that, like, you’re not being productive, or you’re not working towards a greater goal. I don’t know, maybe, maybe I’m angering some people, maybe I’ve got it all wrong.
Rachel 31:14
No, I see where you’re coming from. And I’ve definitely heard, like, harnessing different types of energies to achieve different things. I think that, it’s not always used by this, like this. but it can be a way to create more divide between, you know, men and women, the masculine and the feminine. But for like, for example, in our witchcraft episode, Meghan talked about this sort of interplay between the masculine and the feminine, which exists in everybody to different degrees. It doesn’t matter, you know, what gender you are, you could be, you know, identify as a woman, but have more masculine energy, and, you know, it’s… I can see where you’re coming from. But, uh, like you said, not everybody…
Steph 32:11
Yeah, I should maybe clarify, I’m only really referring to like, when you are a female fully comfortable in your female identity. Obviously, I, like, I’m not referring to like gender identity and gender fluidity here in like that sort of term of like energies, if that makes sense. Because I, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with like, obviously, like a female who channels masculine energy as in, they identify more with like, male identity.
Rachel 32:42
Yeah
Steph 32:43
if that makes sense. Yeah. I’m like talking more from like, a spiritual, or even just like, “I’m a woman, and I want to channel my quote, unquote, masculine energy to like, get things done.” You know?
Rachel 32:54
Yeah, that’s kind of drawing on this stereotypes about what it means to be feminine versus masculine, that I mean, historically, have kept men on top of women, you know, men are more productive. They get things done, aka, they’re better. That’s, like we said, that’s not what everybody is trying to say it with it, but I can definitely see where you can see that coming in.
Steph 33:25
But I think we could go back to kind of this like debate on equality. Because I think, again, going to the whole, like, second-wave feminism, the whole goal was equality, equality for women. And so do you think that there’s maybe better potential for equality for women, once there are more female-oriented religions? Or, you know, that kind of thing?
Rachel 33:54
That’s, yeah… that’s a tough question. Because I mean, now we’re just getting into feminist theory, which can like…
Steph 34:01
That’s fine
Rachel 34:02
go wherever, it can go into a whole different topic, but like…
Steph 34:08
Like, when it comes to religion, maybe. Let’s keep it under the umbrella of religion. Like equality for women in religious settings.
Rachel 34:15
Yeah. There’s a lot of power in creating more spaces for women in religion. But then, recently, there’s been a lot of proponents behind the idea of, you know, not drawing on this idea of the gender binary at all. So, like, it’s this balance between: how do we raise women up by creating like more spaces with them, while also placing less emphasis on the idea of women versus men in religion? I don’t know. It’s a tough question.
Steph 35:00
Yeah, definitely. I think you bring up a really valuable point. Like, there’s two points you brought up that I think are really valuable and like the discussion on equality and like, the first is, obviously, we are moving away from the gender binary. You know, it’s, you don’t need to be some sort of wild woman to be considered a woman, right? And I think, aside from that, as well as like, again, like what truly is the female identity? Can we even understand the true female identity without either comparing it to a male identity?
Rachel 35:40
True
Steph 35:40
Or comparing it to like gender stereotypes? I think maybe to kind of like try to make some sort of argument here, if we’re looking at kind of feminist spirituality, if we’re looking at feminine spirituality being some sort of return to the authentic state of being a woman, which is maybe wild, untethered, embodied, in nature, etc, then I think what these kind of goddess religions or matriarchal religions or spiritualities kind of do is they do almost provide a way for women to feel empowered without needing to compete with like, the patriarchal structure, if that makes sense. So like, instead of me feeling like just… again, the general “me,” not “me me.” But instead of like me feeling the need to feel listened to and valued, I then need to identify under the patriarchal structure. So that means, you know, battling with the whole “women should be submissive to their husbands” kind of bit, I can then feel powerful based on my identity as being a wild woman and feeling like there’s value in my empathy and my embodiment, you know? So I think from that end of things, like if we can kind of like make the overarching statement, that femininity means that thing, which we can’t make that statement, but again, for the sake of the argument, then I think that something like feminist religions and Goddess religions are extremely valuable for some form of equality, because it’s equality in your own identity, rather than equality in the patriarchal identity.
Rachel 37:34
Yeah, I, I totally agree with that. That, that and that thing you brought up, like: “how do you define the feminine without the masculine and vice versa?” is really interesting, too. And I guess, like, creating more feminist spaces to like empower women, particularly in religion, could be like a way to get away from that., men versus women, and let women or women-aligned or feminine people just exist in themselves.
Steph 38:11
I feel like we figured everything out today.
Rachel 38:13
I think so too, yeah!
Steph 38:14
We’ve solved everyone’s problems. [laughs]
Rachel 38:17
That’s what we do. It’s what we’re here for. Y’all should think us. That’s what we it’s our true, it’s our true vocation in life. This podcast, solving problems every week.
Steph 38:30
I think, though, since this episode is in honour of Mother’s Day, I feel the need to give a shout-out to my mother, who raised me in a patriarchal structure to still be an empowered woman, which is pretty badass, you know? Like I was raised in a Christian setting. And never once did I feel like you know, I didn’t belong as a woman, which I think is a very hard thing to do. And it’s a very hard thing to instill in your children. So shout out to my mom.
Rachel 39:04
And shout out to my mom too, for you know, like, always being there for me, always kind of just letting me exist as myself as who I am without, you know, trying to feel like I should adhere to certain ideas. I really appreciate it and Happy Mother’s Day
Steph 39:25
And Happy Mother’s Day out there to any person that has nurtured and grown life, whether that be plant life, furry life, human life, any kind of life. Thank you.
Rachel 39:42
Thank you
Steph 39:42
You make the world a more lively place.
Steph 39:55
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