Category: Mary Daly

A Cross-Cultural Feminist Alchemy: Studying Mago, Pan-East Asian Great Goddess, Using Mary Daly’s Radical Feminism as Springboard by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Feminist theology was self-transcending to me. I was unafraid of going beyond the boundary of Christianity and its God. 

Mago is the Great Goddess of East Asia and in particular Korea. Reconstructing Magoism, the cultural and historical context of East Asia that venerated Mago as the supreme divine, is both the means and the end. Magoism demonstrates the derivative nature of East Asian religions such as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism while redefining East Asian Shamanism to be the religious expression of Magoism.

I encountered the topic of Mago during my doctoral studies. The topic of Mago fell out of nowhere at the time I was preparing for qualifying examinations. I had never heard the name, Mago. Only when I was able to collect a large amount of primary sources from Korea, China, and Japan, was I awakened to the cultural memory of Mago. I grew up craving the stories of Halmi (Grandmother/Great Mother), a common referral to Mago among Koreans. I had a childhood experience of being in the fairy land unfolded by my grandmother’s old stories. While “Mago” was unfamiliar to most Koreans, she was taken for granted in her many other names such as Samsin (the Triad Deity) and Nogo (Old Goddess) and place-names such as Nogo-san (Old Goddess Mountain) and Nogo-dang (Old Goddess Shrine). Continue reading “A Cross-Cultural Feminist Alchemy: Studying Mago, Pan-East Asian Great Goddess, Using Mary Daly’s Radical Feminism as Springboard by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang”

Painting Mary Daly By Angela Yarber

You don’t have to be perfect to be a saint.  The saints who comprise my Holy Women Icons are far from perfect, but each one has made a difference in the lives of countless women.  By giving iconography a folk feminist twist—by painting these women and calling them holy—it is my hope that their lives can embolden us to stand for justice, equality, and peace in the ways they did.  Last month, the Shulamite was our focus as her undulating lines and sensuous curves reminded us to love our bodies regardless.

Given the recent censoring of Sister Margaret Farley’s book, Just Love, by the Vatican due to its “radical feminist themes,” I thought it would be most fitting this month to feature a holy woman who irked the Vatican.  Since I haven’t yet had the opportunity to create an icon for Margaret Farley, I’d like to dedicate this month’s article to another radical feminist who subverted traditional Catholic doctrine: Mary Daly.

Mary Daly (1928-2010) described herself as a “radical lesbian feminist.”  Continue reading “Painting Mary Daly By Angela Yarber”

Conversation on Leadership Continues…By Xochitl Alvizo

In a recent post on leadership I proposed that facilitating open dialogue is a central aspect of leadership. That if we are to move into new horizons – that is, feminist horizons of mutual communal empowerment and liberation – we must be willing to both risk and dialogue, and a leader is one who helps facilitate those practices.

Dialogue and the practice of making room for one another’s voices and contributions do not come easily to us however. Humans have a tendency to stifle and squelch one another especially if we sense that our privileges and comforts, our truths and our convictions, are being challenged or threatened. And so the breakdown in dialogue can result in the literal prevention of change and possibility – the possibility and actuality of entering into a more divine reality and way of relating. A leader then must be someone who can recognize and be aware of change-stifling powers, be willing to name and resist them, and help facilitate the creation of a literal time/place space for open participation and dialogue. This new open space has the potential and literally becomes the womb from which something new may be birthed…it is a fluid, messy, mysterious place, and not one necessarily easy to exists within, but absolutely necessary if seek to contribute toward a more just and beautiful existence. Open dialogue is a necessary part of helping create this new womb space where differences (of perspective, voices, people) can come together to interact and spark with one another in order to morph and change and thus birth something new together. Continue reading “Conversation on Leadership Continues…By Xochitl Alvizo”

KARAI KASANG: Rebirthing the Non-Patriarchal Image of God in Kachin Culture by Zau Sam

This  post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

Zau Sam is a first year MA student in Feminist Studies with interests in process theology, ecotheology, feminist and ecofeminist theologies.  He is ethnically Kachin (Jinghpaw) and from Myanmar (Burma). Zau is a minister at Yangon Kachin Baptist Church (in Myanmar) and Academic Dean of the Church-based Bible School there.  

Throughout our Feminist Ethics class, I have been thinking about Mary Daly’s concept of “Goddess” in her Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism.  I don’t believe that there is any sound theological argument that the term “God” itself represents patriarchy. Theologically speaking, if we study the Bible systematically, particularly Genesis 1:27, it is unquestionable that God is associated with both feminine and masculine imagery.  God is imaged as both mother and father. In contrast to this nature, Mary Daly does not merely seek to erase masculine imagery from the term “God,” but the word “God” itself.  However, “Goddess” without the masculine imagery can no longer be the Perfect Goddess, just as “God” without the image of the feminine also remains imperfect.

Continue reading “KARAI KASANG: Rebirthing the Non-Patriarchal Image of God in Kachin Culture by Zau Sam”

Sister Wives, The Terrible Taboo, and Agency by Xochitl Alvizo

A couple of weeks ago I watched a handful of Sister Wives episodes; it was the start of the new season and the network was having a marathon. I was absolutely fascinated. It was my first time watching the show, and interestingly,  I had actually seen the family in person in Boston before I ever saw them on TV. They had been in town in September for a panel discussion that one of my friends was hosting and all I knew about the Sister Wives show was that it was about a polygamist family with three wives and one husband. I never imagined myself intrigued. But seeing the women sitting there, hearing them talk about their lifestyle and how much they love their sister wives, getting to witness their family dynamics and their different personalities, I found that my first reaction to them was not  judgment. Instead I found myself increasingly curious, particularly about the sister wives’ relationship with one another.  Continue reading “Sister Wives, The Terrible Taboo, and Agency by Xochitl Alvizo”

Room at the Table: The “Problem” of Men By Lara Helfer

This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

Lara Helfer is a 3rd year MDiv Student at Claremont School of Theology. She is humbled and excited by the intelligence, passion, and commitment of her classmates and professors, and looks forward their feedback and challenges to her very first blog post. 

As an out lesbian for more than 25 years, I have always struggled with the separatist movements associated with radical feminism. For me, affiliating as a ‘woman loving woman’ means just that, I love women. But wait – I love men too!  Whom I partner with – and yes, as a lesbian my partner is a woman – is but one aspect of me. Being a lesbian is not all of who I am, by far. I can’t, and do not wish to, imagine my life without men as an integral part of it. Continue reading “Room at the Table: The “Problem” of Men By Lara Helfer”

What Does It Mean to Say that All White Feminists Are Racist? (Questions Posed to White Women/Myself about Our Part in the Dialogue with Women of Color) By Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ, a founding mother in the study of Women and Religion and Feminist Theo/a/logy, has been active in anti-racist, anti-poverty, anti-war, feminist, pro-gay and lesbian, anti-nuclear, and environmental causes (in that order) for many years.  All of these issues have informed her teaching, her scholarship, and her politics.

The recent posting of Mary Daly’s letter to Audre Lorde on the Feminism and Religion blog is a correction of a piece of feminist history that is important in its own right and because of the way Lorde’s letter has shaped feminist discourse and politics up to the present day.  Knowledge of the existence of Daly’s letter and the facts surrounding Lorde’s distortion of history has been in the public domain since the 2004 publication of Alexis DeVeaux’s Warrior Poet, but when I searched the internet for a copy of “Mary Daly’s letter to Audre Lorde” a few days ago, what came up was Lorde’s letter to Daly — not Daly’s letter to Lorde.

I often hear younger feminists say that “all white feminists” of the older generations “were racist.”  Sometimes Mary Daly is mentioned.  Setting the record straight about Mary Daly is one step in retelling the history of feminism in a more complex way.  Continue reading “What Does It Mean to Say that All White Feminists Are Racist? (Questions Posed to White Women/Myself about Our Part in the Dialogue with Women of Color) By Carol P. Christ”

Mary Daly’s Letter to Audre Lorde

Note: This is an old conversation, in so many ways (including, historical). The more important elements of this exchange is the content, experience, and work that Audre Lorde was communicating in the writing of her original letter to Mary Daly. It is the plea we continue to hear today from those whose voices are systematically marginalized, brutalized, and erased. To that point, this post fails to take heed, and reflects the personal relationship many had to Daly, and not to Lorde, and is therefore another example of the wrongheaded emphasis so many of us continue to fall into. We must and will do better. And the post remains here as another negative example and a case study, the lesson of which is a call to renew one’s commitments to be willing to hear, see, and feel the cries of those bearing the brunt of injustice, and respond in justice-making actions. Here is Audre Lorde’s letter, which, as Ellen in the comments below rightly states, is a “deep, heart-felt, informed, impassioned, desperately empathic response,” written of her great beneficence. Spend time with Lorde’s powerful words:  https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lordeopenlettertomarydaly.html.
– Xochitl, 2/22/23  

In May of 1979, Audre Lorde shared her critique of Gyn/Ecology with Mary Daly via a letter.  Lorde claimed she had received no response from Daly and subsequently published her assessment of Daly’s work as an open letter, first in This Bridge Called My Back in 1981 and then in Sister Outsider in 1984. Lorde had commented on this issue over the years and in 1982 claimed in an interview that if she had received a response from Daly, she would not have published her critique as an open letter. Lorde’s letter was widely republished and has been used as a paradigmatic teaching tool for the study of “white feminist racism” in Women’s Studies courses.

However, in 2003 as Alexis De Veaux was completing research for her forthcoming biography about Lorde, Warrior Poet, she  found Daly’s letter of response in Lorde’s papers.  On the letter Daly’s last name was written in the bottom corner in Lorde’s handwriting.  On June 9, 2003 De Veaux contacted Daly explaining her discovery and asked permission to quote from Daly’s letter that was dated September 22, 1979.  DeVeaux wrote about the existence of the letter and what must have been an unsatisfactory encounter between the two women at a conference in late September 1979; she also speculated on the reasons Lorde chose not to disclose receiving the letter.

In Amazon Grace Daly tells her version of the story and explains that it was gratifying that De Veaux thought it was crucial to publish the letter and correct the widespread misbelief that Daly had not responded to Lorde (26).  Shortly after Daly received a copy of her letter from DeVeaux, she called friends and colleagues asking them to help make this information more widely known.  Carol P. Christ gave me access to the copy of Mary’s letter she received at that time.  Because parts of the letter itself may be difficult to read, I am also posting a transcription.

September 22, 1979

Dear Audre,

First, I want to thank you for sending me The Black Unicorn.  I have read all of the poems, some of them several times.  Many of them moved me very deeply – others seemed farther from my own experience.  You have helped me to be aware of different dimensions of existence, and I thank you for this.  

My long delay in responding to your letter by no means indicated that I have not been thinking about it – quite the contrary.  I did think that by putting it aside for awhile I would get a better perspective than at first reaction.  I wrote you a note to that effect which didn’t get mailed since I didn’t have your address.  Then there was a hope of trying to get to Vermont in August, but the summer was overwhelmingly eventful.

Clearly there is no simple response possible to the matters you raise in your letter.  I wrote Gyn/Ecology out of the insights and materials most accessible to me at the time.  When I dealt with myth I used commonly available sources to find what were the controlling symbols behind judeo-christian myth in order to trace a direct line to the myths which legitimate the technological horror show.  But of course to point out this restriction in the first passage is not really to answer your letter.  You have made your point very strongly and you most definitely do have a point.  I could speculate on how Gyn/Ecology would have been affected had we corresponded about this before the manuscript went to press, but it doesn’t seem creativity-conducing to look backward.  There is only now and the hope of breaking the barriers between us – of constantly expanding the vision.

I wonder if you will have any time available when I come to New York for the Simone de Beauvoir conference?  Since I have a lot to do here, I had thought of just flying down Friday morning and returning that night.  Are you free Friday afternoon or evening?  Or will you be in Boston any time soon?  I called and left a message on your machine.  My number is …. Hope to see you and talk with you soon.

[Handwritten] I hope you are feeling well, Audre.  May the strength of all the Goddesses be with you – Mary

Click the link below to view a copy of the actual letter from Daly.

Mary Daly’s letter to Audre Lorde

Also see:

Mary Daly speaking about discovering that she responded to Audre Lorde in writing and that Audre Lorde kept the letter and deposited it at Spellman College

Mary Daly’s recollection of the events in Amazon Grace, p. 22-26

Warrior Poet, p. 233-238, 246-248, 251-253

Adrienne Sere’s In remembrance of Mary Daly: Lessons for the Movement

Carol P. Christ’s response to the publication of Daly’s letter on this blog: “What Does It Mean to Say that All White Feminists Are Racist? (Questions Posed to White Women/Myself about Our Part in the Dialogue with Women of Color)

(This blog was revised on October 8, 2011)

The Misbegotten Male: Male Sex-Selection & Female Abortion By Cynthia Garrity Bond

I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears
Of weakness and disappointment; for what woman
wants a girl for her first-born?  They took the child from
me.  Kali said: “Never mind.  There will be many later
On.  You have plenty of time”
To our modern sensibility, the ancient Greeks understanding of procreation is as far reaching as say Nordstrom’s may be to any dollar store.  To the Greeks, men’s testicles had a particular function or job to fulfill: the left one produced girls with the right one producing boys.  For Aristotle, if you were willing to “man-up” and take the pain, tie off your left testicle during intercourse in order to insure the birth of a son.  In this formula, if something were to go wrong, even though you followed the correct game plan and a girl was born instead of the hope for son, something obviously went wrong at conception, thus the term “The Misbegotten Male,”i.e. a daughter, as the misbegotten.   Continue reading “The Misbegotten Male: Male Sex-Selection & Female Abortion By Cynthia Garrity Bond”

Hands Off By John Erickson

This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

John Erickson is a doctoral student in Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University.  His research interests involve an interdisciplinary approach and are influenced by his time as the director of a women’s center and active member in the GLBTQ and women’s rights movements.  His work is inspired by the intersectionality of the feminism, queer identity, and religious political and cultural rhetoric.  He is the author of the blog, From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter at@jerickson85.

I find it little ironic that I am writing about Mary Daly’s formidable “anti-male” book Gyn/Ecology.  I remember reading the book when I was a sophomore in college and I owe much to Daly and her opus because they helped me to identify as a radical.

I know my position in feminism is sometimes misunderstood.  I have often found myself on the defensive end when someone asks me the question: “Why are you a feminist?”  However, although my identification as a feminist is always changing and growing, the label “RADICAL” is one I proudly wear on my chest everyday.   Continue reading “Hands Off By John Erickson”