Witchvox Article

Author: Silverwolf Sanctuary
Posted: November 11th. 2007
Times Viewed: 2,759

If you've ever been to a public circle dedicated to any Earth Based spirituality group, you may have noticed that the women practitioners vastly outnumber the men. Logging onto an Internet networking resource, strictly for Pagans, the female profiles overshadow the male nearly three to one.

However, in the United States, the population is roughly an even split, where men are actually slightly in the lead. Visit a church, temple or mosque dedicated to “conventional” religions, and you will in all probability find a ratio of genders that more closely resembles the population trend. Even should the proportion of participants favor women somewhat, it is vastly eclipsed by the fact that the ministers, deacons, adepts, sheikhs, and ritual leaders are all predominantly male.

So what draws so many women to the Pagan path?

Possibly, after several centuries of the woman's role being diminished by conventional theology, many women are enamored with the idea of Feminine Divine. Perhaps it is the concept of self-empowerment, something that women historically have had precious little experience with, that draws so many in.

Maybe it is the growing trend in the Pagan community for working against social injustice (one of the greatest being gender inequality) that brings so many female participants to the table.

Possibly it is for the reason that Paganism offers females the chance to become true Spiritual Leaders, in a world where women are seldom permitted to lead religious rites or offer significant theological guidance.

In all truth, perhaps it is a combination of all these factors and many more besides. Whatever the rationalization, it is clear, regardless of Path or Pantheon, women engaged in modern Pagan or Earth Based spirituality practices clearly and significantly outnumber the men.

The idea of personal empowerment for women and gender equality is relatively a new idea in the greater scheme of modern theological practice, where “modern” is loosely defined as over the last 500 years or so. Today’s women are suddenly becoming Pagan Ministers, Priestesses, and true Spiritual Leaders.

Paganism allows women not only to participate fully in religious rites, but also to lead these ceremonies themselves. These burgeoning opportunities grant a sense of spiritual purpose and sacred service, hereto inaccessible to women devotees.

It is a historic precedent that the position of women in theological context has been trivialized. Primarily, Christianity has demoted Goddesses worshiped devoutly for generations to sainthood.

A popular example, often noted by Pagan scholars, would be the uncanny resemblance between the Celtic Triple Goddess Brighit and the Christian Saint Brigit. Not only do the Goddess and the Saint share attributes of inspiration, cattle, healing and fertility, but both are represented by the same symbol – the Brighit or St. Brigit’s Cross; an interwoven, corn (grain) cross with equal arms.

Even the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, is not deified by the Catholic Church. Despite the lack of veneration, Christian women -- clearly illustrating that regardless of dogma, women identify with spiritual powers that are feminine in nature -- particularly revere Mary.

Contemporary Earth Based spirituality practices have brought a return of a pervasive reverence to the Female Divine – a nurturing Earth Mother, the mysterious and influential Lady Moon, not to mention innumerable named goddesses representing a myriad of Pantheons.

Is it any surprise that after centuries of repression and exclusion, women can identify intimately with the concept of a female divine? It appears the answer is clear in the overwhelming eagerness that women have pursued Pagan practice in recent decades

. Pagans everywhere give blissful praise to the Goddess, reveling in their newfound empowerment, and sharing their joy in feminine spirituality; Proud and Loud.

The question is where do we draw the line? Have Pagan women, in the name of empowerment, alienated men from what should be a spiritual movement based on balance and equality?

In that enthusiastic quest of exploring the Feminine Divine, has the Male Divine been thrust to the background and along with Him the male practitioners? Will soon the Horned God slip behind a mask of “sainthood?”

Will the Priest become a mere token at ritual, no longer an equal power and before long overshadowed by the brilliance of the Priestess?

It seems the scales may have tipped just as far in the opposite direction, encouraging a rapidly growing institution that's merely a negative polarity of the chauvinistic tendencies that led so many to this path in the first place.

What about the male portion of the congregation itself and their spiritual needs? It seems unlikely that men are uninterested in the fundamental theologies of Paganism, for the precepts of basic human spirituality are genderless.

Men have the same religious desires as women (even if they articulate them differently) and the ideals of Love, Nature, and Balance have no sexual bias. It leads to logical conclusion then, that it is not the principles of Pagan ideology that alienate men, but the practice. It must be the method of expression that makes men uncomfortable.

So how do we bridge the theological gap between the sexes and bring singularity back to Pagan spirituality? Easier said than done in a community that's comprised of countless distinct traditions and doctrines, varying not only within every Path, Church, Group and Coven, but often differing from individual to individual.

Awareness is a good place to begin. At the risk of cock-eyed optimism, it is unlikely that women, as a whole, are willfully striving to distance themselves spiritually from men and isolating them from Pagan practices. Therefore the estrangement is unintentional and constant mindfulness should be applied to spiritual practice to avoid gender alienation.

Combining education with encouragement to Pagan curious men can also go a long way to increasing male participation.

Yin and Yang, Goddess and God, Moon and Sun, Female and Male – to retain meaningful religious practice, balance must be forged. In the light of consummate symmetry, men will become drawn to Paganism with the same eagerness as women, for true spirituality is without gender.

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Silverwolf Sanctuary

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