A Feminist Utopia? — Feminism Today and in History

Of course, we know from history that Sparta could not afford the luxuries its women demanded and enjoyed, and that consequently Sparta perished.
History does repeat itself. The USSR, also catering to women — in the name of communism — went bankrupt. The trend with increasing socialism and statism in all Western developed nations, so they can cater to women in the name of feminism and equality, will lead to the same end. We should be able to reach the former USSR's chaotic state of existence at he latest in about 30 to 40 years, most likely much sooner.
There seems to be little doubt that the problems in the USSR were to a large extent brought about through its longstanding program for the systematic murder of a large part of its population, primarily men.

Some economists put the point of no return at about nine to 14 years from now. The forecasted date of the economic collapse is being moved ahead by one year with every year a new forecast is issued. That is an indication that the destruction of our society, and not just of our families but on account of it, is accelerating.

The Feminist Utopia: The Mother Goddess, the casting-off of the shackles of the patriarchy, absolute rule by women, no men but a lot of feeling, and no gratitude to the "patriarchy" for the fact that women live increasingly longer lives in unprecedented comfort — some dream, more like a nightmare.

If anyone should have illusions that a women-only world will lead to a more peaceful existence, worry a little about the circumstance that the highest levels of partner violence, by far, are to be found in lesbian households. See Family Violence – Index and, specifically, Lesbian Domestic Violence and keep that in mind while reading the details of the Feminist Utopia shown below.

The anthology is quoted verbatim. The only edits involve the provision of links, the removal of line breaks where appropriate, and the insertion of comments in the text boxes shown, so that things aren't entirely unbalanced. The instances of innovative spelling and grammar shown in the quoted text are entirely of feminist origin and as copied from the original.

Walter Schneider

AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUOTES :
WOMEN AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION :
Prepared by Janet M Eaton, January 1, 2001

"As I dream, I whisper a promise to myself: 'I will live to see women's spirit sweep over the earth like wildfire: out of men's control, untameable, cleansing, renewing, awakening. I will live to see women walking hand in hand the world over. I will live to see us free!"

— Sonia Johnson, Wildfire A selection of quotes from [1] Professor Asoka Bandarage, [2] Dr. Vandana Shiva, [3] Chipko poet - Ghanshyam 'Shilani', [4] Professor Ariel Salleh, [5] Dr. Rukmini Rao [6] Diverse Women for Diversity, [7] Adriene Sere, [8] Medha Patkar, [9] Arundhati Roy, [10] Aung San Suu Kyi, [11] Asma Jehangir, [12] Meena, [13] Pamela Dewes, [14] Riane Eisler, [15] Jean Shinoda Bolen, [16] A Woman's Creed , and [17] Dr. Lynette J. Dumble - which offer the hope, inspiration and guidance for the future that is to be found in women's energy, compassion, wisdom and interconnected world view. If this planet, her peoples, and the women of this world are to survive the present gross violations of human rights, ecological devastation, economic disparites, political divisions, armed conflicts, systemic violence, complex emergencies and global crisis created by globalization, militarism and rising fundamentalism - founded as they are in patriarchy and hierarchy, women "must" play a significant role in the 21st century.

And indeed it would seem that the many voices being raised in synergy at this time in history, hopefully portend a positive trend in which women will continue to be at the forefront - thanks to, among other things, the emergence of a new global grassroots participatory movement , a growing and interconnected global women movement, ecofeminism, and a growing global consciousness of universal, creative and interconnected energies which are embodied by women of wisdom.. !!!

In solidarity and sisterhood, janet

I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.
— Robin Morgan (Quotes from Robin Morgan)

As an oppressed class, women in the whole world live on average five years longer than men do. This is the first time in history that an oppressed class as a rule outlives its oppressors by about one tenth of its average life expectancy.

—F4L

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[1] Professor Asoka Bandarage in "Women, Population and Global Crisis:
A Political Economic Analyss"i. London: ZED Books . 1997.

"The global crisis challenges us to move away from cynicism, fear and apathy towards hope, courage, and action. It is within such a revolutionary framework, far different from the Malthusian framework and the current policies of economic restructuring, that reproductive rights, women's empowerment and human freedom can successfully be addressed. " --. [p. 19]

"We have to remove the shackles of patriarchy that have bound our minds for millennia. We need to come together as women recognizing that our power lies not in aggression, hatred and greed but in our individual and collective wisdom, compassion, and generosity. (p.339)

"In contrast to rationalist, materialist approaches to feminism which encourage women to emulate the dominant male model, the ecological-ecofeminism approach - upholds women's capacity to bear and nurture life as a form of power, encouraging men to develop the qualities of nurturance and caring as well. In this regard, ecofeminism draws inspirations from traditions of the earliest human societies such as the worship of the Mother Goddess and also from the Sanskrit concept of shakti, the primordial female energy of the universe, connecting the Earth as mother of all life with woman as the bearer of human life. Accordingly, ecofeminism sees the strengthening of the so-called 'female' principle of caring and peace and a weakening of the so-called 'male' principle of aggression and war as a necessary foundation for creating global psyhco-social balance and harmony. " ( p. 319)

The Mother Goddess

Gaya: more correctly (according to Webster's) called Gaea, the Greek earth goddess and mother of the Titans. [Source: Vicky's web page] (A search using the string <+Gaya +goddess> returned 160 URLs, however, a search using the correct spelling "Gaea" produced 5,160 URLs) It's interesting to see what Gaea was all about. (The feminists would say "is all about." After all, they don't simply take a historical interest in deities. They claim that their goddesses are real.)

GAEA or GE, in Greek mythology, the personification of Mother Earth, and the daughter of Chaos. She was the mother and wife of Father Heaven, who was personified as Uranus. They were the parents of the earliest living creatures, the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Giants the Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Headed Ones). Fearing and hating the monsters, although they were his sons, Uranus imprisoned them in a secret place in the earth, leaving the Cyclopes and Titans at large. Gaea, enraged at this favoritism, persuaded her son, the Titan Cronus, to overthrow his father. He emasculated Uranus, and from his blood Gaea brought forth another race of monsters, the Giants, and the three avenging goddesses the Erinyes. Her last and most terrifying off-spring was Typhon, a 100-headed monster, who, although conquered by the god Zeus, was believed to spew forth the molten lava flows of Mount Etna.

Not a very appealing lady, that one. The daughter of Chaos, giving birth to nothing but monsters. But how could that be otherwise, with her being the mother and the wife of Uranus, having begotten her monsters by him. No wonder that the Earth has never been a very safe place for humans to live on.

Why would anyone want to adulate this murderous, scheming, incestuous woman?

—F4L

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[2] Vandana Shiva, in "Ecofeminism". London: ZED Books. 1993

"The feminist perspective is able to go beyond the categories of patriarchy that structure power and meaning in nature and society. It is broader and deeper because it locates production and consumption within t he context of regeneration.by making these links , ecological feminism creates the possibility of viewing the world as an active subject, not merely as a resource to be manipulated and appropriated.. The activism of what has been , or is being construed as 'passive' according to patriarchal perception, becomes then the most significant step in the renewal of life. Overcoming estrangement from nature's rhythms and cycles or renewal and becoming a conscious participant in them becomes a major source of this activation. Women everywhere are indicating this. Whether it is Barbara McLintock, referring to a 'feeling for organism' , Rachel Carson talking of participating in nature's perennial rhythms, or Itwari Devi describing how 'shakti' (power) comes from forests and grasslands. The search and experience of interdependence and integrity is the basis for creating a science and knowledge that nurtures rather than violates, nature's sustainable systems." [p. 33-34 ]

"In many developing countries, there is now a nearly critical mass of educated women ready to participate and ready to act as intermediaries for raising consciousness and organizing the grassroots. Technology has changed the possibilities for communication, not simply in terms of facilitating the imparting of knowledge from one group to another but, more importantly, in terms of allowing all groups to take part in creating knowledge. This is a way of saying that, as we move into the 21st century, women will increasingly have to take on the responsibility of defining the dimensions of the good life. That is, a plentiful, but also a just and equitable life, as we become partners in a world whose parameters are determined by forces not only beyond individual control, but sometimes seemingly beyond national control."

"Technology has changed the possibilities for communication"? Whose doing was that?

Look around you in the room you are in right now. Is there a single thing that has not been invented by men or was not made with tools invented by men, with materials mined by men and manufactured mostly by men?
Look out of the window. Other than what came into existence through God and nature, can you see anything at all for as far as you can see that is not man-made?

For all of the things that you can see, for the very freedom to enjoy them, billions of men gave their very lives. Nineteen out of 20 serious or fatal job accidents involve male casualties.

—F4L

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[3] Chipko Women's Concept of Freedom - from:
Vandana Shiva.. "The Chipko Women's Concept of Freedom" in
Ecofeminism. [ p 247]

A fight for truth has begun
At Sinsyaru Khala
A fight for rights has begun
In Malkot Thano
Sister, it is a fight to protect
Our mountains and forests.
They give us life
Embrace the life of the living trees
And streams to your hearts
Resist the digging of mountains
Which kills our forests and streams
A fight for life has begun at Sinsyaru Khala.
-- Chipko poet, Ghanshyam 'Shilani'

When mankind lived 'in harmony' with nature, the average life expectancy was in the order of 24 years, and to be 35 was to be ancient.

—F4L

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[4] Professor Ariel Salleh from "Ecofeminism as Politics."
1997:

"Ecofeminist politics is a feminism in as much as it offers an ucompromising critique of capitalist patriarchal culture from a woman's perspective; it is a socialism because it honours the wretched of the earth; it is an ecology because it reintegrates humanity with nature; it is a postcolonial discourse because it focuses on deconstructing Eurocentric domination. A dialectical feminism asks not What political vision is true for all time? But Which way of knowing is most helpful in a time that cries out for affirmation of life? Our practical strategies for change include Hilkka Pietila's subsistence economics, Carol Adam's vegetarianism, Maria Mies neighborhood communities, Janis Birkland's playgarden design, Vanadna Shiva's vision of indigenous science, Rosemary Ruether's alternative metaphysics, and Charlene Spretnak's spiritual renewal. Caring women and men can get such ideas across through academia and social movements, by global networking and alternative media. Moves to delink from the tele- pharmo-nuclear complex can be made by using boycotts and urban -rural consumer associations and by setting up bioregional institutions to dual power mainstream political bodies. An international ecofeminist 'security council' is long overdue. Many of these ideas are not new, but from now on men and women need to act together using a full and deep structural analysis of power relations." p 193]

Reintegrating humanity with nature?

The total number of the lives of unborn children that are being terminated each year in the world is in the order of 55 million.
There has now for more than 15 years (from about 1985 to 2000) been no net increase in the number of children born each year in the whole world.
All developed nations are in a demographic crisis. Their total fertility rates for women of life-bearing age has dropped to below replacement levels — in some countries to the point where population numbers decrease at the rate of 30 percent or more with each generation — and population numbers in many countries can be maintained only through massive immigration.
The world population is increasing presently only due to unprecedented growth of the elderly population sector (mostly elderly women) — caused by vastly increased life expectancies resulting from the efforts of nothing other than the "capitalist patriarchal culture."

Is the world overpopulated?

If all of the world's people were located in the Province of Alberta (just a touch smaller in area than the State of Texas) and each were to have an equal share of all of the land in Alberta, then each of the world's people would have 98.6m² of land to live on.

Assuming that the average household consists of three people, a family of three would have enough space (3,184 ft²) for a moderately-sized house and a garden large enough to grow some of the food consumed by the family.

Alberta land area: 661,565 km², 255,541 miles²

World population: 6,706,993,152 (Source: CIA World Factbook, July 2008 est.)

It is obvious that the world's population density will be the controlling factor. Is that a problem? Will people any time soon be standing on each other's shoulders?

How can the world be overpopulated if it is possible to fit the world population, fairly comfortably, into a province the size of Alberta or a state the size of Texas, even if we divide the whole population into families of three and give each a bungalow and a good-sized garden to boot?

The following table list a number of nations, ranked by their population densities.

Does anyone seeing those numbers still think that the world is overpopulated?

The population sector containing the elderly grows at an unprecedented rate in absolute terms and especially in relative terms with respect to the size of the younger productive population sector that has to bear the increasingly unbearable, large responsibility to care and provide for those who can't produce anything any longer for themselves. One of the consequences of that is an enormous increase (150% in the US from 1986 to 1996) in elderly abuse, predominantly cases of neglect of the elderly. (Trends in Elder Abuse in Domestic Settings, NATIONAL CENTER ON ELDER ABUSE, Elder Abuse Information Series No. 2 (PDF 42kB); see also Prisoners in Their Own Homes, by Glenn Sacks. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch produced an excellent series of articles on the topic of fatal elder abuse and neglect in US nursing homes (it is estimated that tens of tousands of cases happen each year), Neglected to Death (Oct. 12 - 19, 2002). See abstract and commentary relating to the articles and to the problem of elder abuse and neglect in nursing home and hospitals.)

The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto

Expropriation of land and application of income derived from land for State expenditures.
Heavy, progressive taxation.
Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of lending in the hands of the State through a national bank with State capital and exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of all means of transport in the hands of the State.
Proliferation of nationalized manufacturing, instruments of production, land clearing and improvement of all land holdings according to a common plan.
Equal mandatory employment for all, construction of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
The consolidation of agriculture and industry, evolution towards gradual elimination of the distinction between city and rurality.
Public and publicly funded education of all children. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Unification of education with material production etc.

—The Manifesto of the Communist Party

With the completion of agricultural cooperation, many co-operatives are finding themselves short of labour. It has become necessary to arouse the great mass of women who did not work in the fields before to take their place on the labour front.... China's women are a vast reserve of labour power. This reserve should be tapped in the struggle to build a great socialist country.

—Mao Tse-tung,
Introductory note to Solving the Labour Shortage by Arousing the Women to Join in Production (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II.

feminist propaganda poster

The quote by Karl Marx is from
the Manifesto of the Communist Party

(Many of the women studies professors declare
themselves to be Marxist feminists)

—F4L

[W]omen, like men, should not have to bear children.... The destruction of the biological family, never envisioned by Freud, will allow the emergence of new women and men, different from any people who have previously existed.
— Alison Jagger - Radical Feminist

—F4L

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[6] Diverse Women for Diversity
Seattle Declaration, Seattle, 1st December 1999

"In summary, this so-called 'free-market' system is indeed a global war system, based on violence against nature, humanity, especially women and children.

Together with the thousands of children, women and men gathered here in Seattle, we, Diverse Women for Diversity, reject this global war system and the WTO. We pledge to build an economy and a society where nature and human beings can live and prosper in peace and happiness."

The Oppressed Minorities

Middle Class Women (and their children)
Lesbians and Homosexuals
Lower class women
‘Women Of Colour’
Blacks (male)
Other Immigrants

The Oppressors

White Male Heterosexuals (of all classes)

—Perseus, Humanarchy,
Chapter 3 — The Children of the Great Lie

—F4L

The Ten Eco-Creed Commandments

Thou shalt:

Regard all racial and sexual minorities as sacrosanct and refrain from any criticism of them.
Treat women as a minority, though they constitute 51 per cent of the population.
Blame all society's ills on the white, heterosexual, male "majority".
Deplore all discrimination, unless it is specifically designed to disadvantage the "majority".
Insist that the "majority" is by nature racist and sexist and devise ways to control its behaviour.
Ignore any comments by minorities about the "majority", or about each other, which might suggest that they too sometimes have racist and sexist tendencies.
Place no importance upon truth, accuracy or consistency of argument, for the next commandment makes these inconveniences unnecessary.
Silence all dissenters with a system of legal penalties, social vilification and ridicule.
Pretend that political correctness is simply about politeness.
Rejoice in your moral superiority.

—The Ten Commandments of Political correctness
by Don Bruce.
(Published in the letters to the editor of The Sunday Age newspaper on August 10, 1997.)

—F4L

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[7] Adriene Sere, Editor, Said it -Feminist News [Online]
"The Beginning of a Global Movement"
http://www.saidit.org/dec_article2.html

"The values underlying the teach-ins and the resistance emerged from an understanding of and respect for wholeness; a humble understanding of the human relationship to nature; a commitment to long-term social responsibility; a knowledge and acknowledgment of interdependency; and an honoring of the small, the immediate, the local, all the while keeping an eye on the big picture.

These are values that have been guarded by women, more so than men. These values spring from the necessities of life, and women have tended to be the ones to care for life, against all odds. .. It was the commitment to these values on the part of such a diverse population that gave this week its foundation and tremendously powerful meaning.

The movement that was born at the cusp of the millennium in Seattle, in the face of a planetary crisis, carries so much significance and potential because it aims to make these life-honoring values the basis of our economic infrastructure, as well as our social and cultural relationships. Therefore, it could be argued, this not only signals the beginning of a new movement for global democracy. It also set an example for transforming patriarchal, destructive societies into a world based o decentralized equality, empowerment, and the careful honoring of life."

Men queue outside an RAF recruiting office in London on the early morning of June 17th,1940, waiting to volunteer as aircrew.
(Source: The Head of the Medusa, by Perseus, Chapter 11) —F4L

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[8] Medha Patkar - on the occasion of her Right Livelihood Award
http://www.rightlivelihood.se/recip1991_2.html

"If the vast majority of our population is to be fed and clothed, then a balanced vision with our own priorities in place of the Western models is a must. There is no other way but to redefine 'modernity' and the goals of development, to widen it to a sustainable, just society based on harmonious, non-exploitative relationships between human beings and between people and nature."

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[9] Arundhati Roy
http://www.the-hindu.com/fline/fl1611/16110040.htm
FRONTLINE, Volume 16 - Issue 11, May. 22 - June 04, 1999
Cover Essay - "The Greater Common Good."

" We have to fight specific wars in specific ways. Who knows, perhaps that's what the twenty-first century has in store for us. The dismantling of the Big. Big bombs, big dams, big ideologies, big contradictions, big countries, big wars, big heroes, big mistakes. Perhaps it will be the Century of the Small."

In 1948 dollars, the costs of the Second World War were $1 trillion or $17,000 per fatality (a total of 60 million fatalities). That is the total of the income per fatality that the military industrial complex derived from that war. The figure does not include the value of property losses.
During the remainder of the 20th century, from 1945 onward, another 37 million people (mostly men) lost their lives in military conflicts.

The war against the family, producing generations of consumers who have little mind for the security of future generation — largely preferring not to have any offspring at all and to rely for old-age security on the earnings and labour of other people's children — involves vastly greater numbers of people, in fact, all of them.

The war against the family is vastly more profitable than all wars in history combined, firstly on account of the large number of people involved and secondly on account of its duration.

"Century of the Small"? Most certainly. The century of smaller and smaller families, the century of a smaller and smaller number of families. The century during which the world population will begin its inexorable slide into oblivion, a smaller and smaller population that is estimated to reach 3.7 billion by 2150, and that will be ruled by a very small number of multinational corporations doling out their goods to a class of serfs called consumers, if not rubes, a population that the promoters of negative population growth hope to reduce to pre-Columbian levels of 300-500 million. —F4L

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[10] Aung San Suu Kyi -"Freedom from Fear"-
http://danenet.wicip.org/fbc/freefear.htm [That link no longer functions, but the quote can be looked up at <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi>]

"The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear. "

"To the women of Burma"
(June 21, 1999) On her 54th birthday,
http://www.dfn.org/voices/burma/women.htm
"It is only by treating women with respect and by giving them their rightful place that we can build a modern, progressive society. In Burma, as in other parts of the world, we need to work harder to correct the injustices that have been imposed upon women throughout history: Lack of respect for their gender, lack of equal opportunities with men in acquiring professional skills, discrimination in the workplace, fewer chances of serving in high administrative posts."

As you sow, so you shall reap. Women who treat others with respect will in turn be respected. —F4L

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[11] Asma Jehangir. "Democracy is Survival for Women"

An Interview with Asma Jehangir Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
http://www.nancho.net/fdlap/jehangir.html

"I think people are afraid of the women movement because it's the longest social movement in history. I think looking at it in a global manner there has been a world of change. Twenty years ago was the first UN Conference on the Rights of Women. Twenty years ago the phrase women's rights was not understood in Pakistan. But today it is very much alive. You see it in the lives of the women sitting in the jails of Pakistan, in the lives of the women who pick cotton, and in the hearts of the young students who wish to see themselves as leaders of tomorrow. It is very much there. In every part of the world, whether it is the developing world, the developed world, whether it's a remote corner of the world, it has taken seat in the hearts of women."

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[12] Meena , founding leader of RAWA (1957-1987)
http://www.rawa.org/meena.html

I'm the woman who has awoken.
I've arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children.
I've arisen form the rivulets of my brother's blood.
Mynation's wrath has empowered me.
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy.
Oh compatriot, no longer regard me weak and incapable.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women.
My fists are clenched with fists of thousands compatriots
To break all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery.
I'm the woman who has awoken,
I've found my path and will never return.

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[13] He aha te mea nui o te ao - What is the most important thing
in theworld? By Pamela Dewes In Te Ao Marama [The World of Light ]-
Regaining Aotearoa - Maori Writers Speak Out. Edited by Witi
Ihimaera. Auckland: Reed Books. 1993.

In our small school community we have a cross-section of opinions and thoughts, hopes and beliefs. We also have our fair share of wishful thinking. One of us is going to be the first Maori woman governor -general, one of us is going to be the first Maori woman Prime Minister. We have teachers and lawyers, actors and clowns, poets and mothers.

Some things are going to happen soon, and others are going to take a little longer. What we do know is that they are going to happen, because we are going to make them happen....

We believe in human rights, children's rights, women's rights, people's rights. We want to save the whale, protect the dolphin and know that the kakapo thrives..

Our responsibility as young Maori women is to be positive in a climate which keeps on telling us that we are losers.

He aha to mea nui ao. Maku e ki atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. [ He aha te mea nui o te ao - what is the most important thing in the world? Maku e ki atu - this is my reply. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata [It is people, it is people, it is people.]

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[14] Riane Eisler, 1995, "The Chalice and the Blade". San Francisco:Harper Collins. 1987, 1995.

The move to a new world of psychological and social rebirth will entail changes we cannot yet predict, or even envision.For millennia of recorded history , the human spirit has been imprisoned by the fetters of androcracy. Our minds have been stunted, and our hearts have been numbed. And yet our striving for truth , beauty and justice has never been extinguished. As we break out of these fetters, as our minds, hearts, and hands are freed, so also will be our creative imagination.

The most dramatic change as we move from a dominator to a partnership world will be that we , and our children and grand children, will again know what it means to live free of the fear of war. In a world rid of the mandate that to be "masculine" men must dominate, and along with the rising status of women and more "feminine" social priorities, the danger of nuclear annihilation will gradually diminish.. Along with more rational measures aimed at successfully reducing the poverty and hunger of the mass of the world's poor--women and children -- the growing consciousness of our linking with all other members of our species should gradually also narrow the gulf between rich and poor nations. Indeed as billions of dollars and work hours are rechannelled from technologies of destruction to technologies that sustain and enhance life, human poverty and hunger could gradually become memories of a brutal androcratic past. [p.198-199 ]

Men and their children don't feel the pains of hunger? If hunger is the gravest problem that must be solved, then it is without any doubt a major factor in the far shorter life expectancy of men — on average (in the world) five years shorter than that of women. —WHS

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[15] Jean Shinoda Bolen. Crossing to Avalon. A Woman's Midlife
Pilgrimage.SanFransico: Harper Collins. 1994.

"If the Goddess is to return to the world as the Grail that will heal patriarchy, if the Goddess is to come into human consciousness as an awareness to the sacred feminine in her myriad expressions, if the Goddess is to emerge in time, she will do so because women . tell what they know. The Goddess comes to us in very private and experimental ways. To bring about a paradigm shift in the culture that will change assumptions and attitudes, a critical number of us will have to tell the stories of our personal revelations and transformations.

When and where the "goddess" ruled, human sacrifice was common and the average life expectancies were in the order of 35 to 40 years.

Why would anyone pray for the return of the goddess? —WHS

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[16] Excerpts from "A Woman's Creed", 1994. Posted to GSN Dec 22
1999 and December 24, 2000

We are poised on the edge of the millennium - ruin behind us, no map
before us, the taste of fear sharp on our tongues.

Yet we will leap.

The exercise of imagining is an act of creation.

The act of creation is an exercise of will.

All this is political. And possible..

Believe it.

We are the women who will transform the world.

Religion and culture are ever changing, ever transforming... We are the transformer, maker and creator of our own religious and cultural traditions.

— "Women, Religion, and Culture" seminar,
UN Conference on Women, Beijing,
quoted at the beginning of From Father God to Mother Earth

God is going to change. We women are going to bring an end to God. As we take positions in government, in medicine, in law, in business, in the arts and, finally, in religion, we will be the end of Him. We will change the world so much that He won't fit anymore.

— Naomi Goldenberg in
Changing of the Gods: Feminism and
the End of Traditional Religions, p. 3,
quoted at the beginning of
From Father God to Mother Earth)

The strongest force seeking to destroy traditional religions is feminism. Radical feminists have little use for religion or churches as they are, but they do not leave the churches whose doctrines and liturgies they find objectionable. They work within to change the churches so that the final product will bear little resemblance to Christianity.

— Robert H. Bork in
Slouching Towards Gomorrah (p. 287)

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[17] Dr. Lynette J. Dumble, January 1, 2000

"Silence is indefensible" -- Arundhati Roy, 1999.

To the Global Sisterhoon Network

"May Peace, Hope and Love light the way we walk
with our voices raised in the third millennium."

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"Peace, Hope and Love" in an openly declared war against all things male and against the vast majority of women who love nothing better than to spend their lives in the company of men and to raise their children and grandchildren in the presence of their children's fathers and grandfathers.

The average life expectancy of women in the world is five years more than that of men, about seven years more in the developed nations and as much as almost fourteen years more in those countries where feminism has made the biggest advances for the longest interval, the former members of the U.S.S.R.

—WHS