From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: New pagans and reading
Date: 4 Sep 92 22:15:24 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

Evidently someone named Chuck wrote:
>I've found, however, that Starhawk's _Truth or Dare_ seems to be a 
>retelling of _Sprial Dance_, sort of a _Spiral Dance_ version 2. In
>it, Starhawk shows a greater balance in diety, and a greater maturity
>of vision of what paganism is for her. I'm not denigrating _Spiral
>Dance_, I still consider it a useful book, and I'm glad I read it. But
>when I'm presenting my beliefs to a novice, I think _Truth or Dare_
>does a better job. 

It's interesting to read _The Spiral Dance_ -- the 10th anniversary
edition, especially.  I can remember reading it and coming up on
something about how her tradition values one hemisphere of the brain
more than the other and how traits and skills are divided into masculine
and feminine, and getting massively pissed.  I then read the back, where
she says in the update that she isn't going in for this so much anymore,
and that she prefers to think of a simple pool of human qualities that
people draw from, undifferentiated in terms of gender.

(I still suspect that people who devalue the part of the brain that is
responsible for math and language are monolingual mathphobes, or else
they would know what it feels like to learn a language -- they would
know how you have to climb into it like wrapping yourself in a blanket,
like climbing into a womb and letting it permeate all of you.  Learning
a new language is like taking the most wonderful drug ever invented.
You just dive into it and don't come up for air ever.  It's like all
those dreams people have where they're flying and swimming without
having to breathe.  Do people who run down left hemisphere skills even
realize this?  Am I getting hemispheres right, also?  I think it's the
left hemi that's responsible for language and math.)

The ubiquitous tendency to say that things that people do are
"masculine" or "feminine" really bugs me, too.  No, my math skills are
not masculine; I am a woman, therefore they are feminine skills.  My SO
is a wonderful musician; he is totally male, and his music skills are
masculine.  My music skills are feminine.  The fact that these skills
are found in abundance in bodies of all shapes says even more clearly
that they are neither masculine nor feminine -- just human talents.   

I'm just amazed at how, for the last couple thousand years, the
establishment has been saying that women are one way and men are
another, and some abilities are men's and some women's, and how angry we
have gotten at them.  But, if you put a fresh coat of paint on the
manacles and scratch out "Christian" and write "Pagan" on top, then we
rush to embrace it.  We're still taking an axe to our psyches and
cleaving them artificially.  We're just perpetuating the same old gender
divisiveness that has hobbled us for thousands of years.

We're categorizing ourselves, and it's going to come back to haunt us;
that's why I was so happy to read Starhawk say that she doesn't
subscribe to that view so much anymore.  Splitting up our psyches and
valuing one part over the other will only accomplish two things:

1) the devaluing of people who are strong in those skills, as I've seen
from some people on the net when science is mentioned.  Science is evil,
so scientists are stupid and evil, too.  Replace scientist with woman
and it starts looking a bit familiar.  It's all just an excuse to erect
a fence then point the blaming finger at those on the other side.  

2) we are still saying that there are parts of ourselves that are valued
less.  Aren't all human skills to be prized and encouraged?  Lessee, I
either go with the establishment JCI religions, where my so-called
"feminine" traits of art, music, poetry and intuition are devalued, or I
can liberate myself and move over to the new spiritualities where my
math, science, and language skills are devalued.  Gosh, what freedom.
I'm fucked either way.  Wherever I go, there are parts of me that
aren't welcome.  I feel so . . . liberated.

Sorry I ranted about this; guess the rant was just waiting for an
opportunity to spring to the fore.

Blessings,
Janis the Gestalt