Can anyone help me out?

[help_anyone]

Hi guys, I'm doing sociology coursework and I have chosen my topic on whether feminism has any influence on the Goddess belief.

I just need a few people to help me out and answer a few questions as fully as possible. I would be sooo greatful :halohead: :fpartyhat

If you could leave your email address, if your willing to help me out THANKYOUUUUU!

[Toby Stimpson]

Well, in many ways the revival of Goddess worship by some groups became a core of feminism. Feminism affected Goddess worship since Feminists quite rightly wanted to see God as female. If you read any of the older female authors from the 60's and 70's, you may find many of them talk at length about Feminism in the Craft. Starhawk is a good example I can think of that comes to mind. galadraal@hotmail.com Im not a feminist, but I have read a little on the affects and *may* be able to answer soem of your questions :). Namaste

Tobias

[-Ember]

In "Rebirth of Witchcraft" Doreen Valiente (If you don't know her, very early Wiccan, basically mothered Wicca to Gardner's fathering) has a chapter on how she feels feminism affected Wicca. It is worth the read, gives you something solid to cite.

As suggested above, Starhawk is a good one to read as well.

[help_anyone]

Thankyou to everyone willing to help me, you dont know how much this is all going to help me!!

Thankyou, Thankyou and thankyou again.

is there anymore people willing to take part in my project?

x

[flar7]

I would recommend pming the email addresses to help to avoid posting your email to public viewing. :chattin:

[help_anyone]

If anyone is passing by on this thread and is willing to take part in this study, I will post the questionnaire: If you decide to take part please answer ALL questions and answer them as fully as possible.

Thankyou!



What are the main principles of your spiritual beliefs and which do you believe?






How did you discover your faith?






Do you follow your faith dutifully?






Are you a member of any groups?If yes please give details.





Do you regularly read fantasy/fiction books?If yes please give details and some information on books you have currently read.




What God/dess do you most admire?and why





What God/dess do you most fear?




How would you describe your God? Is is a single or many beings?




Have you engaged in any protests/ or strikes?





Would you describe yourself as a feminist? whether liberal or radical?





Do you personally believe that feminism has been influenced by your religion?or has religion influenced feminism?





Do you believe women are currently oppressed by society?

[Miss Goody Two Shoes]

To me, feminism is a matter of Gender Equality.
And within the God/Goddess complex there must be equality or the whole system falls into chaos and ruin.

I think radical feminism is more motivated by a political agenda, rather than a spiritual agenda.

I consider feminism and paganism as tied together.
Paganism can be defined as anyone who believes in any sort of Goddess Archetype. I didn't chose to be a feminist, because I'm not politically active that way. But because I worship after Demeter & Persephone and Mary Magdalene, I am naturally preoccupied with women's issues and feminism.

[AstralMagick]

I believe there is a great emphasis in pagan beliefs on the Goddess because of feminism. They wanted to show Christians that the Goddess is just as important as the God and they started to forget about the God. If you see, there are many spells out there in books that invoke the Goddess, when the God would be helpful also.What are the main principles of your spiritual beliefs and which do you believe?
How did you discover your faith?
Well, I've just rounded my faith by what I go through in life. I may think one way, but then hear someone else's argument and tweak mine a little.
Do you follow your faith dutifully?
I suppose, I don't because I'm raised Catholic and am researching all sorts of other religions.
Are you a member of any groups?If yes please give details.
I am a member of my Church. I only go on holidays (Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday) because of my mother's wish. Of couse, we celebrate Jesus, the apostles, God, Joseph (he's actually not in much, except for the xmas story) and Mary.
Do you regularly read fantasy/fiction books?If yes please give details and some information on books you have currently read.
I read fiction books. The latest one was Artimas Fowl, which is about a genuis criminal (turns out good in the end) who's 13 years old. There's a fairy world in the ground and Artimas uses fairy technology to save his father, who was missing for 2 years in exchange for helping the fairies save their world.
What God/dess do you most admire?and why
I don't know.
What God/dess do you most fear?
Don't know.
How would you describe your God? Is is a single or many beings?
I don't know-I believe all have the same God/Goddess, some just emphasize on certain aspects
Have you engaged in any protests/ or strikes?
No
Would you describe yourself as a feminist? whether liberal or radical?
No
Do you personally believe that feminism has been influenced by your religion?or has religion influenced feminism?
No
Do you believe women are currently oppressed by society?
In some societies, yes, but not in the one I'm in now.

[Viseux]

I'm wondering if your taking into account the fact that most of society was original Matriarcal which contributed greatly to the original Pagan Goddess worship? I believe that even the Jews were (in the very early years) Matriarcal and they as almost all other groups in society latter became Patriarcal. This appears to have happened as they discovered the "secret" of conception and the male "hunters" of these groups took dominance.

Blessings,
Viseux

[help_anyone]

Thankyou guys...

FEEL LIKE JOINING IN:

Personally though I would consider myself as a liberal feminist, as I believe in equal rights for both females and males.
I personally feel radical feminists are bit extreme.

I am a Christian, I have read Pagan/wicca books before but I never have pursued it.....why I don't know?

[help_anyone]

I'm wondering if your taking into account the fact that most of society was original Matriarcal which contributed greatly to the original Pagan Goddess worship? I believe that even the Jews were (in the very early years) Matriarcal and they as almost all other groups in society latter became Patriarcal. This appears to have happened as they discovered the "secret" of conception and the male "hunters" of these groups took dominance.

Blessings,
Viseux


That's a good point. Thankyou!

[-Ember]

What are the main principles of your spiritual beliefs and which do you believe?

Well, second part first... I believe in all of my spiritual beliefs.

Main principles: balance, harmony, faith/trust/love, responsibility, growth.

How did you discover your faith?

Followed interests and beliefs until I followed them into some like-enough minded others to put a name on it.

Do you follow your faith dutifully?

Depends on what you mean. In something with a growth focus, you always could do more or else there wouldn't be any direction for you to grow. Fairly dutifully, I guess. I'm far, very far, from where I want to be, but I'm improving enough that I must be doing something.

Are you a member of any groups?If yes please give details.
Yes. I belong to a small grove of a large coven which is part of a larger alliance/tradition.

Do you regularly read fantasy/fiction books?If yes please give details and some information on books you have currently read.

I used to. Not so much anymore. For I while I considered myself an expert on pretty much any fantasy author publishing, and a passing familarity with many of the sci-fi. Literally had a collection of 5-6000 books and had read everything in the local library systems. I was reading 2-3 novels a day at some points. Just kinda grew out of it, I guess. Well, that and tranfered the needs driving it. Finding philosophy for a major really helped. A lot of it had been a need for though experiments as one teracher used to call them... imagine one or two things aren't as it is commonly accepted that they are, carry it out to as many of the repercussions as you can and see if it seems plausible. And since I disagreed with many of the commonly accepted beliefs arround me....

What God/dess do you most admire?and why

None in particular. Goes with a mood or need. Sometime I like one, sometimes another. No "most" about it.

What God/dess do you most fear?

Ditto as above... and often the same ones for the same reasons... and you can add hate into that too.....


How would you describe your God? Is is a single or many beings?

Yes. To get any clearer requires at least more than 10 pages... I know because that is where I stopped last.... ;)

Have you engaged in any protests/ or strikes?

Yes... many. I was very active in quite a few groups growing up. Green Party, Jobs with Justice, Labor Party, IWW, etc... and all of them spawn off to many mini short term unorganized things and things with other groups others were involved in.

Would you describe yourself as a feminist? whether liberal or radical?

Yes. More liberal than radical. I think we have some serious gender issues is our society that tend to be particulary damaging to women.


Do you personally believe that feminism has been influenced by your religion?or has religion influenced feminism?

In my life? Yes... they are both coming out of what I believe and are facets of my basic paradigm. Religion simply ought to be that way to be of any worth I think. Feminism is a way of valuing/relating to people that if it isn't coming out of that is either PC bullshit or fascist ditaction.

Do you believe women are currently oppressed by society?

Yes. Men are too. But I think women are particularly limited and often harmed by many of our "norms". I also feel that many of the ways we've attempted to correct this as a society have been harmful, sometimes more harmful than leaving the original problem alone to work itself out.

[-Ember]

On the matriarchial thing... look into current research (or with a critical eye at old research) before you cite that. There really isn't much evidence for it. Women had a different role, that is clear. But something that we would call matriarchy? That is far from being shown.

[Aidron]

If anyone is passing by on this thread and is willing to take part in this study, I will post the questionnaire: If you decide to take part please answer ALL questions and answer them as fully as possible.

Thankyou!



[QUOTE]What are the main principles of your spiritual beliefs and which do you believe?


I prefer not to answer this question, though I can assure you that my core spiritual beliefs have nothing to do with feminism or gender.






How did you discover your faith?

Through over a decade of research, introspection, questioning and observing.



Do you follow your faith dutifully?

Quite.




Are you a member of any groups?If yes please give details.

Spiritual groups? No. The only group I give any heed to spiritually would be my gods. I find all others to be irrelevant in regards to my spirituality, save for a few choice individuals-none of which are made of flesh and bone. Essentially, no one else's thoughts, words, or actions are necessary or desired in my spirituality except in specific cases where I wish to ask their insight on something.





Do you regularly read fantasy/fiction books?If yes please give details and some information on books you have currently read.

No. I have not been able to stomach fictional literature since I was very young.


What God/dess do you most admire?and why

Athene, Artemis and Aphrodite. As to why, I would prefer to keep that between myself and them.


What God/dess do you most fear?

None. There are gods I do not care for, but I know better than to provoke them with blasphemy and in turn have no desire to do so. I keep to myself and my gods and I imagine they look past me and to their own faithful.

How would you describe your God? Is is a single or many beings?

I do not have a God, or gods. They are not mine to have. I follow many gods, nothing more, nothing less. As for defining their existence, that's not really my place (that not really being my place aside for the moment to answer your question) they are each unique beings unto themself, just as all things are.


Have you engaged in any protests/ or strikes?

No, but then again I have no desire to appear like an annoying stain on humanity. My personal opinion on such things, no offense intended.



Would you describe yourself as a feminist? whether liberal or radical?

No, to which has nothing to do with be being male (as I've met more than a few males who support feminism). I find feminism as a whole to be asinine and see it as gender isolation, not gender equality. If I were to take a stance on such it would be for all people, not a specific gender. Then again, I am the last person who would take a stance for most people period.



Do you personally believe that feminism has been influenced by your religion?or has religion influenced feminism?

No, but my faith influences my thoughts on feminism and why I do not agree with it. As for religion influencing feminism, that depends if you're asking about my specific faith or faith in general, in which case the answer is no to the former and yes to the latter.



Do you believe women are currently oppressed by society?

No, I believe society is currently oppressing itself in numerous forms, men just as much as women, children just as much as adults, animals just as much as people and so forth. I won't single out women in this as they (or anyone or anything) are not so special to deserve to be singled out in such a manner, everyone has their own problems and I see no reason to not acknowledge each.

[-Ember]

On the matriarchial thing... look into current research (or with a critical eye at old research) before you cite that. There really isn't much evidence for it. Women had a different role, that is clear. But something that we would call matriarchy? That is far from being shown.


I've been trying to remember where I've seen some good arguments on this to cite something, and just not doing so. The main problem is that it is a fairly simple argument that I've never seen anything long on it, just a paragraph or two in the middle of something else. And I've seen it in everything from anthropological pieces to pagan pieces to moderate feminist pieces to random things assigned in philosophy classes.

The basic outline tends to be this:

1) We don't have any historical evidence of a matriarchy (meaning women have primary socio-poitical power.) Nothing that is clearly written out explaining it. Any evidence we have is circumstanchial.

2) Much of what is cited as being evidence isn't all that convincing. For example, just because Goddesses were worshiped does not mean that women had power. Just because certain priestesses had power does not mean that women in general were respected. Just because women are represented in art does not mean they had power. There are many historical counter-examples of all of the above assumptions.

3) What we have of historical groups that were considered more matriarical tends to be a misunderstanding of the society more than an actual matriarchy. A different set of roles, and often something other than patriarchy, but not matriarchy. Just not being patriarchy does not make something a matriarchy.

4) Matralineage is not proof of matriarchy.

Conclusion: There is not strong evidence of there having been a powerful pre-historical matriarchy nor a general pre-historical matriarchy. All that is shown is that the assumption of a strong pre-historical patriarchy (the previous assumption) is also erronious. There is the possibility for either, both, or something else all together. Using "there was once a matriarchy, so women don't suck" myth to balance the myth of "women are weak and just now getting power after having always been enslaved to men" is not good historically, even if it has a psychological component that works.

[help_anyone]

Thanks for that Ember, I may use that in my conclusions of my project, and bring it up