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Author Topic: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?  (Read 13597 times)

Zephyrine

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Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« on: December 03, 2015, 06:53:11 pm »
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

Night Owl

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Re: Are there women who working primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2015, 09:37:40 pm »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

 
Well... I know that there are many others on this forum, but I have worked with Manannan mac Lir for a while now and I can honestly say that I can see no reason why the gender of a deity would have any bearing in whether I considered working with them.

Faemon

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Re: Are there women who working primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2015, 09:49:52 pm »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

I delved into paganism specifically in search of the feminine divine, but funnily enough, only significantly/consistently encountered masculine representations for a long while. Manannan mac Lir (among other water deities) and Odin, most prominently, although my UPG of Odin was that he kept referring to me as a boy and after some soul-searching I think He may not necessarily be wrong. If it's not just "work primarily with a male deity" but "work with a primarily male deity" Loki's been making the rounds lately too, and been popular but apparently also polarizing? (I mean in more of a yay-argh way than gender polarity necessarily.)
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Re: Are there women who working primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2015, 10:57:04 pm »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

 
Not primarily, but significantly.  I strive to honor both male and female deities, as well as the spectrum between them, equally.

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Re: Are there women who working primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2015, 10:33:22 am »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

 
When I first started, I struggled with male deities.  I could work easily with gender neutral, and warrior women, but not so much with male deities (or very soft womanly female deities).

Oddly enough, the more I got into it, the more I connected with male deities.  For a while I was pretty much exclusively working with Odin.

Now, I do definitely consider Odin to be the primary deity I work with, but there are others, across the spectrum.

(just for completeness sake:  I am female in body, but pretty gender fluid)
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MoonCrone

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Re: Are there women who working primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2015, 11:12:10 am »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?


Depends who's calling and what's going on - but yep, generally speaking, I do.
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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2015, 02:54:58 pm »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

 
Why wouldn't there be?


... though I did once run into a pagan who insisted that Real Pagans didn't worship male deities.  He was a man, though.


(My personal experience is that assuming that my sex or gender has anything relevant to say about what gods I personally 'ought' to be looking into is a really epic way of fucking up my spiritual development for years and years.  As a result I tend to... strongly disrecommend gender essentialism.)
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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2015, 06:25:10 pm »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?


My primary deity is male; I also honor a female deity, and one that is ... complicated, although published literature refers to him as male.
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MeadowRae

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2015, 07:16:13 am »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152
I know Hecate, Isis, Bridget etc are popular deities for all Pagans -- particularly women. Are there any women who work to a significant degree with male deities?

 
I am very new, but I work with God and Goddess equally; I see them working together in my life and magic. My Spirit guide, however, is male. I was shocked by that, but it's been a wonderful road with him so far.
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Pteranotropi

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2015, 11:38:20 am »
Quote from: Zephyrine;183152

I'm a man that works primarily with a female deity, if that helps.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2015, 03:05:29 pm by SunflowerP »

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2015, 12:09:27 pm »
Quote from: Pteranotropi;183192
I'm a man that works primarily with a female deity, if that helps.

 
I never understood how this idea (a man working with primarily female deities) is so commonly accepted in Pagan circles, but the inverse isn't.  Or even only working with female deities (as there are many groups that go that path), but I can't think of anyone I know who goes only male deities.

I actually brought this sort of gender inequality up with my local chant group, just heard another lovely women's chant, and we got to talking about the lack of men's or God chants (there are some...but not really many at all), and how the men feel in a mixed group when women's chants come up (luckily we have some lovely men who don't feel excluded at all).
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LunaStar

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2015, 02:00:01 pm »
Quote from: Kylara;183193
I never understood how this idea (a man working with primarily female deities) is so commonly accepted in Pagan circles, but the inverse isn't.  Or even only working with female deities (as there are many groups that go that path), but I can't think of anyone I know who goes only male deities.

I actually brought this sort of gender inequality up with my local chant group, just heard another lovely women's chant, and we got to talking about the lack of men's or God chants (there are some...but not really many at all), and how the men feel in a mixed group when women's chants come up (luckily we have some lovely men who don't feel excluded at all).

Could it be because our mainstream society is so misogynistic?  Perhaps female deity centered pagans are trying to heal or balance. I agree that it should truly be balanced between male and female deities (as well as fluid and agendered) but it sorta makes sense why someone who is fed up with the patriarchy would focus on a matriarchal approach. Hopefully on their path to healing the realize sooner than later that balance is key.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2015, 02:01:51 pm by LunaStar »

Lionrhod

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2015, 08:24:06 pm »
Quote from: Kylara;183193
I never understood how this idea (a man working with primarily female deities) is so commonly accepted in Pagan circles, but the inverse isn't.  Or even only working with female deities (as there are many groups that go that path), but I can't think of anyone I know who goes only male deities.

I actually brought this sort of gender inequality up with my local chant group, just heard another lovely women's chant, and we got to talking about the lack of men's or God chants (there are some...but not really many at all), and how the men feel in a mixed group when women's chants come up (luckily we have some lovely men who don't feel excluded at all).

 
Maybe our local community is weird. We have women who work with Herne, men who work with Artemis, transgendered people who work with whoever calls to them, etc.

It's never been much of a big deal. We tend to accept that you take the call of whatever deity is right for you and that the deity's gender is less important than the deity's lesson.

As for chants, the creative bards of our community have come up with parallel masculine chants for many of the "female" chants as well as new chants and poetry for the male aspects (and the female aspects too).
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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2015, 03:23:13 am »
Quote from: Kylara;183193
I never understood how this idea (a man working with primarily female deities) is so commonly accepted in Pagan circles, but the inverse isn't.  Or even only working with female deities (as there are many groups that go that path), but I can't think of anyone I know who goes only male deities.

I actually brought this sort of gender inequality up with my local chant group, just heard another lovely women's chant, and we got to talking about the lack of men's or God chants (there are some...but not really many at all), and how the men feel in a mixed group when women's chants come up (luckily we have some lovely men who don't feel excluded at all).


The combination of "Pagan" and "circles" here makes me think you mean mostly Wiccan-ish neo-paganism?*
 
I wonder if this perceived bias may change, given the rising popularity of "traditional witchcraft" as opposed to Wicca. Trad craft, when religious or spiritual rather than secular in nature, seems to be centered around a Devil, Witch God or Fairy King figure; referred to using he/him pronouns.

*Certainly, when I've been involved with or studied more polytheistic reconstructionist paganism, there seemed to be no lack of female adherents of male gods.

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Re: Are there women who work primarily with a male deity?
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2015, 12:43:05 pm »
Quote from: Mellee;183233
The combination of "Pagan" and "circles" here makes me think you mean mostly Wiccan-ish neo-paganism?*
 
I wonder if this perceived bias may change, given the rising popularity of "traditional witchcraft" as opposed to Wicca. Trad craft, when religious or spiritual rather than secular in nature, seems to be centered around a Devil, Witch God or Fairy King figure; referred to using he/him pronouns.

*Certainly, when I've been involved with or studied more polytheistic reconstructionist paganism, there seemed to be no lack of female adherents of male gods.


I think I might have been using my terms a bit liberally.  I had to look back at what I had said, and I didn't mean circles as in casting circles, but the more general term for a group of people (as one might say "among librarian circles" to mean a group of people who are librarians).  And I do tend to reference Pagan's as an umbrella term because the majority of the people I talk with self-identify as Pagan of one flavor or another.  

I am not sure I would consider our group to be neo-wiccan based.  The people I practice with regularly are definitely a very gender balanced group, I can't actually think of anyone I know who only works with one gender of deity.
 
I do think that there seems to be more neo-wicca influence that pushes toward the female oriented.

On a side note....I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who centered around a Devil, Witch God or Fairy King.  Interesting
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