Whence the Goddesses Quotes

“Throughout history, there have been, in the folktales and myths of many cultures various sorts of witches, young and old, described by male mythopoets as evil and not so evil. But they all possessed one characteristic in common: they were autonomous; they possessed powers which were not controlled by men. They were thus, in one way, a projection of men's fears, fears of energies which they did not control. Whereas virgins and matrons have been tied to the patriarchal culture, and have given energy in some form to man, the witch, whether old, depleted woman or simply woman who has reserved her powers for herself, has not been possessed by the patriarchy. Patriarchal men have always feared powerful women.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“Any autonomous woman is a candidate for the 'fear-inspiring goddess.' Whether maiden or crone, the autonomous woman is feared as one who can emasculate men verbally as surely as Circe transformed unlucky men into lions and wolves with a tap of her wand. The rigid patriarch seems to fear that autonomous women will transform men into mice.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“Throughout the past few millennia there have been great advances in technology which have raised standards of living in many areas of the world. At the same time, we have reduced our standard of life: our quality of air, purity of rivers and oceans, wellness of the land; and we have increased world hunger, extinction of whole species of animals, depletion of natural resources. Improved technology is not leading to greater peace and harmony among nations, between individuals, even within the self. The patriarchal world is out of balance. The worship of the male energy has led to rape of our natural resources and poisoning of our environment. What is missing, particularly in Western culture, is respect for an energy which makes things whole, an energy which honors life.

The goddesses provide a clue how we must restructure our world if it is to survive, a clue both to our past and to our future. The fact that there were powerful goddesses disproves the claim that woman has ‘always’ been powerless and secondary, and that this ‘second rank’ is thus a natural phenomenon. This frees us to move into a balancing.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“Increasing numbers of women are recognizing their power, and their autonomy, but men's fear of this power is a projection of their own world-view. Women do not use their power to dominate or to subordinate, as is typical of a dominator society. Rather, women use their power to increase the well-being of their environment. Men who fear women's strength fear a matriarchy, the inverse of a patriarchal society, and they do not wish to be subordinates in such a society. But there is no evidence that a matriarchal dominate-subordinate society has ever existed. What my indeed have existed is partnership societies in which women and men held equally valuable roles.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“As goddess of life, Inanna was also goddess of life, fertility and sexuality. That is, she had charge over whether or not those qualities existed in a given society… Therefore, neither love nor procreation can take place where Inanna is not worshipped.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“Eve may indeed have been a powerful goddess. In fact, Eve’s tradition may have been borrowed, at least in part from Sumerian mythology.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“The divine energy which we worship in goddesses and gods is in all of us, and we have the ability to use that energy to begin our healing.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book

“We have re-examined the goddesses through several millennia, and we have seen a radical change in how the divine feminine has been viewed, first by the goddess-centered societies of the Neolithic, then by the assimilated societies made up of male-centered Indo-Europeans and the more equalitarian folk whom they conquered; and finally by modern societies, many of which worship no personification of the feminine at all. There is a lack of balance in much of modern religion, an imbalance of the character of the divine. This imbalance reflects upon the wellness, in all of its aspects, of our world.”
― Miriam Robbins Dexter, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book