Any time I hear an absolutism it makes me cringe.
Nothing is absolute; all things in moderation.
The irony of those statements, I think, proves them.
So the headline "Goddess Spirituality Teaches Social Justice" really hurt my reflexes. I avoided reading it for twodays hours minutes while it sat there at the top of my blog feed, taunting me with its ridiculousness. Then I succumbed.
I started the first paragraph prepared for some sort of explanation of the silly headline - and had to step back and skim the whole article. The author starts the article with the word "so."
As in, "so here's a bunch of examples of this idea I haven't explained, but obviously since I have these awesome examples (*ahem* anecdotes) that obviously indicate how right I am about this unelaborated idea, you have to agree with me. Because examples."
No, that's not an actual quote. I made it up. That's just how the article made its first impression in my head.
Seemed a little pretentious, in my haughty opinion.
It all went downhill from there. The author rails against the patriarchy, claiming the world would be so much better if women were in power and the world focused on a female deity instead of a male deity (as if the WHOLE WORLD follows Abrahamic religions... ugh, don't even get me started), and if we just put women in power over men then everybody would be equal. Because that's logical.
It made me wonder where genderqueer and transgender folks exist in her world.
Don't get me wrong: I'm no anti-feminist. I think the post-modern feminist movement is doing great things. I also think putting men below women - as this author does - isn't equality. That's just flipping the power binary, without even acknowledging that almost nothing in human sociality is actually binary, and power structures are not an exception to that.
At some point, I realized that the article seems to be an excerpt - or rather, a collection of excerpts - from a book. I came to this realization because the image heading the article looks very much like a book cover. There's no text confirming this, but it's probably a fairly safe assumption. I'd rather think these paragraphs were taken out of context than believe the author really intended to begin, "So...," or that the author really thinks no explanation of the title is necessary. Because the explanation never comes in the article. I looked. Twice. And it was painful.
Bad writing is nearly as painful as bad logic. This was very, very painful.
I'm going to skip over all the really insulting crap - like the implication that if you're a woman who doesn't like having menses, you only feel that way because the patriarchy forces you to - and skip straight to the author's summary of their point. Mostly because it was the most coherent paragraph I found.
"In conclusion, I’ve touched briefly on but a few ideas showing how Sacred Feminine herstory, metaphor and mythology might be reclaimed and reinterpreted to provide a roadmap toward a more sustainable future. We have in the feminine images of divinity deities, archetypes and ideals to show us the way. It is up to us if we want to move away from or temper the “authoritarian father” idealogy that shapes our religions and culture and instead heed the advice of the Great She and her Sacred Feminine liberation thealogy as our role model."
Right, because all our religions are masculine-monotheistic, and feminine-monotheistic is the only possible solution!
Ugh.
I'm so done.
Incidentally, I've enjoyed most of the posts I've found on pagansquare.com.
This one just happens to be irresponsible.
Seriously. Children could be reading this crap! This is modelling very bad writing! And logical fallacies being presented as truisms! That should be sacrilegious.
And to make it worse, I never even got to talk about whether or not Goddess-centric spiritualities could possibly teach social justice any more or less than any other religion, because the article had nothing coherent to discuss! So annoying.
Damn, I got so irritated I forgot to include the link. Sorry about that. Here it is:
http://www.witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/her-sacred-roar/goddess-spirituality-teaches-social-justice.html
Nothing is absolute; all things in moderation.
The irony of those statements, I think, proves them.
So the headline "Goddess Spirituality Teaches Social Justice" really hurt my reflexes. I avoided reading it for two
I started the first paragraph prepared for some sort of explanation of the silly headline - and had to step back and skim the whole article. The author starts the article with the word "so."
As in, "so here's a bunch of examples of this idea I haven't explained, but obviously since I have these awesome examples (*ahem* anecdotes) that obviously indicate how right I am about this unelaborated idea, you have to agree with me. Because examples."
No, that's not an actual quote. I made it up. That's just how the article made its first impression in my head.
Seemed a little pretentious, in my haughty opinion.
It all went downhill from there. The author rails against the patriarchy, claiming the world would be so much better if women were in power and the world focused on a female deity instead of a male deity (as if the WHOLE WORLD follows Abrahamic religions... ugh, don't even get me started), and if we just put women in power over men then everybody would be equal. Because that's logical.
It made me wonder where genderqueer and transgender folks exist in her world.
Don't get me wrong: I'm no anti-feminist. I think the post-modern feminist movement is doing great things. I also think putting men below women - as this author does - isn't equality. That's just flipping the power binary, without even acknowledging that almost nothing in human sociality is actually binary, and power structures are not an exception to that.
At some point, I realized that the article seems to be an excerpt - or rather, a collection of excerpts - from a book. I came to this realization because the image heading the article looks very much like a book cover. There's no text confirming this, but it's probably a fairly safe assumption. I'd rather think these paragraphs were taken out of context than believe the author really intended to begin, "So...," or that the author really thinks no explanation of the title is necessary. Because the explanation never comes in the article. I looked. Twice. And it was painful.
Bad writing is nearly as painful as bad logic. This was very, very painful.
I'm going to skip over all the really insulting crap - like the implication that if you're a woman who doesn't like having menses, you only feel that way because the patriarchy forces you to - and skip straight to the author's summary of their point. Mostly because it was the most coherent paragraph I found.
"In conclusion, I’ve touched briefly on but a few ideas showing how Sacred Feminine herstory, metaphor and mythology might be reclaimed and reinterpreted to provide a roadmap toward a more sustainable future. We have in the feminine images of divinity deities, archetypes and ideals to show us the way. It is up to us if we want to move away from or temper the “authoritarian father” idealogy that shapes our religions and culture and instead heed the advice of the Great She and her Sacred Feminine liberation thealogy as our role model."
Right, because all our religions are masculine-monotheistic, and feminine-monotheistic is the only possible solution!
Ugh.
I'm so done.
Incidentally, I've enjoyed most of the posts I've found on pagansquare.com.
This one just happens to be irresponsible.
Seriously. Children could be reading this crap! This is modelling very bad writing! And logical fallacies being presented as truisms! That should be sacrilegious.
And to make it worse, I never even got to talk about whether or not Goddess-centric spiritualities could possibly teach social justice any more or less than any other religion, because the article had nothing coherent to discuss! So annoying.
I'm watching you, pagansquare.
Damn, I got so irritated I forgot to include the link. Sorry about that. Here it is:
http://www.witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/her-sacred-roar/goddess-spirituality-teaches-social-justice.html
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