“Psychologist of religion Naomi Goldenberg has argued that a simple, basic, and fundamental lie must be maintained for patriarchy to function. This lie is the denial of the womb that gives us birth. The lie of patriarchy tells us that the Father is the only true parent. Its corollary is that whatever the father does is justified because he is ‘The Father’. Goldenberg argues that the lie of patriarchy is contrary to fact and experience. Everyone knows that it is the Mother who gives birth. There can be very little doubt about who the mother is, while the identity of the father can always be questioned.
But if the lie of patriarchy is so obvious, why is it believed? Why doesn’t the audience laugh when Apollo and Athena speak nonsense? Why have whole cultures believed that powerful women are monsters and dragons who must be slain because they are the source of sin and evil in the world? Goldenberg’s answer is simple. We believe the patriarchal lie because it is ‘performed,’ repeated, reenacted, read, told, sung, and taught again and again in so many contexts that we finally accept it as true.” ~ Carol P. Christ, “Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality”
*more on Christ here (& how perfect is that last name for a feminist thealogian?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_P._Christ
One of the grotesque habits of the You-Know-Who administration is to repeat and repeat a lie over and over and over again, so many times that the lie is eventually believed by enough people (e.g: Joe Biden didn’t win in 2020) it dangerously moves the needle in public discourse and perception. How many times did I hear and repeat the Catholic mass phrase ‘I know I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed’ during my childhood? Many. How many times did I think, ‘Why am I not worthy, exactly? I’m only 9, what did I do to be ‘unworthy’? Hello?’ Almost as many times as I said that first idiotic phrase.
Don’t get me wrong, humility is a good thing – especially in white men (and very rare), but I utterly reject the concept of original sin, or a continual state of unworthiness; these repeated phrases and beliefs are dangerous, damaging lies.
How many times did I hear that my value as a female was based on my entering marriage (and I had to marry!) in state of ‘purity’, proudly wearing white to demonstrate publicly my vital, essential virginity. Many. At the time, I had already been sexually abused and raped by different men. So, all is lost? For far too long, I thought so, and it harmed me. It diminished my self of self and self-respect; it twisted my perception, and I assert that it was meant to. Virginity – or the concept of it – has been used to shame and devalue women throughout history.
And if that matters so much for me, but it’s okay for my brother to work Fridays during hunting season at the local movie theater showing porn flicks, bringing home porn mags from my dad’s store because ‘boy’ – why am I also being required to repeat how equal everyone is in ‘Merica? Clearly, I am not equal to my brother, who is served first – right after my dad – at dinner, before my mom serves herself, even. He is also allowed freedoms I am denied. When and where does any of this shit makes sense? It doesn’t. It never did.
I tried reading the Bible once, in college, but was stuck and struck out by the entire Old Testament ‘Bob begat Tim, and Tim begat Steve and Steve begat Joe’ nonsense, because as Carol Christ says, no man ever gave birth. Every Sunday or Saturday evening of my childhood I was made to sit and listen to men speak ‘truths’ from the Bible that I knew in my gut were at best a myth, fairy tales and confabulations made up in order to control the masses, but especially women and girls. Yet, I ignored my gut, didn’t I? Well, yes, yes I did. I was a child, after all; what the hell did I know? The system counts on that.
Pushing back against the torrent of lies and bullshit from the trmp administration and our culture at large is exhausting. Many women choose not to push, overworked and stressed in their personal lives in part because that’s how the system is designed, literally designed to silence and suppress women and girls. Still, pushing back is happening, is breaking through in ways large and small, mostly small; there, on the margins, it’s making a difference. Women are very often the humans leading the charge, because of course women are.
In my lifetime I have seen a sea change in the perception of gays and lesbians, wide support for gay marriage, and a huge surge in bi-racial marriages and humans in this country. And, yes, an administration and many – too many – Americans reacting negatively, regressively, fighting against those beautiful, necessary, long-awaited signs of progress is also real in my lifetime.
Let’s repeat our own truths, privately, and everywhere else, replacing the tired old lies with actual truth, using phrases of our own: migrants make this country better, they always have. Bodily autonomy is a human right including for gays, lesbians, trans-men and trans-women and everyone else. Let women lead. Black Lives Matter. Men are the hysterical sex. Fragile, too. Sheesh. Love is love. Love is love. Love is love.