In this article I will try to illustrate how words can be chosen to mould attitudes, and conversely, how attitudes influence the language of the speaker. In this way attitudes are perpetuated and become embedded in the language. The speakers are unknowingly indoctrinated and unknowingly indoctrinate others.
Linguistic reality is taken for reality itself.
Gender in our language originated in a time long before Christianity, when the male and female were seen as different but equally valuable parts of the whole. The fundamental differences between the sexes are still celebrated by Pagans, and thus we celebrate the whole. Looking at both connotation and denotation, a priestess is a woman imbued with Goddess power, rejoicing in her femaleness and her special relationship with the Great Mother, an equal partner and complement of the priest. Her authority comes from within, it is not handed down from a male holding greater authority. The phrase both betrays and perpetuates a deep underlying bigotry.