I got involved in an interesting discussion* on the relationship between Wicca and feminism. Some people have an experience of Wicca as anti-feminist and I think that’s worth addressing.
First, some people contend that Wicca denies leadership positions to women:
But Wicca as a whole can and does, usually in the form of “But women are so holy, we can’t let them sully themselves doing any thinking!”
Sorry, no. I’m doing this for twenty-five years and I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen sexism, yes, and we’re going to get to that, but I’ve never seen anything called “Wicca” that prevents women from leading. In some traditions, including my own, roles can be assigned based on gender, but that’s almost always favorable to women. In many branches of Gardnerian Wicca (the oldest tradition in the U.S.), women can lead covens alone, or in partnership with men, but men cannot lead alone. In fact, we often struggle with the discomfort and complaints of men who aren’t used to not running things. I don’t think the people I was talking with were lying, but wow. Never seen it. “Priestess” is the default in Wicca. Most of our important writers, poets, and ritualists are women.**
But that doesn’t mean that Wicca can’t be sexist. A lot of Wiccans take an essentialist view of gender; women are a particular way, and men are a particular way, and that is that. Often, this essentialism is accompanied by a sincere effort to empower women, or to empower both women and men. You might call this “difference feminism;” affording equal dignity and value to both genders, while acknowledging essential differences.
Okay, every feminist knows there are differences between men and women, but difference feminists extend this beyond body-parts-distribution into areas of psychology and ability, and most feminists say that isn’t feminist at all, and further, that “separate but equal” always ends up oppressing someone, and in the case of gender, that “someone” is women.
Is essentialism oppressive of Wiccan women? What I’ve seen with my own eyes has been: Post-menopausal women who are afraid they can no longer be priestesses because they are no longer able to reproduce, and post-hysterectomy women and transwomen who fear they cannot be priestesses because they don’t have wombs. In the case of post-menopause, I’ve only seen positive reassurances from other priestesses that of course it’s okay. In the latter case, I’ve seen some anti-trans prejudice, and even some rigidity about the whole womb thing, but mostly I’ve seen the same reassurances.
I’ve seen homophobia in Wicca. It pisses me off. It’s a small minority and it’s mostly a vestige of the 1950s. It is fading faster in Wicca than it is in the larger culture, but it’s fading everywhere, so I don’t feel we should pat ourselves on the back too much.
One person addressed Wicca’s emphasis on sexuality:
Frankly, I’ve yet to meet a Wiccan in my area who doesn’t have serious problems with me being asexual, and they express directly in religious terms – to them, if I’m not sexual/fertile/whatever, I’m not “honoring the Goddess” and can’t be Wiccan.
“Not honoring the Goddess” deserves a big ol’ “fuck that noise.” Like the Goddess is only the Goddess if she’s fucking, puh-leeze. Sounds like something a horny Pagan man might say to pressure a woman to put out. I hate those men.
On the other hand, being uncomfortable with the use of sexuality and fertility as your primary religious metaphor is a good reason not to be Wiccan. Get this: We don’t have a corner on religious excellence. There is nothing about Wicca that is designed to be for everyone, or spiritually superior. Don’t like chocolate? Try vanilla. Or strawberry. Or mocha mint. The essence of Paganism is plurality and freedom. Wicca is one—but only one—way to express that plurality and freedom.
I don’t believe there’s anything oppressive about saying, This path is great and it’s XYZ. If you don’t like XYZ, maybe you’ll like that ABC group in the next town. Don’t like drinking rituals? Asatru is probably not for you. Don’t like fertility workings? Skip Wicca.
People are used to the notion that a religion that isn’t all-inclusive is oppressive. But what’s oppressive is the denial of salvation. If you can’t be in the Catholic Church if you’re (fill in the blank) and you can’t know God or be saved or get into heaven or whatever unless you’re in the Catholic Church, you are oppressed. And screwed. But I’m pretty damn sure that there’s nothing oppressive about the chocolate tasting chocolatey. The people who don’t like chocolate are only oppressed if choosing another flavor is problematic, stigmatized, or not available.
The fertility emphasis means that life cycles are described in reproductive terminology. “Maiden/Mother/Crone” (MMC) instead of “Youth/Maturity/Old Age.” But that doesn’t mean you have to reproduce in order to experience life cycles. Actually, I can’t figure out how to avoid life cycles (sometimes I try).
As Wicca matures as a religion, and as Pagan research improves, fewer Pagans rely on MMC as the be-all, end-all it was in the 1970s and ’80s. There are so many goddesses who don’t fit into those categories. But a lot of people still use them. I haven’t personally seen them used to oppress women, but I have seen them used in a way that distorts any real understanding of deity. I’ve usually seen Kali described as a crone by Wiccans. Which is bullshit and perfectly illustrates the flaw in the system. Kali is a mother—a dark mother. Since darkness gets dumped into the “crone” bucket, Kali is misunderstood and marginalized. Not that I worry about my Lady being pushed around! But it doesn’t enhance one’s religious experience.
*In comments on Feministe starting here. Additional comments quoted above, and here, here, here, here, and here.
**Including Doreen Valiente, Starhawk, Ashleen O’Gaea, Amber K., Marion Weinstein, M. Macha Nightmare, and Margot Adler. Even the famous men are usually famous in partnership: Alex and Maxine Sanders, Janet and Stewart Farrar, Victor and Cora Anderson. The famous solitary men in Wicca are fewer: Gerald Gardner, Scott Cunningham, and Chris Penczak. Scott was famous as a solitary, and Chris is famous as a gay Witch.
Wow. My compliments. VERY well said, and needed to be said.
I’m going to link this to Letters from the Editor at my site.
[…] go take a look at her post: http://www.deborahlipp.com/wordpress/?p=996. She states this better than I […]
Thank you very much, Daven.
Not disagreeing with anything you’ve said either there or here. But “I haven’t seen it,” doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And although I guessed the wrong coast for your location, you almost had to be in a major metro area — NY qualifies. Once you get out of the areas where trad Wicca is the norm, things can get pretty bizarre in “I Read a Book or Two and Now I Am A WITCH” land. I drive over 150 miles to get to circle, because the local pagan networking “club/coven” is actually hostile to anyone with trad training. Nuts? Yes. Real life situation? Also, yes.
That said, I don’t think they’re Wiccan at all — but I’m not the Wicca-police — there aren’t any Wicca-police. Sometimes that is unfortunate…
Also, that “too holy to think” crap is something I’ve heard from the odd Thelema/Wiccan hybrids I’ve run into…again, weird, but not unheard of.
what exactly is a wicca. is it a tribe?
Tricia, I appreciate your coming by.
First, my experience of Paganism isn’t as limited as you think. I’ve been to Pagan events literally all over the world. I’ve attended festivals and rituals in Ohio, Kansas, Ontario, Florida, California, Wisconsin, Texas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Queensland, Australia (among others). I’m very familiar with the hostility towards trad Wicca. In fact, I give a workshop on Gardnerian Wicca specifically in order to address that hostility.
I’m not surprised there’s sexism in Thelema, because I’ve definitely seen that. The woman is there for the Gnostic Mass and to be the Whore of Babylon thankyouverymuch. Not my cup of cakes & ale.
Thing is, even though there aren’t any Wicca-police, it is still totally legitimate to say “That’s not Wicca.” Like I said, Jesus worship isn’t Jewish, Jews for Jesus notwithstanding. There are no actual Grammar Police either, but there’s still such a thing as incorrect English.
I feel perfectly comfortable defining Wicca, and saying certain things definitely aren’t Wicca. I would go toe to toe with anyone, any time, and say if you’re keeping women away from the Priesthood, you’re not a Wiccan and shouldn’t pretend to be one. I have no authority to back me up, no means of stopping someone from saying something false. But what I can do is communicate in the way I’m doing, in the hopes of making the information that much more widespread.
First, I rather like your take on Wicca.
Second, I totally agree with you that someone, like me, who’s uncomfortable with the heavy emphasis on fertility in Wicca shouldn’t be Wiccan. It’s why I’m not, anymore, though I still draw heavily from it.
But see, I saw the same sexism and homophobia you mentioned, and honestly, part of the reason I left Wicca was because I do feel that those are, if not intrinsic to Wicca, encouraged by it. Wicca’s a highly dualistic religion, and it has, obviously, a heavy focus on fertility. Those two things combined can lead to some pretty nasty sexism (going either way – I’ve met a fair few Wiccans who considered men lesser beings) and some pretty nasty homophobia. (I recall being on the periphery of a major online discussion on whether or not one could be homosexual and still be Wiccan, since Wicca believes in the whole God-and-Goddess relationship…)
This is not to say that these things have to show up in Wicca, or that any given Wiccan is sexist or homophobic. But then, I don’t think that about Christianity, or Islam, or any other religion. I think that there is something sexist or sexism-enabling in the structure of all those religions, and I do think it takes some open eyes and some care to avoid it, but I don’t think Wicca’s a misogynistic religion.
Am I making any sense whatsoever? I’m not sure.
Hey there! I havent seen you post in so long over at Mysticwicks – I miss your stuff. I am glad I found your blog, though This should keep me in reading material for a while.!
Alix,
The homophobia I’ve seen has mostly been in older groups. I am dismayed to hear it’s still active out there. What on Earth do they think “all acts of love and pleasure” means?
My take on the fertility/duotheism emphasis is that it’s not about relationships, it’s about procreation, the source of life. Gay, straight, asexual, we are all products of the fertile union of male and female. I have lots of gay people I work with in the Craft, and all of them are born of heterosexual union. It’s the spark of life that’s key.
I understand what you’re saying, that as soon as people start talking about gender in religion at all, it can be “sexism-enabling” (good phrase). I’m not sure, though, that ignoring gender is a good solution. Wicca is a very physical religion. I value the celebration of the bodies we have, the orientations we have, the pleasures we experience. I think embracing our different sexual orientations is not unlike embracing fat-acceptance; our bodies, ourselves, as it were.
Theresa, hi! It’s hard to visit Mystic Wicks while running two blogs. I’ll try to drop by more often.
On the topic if “That’s not Wicca” I was talking to an aquantance of mine over trying to start up a Gay Pagan Group here in the Tampa Bay area as there isn’t one as of yet. (Only up two weeks, and I already have 5 memebers, and the first meeting isn’t until April, I’m excited!) Anywho, this person was talking about how they knew a Wiccan “back home” and they were cool, believing in the Goddess instead of God, and yadda yadda yadda on some topics that were not Wiccan. I said, “Sounds cool, but that’s not Wicca.” He asked, “What right do you have to say that it’s not Wicca?” I retorted with, “The same authority that gives me the right to say that that shrub isn’t a tree. It looks like a tree, sorta, and to someone that doesn’t know what a tree is, and has only gotten a loose description of a tree may be it could be one to them. But me? I know what a tree is. I know what Wicca is. What you’re talking about isn’t Wicca.” He replied, “Good point.”
I love trees.
Excellent analogy, Christopher. Exactly that sort of conversation happens all the time. But if Wicca is whatever anyone happens to say it is, then it isn’t anything.
I don’t think that ignoring gender is a good idea, either. I think, though, that we (in general) have to be very conscientious of how we view gender, and discuss it, and deal with it in our religion and in our daily life.
And, frankly, I think that it’d be nice to see more discussion on Wicca beyond the fertility aspects and gender duality. Obviously, that’s highly important, being the basis of the religion, but it seems like so little beyond that is ever discussed. It’s hard to find discussions of nuance in the God and Goddess, for example.
Although I do wonder how many of the Wiccans I see got all their info from one webpage or book and now proudly claim the name without having any real grounding in the religious philosophy of Wicca. I imagine if you just add the surface trappings of Wicca (or any religion) to your life without thinking about it, your preexisting philosophy (and preexisting bigotry) will show through. (Er, that’s a general “you” there, not directed to anyone here!)
See, your take on Wicca, and the underlying philosophy you’re illuminating here, I agree with. (If I can say this without sounding egotistical, it’s similar to what I came to on my own.) Thing is, it’s not what I heard most Wiccans I knew, in real life or online, espousing. And I take Christopher’s (and others’) point, that it’s easy to say one is Wiccan but that Wicca isn’t just whatever anyone says it is. The problem is – how does one tell? Christopher uses the example of someone claiming to be Wiccan who believes in the Goddess but not the God. Maybe that isn’t Wicca, but there are a large number of people out there who think it is, or at least that it’s an accepted variant.
…And I have no idea where I’m going with this. I think I started to ramble, sorry.
Forgot to add:
if you just add the surface trappings of Wicca (or any religion) to your life without thinking about it, your preexisting philosophy (and preexisting bigotry) will show through.
Which, I think, is also how many Christian fundies are born. Many of them have an astonishingly poor grasp of the Bible; they base their entire religion on what one or a few others tell them and what they want it to be. I don’t think Wicca’s immune to that type of thing.
Anyway, I’ve been poking through your blog. Hope you don’t mind me sticking around!
Alix, you’re very welcome to stick around.
Oops, sorry I didn’t realize your longer post at #12 was actually new.
It’s very well-thought out. I think the issue is complicated. Eclectic Wicca is a religion that anyone can join by declaring themselves to be so. (As opposed to Traditional Wicca, which is initiatory.) And there are books and websites espousing a lot of “anything goes.” Sometimes I do feel I’m fighting the tide.
But there is such a thing as Wicca, not just as a catch-all phrase, and people who are committed to finding out more about their own path can find a lot of good, solid information. People who are not comitted…well, if their path is that shallow, adding extra information probably won’t help.
There’s a phrase for worshiping the Goddess without the God: Goddess-worship or Goddess Spirituality. It’s a lovely phrase, meaningful and accurate. If someone thinks they’re Wiccan but worships only the Goddess, I would gently correct their terminology.
I also think we shouldn’t feel too sorry for ourselves. We live in a culture where people can’t name the president or vice president. Or the first president of the U.S. Or any living Senator. We live in a world where people think New Mexico is in Mexico and that Canada is in the U.S. Where people routinely ask me if my tattoos wash off (my hand to God). Ignorance is so profoundly entrenched in U.S. culture that we shouldn’t be surprised that there are ignorant Wiccans and pseudo-Wiccans.
That whole paragraph on ignorance in America is so bang-on accurate it makes me want to scream. Funny you should mention the New Mexico thing – I attended college in Santa Fe – I’m from Virginia – and spent two weeks before I left for college dealing with my mother’s very worried questions. It wasn’t until she wanted to know if my passport was up-to-date that I realized she was making the same mistake you mention.
Back on topic – I wonder how many of these Wiccans who are really Goddess-worshippers have even come across the term. I didn’t until I made a concerted effort to study the evolution of mythology. I certainly never encountered the term in any of a hundred Wiccan resources I looked at – but I did run across dozens of books/websites conflating Wicca and Goddess-worship. Maybe there need to be more Wicca 101-type sites that include a section on what Wicca is not – I think its very eclecticism (in its one branch) throws people off. (If I were still Wiccan, or felt that I had a good enough grounding, I’d do it myself. Hm. Project for the future, perhaps.)
I mean, it’s taken forever to really beat back some of the myths surrounding the Inquisition in Europe, but it happened, so maybe beating back this ignorance surrounding what Wicca is isn’t so impossible.
We live in a culture where people can’t name the president or vice president. Or the first president of the U.S. Or any living Senator. We live in a world where people think New Mexico is in Mexico and that Canada is in the U.S. Where people routinely ask me if my tattoos wash off (my hand to God). Ignorance is so profoundly entrenched in U.S. culture
I really want to not believe that statement, and if I stayed within my small group of friends back home, I could do the Piesce thing of “La La La!” But now, without them – without that comfort-zone of intellegent, informed folks, I’m out in the cold, stupid, and willfully ignorant world which I have named Florida. I miss Texas. (How contrary is that out of context, smart folks in Texas?!)
That’s a great idea, the What Wicca is Not thing. I have done a lot of writing on what Wicca is, and suggested to people that if they’re not those things, maybe Wicca is the wrong word.
Wicca is a decreasing segment of the Pagan community. In the 1970s, I’d guess it was 90%. By the late 1980s, I’d guess 80%. Now I think it’s around 70%, but a lot of people still don’t know there are other options. Druidism is growing. Asatru is growing. But lots of people just don’t see other Pagan options available, so they use the word “Wicca” for lack of any other.
Another thing is that the Women’s Spirituality community and the Pagan community just barely overlap. Jade, one of the important leaders and writers in Women’s Spirituality, was a guest speaker at Starwood one year, but mostly I can’t think of many instances where the two communities have interacted meaningfully. I think women with a Women’s Spirituality orientation who stumbled into Paganism first might not find a lot of information about where else they could be (and vice versa).
Out of curiosity, do you think Wicca is a decreasing segment because it itself is shrinking, or because the Pagan pie is getting bigger? I mean, it’s only recently that I’ve seen Wicca decoupled from witchcraft, with people feeling they could pick one, the other, both, or neither. It’s also only recently that I’ve seen much interest in any of a dozen Reconstructionist religions/movements.
It’s too bad that Pagan really hasn’t caught on as a catch-all term for a particular notion of spirituality, and Wiccan has. I wonder if Pagan seems too broad or even too informal for people, rather like saying “I’m Christian” opens one up to even more pressure to pick a denomination?
I wonder if one of those problems stating what Wicca is not is that many Wiccans are so misinformed – and would be likely to react negatively to the idea that they might not be Wiccan at all. There also seems to be quite the antiauthoritarian streak in Wicca (in my experience), which leads to a lot of “This is what I think Wicca is, but you can define it as you want to” stuff.
Interesting point about the Women’s Spirituality and Pagan community overlap; I’d never noticed that, probably because most of the female Wiccans I knew (in fact, many of the female Pagans I knew) got into their religion by trying to find some spirituality/religion that would empower them. (I’m not saying Wicca doesn’t or can’t; I’m just saying I thought the overlap was greater.)
Women’s Spirituality is almost entirely separatist; women-only. Traditional Wicca is rather strictly gender-balanced, although that has loosened enormously. But the emphasis remains on balance.
I think that other branches of Paganism have grown, and the perception within Paganism that there are options has gradually gotten out there; hence the interest in Recon and so on. I don’t know why people have latched onto “Wicca” as a generic word’; with “Pagan” available, it makes little sense.
Wow! What an amazing article! When I first got into Wicca in high school I was initially very excited then very let down. What I was looking for was Reconstruction/Reconstitution, and that was not to be found in Wicca. I stepped away from my religion for many years before deciding to strike out on my own and figure it out for myself. Even with the growing interest in Recon there are still so many people that assume I am “Celtic Wiccan”. It’s enough to make you crazy! Then to have people bad-mouth rituals you have done because there wasn’t a proper circle or a the elements called just so…yet these same people hardly acknowledge the God in ritual, well, that’s enough to make you crazy too!
Where I am at in Florida it’s very hard to get the point across to people that you are not Wiccan. I see a lot of people who are Wiccan who drift from one “Wiccan” path to another: “Celtic”, “Seax”, “Shamanistic” with nary a thought for what they are actually trying to achieve, it makes me wonder if they aren’t really trying to practice Wicca, but limiting themselves because they think that’s all there is. And these same people are the the ones who stand back and sneer when you won’t categorize your Goddesses or asperge with salt-water.
I love your analogy about the chocolate. I am in total agreement, I just wish that people with synthetic chocolate flavoring wouldn’t stand in the way of my peppermint chocolate chip. The other Pagans (who aren’t Wiccan) can sometimes get really down on Wiccans because of this sort of thing and do start to feel oppressed because we aren’t Wiccan but can’t “do it the right way” unless we are Wiccan. I think that more info on “What Wicca is NOT” without the catch-all “but it is whatever you think it is…” (which it isn’t) would be very cool. At the very least, non-Wiccans could look at it and breathe a sigh of relief to know they’re not crazy.
Thanks for such a great peice on feminism and Wicca also. I was wondering, as a Wiccan, do you think that it is more about the mental/emotional than the physical (not to the point of denying the physical)? If that were the case then a lesbian couple could do the great rite just the same as a hetero couple if they felt the call to.
I was wondering, as a Wiccan, do you think that it is more about the mental/emotional than the physical (not to the point of denying the physical)? If that were the case then a lesbian couple could do the great rite just the same as a hetero couple if they felt the call to.
Many people use “the Great Rite” as a euphemism for sexual magic or sexual ritual. It is more than that, and more complicated than that. It is a specific thing. I see “the Great Rite” as a ritual enactment of the creation of life; it is a fertility rite. And as I said above, we are all born of heterosexual union, and the GR is normally enacted heterosexually, symbolic of that.
Now, if you’re asking can a sexual ritual that is about love or intimacy or connection be enacted by a lesbian or gay couple, of course the answer is yes.
Hi, I trundled over from Feministe as well. I originally wanted to point out that the first quote was in response to someone asking if there was any religion which contained no anti-feminist fringe and someone else suggesting Wicca. My interpretation was that the critique was meant to say, “No, there are a few anti-feminist jerks in the fringe of that religion too,” rather than to condemn Wicca as a whole.
However, that’s a fairly trivial point. I wanted to tell you how very true and important this paragraph seems to me:
I don’t belong to any religion and self-identify as agnostic, but I am also on a spiritual path, trying to “achieve conscious awareness of ultimate reality” (which just happens to be part of the Wikipedia definition of ‘mysticism’, thus explaining how I call myself an agnostic mystic!) That’s because I feel religion isn’t for ME — I am not other people. I love discussing the universe and our place in it with my pagan friends. They’re on a path, and so am I. Who knows, perhaps our paths are leading to the same place — but what’s beautiful is that we aren’t dictating to each other. You’ve captured that so splendidly above. Thank you.
Thank you Cecily.
I still don’t think I’d call any anti-feminism that exists within Wicca an anti-feminist fringe of Wicca. Rather, I think it’s screwy individuals misnaming their religion or just confused or whatever. It’s not institutionalized, even to the minor extent that anything can be institutionalized within Wicca.
And I do appreciate your journey. I don’t think Wicca needs to recruit and I don’t get a pink Cadillac for signing up new members (which, wow, that would be cool), and I’m very comfortable with agnostics and mystics and mystical agnostics. Among my good friends, there are atheists, an Evangelical, a Mormon, and a Mennonite. So I’m pretty open to, as they say “the varieties of religious experience.”