There was not a single universe in which I would have predicted I would be writing about feminism in any form, but when I held “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine” in my hands, I had a sense it was going to change some things.
Little did I know.
The book details Sue Monk Kidd’s journey from a traditional patriarchal Christian worldview into a new understanding of the Divine Feminine and Sacred Feminine spirituality. The book is well researched, her experiences are relatable, and her critiques of the system aren’t just persuasive, they’re undeniably true. I was hooked from the first page as she opened with a story of finding her 14-year-old daughter on her knees in a pharmacy being mocked by two strange men.
Friends, have you ever heard of the patriarchy?
Yes, yes, sure you have! But have you ever heard of the patriarchy?
The term always left a bad taste in my mouth, the feminists were an angry often unattractive bunch that I learned quickly would soil my standing simply by association.
You did not claim feminism in my world. The attitude was one of Why would you cause all that trouble? We love our men, and things are good.
After learning that my personal relationship to the men in my life is not even almost the point, I was also able to recognize that, as white women with any amount of wealth, the system works well enough.
So I’ll ask one last time, have you ever heard of the patriarchy?
Has anyone ever told you about how this system that humans came up with has been perpetuated for centuries inside of the Christian Church, even as women gained social and political equality and freedom outside of it?
Did you know that in the oldest biblical manuscripts there actually were references to God in the feminine, like in the book of Job, but they were simply rewritten later?
And finally, how could such a system find a stronghold in a spiritual movement centralized around Jesus’ message of equal love, equal freedom, and equal humanity for all, a message so deeply egalitarian that everyone at that time in history was literally up in arms over it?
Thirty years after publishing her book, Sue simply and swiftly opened my eyes to something I had never seen but had always known.
She explains that, as Christians, we were taught to place higher value on attributes that are often associated with masculine forms of spirituality.
“It seemed clear that patriarchy has valued rationality, independence, competitiveness, efficiency, stoicism, mechanical forms, and militarism—things traditionally associated with the “masculine.” Less valued are beingness, feeling, art, listening, intuition, nurturing, and attachment—things traditionally associated with the “feminine.”
Her point is not that the masculine forms of spirituality are inferior but that the masculine and feminine forms are equally valuable. And that, as women from the Christian tradition, we haven’t given any time or attention to the feminine forms.
This is the passage that started my metaphorical boulder rolling down the hill.
This is the passage that I knew in a deep way but could never verbalize.
I felt this denial, this devaluing, for the entirety of my life growing up in a family and a church that didn’t just over-value the masculine forms of the human experience but that mocked and belittled the feminine. I learned as a child that my feminine experience was one to overcome, not one to embrace and use to cultivate a new and better world.
The point is not that men suck and built the patriarchy and I hate them.
The point is that the masculine and feminine forms of spirituality are both essential to a thriving society. Our spiritual lives are enriched when we embrace the entirety of the human experience.
It is all good. It is all necessary. We have beautiful things to learn from both.
And if you take nothing at all away from this, understand that, when we talk about the patriarchy, this devaluing and denial and dehumanization of the feminine is what we’re talking about.
I am in lesson one of the first semester of feminist school. Before reading Sue’s book, the term feminine spirituality meant nothing to me even though I would have been intrigued if it had come up casually in a conversation.
I am so excited to be on this journey with you all. Your insight and wisdom and stories are welcome.
On that note.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter has taught me so much in such a short amount of time, so you know I have to host a book club this summer.
Would you join it and tell me about your own feminine spiritual journey? A lot of my people are all over the country, so I’ll host one virtually and another in my back yard.
Sign up below, and I’ll email you the details for both.
Final Note.
Some of you are probably rolling your eyes. “Nice of you to show up, we’ve been talking about this for decades.”
But here is what I know to be true:
If I’m a 34-year-old mother of young children that grew up within the Christian Tradition but never understood the role of the patriarchy in my spiritual development or the value of my deeply feminine spiritual side, surely I’m not the only one?
And isn’t late better than never, Lauren?
I think it is.
I can’t be the only one who believed that everything going on “over there” with the feminists had nothing to do with me. I can’t be the only one who dismissed this discussion as a side issue.
If you’re in the earliest stages of this particular awakening, or you want to be, let’s walk together.
Shall we begin?
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