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Assignation of Gender to Polarized Qualities

  
 
Z. deScathach
17:32 / 02.03.07
I was on the "Red Moon" thread, found here, having to do with the upcoming lunar eclipse. There was a fair amount of interesting discussion on the topic of the moon's attributes.

Many years ago, I was in Wicca, and was a practitioner for some time. I left because I found the gender assignations galling, and in some cases discriminatory. As a female who was heavily into fighting arts, the constant references to female passivity annoyed me. I found that if one was talking energy, I felt more solar than lunar, at least how it was presented. Of course, in oriental systems, solar energy is frequently seen as female, while lunar energy is seen as male.

The whole thing rather soured me on deity work in general, and I gradualy moved into a non-deistic tantric magickal practice,(eastern, not western), and stayed away from those assignations.

In the Red Moon thread, I found myself almost almost apologetic for that, and expressing a need to "re-imprint". My post can be found here. After making the post, I could only ask myself, "Now what the hell was THAT all about?" Truth is, I left those attributions because I felt that they were limiting, and in some cases, outright discriminatory. Since then, I've come to see each deity as a separate entity in it's own right, with it's own attributes.

So, question.....

Should we be assigning gender to archetypical qualities as well as astronomical bodies? Do we limit ourselves when we assign gender to a certain set of magickal archetypes, particularly in a polarized fashion? If we do, what is the social impact if any? I do understand that this verges on headshop turf, but as it's being discussed in the sense of magickal practice, I've launched it here.
 
 
Ticker
18:02 / 02.03.07
Well it seems to me that with a bit of poking about one can find Archetypes that resonate. There are hermaphroditic, neuter, and gender swapping Deities.
Personally I suspect the problem is less with the Archetypes or Deities and more with any system too rigid to allow people to gravitate with what or Who they need to work with.

In my own evolution I spent many years unable to work with my Goddess at all and focused on my God because I was so uncomfortable with what I associated with the female gender. She wasn't restricting me rather I was restrict Her through my perception of what She could encompass. (My Goddess is a lunar and solar Deity so it makes things interesting)

This wasn't only in my religious life but it was a form of misogyny I played out with other women as I dismissed their value afraid if I embraced it I would be restricted by it. Yet by shunning aspects of reality based on prejudice I couldn't grow. My view of the female gender also impacted my view of the male, skewing both. It was only in my twenties that I started to understand the values we ascribe to gender are exactly that, what we ascribe.

For a strong independent woman to have a relationship with a God focused on gentle compassion does not make that woman any less strong as I can say from knowing plenty of friends who are devotees of Quan Yin or Jesus.

However this is not to say that gender values should be chucked out with the bath water. There is a great deal of power and knowledge to be gained by using the cultural relations we have internalized. It would be easy for me to align myself with only female Deities of war and death because I'm comfortable in conflict. It is much more challenging to work with a female Deity of nourishment and death. My relationship with my Goddess challenges my perceptions daily and Her gender forces me to deal with my baggage. In dealing with it I'm improving my relations with my human brethren as well.

In working with ancient Gods we sometimes need to remember that gender issues and values have changed considerable and not always in the ways we think they have. Archetypes function best when tightly focused, however Gods have the ability to be broader than this and to evolve in surprising ways.
 
 
Z. deScathach
18:20 / 02.03.07
In many ways, I have to agree with this. Since making the aforementioned Red Moon post, and mulling over it, I've realized that I've been gently toying with the idea of returning to devotional practice for some time. I always seem to back off, however.

Working with either male or female deities has never been a problem for me, and I do recognize a certain indefinable quality called gender. I once did a deep exploration of it, and came back with the belief that gender is it's own creature, a creature that transcends attributions and archetypes. There can be multiple genders that go beyond just the polarized two, and they can contain any number or combination of attributes. That opens up a lot of possibilities.

I would agree with the situation of system rigidity. I found myself coming across that frequently when working with groups, but I still question whether that rigidity is a result of the people within the group, or the assignation of a fundamental body such as the sun or moon with a specific set of archetypes in combination with two polarized genders. It's a sticky wicket, because ultimately, humans create their systems, and those same systems influence those that practice them.

Perhaps a hidden intent? The intent to control and order, versus the intent to broaden and create flexibility? Not that I'm saying that control and order are bad things. What I'm questioning is whether hidden intents, (or perhaps even overt ones), play a role in the function of said systems.
 
 
*
20:41 / 02.03.07
I think there's also a difference among the following things to be thought about:

a) GENDER, a quality of a person's identity.

b) Gender, systems of two or more balancing flavors of energy, as in the system of yin and yang; the five elements system could equally be thought of as a Gender system.

c) gender, an attribution of a quality or phenomenon into one of two or more categories for the ease of making symbolic correspondences.

Confusingly, it often looks like these kinds of gender have something to do with each other, when they don't necessarily. For instance, the sun may be in some system attributed a gender which is also attributed to gold, men, heat, and medicine. Some of these correspondences seem to make logical/symbolic sense, and some appear to be arbitrary. Because men are in this category of attributions, this gender may be called male. It might only be shorthand to say that the Sun has a GENDER of male, or it might be a coincidence. It might just as easily be a mistake.

I've gotten involved with Reclaiming Wicca in the last year, and Reclaiming is specifically said to embrace queerness. But I still don't see queerness reflected in the stories Reclaiming folks tell about their Gods. It's still a duality, and the whole wheel of the year revolves around mythopoetic heterosex. There's a lot of other good things about the community, but this still frustrates me.
 
 
Gamera
22:24 / 02.03.07
Should we be assigning gender to archetypical qualities as well as astronomical bodies? Do we limit ourselves when we assign gender to a certain set of magickal archetypes, particularly in a polarized fashion?

My opinion would be yes on both counts. As to the first question, I would tend to agree with XK that gender associations can be very powerful and evocative and that therefore they are useful to work with. On the other hand I don't think there is any question that when unduly polarized, gender attributions fail in both the cultural and spiritual contexts.

I think that your mention of devotional practice is apropos - it is certainly the case that I relate differently to a Goddess than to a God because of deeply ingrained psycho-sexual dynamics. As I consider my own practice, it occurs to me that by and large the import of gender is in setting a certain tone to my relationship with the particular manifestation of the divine in question. With respect to a relationship to a feminine emanation, for example, the tone would be initially set as if to mother, sister, daughter or lover. The devotional relationship consists of a great deal more than that, however, so I can see how in principle the gender attribution could be abandoned. But it exists as a kind of "feeling tone" from the outset and carries with it certain ambience which pervades the experience and directs it elaboration to a certain degree.

The fact is, I tend to take a fairly critical approach to most associations of this type and test them to see if they are borne out in my experience, and I gather from my (admittedly limited) exposure that most people around here do likewise. My personal intuition, for example, is that the full moon is more feminine than the new moon. In terms of gender attribution, I consider Luna as female but oscillating between a more feminine and more masculine mode.

On the other hand it is my distinct impression that we are better served by remaining cognizant of the extent to which these gender attributions are encoding unconscious cultural stereotypes. Despite its long standing pedigree as a "duality," gender appears to me to exist along a spectrum, with most gendered things integrating varying degrees of femininity and masculinity. The same would presumably be true for those larger forces that we understand, at least in part, through gender attributions. Your description of "multiple genders" suggests perhaps another axis (tangential to the masculine-feminine axis) which would multiply the possibilities considerably. I'd be very interested to hear if you had any thoughts on that.

So I guess I find that problems do arise with the polarization of gender but not with gender attribution as such.

As far as whether these have broader social impacts I think that without question they do. Certainly the dominator mode of social organization is facilitated by a strong patriarchal Father god, it appears to practically be a necessity. Preferably a solar god connected with regular agricultural cycles. And the dominator mode is certainly furthered by rigorous attribution of masculinity to all forms of aggression and femininity to all form of submission. That being said, I don't see those categories holding up across the board in spiritual systems broadly speaking and in fact gender attributions seem much more flexible than that in their actual cultural manifestations, at least cultures not totally in the thrall of the dominator mode.
 
 
Ticker
23:15 / 02.03.07
Certainly the dominator mode of social organization is facilitated by a strong patriarchal Father god, it appears to practically be a necessity. Preferably a solar god connected with regular agricultural cycles. And the dominator mode is certainly furthered by rigorous attribution of masculinity to all forms of aggression and femininity to all form of submission. That being said, I don't see those categories holding up across the board in spiritual systems broadly speaking and in fact gender attributions seem much more flexible than that in their actual cultural manifestations, at least cultures not totally in the thrall of the dominator mode.

Gamera, I'm not sure if it is intentional on your part but I'm reading the above quote as framing an absolute reality as opposed to one of many. Before I really dig into it I'm wondering if you'd care to position it in context. Especially this part:

Certainly the dominator mode of social organization is facilitated by a strong patriarchal Father god, it appears to practically be a necessity.

'Cause you know, from where I'm sitting it is neither a necessity nor a reality.
 
 
Ticker
23:28 / 02.03.07
I think there's also a difference among the following things to be thought about:

a) GENDER, a quality of a person's identity.

b) Gender, systems of two or more balancing flavors of energy, as in the system of yin and yang; the five elements system could equally be thought of as a Gender system.

c) gender, an attribution of a quality or phenomenon into one of two or more categories for the ease of making symbolic correspondences.



That's an extremely helpful breakdown, thank you!



Confusingly, it often looks like these kinds of gender have something to do with each other, when they don't necessarily. For instance, the sun may be in some system attributed a gender which is also attributed to gold, men, heat, and medicine. Some of these correspondences seem to make logical/symbolic sense, and some appear to be arbitrary. Because men are in this category of attributions, this gender may be called male. It might only be shorthand to say that the Sun has a GENDER of male, or it might be a coincidence. It might just as easily be a mistake.


I'm wondering in systems where the moon is gendered male how the lunar effect on female bleeding is handled.


It's still a duality, and the whole wheel of the year revolves around mythopoetic heterosex. There's a lot of other good things about the community, but this still frustrates me.

The instance of some groups that the hetero pairing is required for the continued creation of existence drives me a bit batty. Plenty of Gods create without partners and I find it frustrating when groups reject alternative sexual myths using the regenerative issue as a reason. As a non reproductive female it annoys the hell out of me when groups equate magical potential|value to biological possibilites.
 
 
Z. deScathach
00:32 / 03.03.07
Gamera wrote:

Your description of "multiple genders" suggests perhaps another axis (tangential to the masculine-feminine axis) which would multiply the possibilities considerably. I'd be very interested to hear if you had any thoughts on that.

One of my teachers said that he frequently would call me "he", and asked if that bothered me. He said that I had the most balanced male/female energies of anyone he had met, and that he saw that as a good thing. Sometimes he would call me she, sometimes he. I'm percieved by most as female, and I am officially such. Still, I don't feel as though rigidly polarized gender quite fits me. I'm happy with my body as is, and happy with my mix of "energies". There are others who have altered their bodies to reflect a mix of gender. To me, this is a natural outgrowth of the human potential movement. People are becoming more and more willing to become physically what they feel inside. As technology advances, I believe that we will probably look forward to even more capacity to be creative with our bodies.

As to how this pans out magickally, I would bet that as the very concept of gender becomes more fluid, gender as expressed in magickal systems will become more fluid as well. I remember that there was a big flap in Wicca about transsexual persons taking on their chosen expressions in ritual rather than their birth sex. Thankfully, this has changed to one of more acceptance and understanding. As we move into advance genetics, (and I do believe that that movement is unavoidable), we may see persons expressing very new expressions in magickal contexts. In terms of practical energy concerns, it's new ground. To me, that's always exciting.
 
 
illmatic
07:22 / 03.03.07
This thread may be of some interest. The essay linked to near the bottom - Magic is a many gendered thing- is also excellent.
 
 
Hydra vs Leviathan
19:23 / 03.03.07
I'm not sure whether i actually believe in Deities (as actually existent beings, rather than memes/metaphors), but the idea of assigning genders to them, if they actually exist, seems to me to be frankly ridiculous. Gender is an attribute of... not even all forms of carbon-based organic life. The set of things that can be described as "carbon-based organic life" is an infinitesimal subset of all the things in the universe. If you believe in a being which transcends and is greater than the entire material universe, then to ascribe to that being an attribute of such a tiny (and wholly material) part of the contents of that universe seems utterly without logic or justification.

Then again, if God(s) are seen as meme-complexes, psychological principles, or any other concept in which their origin is in the consciousness of humanity (in which case, they may still transcend, or be more powerful than, that humanity, at least the way i see it), then it could be logical to ascribe genders to them. I think you would have to be very, very careful with the ethical and sociopolitical implications of such gender-ascription, however...

The multiple-genders idea is very interesting. I vaguely remember reading in (i think) one of CS Lewis's books that in some forms of Christian theology there are actually seven genders, of which only two are applicable to organic life forms. One thought that has occurred to me is that, if such biology-transcending "genders" exist (which i don't believe they do, but i have some friends to whom a belief in their existence is quite important), then one way to fit intersex, transgender, genderqueer, etc experience into a Christianesque theology would be to posit that, contra to the teachings of the established church, more than two of those genders actually could occur in material beings...

(of course, more radically monotheistic forms of both Christian and, to my understanding, Islamic theology actually teach that God, as the Absolute and Infinite creator of all things, is necessarily "without" (or rather, utterly transcendent of) gender, and therefore that earthly gender is nothing more than a distraction or illusion. Which is... pretty damn ironic, really, given the major earthly manifestations of those two religions... but i tend to play the demiurge card on that one...)

Incidentally, i'm strongly reminded of Sandman: A Game Of You by this thread (which leads me into murkier territory, namely that of What If The Gods Actually Exist, But They Are Bigoted Assholes... but i think that's definitely another thread, and possibly too big a can opf worms for me to even dare to open in this forum)...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
03:19 / 04.03.07
I wouldn't mind going on that particular worm hunt with you, nataraja, if you wanted to start the thread. I'm deeply unconfortable with the idea that there are things which are "too big a can of worms" for this forum. Within the remit of the Temple as outlined in the forum description, we ought to be up for anything.
 
 
*
06:40 / 04.03.07
I'm wondering in systems where the moon is gendered male how the lunar effect on female bleeding is handled.

Well, given my theoretical breakdown of the gender thing into three, like Gaul: If the moon is GENDERED male, it doesn't necessarily follow that it also has dominion over (only) the male Gender or gender. It might be that bleeding of any type is considered a "male" property, or it might seem to follow in the logic of that particular system that a being that is GENDERED male might be better suited for influencing female bodies (and vice versa?). Or it might be that menstruation is for whatever reason not seen as strongly connected to the moon, or to femaleness. But yeah— I'd like to know too.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:00 / 04.03.07
This is all theoretical but it's possible that in male-moon cultures there was no obvious reason to tie menstruation to the lunar cycle. There may not have been "monthlies" as we know them amongst the majority of women. The regular 28-day curse that modern Western women know and %love% is an artifact of our rich diet and relative physical ease. Perhaps our male-moon worshipping ancestresses simply did not have sufficient nutrition to allow for regular periods.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:26 / 04.03.07
Also: I've seen it suggested (eg Aswynn, Northern Magic and Mysteries) that the solar female is an articulation of the association between the sun and relief from the icy infertility of a long dark winter. The Sun is feminine because She brings life and fecundity to the barren land. Might well be the case in some parts of the world, but it does leave me wondering why the Australian Aboriginies have a Sun-Goddess too...
 
 
lyrra sark
12:04 / 04.03.07
it occurs to me - somewhat vaguely and without citation - that those cultures where the sun is personified as female may be those where the gender of deity is less correlated with the human sex act, and less determined by the metaphoric association of procreation with survival. freed of those, other associations might pertain, such as hearth, light/purity, beauty, freedom from fear, etc.
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:28 / 04.03.07
Atum is an intresting being, An egyptian creator god who masterbates creation into creation, Atums hand is considered feminine as is the seed it produces, the seed is then swallowed by Atum, going into an environment that bears the characteristics of the nun (primeval ocean)and other elements of the ogdoad and then shu is shot out a nostril and tefnut spat out.

Different parts of Atum have different genders, thou the creator atum is considered male, Atum-ra's eye (wadjet) is again considered female, sometimes portrayed as sekhmet.
To approach Atum as a wholly male creator is to miss the details.

Another example would be associations with body parts in some of the coffin texts, different parts of the body are attributed to different deities, so sekhment is linked to the spine and belly (intrestingly sekhmet is often shown in typically male posture left foot striding forward), Anubis to the thighs.

The idea that different parts of the body can have different gender attributes that change as interactions take place or according to circumstance is useful. The body then becomes a tapestry of different genders and associations within its own structure.

Once the body is engaging with its own processes and deities are embodyed within a mythology of the body, the body begins to have intercourse with itself creating, the deities playing out there mythology swapping and changing genders, giving birth and destroying within the narrative of a deified body.
 
 
Gamera
19:30 / 05.03.07
XK wrote:

Gamera, I'm not sure if it is intentional on your part but I'm reading the above quote as framing an absolute reality as opposed to one of many. Before I really dig into it I'm wondering if you'd care to position it in context. Especially this part:

Certainly the dominator mode of social organization is facilitated by a strong patriarchal Father god, it appears to practically be a necessity.

'Cause you know, from where I'm sitting it is neither a necessity nor a reality.

Well, what I had in mind at the time was a historical perspective; basically the ascendence of sky gods over and against the goddess in the transition from the neolithic to the bronze age, but it was articulated quite poorly and even in context grossly oversimplified. My aplogies. Please consider it redacted.
 
 
Sunfell
01:32 / 20.04.07
Atum is multi-gendered. I knew I always liked that guy, er, gal- er, Person.

:-)

Sie sounds a bit like me with my Crazy Mixed up DNA™.

I am rather fond of Solar Goddesses and multi-gendered beings. Amaterasu-Omikami (Japan) is one of my favorites, and Sekhmet, another, although she's more properly the "Gleam in the Eye of Ra". And Kephera is my right hand bug.

I sometimes get the idea that 'polarity' is a planetary artifact, and that in interstellar/interdeminsional space, polarity is 'spiral' if that makes sense. Or monopolar. The interaction of our Sun with the various planets is multipolar. None, and all at the same time. Probably a skull-popping proposition, but there you have it.

When you distangle energy from polar gender (and polar sexuality), it unfolds to reveal tons of subtle variations and vibrations. It's like going from on/off, black/white, male/female 'digital' thinking to the myriad and fluid multiplicity of analog.

Time will tell. The Math-n-Science Geeks will eventually figure it out.
 
 
This Sunday
04:37 / 20.04.07
I think growing up in a tradition that sometimes gendered the sun(s) as female and rocks as usually male, I have a little harder time universalising the gendering of non-sexed objects or concepts. I'd no sooner declare the sun as masculine or feminine than I would posit the sun as spathic, enclitic, ithyphallic or icthyphallic. The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear... not your daddy.

If someone has a burning yearning need to put a daddymask onto the sun, that's their business, but I would hope they could admit it was a mask.

I do like that virtually every culture with hard-gendered godforms, ends up with at least one notion of a ambiently-gendered godform who appears/acts as several of the hard-gendered. Which implies to me, that on some level, all cultures realize that this gendering is a tactic and not a functional unalterable reality.
 
 
Quantum
12:27 / 20.04.07
Is anyone willing to write about thi8s for the Temple Journal thing? Decrescent, I'm looking at you...
 
 
This Sunday
12:50 / 20.04.07
Since not sleeping has made me waste a few blurry minutes trying to make thi8s into theates or something similarly wittily L337-spelt, you may have to be more specific. Assignation of gender in magick? Something else that's cropped into the thread?

I'll probably do it, just because I'm off on a minor tiff about the whole unnecessary-genderizing thing anyhow, so it'd infect whatever I wrote about. Hopefully I wouldn't be the only one. Best thing that can come out of that collection would be a lack of unified perspective/voice, but a choir weaving together into some better communication than any of us individually can kick out.
 
 
Z. deScathach
13:57 / 20.04.07
Is anyone willing to write about thi8s for the Temple Journal thing? Decrescent, I'm looking at you...

I had planned to write on non-gendered polarity myself, but I don't want to step on any toes......
 
 
Z. deScathach
14:00 / 20.04.07
Decrescent, I think that I know a way to approach the subject of my article without much crossover, do you think we could com about this? Send me a PM, if you're comfortable with that.....
 
  
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