From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: New pagans and reading
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 8 Sep 92 03:34:14 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.041515.20845@access.digex.com> corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra) writes:
>
>So what's the deal? Anyone got any ideas? Or are men not allowed to be
>as sacred and holy as women? This is not a chauvanistic, anti-female
>rant, so please don't flame me for that. 

I know, hon, you're not going to get flamed from me.  I honestly don't
thionk men are less "holy" than women (wheatever "holy" means).  Even in
most branches of Paganism and the Craft, there is always a male god
image.  If it seems that there is an emphasis on women's mysteries,
perhaps it's only because, in the past two thousand years, there has
been NO emphasis at all on anything but how impure and evil and devilish
women are, and how we should be stoned, married to our rapists, and how
our sexuality was the cause for the downfall of humanity.  Even nowdays,
many battered wives state how their husbands read the bible to them
while they were hitting them, about how women are evil and need men to
keep them in line.  In popular culture at large, our bodies and
sexuality is used to hawk everything from cheap beer to guns to
deodorant to computers to airline tickets.  We are operating at a
serious handicap as women.

It's just that, when one side has been shoved so far down for so long,
you have to bear down hard on it for a little to bring it up to speed.

I remember hearing an analogy about a race between people -- some have
been allowed to run unencumbered while others were forced to run in
hobbles.  After the hobbles are taken off, the others are of course so
far behind that they have a lot of ground to cover before they are even
EQUAL with the others!

Basically, don't be afraid of the women's spirituality movement.  Men
are of course just as "holy" and worthy and good as women, and keep in
mind that this is a person who thinks Andrea Dworkin walks on water
saying this to you; if I can say this, I don't think you have anything
to fear from women.  We have just been breathing vacuum for so long that
we are working hard to cover lost ground with sacred images of
ourselves.  We are working at such a handicap that we need to be
together to rediscover what we are and what our sexuality means.  Think
about it, we are deluged with so many bad images of ourselves -- we need
to be together to find out what we are.

Just don't be intimidated or afraid or wary of us when we talk about
tof the Goddess.  We have had nothing like this for so long.  We have had
nothing.  We have been so badly trashed that we NEED this very badly.
We need to get our feet on solid ground, and being with each other;
right now I am listening to a local radio station counting down their
top 500 favorites (I'm waiting for a Smiths song), and they're playing a
song about how someone who can't sing is saying, "I'm whatever you want
me to be when we have sex."  Oh, joy.  What a wonderful image.  Just
flip a little switch on the back of our neck, and you don't have to
treat us good or anything.  I'm here to be whatever you want.  (The man
singing says only, "I'm a man."  He is context-independent; she is
defined by his wants and preferences.)  

Keep in mind that this image is by no means isolated or unusual in the
popular culture fed to us day in, day out.

I know you weren't asking for this, necessarily, but to many women
involved in the new spiritualities, the personal is political (to borrow
a phrase) and this is a personal as you can get.

I know you aren't questioning women's spirituality or their sacredness.
It's just that we aren't really sure just what women's sacredness means
to us, and we have to get together and find out with one another, in a
context where we are only with one another.  It's like tuning a guitar;
you have to tell everyone around you to shut up or else you can't get it
right!  Then, once you've got it tuned, you can join in.

Well, we're just trying to find concert A much less tune the damned
thing.  We just have to find out what we are, and to do that, we need
things like this.

Again, don't feel threatened or wary or think it's prejudice or sexism
for us to do this.  I know you aren't asking for flames; that's why I'm
answering this.  I know you were asking sincerely, and I'm responding
with that in mind.  Men ARE sacred, but they haven't been told they were
the gate to hell for 2,000 years!  Men have a lot to work out as well;
the male images of the distant and uncaring father and the good-boy son
who goes to his death without a peep is damaging and psychotic.

We just have to bind some of our wounds, or find them to start with.
When the wounds are inside, you can't even tell where the bleeding is.
Women have been forced to work in a male-defined world, and men have
been forced to separate themselves from women -- for a bufu long time.

I'll stop blathering now.

Blessings,
Janis  


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