#but also jewish masculinity- which is often very different from western masculinity and is why so many jewish men get called effeminate!

[samwisethewitch]

Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine

I don’t think it’s groundbreaking or controversial at this point to say that all three Abrahamic religions are mostly patriarchal. Sure, we can talk about the veneration of the Virgin Mary, or the woman prophets in the Tanakh, or women saints in Islam. At the end of the day, though, we cannot overlook the fact that in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, God is a man. Since 31% of the world’s population identify as Christian and 23% identify as Muslim, that means over half of the people on Earth are completely disconnected from the feminine side of divinity.

Ironically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are among very few religions that don’t embrace a feminine aspect of divinity. Patriarchal religion is treated like the norm in most modern cultures (again, largely because of the dominance of Christianity and Islam), but it has definitely not been the norm throughout human history. The Goddess, the Divine Feminine, has been a prominent part of human spirituality since before recorded history.

In ancient Sumer she was Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. In Egypt she was Isis, Lady of the Sky, Great of Magic, and Hathor, Lady of the West, and Sekhmet, Mistress of Fear. In Hinduism she is Shakti, the feminine principle that moves the universe. In Japan she is Amaterasu, the Great Illuminating Deity, and Izanami, the creatrix who rules the underworld. The Divine Feminine has taken all of these forms at different times and places, among many, many others.

Even the Abrahamic religions haven’t always been solely focused on masculine divinity. There is significant evidence that the Abrahamic God was originally part of a larger pantheon before becoming the sole object of worship in Israel and Judah. As part of a polytheist system, he had a consort, a goddess named Asherah. Rabbinic literature refers to the divine presence of the Jewish God as “shekinah” — interestingly, this is a feminine word, implying that this aspect of God is feminine.

The removal of feminine divinity from Christianity largely occurred during the fourth century, when Roman Christianity beat out other traditions as the sole “correct” Church. Before this some Christian groups, notably those in North Africa, had worshiped God as both Father and Mother — a masculine/feminine dyad, rather than the masculine trinity worshiped in Rome. Other groups identified the Holy Spirit as feminine, creating a trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. (Interestingly, these family triads were also common in Egyptian paganism.) When the Nicene Creed was created in 325 to standardize Christian belief and practice, it excluded these interpretations by affirming belief only in “God, the Father Almighty” and “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” and removing all mentions of God the Mother.

All of this does not invalidate the genuine, life-changing spiritual experiences people have had with modern Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It does, however, prove that patriarchal religion is the exception, not the rule.

Modern paganism’s acceptance and veneration of the Divine Feminine is a large part of its appeal for many converts, especially women, genderfluid, and nonbinary people who do not see themselves represented in the mythology and art of patriarchal religion. The Divine Feminine is present in all pagan religions, though She takes different forms in different faiths.

In monist pagan paths like Wicca, the polarity of Goddess and God is seen as one of the primary ways deity makes itself known to mankind. In the words of Scott Cunningham, one of Wicca’s most influential authors, “The Goddess and God are equal; neither is higher or more deserving of respect… The Goddess is the universal mother. She is the source of fertility, endless wisdom, and loving caresses… She is at once the unploughed field, the full harvest, and the dormant, frost-covered earth.”

The Goddess and the God balance and compliment each other, and this balance is at the core of many neopagan religions. (There are some traditions that exclusively worship the Goddess, but we’ll talk more about that in a future post.)

In polytheist paganism, the Divine Feminine is present in the form of various goddesses who rule over different aspects of life and nature. It is not uncommon for polytheist pagans (or monist pagans, for that matter) to work with multiple goddesses, even goddesses from different historical pantheons. Some goddesses are explicitly associated with certain aspects of womanhood — for example, the Greek goddess Artemis is associated with virgins and young girls, while Demeter is associated with motherhood.

In many (but not all) polytheist systems, there is an emphasis on balance between gods and goddesses. One of my favorite examples of this is the marriage of the Morrigan and the Dagda in Irish mythology. The Morrigan, goddess of war, magic, and death, is married to the “good god” of life, fertility, and knowledge. Their union represents a balance between opposite, complimentary forces.

This brings us to another point I want to make, while we’re on the subject of the Divine Feminine: not all feminine divinities are passive, maternal, fertility goddesses.

In Western culture, women (and, by extension, feminine deities) are seen as the passive or receptive sex. This is largely a product of Victorian England, not an ancient truth.

Without knowledge of sex chromosomes, hormones, or the complexities of gender, Victorian thinkers developed a theory that men had a “katabolic” nature that was constantly releasing energy, while women had an “anabolic” nature that was constantly receiving and storing up energy. This concept of gender greatly influenced Western occultism and can be seen, for example, in Gerald Gardener’s conception of the Goddess as the passive recipient of the God’s energy.

This is a relatively new and very Western idea. In Hinduism, for example, Shakti is both the feminine principle and the energy that moves the cosmos. In the words of author Kavitha Chinnaiyan, “there is nothing in creation that isn’t a manifestation of Shakti.” Shiva, the masculine principle, is unchanging awareness — it is Shakti who possesses the dynamic energy necessary for creation.

I am by no means encouraging pagans to appropriate Hindu concepts. My point here is that no gender is entirely active or entirely passive, which is why so many cultures interpret gender in so many different ways.

Even within systems like traditional Wicca, which operate within a strict gender binary, neither gender can be completely tied down. In their book A Witches’ Bible, traditional Wiccans Janet and Stewart Farrar acknowledge that the “masculine = active, feminine = passive” model is an oversimplification. They use the example of an artist and muse. The (feminine) muse “fertilizes” the (masculine) artist, who “gives birth” to the resulting art.

Personally, I see the masculine/feminine polarity as a constantly shifting dynamic, with both sides giving and receiving energy all the time. Which side of the polarity is more active or passive depends on the situation.

Being pagan does not mean dedicating yourself to the worship of gender binaries, and it does not mean you need to uphold those binaries. God and Goddess are only two of many possible expressions of the Divine, just like man and woman are only two of many possible gender expressions.

Monist pagans see the God and Goddess as two halves of a greater, all-gendered whole. Polytheist pagans may worship gods and goddesses who fall outside of the gender binary such as the Norse Loki or the Egyptian Atum. In either case, divinity is seen as encompassing all possible gender expressions, not just cis man and cis woman.

The erasure of the feminine from Western religion and mythology means that the nonbinary nature of some deities is often downplayed or erased completely. (You’d be hard pressed to find a mythology book that doesn’t use he/him pronouns for both Loki and Atum.) Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine opens the door for other divine expressions of gender.

The end result of this acceptance of feminine and nonbinary divinity is a religious community built on equality between all gender expressions. No one is closer to the gods because of the anatomy they were born with or the gender they present as.

This paves the way for a religion where no one’s worship is restricted because of their gender expression. It allows for priests, priestesses, and priestixes. It allows everyone to fully participate in the rites of their faith, on equal footing regardless of gender or pronouns. It also creates an environment where practitioners feel comfortable exploring issues of gender and sexuality, knowing that they will not lose the support of their community if their identity changes.

Resources:

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

The Morrigan and The Dagda by Morgan Daimler

“Victorian Theories of Sex and Sexuality” by Elizabeth Lee, Brown University

Shakti Rising by Kavitha M. Chinnaiyan, M.D.

A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

Casting a Queer Circle: Non-binary Witchcraft by Thista Minai

[ariainstars]

Sorry, But I Don’t Support Minorities (Any More)

For a start: I will not use inclusive language in this text. (I usually don’t, only in this case I want to make sure it’s known from the start.)

Secondly, if you identify as trans or non-binary and / or are a huge Harry Potter fan, I am warning you: don’t read this.

If you do want to hear me out, be respectful in your comments or hold them back altogether. I won’t tolerate bullying merely because I am expressing my own opinion. Though the topic touches a sore spot in me, too, I will be as objective as I can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am not and never was a fan of J.K. Rowling and her works. I found the Harry Potter hype strongly exaggerated, the books mildly unoriginal and biased, the films ok until they became so overloaded with derivation from other sources (dragons, elves, magic wands, brooms, unicorns, centaurs, phoenixes, basilisks, flying horses - stories like Star Trek or Star Wars at least have their own world-building) and later so dark that they were no fun anymore. In my opinion an average writer was lucky because she tapped into a trend and was at the right place and right time with her stories. I daresay years from now many fans will wonder why they liked these stories so much and realize that they just jumped on a train, having been too young and naïve to question it.

I don’t own any of Rowling’s books or DVDs or merchandise and I never have been part of the fandom. So, I come from a different corner when I say that I have my own attitude about the current shitstorm regarding J.K. Rowling now being coded as “transphobic”. This is due to personal reasons of my own.

  1. The Discussion Can Add Confusion

Rowling stated that in her youth she had problems with her own identity due to her father having wanted her to be a boy. I can understand that because I went through a long period in my late teens and early twens where I had difficulties identifying with the sex I was born with. At times I also felt physically attracted to females. In my case, it turned out to merely be a phase: I am an average cis woman. I can understand that for some people, such doubts may turn out to be more than a phase. But I know what Rowling refers to because I have been there. And I am grateful that there was no gender discussion when I was young because it would have confused me even more than I actually was, and I already had more than enough other problems. I was and I am a “common” woman, but there was a time in my life when I did not like it very much. That time was bad enough, combined as it was with other aspects in my life I had to come to terms with, which at times almost drove me to despair to the point where I contemplated suicide. So, I am glad that in my time being gay / straight / trans / cis / non-binary or other was not such an issue, at least not where I grew up. With my confusion and disorientation, well-meaning people might have taken the opportunity to encourage me to “embrace my lesbianism / trans identity”, when in truth I am neither. I was discouraged, from many sides, to liking myself, and that self-loathing took many forms. 

I am extremely cautious when it comes to gender identification because I know that finding one’s way in life under difficult circumstances can take years and years and end in a very different place from where it started, well beyond adolescence. In my case, for a long time I thought I was “not really female” because I love my independence and never wished for children: this is not due to some masculine trait inside of me but to my growing up with a disturbed mother who strongly invaded my life and mind and did everything that was in her power to trap me. I suspected that something was wrong with her since my early teens, but I found out the truth only about twenty years later. I had to accept her the way she is and put distance between us. 

Then there were my peers: where and when I grew up it was trendy to be (or appear) as tomboyish and easy-going as possible because this was seen as a sign of a “strong, modern, emancipated female”: fie on you if you wore your hair a little longer, liked clothes or only had to much as a flower-pattern on your notebook. Again: I simply had to get away. For many years I had been led to believe that my too “female” or “masculine” traits were a problem, when the actual problem was not mine. And if this happened to me, I daresay there may be many others in similar situations; which is something that who supports and encourages trans people usually does not consider. People who are confused about their sexuality without actually being trans need understanding as well.

  2. What About Us?

As a native Italian, I cringe when I only think e.g. of Lady and the Tramp’s silly “Bella notte” scene or films like Good Fellas or of The Godfather trilogy, cultural phenomena that did a lot to cement the general audience’s idea of how Italians are like. Not to our advantage. - No, “bella notte” is not correct Italian. No, we don’t play the mandolin, it’s an outmoded instrument that you are more likely to find in a museum. And no, spaghetti with meatballs are not Italian food!

Following the 2009 economic crises many countries in the European Community applied for financial “umbrellas”; Italy didn’t, it paid into those funds. Italy was the first Western country who went into lockdown as the Covid-19 crisis struck. The country functioned, though under huge restrictions and security measures. In both cases, other countries’ reactions in and outside Europe were like: “Typical - Italians are too lazy to work!” When it came to negotiating an economic pact to help Europe start again, the countries who had said this the loudest held their purse-strings tight - after having locked down too late and hidden the truth about the casualties in their own countries. Convenient.

Italians are generally often seen as silly and not trustworthy. And nobody talks about how demeaning and disrespectful, and on the long run damaging, it is to portray us in such a stereotyped way which at best is good for a laugh. The prejudices stick, and they have destroyed or turned into a living hell many existences.

There are huge now discussions about banning films like e.g. Gone With the Wind due to its “clichéd portrayal of Blacks”. Nobody talks about abolishing The Godfather or other films of that kind although they contribute to the stigma that Italians are either all in league with the mafia, or easy-going, silly folks who sing and drink wine all day and have no idea of what hard work means. Most Italians have too much personal pride to victimize themselves and bo-hoo “the rest of the world just won’t understand us”. They love their country but that does not make them not blind to its shortcomings. I hope they stay that way. In any case, I intend to.

  3. The Actual Problem: Bullying

I can sympathize with anyone who comes out as trans because I know what it’s like to be bullied. I was bullied myself for many years due to my Italian origin as well as my upbringing while I had to live among persons who were on a lower social level than I. I was e.g. accused of being stuck-up and “inhibited”. I know now that the female bullies were envious of my self-esteem and insinuating that I was missing “fun”; while the males were counting on another girl being at any guy’s disposal for free and were angry when I didn’t let them have their way with me. 

The actual problem with any kind of intolerance and discrimination is bullying. Whatever form it takes, bullying is or ought to be unacceptable. Bullies will be bullies, they do not care who they harass and why: if they e.g. can be convinced to leave trans people alone, they will vent their frustrations and build up their self-image by bullying people who are fat or black or whatever. Except trans people won’t be there to witness that (unless by coincidence they are both trans and fat / black etc.) 

We live in a world that gives a great deal of importance on competitiveness; as a result, even in families, schools and other institutions that ought to educate children and youngsters to be respectful towards themselves and others, bullying is often not seen as such, or simply downplayed as “assertiveness”. Bullies do not want to hear reasonable argumentation and learn to be sympathetic: they want to show off their power, provoke an emotional reaction from their victims to see how far they can go, and gloat when they can hurt them. They will not change their minds and they will never be trustworthy, no matter how many discussions about your particular situation you have with them. 

To bullies, the world is a jungle where only the strongest have the right to survive; any attempt to make them rethink their attitude will only make them laugh at their victims’ alleged stupidity (because that’s what a humane, respectful attitude is to them) even more. The only language they understand is violence. If you are bullied, protect and, if you can, defend yourself; never try to discuss. Minorities were silent and subdued for such a long time with good reason: because they knew that the more they held their heads up and did not hide what made them different, the more targets they offered for bullies. No one ought to go in hiding because he is queer or black or Jewish etc., but sometimes it’s unavoidable simply for self-protection. I am almost fifty years old and I have never witnessed a nasty person changing for the better. If anything, they became worse, because every time they got away, they felt more superior than before.

Particularly sly bullies will make their victims believe that they have changed, maybe even pulling off the role “I’m a victim myself”. Please, please, whether you belong to a group of minorities or not: don’t listen to them. Ever. Maybe they once were victims, but it turned them into arseholes, and now they are sunk too far in their own filth to care. Compassion is a good thing, but it should never go as far as to delude yourself, endure abuse and sympathize until you become an object for compassion yourself.

For instance, I like wearing dresses, cooking and sewing and looking after my household. Fifty years ago, that would have made me a pattern housewife; nowadays, feminists would either want to strangle me or at least have a good laugh at my expense. This just goes to show how short-sighted any kind of prejudice and bullying is. Any human being ought to follow its own nature with a healthy self-esteem, and esteem others as well. But with our today’s view of the world we are supposed to be not altruistic and respectful but “strong” so that “we will make our way in life” (i.e. feed capitalism in any way we can); and nothing can make you feel “strong” more easily than finding someone who is allegedly weaker and pick on him. We are expected to be “winners”, and the first thing winners need are “losers” to serve them as a foil. The pool from which to choose is large.

  4. Who Is Subject to Intolerance Can’t Be Intolerant… Really?

For many years of my life, I always found myself a supporter of someone who was ostracized for one reason or another.

A woman who had left her husband. (It was the early Eighties.) A gay man. A girl who had been harassed by being called ugly. A woman who had been abused sexually by a family member. A woman from East Germany (I live in the West and there are lots of prejudices.)

For the record: these persons were of different age, origin, upbringing, social status, intellectual level and character, and they did not know one another.

I knew and supported them for years, listening, loyal, supportive, interested in their problems and personal development. I never attacked or criticized them. And each and every one of them sooner or later accused me of “not understanding them” and “being prejudiced towards them”. In the case of the abused woman this was particularly unfair because I have been abused myself in my family, though psychically and not sexually. The divorced woman, my own mother, viciously accused me of lying and being in league with her ex-husband after I had been loyal only to her for entire decades.

It appears these people only were my “friends” as long as I told them what they wanted to hear. When I suffered, I was put off with “pull yourself together”. Like I had no problems, because the only people in the world having problems were them. Thank you very much. So, I was supposed to accept their growing insolence due to their being such poor victims, while from their point of view I deserved neither understanding nor respect.

Only recently, in the aftermath of the riots caused by the killing of George Floyd, I posted a comment on a video on youtube… guess what. I was immediately attacked by a black woman saying that my “stupid remark” just went to prove how a white person would never understand “things like these”. She had not even read my post carefully enough to understand what I actually wanted to say, she simply felt entitled to offend me.

I do not say that I dislike trans people or that they are bad, I’m sure there are as many good or bad people among them as anywhere. If someone says e.g. that though born with male organs they identify as female that is their very own affair. I must not like it or understand it. Tolerance means leaving other people alone to do as they please. Any person is “bad” only the moment they behave badly towards others; being different from the mainstream does not count.

But when I have to watch and read people nowadays defending trans or gays or blacks or some other minority, believing to be being open-minded or particularly noble and heroic by supporting them, all I can say is that I have been there and it did me no good. I won’t get caught up in another wave of “minority tolerance”: in my experience, it’s a waste of time. Many of those who now proudly burn their Harry Potter books and proclaim that they will no longer support the author, respectively that they “love Harry Potter but love trans people more” will make the experiences I made. Except they most probably won’t talk about that, because these experiences are so humiliating.

Minorities of any kind do not want to be supported, understood and defended by people who are not in their shoes: it hurts their personal pride. Which I can understand, although it’s a lame excuse for being mean to the very persons whom they expect help and support from. They will tend to envy the ones who do not have their problems due to being white / straight / cis etc., and consequently turn a blind eye to the fact that these can have huge problems of their own. Many of them expect their supporters not only to understand them but to support them enthusiastically at every turn, and if these don’t, (or if there is the slightest reason for them to assume that they don’t) these “victims” will feel entitled to be offended and become vicious aggressors, with a whole fan club behind them protecting their backs and convinced of promoting a honorable cause.

I am fed up with being tolerant. It seems you can hardly do anything anymore without offending someone: watching Disney movies or old classics, wearing a pink dress, calling a woman a woman instead of woman / trans / cis / non-binary etc. There is always someone who will point to these things saying why they’re not right.

I’m sorry but clichés, prejudices and stereotypes can’t be totally avoided: the human brain is not wired to know all facts about everything and everyone. What you can do is teach children and adolescents to be respectful towards everybody, even if they don’t like a particular person or group. Nobody has the right to force you to like everybody and to agree with every life style. But it seems the world has become full of people who seem to have nothing better to do but feel personally offended at the drop of a hat and make a fuss about how hurt their feelings are. Helping someone out who is in a difficult situation is not the same as catering to the keyed-up hysterics of some entitled brat. Seeing the difference between these two can be quite difficult because the latter often show their true face only after years and years, when they realize that for some reason or other, they can no longer squeeze you out for their personal benefit giving nothing back.

Who follows my account is aware that I did not like The Rise of Skywalker. Heaven knows I wrote enough about it. But I did not and will not harass the studios twittering, mailing, making youtube videos etc. ranting and raving about what rubbish it supposedly is for years, like the haters of The Last Jedi. Listening to them, one would think their whole reason for living had been destroyed on purpose. We most probably largely have to thank them for the Episode IX disaster, the flattest and most uninteresting Star Wars film ever made; not to mention the harassment the actress Kelly Marie Tran was subject to. Anyone has the right to dislike the development the authors chose for the saga, but for heaven’s sake: after all, it’s just a movie. If such a relatively insignificant thing can be hyped up like this, I don’t want to know what’s in store coming from people who feel offended for much more personal reasons, like race or gender.

Tolerance cannot be one-sided; it cannot mean that whatever one side wants does not have to be reasonable or useful, but they are entitled to scream and yell until the other side gives in. (If for no other reason than to satisfy them so they will finally shut it.)

  Conclusions (I did warn you…)

I. Hogwarts is not my world

Hogwarts is supposed to sound like a dream come true, but I never liked the idea of a “school” where pupils, who are still children and adolescents, are taught spells and engaged in games and tournaments where they have to risk life and limb. These facts are commonly overlooked, I guess, because “the heroes” usually don’t get hurt. The heroes overcome their traumata but do not get wiser from them, on the contrary: their suffering is supposed to make them seem nobler so that we will root for them more. Harry loses his parents before he could get to know them; his adoptive family mistreats him, but he doesn’t care about them; Cedric dies in his stead, but they were not close friends; Dumbledore dies when Harry was getting too old for a father figure; Snape dies, but Harry never liked him either. The list could go on. Harry always remains an innocent; he never gets to look into a metaphorical mirror where he has to see all of the bad that is inside of him, his darker sides are always projected and personified by someone else. (When he does look into a metaphorical mirror in the first book and movie, he finds out that the Philosopher’s stone is, magically, in his pocket. How convenient.)

I can’t invest emotionally in a fictional character who stands out before having earned or deserved it. Harry is like a Chosen One who skips the hero’s journey: from an abusive household, he is catapulted into a whole new world made of mystery and wonder, where he immediately is singled out, admired before he lifts a finger, unexplainably lucky, awed due to his heritage, envied by who is not as special as he. Harry remains untainted by own sins because other people do the dirty work for him; which seems ok because they are, for one reason or another, uncool - Dumbledore = old, Ron = weak / foolish, Hermione / Snape = unpleasant, his parents = dead, and so on. Yes, Harry sometimes makes mischief, but people usually cut him slack because of his past as an abused child, his parent’s tragic death, and his undefinable power that makes him resist the Evil One. The Dursleys, Snape and Draco don’t tolerate him, which is why they are coded as villains or at least very disagreeable characters. How do you recognize a villain in these stories? Simple, he’s being mean to Harry. Everybody else gives him special treatment because you don’t want to upset the person whom you expect to defeat the ultimate villain. I always found his character bland and uninteresting. We e.g. learned why Snape was so lonely and bitter, but not why Harry was so “good” although he had grown up unloved, in an abusive household, until he was eleven. 

For decades now Harry Potter fandoms and clubs gather all over the world proudly proclaiming that they are something really special and not like “them Muggles”. No wonder these stories are so popular with who feels misunderstood and downtrodden. Wouldn’t it be nice to be born with capacities ordinary people can’t even dream of? When maybe you’re just a common person, shocking thought. Nowadays, if you want to be someone outstanding, make it up in your mind and it automatically becomes true. And if you identify with the protagonist, you get to be a hero before you did anything special into the bargain. Harry is a victim of other person’s sins and / or blunders and his story is about unfolding the details of his victimhood and correcting them so he gets his happy ending. We are supposed to sympathize with this: well, I can’t. Victimhood and alleged inborn virtue are insufficient to make a protagonist “overcome his trials” and emerge triumphantly over his sidekicks or enemies, without any real loss on his side, while they get killed or, at best, ridiculed. And I will not pick up the part of that sidekick any more.

 II. Feminism Is Not My World

While I am an advocate for women’s independence, I do not identify as a feminist. I have an independent nature: that does not mean I am or should be ashamed of being a lady. This where we live is the era of the tomboys, of the feisty, cool, tough females. And often they don’t just go their own way but feel entitled to scorn women who do have their own job and live with a man who respects them, but also like the color pink, pretty clothes, flowers, romantic stories and everything else the new wave feminism likes to dismiss as “brainwashing”. Today you can hardly let your daughter watch a Disney movie without being accused of undermining her identity with false ideas about womanhood because, oh wonder, it seems a “real woman” must think and act like a badass guy.

Louder for the feminists in the back: you can actually look and behave in a way that is coded as “female” and be intelligent, independent and self-respecting. Women who went their own way have existed in every age and culture, often making great achievements and changing the world around them; they were intelligent, compassionate and took matters into their own hands. They did not proclaim that they unfairly were victims of men: they knew how to make men respect them. Being a woman is not a stereotype thrust upon you, it’s natural. If someone rejects qualities that are identified as “female”, it’s their very own affair. If I wanted to return the offense, I might as easily say that “feminists” and “empowered females” are just too smug to do the dishes.

 III. Trans, cis, binary etc. is not my world

For millennia, people had to accept the sex they were born with. Now you can have surgery and take hormones to get rid of a problem which you can’t solve on your own. Sorry, but I can’t get my head around it: to me the gender diversity discussion is unnatural. Good and right things are always the same, they cannot change with time and “scientifical / medical progress”. Tomboyish females and same-sex lovers are as old as the world, but it’s only a few decades since you can surgically have your sex changed if you feel uncomfortable with it, and even less time since you can claim the right to be both male and female or not to choose any sex at all. Excuse me, what’s behind it? Fear of missing out? I know, nowadays we are supposed to “change the stars”, but excuse me, it’s not possible. Rowling did not change the stars: as I wrote above, she got lucky.

I can say from own experience that for healthy growth a person needs limits. It is not “tolerant”, in my opinion, to say that one can be male or female or binary or none of that, all by choice. If I raise a child calling it a boy because he was born with male organs, or by Catholic standards because I am a Catholic myself, I believe no one has the right to say that I am intruding into its personality. I would be intolerant if said child would later come out to me e.g. as trans or atheist and I would dismiss its identification and opinion as a matter of principle, or disown it altogether. Rejecting rules and values is like pretending that it is wrong to be e.g. female, or straight, or that Catholic values are rubbish. None of that is true. It is true that a trans or gay or atheist or Buddhist etc. is not automatically an immoral or inferior person.

I can accept other people’s choices about their gender identification; that doesn’t mean I must like or support their mindset. It doesn’t automatically make me “transphobic”. If it is intrusive or intolerant to say that someone is male because he was born with male organs, what will come next? Will “normal” females no longer be entitled to protect their most intimate privacy because any guy can share our private space, like a public toilet or dress room, claiming he’s a woman (and he might well not be trans, but a lying voyeur?) Will we no longer give our children male or female names? Not teach them any values? No longer send them to kindergarten, to school, maybe not even feed or clothe them or furnish their nurseries according to our own judgement, because the poor babies can’t choose by themselves yet?

We all did not choose to be born in the first place.

If you want to protect your children from suffering, don’t have them: suffering is a part of life. Trans is not my world. I don’t want to destroy it or to behave rudely towards it; I simply do not want to have part in it. I want people to care for me, and to do so because I am me, not because I come out with this or another sexual orientation or make myself an advocate for people who belong to this or another minority.

All of the above is why I will not jump on the current “I defend minorities” respectively “I defend downtrodden victims” train. The good part is that I don’t have any Harry Potter book or merchandise I could burn anyway. 😊

Anyone who is uncomfortable with my point of view can unfollow me. Bullies will be blocked and reported without further ado. Greetings from a notorious Muggle.

[evilelitest2]

History question. Why was the Greek society so cool with homosexuality, and why many sources picture their view of it as degeneracy and excess? Many religions before christ where more open minded about bisexuality and homosexuality than what we give them credit for, from what I've learned. Was that a crucial par of their culture?

Oh great question, I love talking about Greek cultural differences.  Views towards homosexuality and bisexuality vary wildly from culture to culture, in the ancient world you had very homophobic societies like the Ancient Jews and very gay societies like the Greeks and pretty much everything inbetween.  

    So the first thing to understand about the Greeks is that they didn’t have the terms homosexual or bisexual or hetrosexual, to them same sex relationships were just an act, not an identity (though obviously there were homosexual people and bisexual people at the time).  In fact, the idea of Greek culture was more bisexuality than homosexuality, the idealized man is one who has kids with his wife, but the closest thing to true love is with his boyfriend.   Actually this is important, because in Ancient Greece (and bear in mind, i’m generalizing the Hellenes were very diverse) homosexual behavior was linked very strongly with the intense msygiony of Ancient Greece, everybody was extremely sexist back in the day but in the Ancient world the Greeks took the cake for being hostile towards women.  

(Ahem) 

A lot of Greek thought revolved around women as being ‘Half formed” men and as something to find icky and hostile, they were viewed as stupid, vain, corrupting, selfish, shallow, cruel, and above all lacking Logos, or reason.  Greek philosophy is very anti emotion and very pro logic (a distinction that I think is pretty stupid but what ever) and they tended to personify reason in a Greek Man and Emotion in women or Persians.  Greek Mythology and Philosophy is littered with this intense dislike of women and even compare to contemporary societies like the Egyptians, Persians or Scythian, the Greeks were really icked out by women.  Which is a big factor in their fetishization of same sex love, the idea is that while you needed to have sex with women for the kids and the legacy, you couldn’t truly relate to them because you know what THEY are like, so to find a true relationship you needed another man, who of course had the proper brain thinky skills to really relate to other men (this is absolute bull).  

      The Greeks also linked homosexual behavior to marital virtue, today gayness is often seen as camp, effeminate, and weak, but the Greeks held the exact opposite view (They also thought small penis were better btw).  Greeks were a warrior culture and tied relationships between men very strongly to their value as warriors.  Spartan having sex with each other showed how macho they were, they didn’t need “women”.  A very common greek insult is that a dude “Loved women” because that made you more effeminate in their eyes.  The Persian Great King Xerxes is depicted as a massive ladies man and in the Greek eyes that made him “GIRLY” and proved how feminine and weak these Persian were.  The Greeks by contrast, depicted themselves as strong and tough and macho in large part because they were sleeping with other dudes, cause that means you require even less contact with women in your life.  You also have a lot of manditory homosexuality in the army, Sparta is rumored to have required it because it supposedly increased the fighting strength, and Thebes had a unite called the “Sacred band” which was 150 gay couples serving as the elite troops, the idea being is that you’d fight better if your boyfriend was next to you in the ranks.   

(Paris of Troy, being a effeminate hetrosexual dandy) 

    So the ideal Greek man, the Platonic Man if you would (Pun) has a wife, but is in a sort of relationship with another man, while regularly screwing his slaves. You can’t have a real relationship with women (because they aren’t people supposedly) and so you’d date men.  IN fact if you didn’t sleep with men, you’d likely be seen as kind of a pansy.  

(Pictured Macho Men who like men) 

   Oh and lets also talk about Pederasty.  Not all Greek societies necessarily did this, but at least some of them (Athens, likely Sparta) had a system where young boys (between 13-15) were apprenticed to an older man who would train them in various skills, fighting, rhetoric, law etc.  And he would have sex with them.  The idea is when you were young, your dad would send you to a friend of his so he could molest you while training you for a few years, and then when you got older, you could have your own teenagers to molest.  It was….a really fucked up system but the Greeks viewed it as perfectly normal, and thought it was a good learning experience for everyone involved.  

    Now homosexuality/bisexuality in the ancient world weren’t terms back then, but what they were really interested in was who was the bottom and who was the top.  A younger man was expected to be the bottom, and there wasn’t any shame in that, but once you got older and were sleeping with far younger boys of your own, you’d be expected to be the top.  Somebody who was a catcher would be viewed as more feminine and the greeks really didn’t like that sort of thing. A lot of Ancient Greek figures had a lot of drama filled romances with other men or boys, such as Phillip II of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great (who likely was also sleeping with some of his friends).   

   While the Greeks were the most open about this, a lot of other cultures practiced in but were more mixed.  The Romans rhetorically were very anti gay but practiced it a great deal, a lot of Roman Emperors were homosexual or bisexual.  However only Hadrian was quite openly in a relationship with another man, and it caused quite a scandal in Rome at the time, but Hadrian didn’t care because Hadrian doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks (This backfired when it came to the Jews)

On the Christianity thing, it isn’t actually that homophobic compared to a lot of other societies at the time, remember ancient Judaism finds homosexuality really creepy (a lot of Semetic cultures in the region were much more conservative about same sex relationship) but Christianity is really really anti sex generally.  

Actually on ancient Jewish homophobia, one of the important parts of the Old Testament and Leviticus in particular, is that the Jewish elite is very afraid of losing their culture to near by societies, including the Greeks.  Jewish resistance to Hellenization was very strong, and was a major factor in both the creation of Christianity and the eventual Second Diaspora.

    So this leads to a certain form of awkwardness where the West is all like “Greece is the foundation of western civilization, look how cool Greece is” but is also wanting to be like “Oh and also gay stuff, we don’t like that”.  So you have this weird double think where people are trying to claim the legacy of ancient Greece but are awkwardly turning a blind eye to the fact that the Greeks were really into same sex relationships.  I mean the PUA community and Roosh V have the whole “Neomasculinity” movement about the greatness of ancient Greece except…yeah no.  Or like how 300 is so homoerotic but doesn’t actually address how gay the Spartans were, Xerxes wouldn’t be effeminate for being gay in the Greek eyes, he’d be effiminate for being straight.  A lot of our “ugg effeminate men” tropes partly come from Greeks…talking about straight people. 

(Heracles was seen as a patron god of homosexuality) 

   BTW, we don’t really know what the Greeks thought of Lesbian/Bisexual relationships, what few records we have are mixed.  They generally were really hostile to female sexuality but we do have Sappho of Lebos, but most of the records around that were lost.  

  What I do find really interesting is that this hyper masculine warrior culture with lots of man love is that Feudal Japan did very similar stuff, evidently it is a hyper macho warrior thing. 

(I tried to find period accurate picture about gay samurai relationship but they are all SUPER graphic) 

   Also bear in mind that until Alexander, the Greeks were nothing resembling unified, and we don’t have equal records of all the Greek states, so this might not apply to all Hellenes equally, and it also might vary due to time period, its always a bit hard to tell with this wort of thing 

[maidenofsophia]

Can I just say how much I love your new URL? I've always really liked the 'married to God' idea, but of course it comes with a lot of heteronormativity because the only people who 'marry God' are women, and God takes the roll of a man. So the idea of being married to Our Lady really resonates with me, actually, bc I've considered taking a vow of celibacy at least for a while (I'm sure I will want to marry & raise a family at one point) and I like the idea of being spiritually married to our Lady

Thank you! Yes, this is absolutely my thing at the moment! ^_^

The idea came about when I saw a post mentioning the Virgin Mary being referred to as the bride of the Holy Spirit. Of course the Holy Spirit is typically referred to as male in mainstream Christianity but not according to early Christian texts, nor in Jewish mystic literature in regards to the Shekinah (presence of God) who is also feminine. As I satirised in a recent post of mine, early Gnostics argued how a woman could conceive of a woman, which I always took as a way of dismissing the idea that Yeshua had no earthly father (something I do still believe in). But in regards to the actual question put forward my answer would be; “Dude, She’s God! If She wanted to impregnate a human woman, do you think She would need a penis? She managed to craft the whole Universe without one!” Even Yeshua himself mentions having two mothers in the Gospel of Thomas. 

I know with the whole ‘married to God’ idea, the image that most often comes to mind to us Westerners is that of Catholic nuns becoming “Brides of Christ”. Or the Church/Ecclesia itself being recognised as the Bride. But what I experienced is actually influenced more by Sikhi, one of my all time favourite religions! Their holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, is filled with verses describing the human soul as a bride in love with her ‘divine husband’, being God (who is only symbolically male, but supposed to be genderless). And that all souls are female in that respect, regardless of whether or not the body is that of a man or a woman, and thus all are considered equal. This is part of why Sikhi is a rather egalitarian religion compared to most other mainstream faiths. However with that in mind, as you say, the issue of heteronormativity comes up again. And LGBT issues are being heavily debated in Sikhi as they are in the Abrahamic religions. 

Almost every bloody Gnostic sect I come across as well, hoping to find my place in a community, also has this problem. Many of them try to be these beacons of feminism and LGBT-acceptance, and while their actions don’t necessarily negate this, their spiritual language still reflect that which is misogynistic and heteronormative. The Ecclesia Gnostica states in its Catechism that God must be referred to in male pronouns, with the titles of ‘Father’ and Son’ instead of ‘Parent and Child’ because “their holy names would lose their power otherwise”. They revere Sophia but her shrine is a small corner of the church while the very masculine Deity is placed in the center at the front. Sophia is also spoken of as a ‘poor, misguided damsel in distress who as rescued by Christ’ and that the Bridal Chamber sacrament is where a soul is wed to Christ to become ‘male/pure’ like “His”. The Sophian Gnostics led by Tau Malachi are a little better, with more focus on referring to God in feminine language, yet they still draw these arbitrary lines between that which is ‘masculine and feminine’.  Mary Magdalene is honoured as ‘the Bride’ rather than the Holy Daughter, her relationship to God in her own right taking a backseat to her relationship with Christ, which of course must have been sexual and romantic(!), as that is apparently the only way he could have loved and admired her as the Gnostic gospels claim (despite that they never confirm the two were wed). Malachi even says in his book “Living Gnosis” that, while souls are genderless, soul mates can apparently only meet when in male and female bodies! I challenged him on this on his forum and he sort of gave a wriggled his way out of it, saying it wasn’t impossible for same-sex partners to be soul mates, but made it sound like it was some sort of anomaly. He at least tried to reiterate the idea that male and female are just illusions of ‘duality’ and that there is really only One, in that all souls are the same and equal. 

So while I see the positives of believing all souls are the same gender, the ‘female’ is still regarded as that which is lesser and needs a superior, saviour ‘male’ husband, who is elevated to ‘God’. This may only be a metaphor for some but language and representation in religion is VERY important, no matter what the ‘traditionalists’ may say. It’s all about how an individual is able to connect with God and that will be different for everyone. This is why I distance myself more and more each day from Gnosticism and Christianity, having the Father and Son as quiet, background figures, and putting the Mother, Daughter and Holy (Lady) Spirit at the center. While I do believe God, in truth, is beyond the duality we know as gender, They appear to us as we may personally connect them best, which for me is almost always in the Sophianic (Divine Feminine) form. And obviously I reject the notion that my soul needs to be of an opposite gender in order to be joined with Her. 

I can strive to be a good daughter of the Mother, I can strive to be a noble sister of the Daughter, and I can strive to be a loyal bride of the Lady Spirit. ^_^ 

As for the celibacy thing, I don’t personally see it as a necessity for being a bride of the Lady but it depends on how you want to commit to that relationship, as each would be different. I myself have very little sex-drive (though I wouldn’t go as far to call myself asexual) and am also rubbish at going on dates so it’s kind of a non issue for me right now. However if I did meet a lovely woman to spend my life with, I wouldn’t consider my relationship and/or marriage to her something that voids my marriage to My Lady - as Her soul would be just as present in the woman I love. If anything I would see it as loving my Lady more through her, if that makes sense. On the other hand I can also see how a celibate lifestyle, meditating and focusing on the Lady, could lead to less distractions and feel closer to Her on a different level. I am honestly fine with either, I will trust in where She leads me. :)

[myupdatestudio-blog]

New Post has been published on Myupdatestudio

New Post has been published on https://myupdatestudio.com/ladies-their-property-and-financial-rights-in-kashmir/

Ladies, their Property and financial rights in Kashmir

The Judeo-Christian lifestyle certainly extends the management of the husband into ownership of his wife. Rabbis asserted the husband’s right to his spouse’s belongings as a corollary of his possession of her: “In view that one has come into the ownership of the female does it not observe that he need to come into the possession of her assets too?”, and “Considering he has obtained the lady have to he no longer gather additionally her property?” As a result, marriage brought on the richest female to grow to be almost penniless. The Talmud describes the financial state of affairs of a spouse as follows.

                                         Financial Rights

Propwall

“How can a girl have whatever; anything is hers belongs to her husband? What’s he is his and What’s hers is also his…… Her earnings and what she may additionally locate in the streets are also his. The family articles, even the crumbs of bread on the desk, are his. need to she invite a visitor to her house and feed him, she could be stealing from her husband…” (San.71a, Git. 62a)

The fact of the problem is that the property of a Jewish girl become intended to draw suitors. It turned into this dowry that made Jewish daughters an unwelcome burden to their fathers. Hence, a woman in a conventional Jewish family was a liability and not an asset. This liability explains why the birth of a daughter was no longer celebrated with joy in the antique Jewish societies. Christianity, until these days, has accompanied the identical Jewish culture.

Both religious and civil authorities inside the Christian Roman Empire (after Constantine) required a assets settlement as a situation for recognizing the marriage. Families supplied their daughters growing dowries and, as an end result, guys tended to marry in advance at the same time as Families postponed their daughters’ marriages until later than were customary.

It’s miles very exciting that during most components of the arena Christians and Jews were able to do away with this discriminatory exercise, however, Muslim communities nevertheless education those pre-Islamic traditions. Many still see a woman as a burden, improve dowry from girl’s start, actively insist that Girls bequeath their belongings and jewelry to keep members of the family. Kashmir is not any exception.

Islam on Girls’ right to assets

Islam, for the reason that seventh century C.E., has granted Girls and married Women especially an independent persona. Traditionally in Islam, the bride and her family are underneath no responsibility in any way to present any present to the groom. The girl as consistent with Islamic thought is no liability. A woman is so dignified via Islam (at the least in principle) that she does no longer need to offer items in an effort to entice potential husbands.

It’s far the groom who have to present the bride with a wedding gift. This gift is considered her property and neither the groom nor the bride’s circle of relatives have any percentage in or manage it. In some Muslim societies lamentably we nevertheless follow the age old and discriminatory practices below which a girl infant is handled as a legal responsibility and after her delivery, dad and mom begin traumatic approximate dowry and marrying her off. Even today, a woman is acculturated into becoming a spouse more than turning into an intellectual and religious man or women, which Islam encourages us to grow to be, no matter our intercourse or gender. The Quran has stated its position on this difficulty pretty genuinely:

“And give the Ladies (on marriage) their dower as a loose gift; but in the event that they, in their own precise pleasure, remit any a part of it to you, take it and enjoy it with proper top cheer” (Quran four:4)

Stock Market

We have a tendency to examine the verse backward and strain on how obtaining the lower (Mehr) from a female is criminal underneath Islam, however, forget that It’s far absolutely below unfastened will. Ladies need to decide their dower and their right to possess it. Their fathers and different male spouse and children do no longer have any right to do that for her The spouse’s assets and profits are underneath her complete control and for her use by myself Considering that her, and the kid’s, preservation is her husband’s duty.

No matter how rich the wife might be, she isn’t always obliged to act as a co-provider for the circle of relatives until she herself voluntarily chooses to achieve this. Moreover, a married lady in Islam retains her unbiased criminal personality and her family call additionally. This is every other primary violation Muslims in today’s world luckily do. A girl neither keeps her name after marriage nor does she often collect a share of her parental property.

Women and ordinary economics

In these days’ Muslim societies maximum of the men need to marry Ladies who paintings such that they are able to utilize their spouse’s incomes closer to the family prices, which truly isn’t bad however What’s understated is the ‘loose will’ of the female. Any debate about free-will of a lady is visible as Western or current, whereas unfastened will to work, to spend on own family and to maintain lower is in entirety a girl’s absolute unfastened will, in religion. On one hand, men search for incomes spouses but however shy away from helping their other halves in family paintings.

Also, many respected men take away their Women’s salaries and deliver them a pocket cash to spend, based on the belief that Girls can’t be prudent with price range which has its origin in denying the fame of a complete questioning person to a woman. Prophet Muhammad’s lived enjoy is again rejected for example inside the feel that prophet who used to do all his paintings on his very own is aspect covered and some form of hyper-masculinity is challenged if a running girl needs her husband to help in kitchen or with infant rearing. In my very own extended family, I have visible guys name their other halves whilst the diapers of the child want to get replaced. That is a subject of discussion for another time however it connects here in our speedy rejection of actual Islam in terms of the actually said rights of Girls.

While properly-described assets rights are one of the fundamentals for Women’s monetary protection as well as wider economic improvement, we pick to deprive our Ladies of this. It’s miles no exaggeration that standard regulation prevails in Kashmir on the subject of the belongings distribution amongst siblings. Ladies from rural regions are told that Due to the fact they can not contend with the rural land, they better give it to their brothers. In most instances they are now not even informed that their percentage in property exists. Inland revenue places of work, in many instances men quietly get the property transferred in their names leaving out their married sisters who if at any time need to fall back on their parent’s proportion, do now not discover it there. I have been a witness to this during my walk. The officers and those do it below the apparel of preventing agricultural land from turning fallow. It’s far an implicit expertise that On the grounds that land is immovable assets, It’s far higher that it stays with the circle of relatives, i.E the male contributors.

Similarly, in urban areas, when it comes to property distribution and assets basically includes a residence, the girl who’s married in most instances is informed that her room (that’s her proportion in the belongings) shall stay intact, which in less complicated phrases method, not anything. In Each instance, maximum of the instances Women are not the owners of property, which religion and even felony gadget guarantee them.

I’m sure that many humans will say that their parents or Families deliver their Ladies a share in assets however that is an exception in place of the norm. In truth, It is an important element approximately which consciousness within the society need to be raised and since it comes below Muslim Private regulation, its application in exercise have to be ensured. We want to make sure that standard laws that implicitly justify the financial deprivation of Ladies’s discouraged. In those subjects, most of the society is quiet while Muslim Non-public law isn’t always followed, in reality, because it serves the need of the effective and unfortunately Girls give in so quietly.

Kashmir Conflict

The prophet of Islam was probably the first feminist guy and came up with the modern rights for Women to very own belongings inside the time whilst Girls had been themselves taken into consideration houses in Jewish and Christian traditions and nowadays, Muslims are racing backward and even justifying this backwardness beneath the clothing of faith simplest. Following Islamic standards, these days we ought to have had granted extra rights to our Ladies in the mild of recent time and age but irony is that we need to remind our community to even practice the loose will and empowerment that Islam mentioned loads of years in the past and that they’re bent on rejecting thinking that It’s far western idea.