I need to make a disclaimer before beginning this chapter. I am not a woman and I will never know, from the inside, what it is like to be a woman. I make no pretence to being other than an outsider witnessing the birth of a new image of womanhood.

I should also point out that I will be considering womanhood in general. I do not intend to deal with different personality types or distinctive theological models of spirituality. These have been treated elsewhere.

I also recognize that life is different for different women, depending on their circumstances. Some are single because they have never married. Some singles are committed to celibacy. Some women are married, while others are widowed, separated or divorced. Some are lesbian. Subtle nuances, obvious to those in various of these categories, will not be explored.

Instead, we will be looking at the general question, "What is it like to be a woman?"

Biology

Let me first indicate, that, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, there are significant genetic/physiological differences between men and women. Their brain circuitry is differently organised and the hormonal cocktails that drive them are gender specific. Both sexes enjoy identifiable advantages and disadvantages, even allowing for the uniqueness of each person. These differences will be explored in the chapter dealing with sexuality.

Socialisation

Not all differences between men and women are due to biological factors. Socialization and the development of gender stereotypes have also played a part.

While men and women have both suffered from Patriarchy, women have been the more obvious victims. Men have enjoyed a monopoly of public power under the system, while women have been economically subordinate to men and have suffered the indignity of having men define their reality as women. Until recently, women have not challenged the definition of their reality generated by hegemonous patriarchal discourses.

Archetypal Images of the Feminine

The definition of women's reality has been reflected in archetypal images of womanhood which betray male authorship. [132]

Malformed Males

Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, argued that women were malformed males. It was the male body that was considered beautiful. Women had lumps in the wrong places. In the process of conception, women furnished the substance on which the male imposed his form. If the male was weak, exhausted, or had had too much wine, a shapeless female resulted.

Irrational Beings

Women have also been considered irrational. This perception resulted from their being more in touch with their feelings and from men's projection of their feelings onto women. Men, who flattered themselves on their rationality, repressed that part of themselves that could not be controlled, their feelings, or their emotions, and projected them onto women. Men criticised in women what they did not like about themselves, that which did not fit their image of themselves as rational and controlled.

Sexual Temptresses

Men's rational control was also challenged by the strength of their sexuality, which was fired by high levels of testosterone. Unwilling to acknowledge its potency, they repressed and projected their sexual volatility on to women. As a consequence, women were viewed as sexual temptresses with voracious sexual appetites. Husbands, therefore, needed to control their wives. Double standards prevailed, not only because of this projection and the domestic imprisonment of women, but because husbands owned their wives' sexuality. Women were a possession.

Virgin and Mother

Paradoxically, women were also pedestalized. Women, symbolized by Eve or Mary, the mother of Jesus, were idealised as virgins and mothers. Though both Eve and Mary exhibited energy and independence, the archetype that exalted their powerlessness was predominantly sentimental and infantile.

Pedestalism resulted from a number of factors, among which were the taboo against maternal incest. It was also related to men's projecting onto women the gold in their shadows. Restrained, by the male ideal, from demonstrating gentleness and affection and of sustaining domestic relationships, they projected this potential onto women with the expectation that women would live for them this part of themselves. In denying their feelings, men lost contact with their souls, which surfaced as Anima figures in their dreams and were projected onto women. This was exacerbated by the intellectualisation of men's spirituality. This Anima projection, a homeostatic compensation for a denial of feelings, was also the basis of the romantic love that surfaced in the West in the 12th century among the [133] Troubadours. Pedestalization was also a compensation for discrimination. The greater the repression suffered by women, the more resplendently were they bejewelled and deified.

The Saintly Aesthete

Another of the archetypes was that of the saintly aesthete. Karen Armstrong, in The Gospel According to Women: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West, argued that there were three legitimate ways a woman could challenge male authority in the Middle Ages. The first was by choosing celibacy. By repudiating her sexuality a woman became an honorary male. Other women claimed an authority through their asceticism. In her younger years, the Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, crawled round the floor with rocks on her back. Many women ascetics avoided food and were canonised for the sanctity this was supposed to have revealed. Many of them were anorexic. In asceticism, as in celibacy, they were seen to be punishing their bodies, a form of masochism that was applauded. The third group of women were the recipients of visions. God was seen to have especially favoured them. As the three characteristics were often united in the one person, it is little wonder that many saw visions. The anorexics were susceptible to hallucination and sexual repression was not without its influence. This comment, however, is not intended to denigrate the devotion and commitment of these women or to deny that some attained a high level of spirituality within the metaphysical framework within which they lived.¹

Sleeping Beauty

Another symbol of womanhood, that has exercised considerable influence, is that of sleeping beauty. It is a paternal image of passivity and suggests that women can only be brought to life by the kiss of a man.

The Martyr

Many women have lived the martyr image. Carol Pearson, in The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, argued that both men and women progress through a number of stages in which they half-consciously attempt to model their lives on a series of archetypes. These images are those of the Innocent, the Orphan, the Wanderer, the Warrior, the Martyr and the Magician. She argued that, while this sequence generally represents male progress, women, who were early enculturated into the martyr role, slip into this phase early in their lives, usually following their experience of being orphaned. Some women are trapped all their lives in this archetype.

The martyr archetype is not altogether without its compensations, however. Those served can feel under obligation and the martyr is in a position to exercise considerable power through emotional manipulation.² [134]

Modern Myths

Joseph Campbell argues that contemporary Western society is without a significant myth. Religion, together with the quasi-religious millennial myths of Capitalism, Communism, Science and Progress are seen to be discredited. With these once powerful myths lying shattered on the ground, we are left with myths generated by the media, for commercial advantage. Several of these have had a significant, and often deleterious effect on women.

The Happy Housewife

The first of these is the myth of the happy housewife, developed after the second world war to sell household appliances produced by converted munitions factories. The products were manufactured before the markets were developed. The happy housewife, and the myth of the idyllic nuclear family, bore little relationship to reality, except the disappointment the myth fostered.³

Slimness as the Ideal

The second of these synthetic myths was the myth associating slimness with female beauty. This myth is pernicious, as well as deceitful, causing women to be dissatisfied with their bodies and helping to foster a rising incidence of anorexia. It is significant that advertising companies often hire twelve year old girls to model jeans, girls whose hips have not developed. Women's beauty was not always associated with slimness. Reubens would not have hired today's Barbie look-alikes as his models, but women of more ample proportion.

The Necessity of a Descent

Christin Weber, in WomanChrist, argues that women, to redefine themselves, need to descend deep within themselves and to face their pain. This descent is imaged in the ancient myth of Inanna. Weber argues that women need to overcome a lack of confidence in their ability to discover and own an identity that is self-generated. Because they have only known themselves in the context of archetypal images that have been imposed upon them, they will need, even if tentatively, to shed these false definitions, as they would layers of clothing. They must also challenge the expectation that they will make sense in a way that is congruent with the male way of being. Having released the victim, they will then be free to explore their essence as women. This reality will reflect their experienced connectedness with the earth, with the cyclical progression of the seasons, which they experience in their menstrual cycle, and with the unity of the cosmos. According to Weber, women's spirituality depends on an unimpeded flow of [135] libidinal energy within and the capacity for birthing a continually renewed self. ⁴

Authenticity

In claiming authenticity for woman's way of being, those who take the inward journey and begin to piece together the many discoveries they make, should be encouraged by the fact that other women before them, many in quite different cultures, have celebrated and lived their identity without apology. Ursula King writes of an articulate and knowledgeable group of Aboriginal women, whose self-image and identity were not confined to the role of child-bearers or child-rearers and whose strength was fortified by their independent religious traditions and their corporate identity as women.⁵ This sort of authenticity is fostered through increasing contact with communities of wise women.

Dream Interpretation as a Means of Descent

Dream interpretation may assist with the birthing of this new identity.

Where men, who have been enculturated into the Western paradigm, need to make contact with their Anima, women, who have been enriched and blighted by this same culture, need to make contact with their Animus, their masculine side. They need to bring together the Yin and the Yang. The Yin is that part of them that is inward, receptive, passive, and is associated with the earth, the moon, darkness and moisture, and the Yang is that part of them that is energetic and active and that is symbolized by sun, sky, heat, stimulation and spirit. While it is usual for women to face the task of identifying and developing their masculine, or Yang side, this is not always the case. Some, whose biology and early environment was responsible for developing their masculine dimension, need to work on enabling their feminine and intuitive side to emerge.

Sheila Moon, a Jungian analyst, was raised in an intellectual family and enjoyed a close relationship with her father. The family were Christian Scientists and she suffered from a bad case of acne. Her lifelong struggle to discover and integrate her feminine side is recounted in Dreams of a Woman.⁶ Usually, when women, like Sheila Moon, are faced with contacting their feminine side, they do not have the same difficulty men do associating with their bodies. However, it could also be the case that the way they relate to their bodies, given the fact that their masculinity is more developed, is different from the way in which more "feminine" women do. [136]

The Animus

In exploring and making contact with their Animus, this masculine aspect may initially express itself with a degree of venom. Peter O'Connor, a Jungian analyst who has worked with many women on their dreams, has argued, in Dreams and the Search for Meaning, that, due to the influence of the women's movement, the Animus is nearer the surface of the unconscious than is the Anima in men and that this Animus often interacts with the negative aspect of the shadow, tinging it with anger, even rage.

One Woman's Journey

Maureen Murdock, drawing on her experience, outlined a pattern of personal, spiritual maturation, with which numbers of women in Western society will identify. She argues that many women, like herself, separating from their mothers, and the public powerlessness associated with their mothers, have identified with their fathers, who encouraged their initiative and introduced them to the competitive, male world. They gathered allies and persevered, in spite of difficulties. They encountered ogres and dragons before finding the boon of success. However, having tasted success, they discovered that their achievement has left them spiritually arid and relatively dead to their feelings. They paused in their tracks and began the descent into themselves, a descent that led to an encounter with the inner goddess. This initiation developed within them a yearning for reconnection with the feminine. They then set out to re-establish their relationships with their mothers, to heal the mother-daughter split. This lead to a healing of their wounded masculine side. The process was climaxed by the integration of the masculine and feminine elements within their personalities.⁷

Additional Tasks

Once women have begun to unearth the truth of their identity they sometimes find they need to deal with other issues. The battle is won, but there is mopping up to do.

The Father Connection

Women's sense of self, their personhood and spirituality, is intimately connected with their relationships with their fathers, which is mostly problematical and often dysfunctional. Linda Schierse Leonard, a Jungian analyst and the child of an alcoholic father, has explored elements of the father-daughter relationship in The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship.⁸

Leonard has argued that there are two directions in which women move in response to wounds they receive from their fathers, fathers who sacrifice their daughters to dominating interests or demands. They either remain the Eternal Girl or they transform themselves into the Armoured Amazon. Variations on the former are the Darling Doll, the Girl of Glass, the High Flier: Donna Juana and the Misfit. The Armoured Amazon may appear as [137] the Superstar, the Dutiful Daughter, the Martyr, or the Warrior Queen. The Eternal Girl will discover within her a Perverted Old Man, who will seek to dominate her. This is her own distorted masculine side. The Amazon will find within an Angry Boy and a Dummling. The latter, a figure of fun and sometimes ridicule, is the means of her salvation. The Eternal Girl and the Armoured Amazon are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Women can move from one response to the other.

In a section, called The Hurting, Leonard emphasizes the need for women to recognize and learn to express their rage and to flow with their tears. In the following section, The Healing, she suggests that women need to pick up positive aspects of each of the responses, the types, she has described. Then, in a deeply moving chapter, Leonard describes the importance of redeeming the father, of working through the rage to encounter the healing, creative masculine within, and of discovering the positive qualities that lie behind a father's dysfunctional behaviour.

This redeeming of the father, however, does not leave a woman entirely at peace. The task is never complete. The experience needs to be continually revisited, cyclically. On each occasion the pain will deepen, but the resolution will be quicker and the healing more effective. Ultimately, women need to discover and flow with their unique feminine spirit, which is not easily recognizable in a world in which they have for so long been defined by men. But it is in that spirit that their uniqueness and their ultimate healing lies.

The Mother Connection

Because men in Western society have not been socialised into nurturing women, many women look to their children, particularly their daughters, for this nurture. One consequence of this is that, while boys will pull away from their mothers during the oedipal phase by identifying with their fathers, girls remain closely tied to their mothers. While they may remain emotionally captive to the internalized mothers, boys enjoy greater physical and archetypal separation. It is during mid-life that many women recognize that they need to transform their relationships with their mothers, from a child/parent to an adult/adult relationship. This can be difficult, involving a painful, and sometimes angry, separation, together with a re-negotiation of the relationship.

Abuse

An even more difficult task faces women who have been the victims of violence, sexual abuse or incest. [138]

A Tentative Outline for a Spirituality

A tentative outline for a distinctive women's spirituality would include such factors as embodiment, sensation, feeling and relationships with people, nations and the entire eco-system. This cosmic relatedness is reflected in women mystics, like Julian of Norwich, and the Gaia spirituality of Ecofeminism.⁹ It is also clear that women will discover the essence of their spirituality, by sharing together in groups, rather than individually and when they are aware of their intuitive affinity with nature.¹⁰

Goddess Imagery

Some women look to goddess archetypes in exploring their diversity. Jennifer and Roger Woolger, in The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women's Lives, have developed a goddess wheel, based on ancient Greek mythology. They argue that, while women will discover elements of themselves in each of the goddesses, usually one archetype will be dominant. They have arranged the goddesses in pairs.

Hera, wife of Zeus, was the upholder of tradition and marriage. The imperial matriarch was in partnership with her husband, whose eminence she enjoyed. She exercised power. Her opposite was Persephone, goddess of the underworld. Persephone, while playing in a field was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld. She returned to the world for brief periods every year. She was the mystical goddess of visions, dreams and clairvoyance. She was the guide to inner healing. She was a medium with psychic power and represents women who are intuitively in touch with their inner world.

Athena, who was born out of her Father's head, was the goddess of the city and of civilization. Her contemporary counterpart is intellectual, a competitive careerist. You will see her in a business suit, her sexuality tailored to mute its allure, in boardrooms, business houses and professional suites. She competes with men, on their terms, in what is undeniably their world. Athena's opposite was Artemis, goddess of the wild, a shamanic Amazon. She was the adventurous huntress. She loved animals and preferred the wilderness to civilization. Women living out of the Athena or Artemis archetypes, do not need men, though they may enjoy them. Being married to either could be disappointing, particularly if a man expects his wife to spend the bulk of her time at home looking after him and their children. But both are energetic, and will give themselves to husbands or lovers when opportunity presents itself in their busy schedule.

Aphrodite's passion was sexuality. She was given to romance and affairs, Aphrodite regarded the body and sexuality as sacred. The salon was her sphere. Her opposite was Demeter, the goddess of the hearth, the earth mother whose body was dedicated to child-bearing and nurture. A modern-day Demeter likes nothing better than spending time at home with her children. [139]

The Woolgers argue that each of the goddesses has a wound, which is the source of further growth. They also contend that each of the goddesses needs to develop elements associated with their opposite. Hera needs to explore her inner territory and Persephone should be encouraged into the outer world where she can learn management from Hera. Athena's life will be better balanced if she takes time out to enjoy the wilderness, while Artemis will cope more adequately if she learns some of the basic arts of civilization. Aphrodite can learn the value of stability from Demeter, while Demeter would benefit from a dash of Aphrodite to enliven her relationship with her husband.

The Woolgers further argue that maturation, for women, involves a gradual development of characteristics associated with all of the goddess archetypes.¹¹

Wildness

In a more recent book, Clarissa Pincola Estes contends that women need to discover their natural wildness, associated with emotional truth, intuitive wisdom and instinctual self-confidence.¹²

Witchcraft

Some women have turned to witchcraft for inspiration. Many of these are feminists, though not all witches would want to be known as feminists. For many, witchcraft is associated with Neopaganism.

There continues to be considerable debate as to the true nature of witchcraft. However, a general distinction can be drawn between medieval and contemporary witchcraft. The notion that medieval witches were evil was the result of misogyny, driven often by the projection of repressed male sexuality, which erupted in witch-hunts. Medieval witches were healers of the sick who had mastered wise-craft nursing, folk medicine and traditional healing practices. Contemporary witches, who are usually associated with witches covens, are not to be identified with the wise-craft healers of the Middle Ages. Contemporary witches refer to themselves as "Wica", or wise ones, and are usually concerned with the recovery of feminine values. Some worship the Great Goddess, arguing that goddess worship pre-dated patriarchy, which skewed worship in the direction of the sky gods.¹³

The argument that patriarchy was preceded by a benevolent matriarchy, however, encounters at least two obstacles. The first of these is that there appears to be no evidence of a full-blown matriarchal society. Many pre-patriarchal societies were matrilineal and matrifocal, but not matriarchal. The second difficulty, highlighted by Ken Wilber, is that the Great Mother, the precursor and dark opposite of the Great Goddess, was a devouring blood-thirsty goddess. She was epitomised in the dark side of Kali, the [140] Indian goddess, who was usually depicted decorated with a necklace of skulls.¹⁴

A Male God

Many Christian women have difficulty with what has been, and still is, in some places, an exclusively masculine image of God. This image is coloured by association with Medieval feudalism, a patriarchal society that was structured hierarchically and which was under the domination of males who had vanquished rivals. God was considered to be at the apex of the pyramid. The hyper-rationalism of the past five hundred years has exaggerated this distortion. It has resulted in the inability of many Christians to feelingly appropriate God's loving of them and the consequent projection of their lack of self-acceptance onto a distant external image. Pictured as an irascible father-figure, it has grimaced back at them in anger and judgement.

While this sort of God may reflect some women's experiences of abusive fathers, or other males, it does not usually accord with women's experience of life, and, particularly, with their experience of the same sex parent, that is, of their mothers. However, those who experienced their fathers as emotionally distant and perfectionist, and particularly those who have been subject to domestic violence, even rape, have extreme difficulty with the image of God as father.

The effect of a male God has not all been negative, however. A woman can relate to the manhood of Jesus, and to God as Father, in a way that a man cannot, unless he is homosexual. This connection, operating subliminally, can inject the relationship with a legitimate sensual warmth.

Feminine Images of God

While the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Scriptures were produced by patriarchal cultures, they are not lacking in references to feminine aspects of God. God is described as a woman in the process of giving birth, as a nursing mother, as a parent dressing, feeding and drying tears, as a midwife, as the glorious presence of God among her people, as a female pelican, as a mother bear, as the God of Naomi, as a home-maker, as a female beloved, as appropriate assistance, as a baker-women, and a mother eagle and as a mother hen. The two most striking feminine images describe her as Divine Wisdom and as Holy Spirit.¹⁵

Julian of Norwich, the medieval English mystic, whose writings have been gaining in popularity, described God as mother. The current popularity of her writings is indicative of the fact that we are recovering the sense of God as nurturer.¹⁶ [141]

Discrimination in Theology

Women have also been disadvantaged by theology. Until recently most theologians were men. Their approach was rational, rather than affective, and, as a consequence, their theology was largely disembodied. The emergence of a phalanx of vocal feminist theologians is challenging this bias.

Discrimination in Preaching

In times past preaching was often little related to women's needs, and was often disparaging. A sermon on "Female Dress" by Tertullian, the fourth century Carthaginian lawyer-turned-preacher, illustrates the manner in which women were frequently insulted from the pulpit. In a sermon on "The Apparel of Women", Tertullian fulminated against women, arguing that they were the inferior gender and that they were guilt of leading God's Image, man, into sin. In appeasement of their guilt, they should express their shame in modest dress and demeanour.¹⁷

Discrimination in Liturgy

Sexism has also been reflected in the prayer, ritual, sacraments and preaching of the church. Healthy changes are afoot, but a further raising of the consciousness of clergy and lay people on these issues is needed. The indoctrination and institutionalization of sexual discrimination over the past two thousand years is not easily challenged or corrected.

The Question of Ordination

The exclusion of women from the ordained ministry, for most of the church's history, has deprived the church of the unique contribution women could have made to its life and ministry. However, over more recent years, though ever so slowly, women have been gaining access to the church's organizational structures and an increasing number have been ordained in a range of Christian communions.

The fact that women were involved in leadership roles, early in the history of the church, is evident from recent archaeological research. However, they were written out of the record as clergy became exclusively male and celibate. Excluded from the ministry of the mainstream church, except as abbesses of convents, women found a place in peripheral groups, the Gnostics, the Montanists, the Beguines, and later, the Christian Scientists, the Theosophists, the Salvation Army and the early Pentecostals.

It has been argued that the re-entry of women into the ministry of the church will lead to a recovery of affectivity. It will help return the church to the revolutionary approach of Jesus, where church leaders were not hierarchically-ordered dispensers of holy substance, but were, instead, midwives bringing God to birth in people's lives. Their contribution will re-institute a religion of presence, where religion will be seen to be sourced in [142] one's interiority. Alice Walker reflects this theme in The Colour Purple with the comment that people come to church to share, rather than to find God.¹⁸ Women will also introduce a new dimension of hospitality--heart hospitality, home hospitality, congregational hospitality, denominational hospitality, a deeper dimension of hospitality towards other world religions, a hospitality towards other creatures, towards the ecosystem and towards the whole cosmic experience.

An invitation to involvement in all ministries of the church is necessary for the development of women themselves.¹⁹

WomanChurch

Women have begun to take matters into their own hands. To keep women in the church and to enable the church to benefit from their contribution, women came together to publicly declare that they were assuming responsibility for themselves. In November, 1983, one thousand four hundred Catholic women from the USA, Mexico, Canada, Central America and Latin America declared themselves WomanChurch and stated categorically that they would refuse ever again to be slaves and to minister as altar girls in the temples of patriarchy.²⁰ As Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza contended, women today are reclaiming the heritage and history of diverse communities of Christian women. They are also rejecting all vestiges of patriarchy by determining to be accountable for their own decisions.²¹

The intention of those inaugurating WomanChurch was not to lead women out of the church in a mass exodus, which was what Mary Daly had been arguing.²² Instead, they suggested that women gather in sub-committees to create their own liturgies and rituals, to encourage each other in the development of feminist theologies and to celebrate the joy of divine life within and around them.

The ideal, which is still some way in the future, will be for women and men to work together to enrich the church, and, through the church, the world community. In the meantime, women, as custodians of the treasures of their womanhood, will bear the major burden in claiming a place for their contribution and in sharing its bounty with a church, which is still, in many places, reluctant to accept the equality of the sexes. [143]

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