RQ#96 - Online

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Two RQ Gender Forums

Complete theme sections from RQ #96 and RQ#101

• from RQ#101 - "What if the Earth Is Not Our Mother," by Keith Hennessy, Kirk Read, Rachel Kaplan, Jack Davis, Ravyn Stanfield
  
  
• from RQ#96 - "Undoing Sexism: A Forum," By Lynx, Donald, Keith, Phillipe, Rosa, Seed, Jonathan, Scarlet Harlot, and Luna
  
  
• includes original layout of article on this page

Click here to download RQ Gender Forums

Gender and Sexism: a Forum

A roundtable discussion of teachers and organizers

In this theme section on Gender Issues and Sexism, RQ gathers a range of views on sexism and gender relations - not just in the broader society, but as they operate in progressive communities such as Reclaiming, where the nuances are often more subtle. To join this discussion, email your ideas to quarterly@reclaiming.org

As part of our Gender and Sexism theme section, RQ asked a half-dozen teachers and organizers in our various communities to contribute their views on five key questions. A sampling of their responses is posted here.

For information on future forums, contact us at quarterly@reclaiming.org

Forum Participants

Donald Engstrom is a Minnesota artist, gardener, and Witch involved with Mystery and the Spirit Peoples for over twenty years. His roots spring from Queer Spirit.

Keith Hennessy is a performance artist, dancer, Witchpriest, anti-war activist and director of Circo Zero.

Melissa Moon is a a pre-op MTF transexual, lesbian, activist, Reclaiming Witch and Vermont Witchcamp devotee who lives in north central Vermont.

Phillipe Lewis is a perspective shifter, sensual artist, and community builder based in San Francisco.

Rose May Dance, a San Francisco hypnotherapist and healer, has been teaching, writing, and making ritual in Reclaiming since 1981.

Seed is a Reclaiming priestess and teacher, who finds herself called to depth and mischief.

Jonathan Furst is a free-range magical Jew, currently practicing uncle and auntie skills in the wilds of Northern California.

How does sexism show itself, overtly and subtly, in our community?

Keith: Sexism operates like a disease. No one in Reclaiming, even the youth who grew up in our community, are free of sexist conditioning, imagination, and practice - shame about one's body, alienation from the earth, sexual fantasies and pleasures. This is not entirely negative. For some folks, experiencing sexism in Reclaiming is a gateway to healing.

Melissa: Sexism shows itself in the predominant heterosexist paradigm evident in most of the myths chosen as Witchcamp themes. We need to create or find more queer positive or queer inclusive myths.

Jonathan: We often repeat stereotypes in our rituals, such as when the men drum and the women dance. Or when it's assumed we'll call in the god and the goddess. Are we redefining male and female divinity or institutionalizing gender roles? What about the Queer ones, the Great Mystery, the Stone beings without gender at all...

Philippe: Overtly, I see it so little in this community compared to other communities. Subtly, I see it showing up in people's perception that something is or might be sexist when it really was not intended that way consciously or unconsciously by anyone involved.

Donald: Frankly, in many ways. The most striking is the way folks who identify as women dishonor each other and each other's work. They seem to often give folks perceived as male more breaks than folks they perceive as female. And those of us who are third-gendered are just simply invisible.

Rose: During Spiral Dance planning meetings we always noticed when men were present or absent. We got things done quicker with no men, yet there was a dynamism and charge when the men were present. This is neither good nor bad, but something to note, so we can be conscious of our interactions.

How, concretely, do we interrupt and transform sexism?

Keith: Central to reclaiming goddess spirituality is a rejection and/or transformation of masculine-centric spirituality, culture, and politics. In Reclaiming the majority of the leadership (elders, teachers, and organizers) and the community are women. Gender queers and outlaws have been welcomed in Reclaiming community and imagination, furthering the reframing of oppressive cultural norms with respect to gender and sexuality. Many in Reclaiming celebrate empowered sexual pleasure for all beings, especially for women who have been denied, abused, or limited by patriarchal and dick-centric pleasure principles.

Rose: There's a song that goes, "I am breathing, I am open, I am willing." An attitude that is both questioning and loving is essential, or else the battle takes up again!

Donald: I have experienced some direct constructive talk. But in my experience, a passive-aggressive response or the old-fashioned rumor mill are the usual reactions to what may be sexist behavior.

Philippe: By being in loving, open support of a shift in understanding and acceptance of all perspectives, and especially of how sexism has a negative impact on everyone. In practice, by listening, not judging, and sharing about sexism when it shows up in our perception or in conversation.

Jonathan: Speaking order is a great tool for de-institutionalizing lots of "isms": let people born outside the country talk or choose first, then people of color, queer identified, youth, elders, working class, etc. Within each category, women precede men, and trans-gendered before either.

What is men's role in Reclaiming?

Rose: I appreciate when men are aware of the historical importance of "women's religion" - a place for women to shine and take leadership roles. How great there is a place like Reclaiming for men to share with women. There is a place in Reclaiming for men to be both supportive and expressive.

Philippe: As individuals, it is whatever role that they feel safe, comfortable, and open in taking. For that to be possible, there must be space for them to do it, in terms of positive ways of being for men both towards each other and towards women in the community.

Jonathan: My first year in Reclaiming, I spent a lot of time wondering where I fit in. It would be nice to simply say "men and women are equal," but the truth is that men hold a lot more power in the world, and we carry it with us wherever we go. We need to carry it well, learning when to step back and make room for others, when to step up and speak out.

Keith: Men's role in Reclaiming is to practice a feminist and queer-inspired transformation of male identity, body, and imagination; to innovate and experiment with masculinity; and to integrate a re-claimed femininity into a whole self that is more creative, more sexually mature and alive, more intuitive and intelligent, more connected to the web of life and death.

Donald: I was not aware that men's roles were any different than anyone else's. I thought all genders were actively working to find their own authentic roles within the tradition.

How does your concept of your own gender affect your spiritual work and connections in your community?

Donald: In the classes I teach, gender is a central topic. I assign a bit of homework in which each person recognizes and declares their own gender without using either male or female identifiers.

Rose: I came to Reclaiming because it was a perfect place for my ministry and my spiritual expression, because it is founded in the reverence for Goddess. In Reclaiming, unlike in the Episcopalian Church, I feel totally accepted and valued in my spirituality.

Melissa: My gender is a major part of my spiritual work. As a pre-operative transexual lesbian Reclaiming Witch my very being challenges others to think about their gender, and it bonds me with my community of choice - a community that celebrates my uniqueness.

Seed: As a woman entering her crone years, it is such a huge relief to be in a community that values the wisdom of older women. Every day, I am confronted with the attitudes of our society, in which older women tend to be discounted at best, and disrespected at worst. Having just one context in my life which holds an alternative view is such an antidote.

Keith: Claiming a male identity and celebrating a gay/queer sexuality have a big role in my experience of the divine. Ritual with men and gay sexual healing have been laboratories for magic and prayer, and for rediscovering art and activism as prayer. Reframing the mature man as Earth steward, as queer uncle and father to the world's children, and as sensitive artist and healer, is integral to the process of my spirituality, including my participation in Reclaiming.

Philippe: Because of the prevalence of sexism in our society and how it affects us deeply, I think that it tends to affect us more negatively - or perhaps gets in the way - than when we take a more genderless approach to the spiritual work. But I do see how my concept of gender can be used in an empowering way while empowering others too!

Any last thoughts?

Philippe: What does a community beyond sexism look like?

Rose: Reclaiming should return to more fostering of separate womens' and mens' mysteries, to enrich what happens when we make ritual all together.

Donald: It has often been tough being a third-gendered person in Reclaiming. We are still stuck in a bi-gender worldview. When there are only two choices, many gender queers can never find a place to sit down no matter how many chairs are at the table. May we dare to embrace the ever-growing, fluid nature of the multiverse and all of Mystery.

Melissa: I am a pre-operative Transexual Lesbian Reclaiming Witch. The unconditional love and acceptance I have received at Vermont Witchcamp has healed me into wholeness. Whereas the pull towards surgery and "gender conformity" is great, VWC is a place where I can embody "living between the worlds" and feel completely safe.

Join the discussion - email your ideas to quarterly@reclaiming.org

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