Thought about this when watching a rerun of the old Friday the 13th TV show. This one featured a female fertility doctor who was a druid and was plumb full of misinformation about the druids. There is no evidence that the druids practiced human sacrifice, for instance, and, as Cernunos is a male fertility deity, it would seem odd that he would want males sacrificed. Of course this is a plot device to portray witches as man-hating feminist bitches. Probably brought to you by the same lot that equates feminist with man hater in the first place.
I identify myself as a feminist, and more than one person has called me a bitch. But while I have come to loathe patriarchal society, I have never hated men. I have known more than one man bashing feminist bitch. A few of these have used Goddess-based religions as an excuse for their dislike of men. Personally, while I think that it can be a positive thing to have occasions when women meet solely with their sisters and men with their brothers, I think that excluding men from learning about and learning to honor the goddesses is folly. We all become more balanced as human beings when we honor both the male and female rather than reviling female as "weak and emotional" and male as "brutish but powerful." Without male and female, we could not have life.
Females are capable of great strength and males of great tenderness. Until we learn to honor both masculine and feminine and to allow them to work together, we will continue to be a world out of balance.
I identify myself as a feminist, and more than one person has called me a bitch. But while I have come to loathe patriarchal society, I have never hated men. I have known more than one man bashing feminist bitch. A few of these have used Goddess-based religions as an excuse for their dislike of men. Personally, while I think that it can be a positive thing to have occasions when women meet solely with their sisters and men with their brothers, I think that excluding men from learning about and learning to honor the goddesses is folly. We all become more balanced as human beings when we honor both the male and female rather than reviling female as "weak and emotional" and male as "brutish but powerful." Without male and female, we could not have life.
Females are capable of great strength and males of great tenderness. Until we learn to honor both masculine and feminine and to allow them to work together, we will continue to be a world out of balance.
