What Men Want? Initial Thoughts on the Male Goddess Movement (original) (raw)
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Men's Place in Contemporary Paganism: Christian and Mythopoetic Influences
How is masculinity viewed in the growing New Religious Movement (NRM) of Contemporary Paganism and Wicca? Have Christian definitions of masculinity lingered and thus defined masculinity for this NRM? Or, is Contemporary Paganism remaking the notions of masculinity and manhood for its practitioners? Masculinity is an often overlooked field of religious study. In my own field of Pagan studies, there is even less as if addressing the topics of masculinity, male gender roles, or men’s mysteries are taboo. Because so little has been written on the subject of men in Contemporary Paganism and Wicca, I felt the need to add some scholarly material in the field.
My paper is centered on the religious tradition of Neopaganism and its potential for the creation and validation of alternative (i.e., non-“mainstream”) forms of masculinity and femininity. My research question(s) are: In what ways do contemporary pagan ritual practices, symbology and mythology redefine masculinity and femininity for their celebrants? Moreover, how does this challenge normalized gender roles? In order to answer these questions I have separated my paper into five sections. Section One will provide a brief overview of Neopaganism as a religion as well as theories of ritual, myth and symbol which will be used throughout my paper. Section Two will hone in on how pagan celebrants form identity within their respective traditions; some of the ways in which pagans construct gender within said traditions; and how Neopaganism, as a subaltern culture, actively resists and redefines societal norms (including gender norms). Section Three will extol several ways in which pagan ritual and festival can contribute to a theoretical framework for the queerying of gender within pagan celebrant identities. Section Four will discuss several challenges to my study, in addition to my responses. Section Five will cover my analytical conclusions, suggestions for supplemental research, and a few far-reaching postulations on more flexible definitions of gender. Throughout, I will be using the theories of John Dewey, Victor Turner, and Barbara Myerhoff to prove my thesis: that contemporary pagan rituals, symbols and myths redefine the concepts of masculinity and femininity by offering semi-historical alternatives and instances of “time out of time” as a means of constructing an identity centered on: a personalized creation of faith; participation in a resistant, subaltern community; and unashamed, ecstatic union with deity. This identity challenges traditional gender roles by fusing traditionally masculine and feminine traits and/or using them in alternative, nonstereotypical ways.
Murphy Pizza and James R. Lewis (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Paganism (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009), ix + 649 pp., ISBN: 978-900416373-7, € 145.00.
The Return of the Goddess: Mythology, Witchcraft and Feminist Spirituality
The historical transition from the Late Antique world to the Early Middle Ages was characterized by the decline of traditional polytheistic paganism and its replacement by Christian Trinitarian monotheism in Europe. In the early modern era colonial expansion and missions established this form of religion throughout the world (Neill, 1975 [1964]; Lewis, 2004). With the advent of modernity and particularly the Enlightenment, reason and secularism challenged Christian normativity and the influence of churches declined. The secularization thesis initially argued that religion would wither and die entirely; such faith would be unnecessary, as science would provide undisputed and rationally evidenced meaning for human life (Clark, 2003: 559-560). However, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw an upsurge in scholarly and popular interest in non-Christian religions, both ancient and modern. In the twentieth century these intellectual currents crossed the boundary between academic interest and actual religious practice, and dramatically manifested in a variety of new religions devoted to the revived worship of the Goddess, including Wicca (the Craft), Feminist Spirituality and Ecopaganism (Hanegraff, 1998: 85-88). This chapter investigates the mythology of originary matriarchy and the Great Goddess, and examines Wicca, Feminist Spirituality (primarily Goddess-centred but also within the Judeo-Christian tradition) and the broader Pagan movement as new traditions actively reviving the Goddess. The Goddess serves to critique the Christian God; her gender challenges the masculine norm and her sometime multiplicity challenges monotheistic unity and erasing of difference (Morgan, 1999: 51-59). Worshippers of the Goddess, male and female, view themselves as revitalizing a decadent and dying Western society, and as participants in a revolution that will save the environment and assure a better future for humanity (Rountree, 2002: 486). Finally, this chapter will comment briefly on the effect of the return of the Goddess on the academic study of religion.
Envisioning the Goddess Modern Pagan Iconography of the Feminine Divine
University of Oregon, 2021
This thesis investigates the iconography used by specific groups of modern Pagan women in the contemporary United States to represent the feminine divine, the meanings attributed to them by women and by broader communities, and the values these images and meanings reinforce. Through a collection of goddess iconography, interviews with female practitioners, and participant observations in Neopagan events, the personal and communal values of this spiritual movement are explored. This thesis will follow a multidisciplinary approach, which combines folklore, anthropology, and gender studies. Subcultural scholarship will help to establish whether or not goddess spirituality falls under such a distinction as well as to illuminate the ways in which the images might be subverting the dominant Western culture.
Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Paganism
2012
Declaring that all acts of love and pleasure are the rituals of the Goddess, contemporary Pagans widely affirm the sacredness of the body and of sexuality. Much of this belief stems from the erotic theology that entered Paganism through British Wicca, in which celebrants use symbolic or literal sexual ritual to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe. Pagans tend to be relatively accepting of same-sex relationships, BDSM, polyamory, transgender, and other expressions of gender and sexuality that are marginalized by mainstream society. Accordingly, sexual minorities have flocked to the movement and have begun to articulate a distinctively queer Pagan spirituality. Pagans continue to struggle with essentialist notions of gender, however, which has caused conflicts around how and whether to include transgender individuals in single-gender groups. Additionally, in some more politically conservative Pagan traditions, gender transgression continues to draw homophobic harassment. Although sexuality and gender are central theological concerns for many Pagans, more scholarship that moves beyond descriptive approaches is needed, as are more scholarly treatments of the alternative sexualities that garner so much attention in Pagan circles. Christian and Jewish feminist theologians have already found Paganism to be a valuable dialogue partner; as queer theologies increasingly challenge mainstream religions’ notions of gender and sexuality, Paganism has much to add to the discussion. See also this related, updated article from 2016: https://www.academia.edu/30774758/Pagan\_Traditions\_Sacralizing\_the\_Body
Women and Gender Issues in British Paganism, 1945–1990, by Shai Feraro
Aries, 2021
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