Negotiating Gender Essentialism in Contemporary Paganism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v12i2.159Keywords:
Contemporary Paganism, Gender, Gender essentialismAbstract
Contemporary Paganism, a rapidly growing religious movement, has the potential to impact the gender ideology of the larger culture. This community is moving away from an initial gender essentialism in which qualities defined by the cultural community as feminine, though highly valued, were viewed as intrinsically distinct from masculine qualities, toward a more complex and less essentialist understanding of gender. This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviewing, survey questionnaires, and analysis of core Pagan texts. It first reviews the importance to Pagans of conceptualizing the Divine as both feminine and masculine. Next it shows how in early Wiccan writings women and men, as well as masculine and feminine divinity and cosmic “energy,” are characterized in gender-essentialist ways. It then examines some of the rhetorical strategies used by Contemporary Pagans to mediate between essentialist and non-essentialist understandings of gender. Finally, it explores, through examples, current trends that represent a movement away from essentialist images toward a new representation of gender.References
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———. “High Priestess: Mother, Leader, Teacher.” In Daughters of the Goddess, edited by Wendy Griffin, 103-118. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2000.
Berger, Helen, Evan A. Leach, and Leight S. Shaffer. Voices from the Pagan Census. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
Buckland, Raymond. Witchcraft From the Inside. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1971.
Budapest, Zuszana (Z) The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries. Berkeley: Wingbow Press, 1989.
Christ, Carol. “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological, and Political Reflections.” In Womanspirit Rising, edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
Crowley, Vivianne. Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Millenium. London: Aquarian Press, 1996.
Crowther, Patricia. High Priestess: The Life of Patricia Crowther. Custer, Wash.: Phoenix, 1998.
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender, and the Social Order. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Farrar, Stewart, and Janet Farrar. The Witches’ Way. Reprinted as volume 2 of A Witch’s Bible, Compleat. New York: Magickal Childe Publishing, 1984.
Gardner, Gerald. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider & Company, 1954.
———. The Meaning of Witchcraft. London: Aquarian Press, 1959.
Gilmore, David. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
Gould, Lois. “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story.” In Sex and Gender: The Human Experience, edited by James A.Doyle, 116-121. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1985.
Greenwood, Susan “Feminist Witchcraft: A Transformatory Politics.” In Daughters of the Goddess, edited by Wendy Griffin, 136-150. Walnut Creek, Calif: AltaMira Press, 2000.
Griffin, Wendy. “The Embodied Goddess: Feminist Witchcraft and Female Divinity” Sociology of Religion 56, no. 1 (1995): 35-48.
———. “Crafting the Boundaries: Goddess Narrative as Incantation.” In Daughters of the Goddess, edited by Wendy Griffin, 73-88. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2000. doi:10.2307/3712037
Hyde, Janet Shibley “The Gender Similarities Hypothesis.” American Psychologist 60 (2005): 581-592. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.60.6.581
Kosmin, Barry A., Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keyser. American Religious Identification Survey—2001. New York: Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2001.
Neitz, Mary Jo “Queering the Dragonfest: Changing Sexualities in a Post-Patriarchal Religion.” Sociology of Religion 61, no. 4 (2000): 369-91. doi:10.2307/3712521
Salomonsen, Jone. Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. New York: Routledge, 2002 .
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999 [1979].
Tavris, Carol. The Mismeasure of Woman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Valiente, Doreen. Natural Magic. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975.
Published
2011-06-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Oboler, R. S. (2011). Negotiating Gender Essentialism in Contemporary Paganism. Pomegranate, 12(2), 159-184. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v12i2.159
