I am a member of a religious organization that claims to be Feminine Positive. I think that’s bullshit. They aren’t Feminine Negative, but they are in no way Feminine Positive. The best, I suppose, that I can hope for is Feminine Neutral, but that’s really not enough, is it? It isn’t for me, at least.

This weekend, I was talking to another member of the organization, one higher up on the food chain than I. I mentioned to him that, among the subgroups offered, there wasn’t one to study the Feminine Mysteries. Two things happened then. One is that another member said that one wasn’t needed, and the person I was talking to said that there wasn’t one for Men’s Mysteries either.

I’m not even going to address the first comment, mostly because the string of profanity that would exit my mouth would likely get me kicked off the internet. There aren’t enough profane words in my vocabulary to answer that properly. As to the second, I managed to bite my tongue and hold in the screaming fit that would have followed. What would I have said, if I had given voice to my feelings? Mostly that the whole God’s Damned religion was about Men’s Mysteries, and if they weren’t so fucking, up to their eyeballs in patriarchal bullshit, they’d see that.

All religion is based on the Male model of Divinity and worship. Even Z Budapest and her Dianic Witchcraft Tradition is based on simply doing to men what they have always done to women. That’s not fair and it’s not healthy. Though I see the reasoning behind it, and I sympathize with the women who feel it’s necessary, I don’t agree. It doesn’t fit my needs.

I’ll try to explain, if I can. There is a persistent sociological myth that says that, if you’re going to be Feminine Positive that you are, in essence Male Negative. That isn’t true, and it’s setting up a power struggle that really doesn’t need to exist. It is, actually, counterproductive. It’s not us against them. Us against them is, however, the way the male mind works. It’s always related to the struggle, who’s going to be on top, who’s going to run things? Who, in short, is going to make the decisions about what is important.

That’s not the way that women’s minds work. Studies have shown that women work by consensus.  We take in all opinions and arrive at decisions together. Men choose a leader, give opinions, and one man makes the decision. The way religion is set up is done in that way. It’s a purely masculine way of working.

Add to that, the fact that all of the study programs are based on how men learn. They focus on what men think is important. It breaks it down into smaller pieces, and when you’re done, you put the puzzle together and see the larger picture. Women learn and solve problems best when the big picture is fully seen, and the pieces are learned about with that larger picture in mind.

Why is this important? Recent studies have shown that in mixed gender groups, women speak less than men. Men talk over women; men feel comfortable interrupting, and discounting women’s opinions in decision making. For women to be included in the religious life, we must be able to do so fully, taking our own strengths into the room with us. It’s wrong to expect women to live a life that’s rigged in favor of men.

The organization I belong to is one of the better ones. They try to be inclusive of all, and dismissive of none. My GLBT brothers and sisters are welcomed fully into the life of the church. All of this is good, and far better than many religious organizations manages. While they treat women as important as society treats women, they fail to realize that in society as a whole, women are not treated as important. They don’t try to lift women up; they don’t make it easier for women to lift themselves up. If we, as women, want to lift ourselves up, we have to do it using the skills and talents that aren’t native to us. Women have bought into this. We have learned that to be thought of as the equals of men, we have to become as men are. We have participated in our own diminishing.

It’s clear that the world is out of balance. We, as Pagans bemoan this unbalance, yet we unknowingly continue the system that threw the world out of balance.  We continue to order our religion in a way that is fundamentally out of balance, and the majority refuses to see that we continue to maintain the imbalance through ignorance. I will fight to help others to see that we are doing this to ourselves.