Gender in Wicca: Moving Beyond Traditional Ideas
taught to assign masculine and feminine traits. Why does it feel right to assign the Moon to the Goddess? Because the Moon's light is soft? Because the Moon seems mysterious? Because the Moon waxes and wanes in roughly the same cycle as a female's menstruation?
Conversely, what traits do we associate with masculinity? Directness? Intensity? Aggressiveness? Could those traits apply to a Goddess? Of course! Kali is a Goddess, but many of her attributes match up to things considered masculine in Western Society. Apollo may be a Sun God, but his attributes of poetry and music may be considered feminine by some.
Gods and Goddesses have both masculine and feminine attributes because we do as well. Very few people could be considered to be wholly one or the other. I may be a biological female, but I work as an engineer, a career that is still mainly dominated by males, as society considers these careers to be masculine. That doesn't change the fact that I'm female, or take away any of my feminine traits.
To sum things up, since I know we've been on a wandering path... fertility is about more than biological reproduction. The fertility cycle expressed by the Wheel of the Year can be a metaphor for bringing a goal to fruition. It can also be a metaphor for the greater cycle of our lives (birth, maturation, death, and rebirth). How else could the Wheel be interpreted? How does the life cycle of a flower fit in to the Wheel? What about the amoeba?
In the same vein, gender polarity is about much more than sex and biological reproduction. How do we each embody masculine and feminine traits? How are these traits assigned to the various Gods and Goddesses? Can you find a pair where a God is the feminine counterpart to a masculine Goddess? How would this change the energies and the dynamics of your practice and ritual? What about working with two Gods or two Goddesses? How does that impact the Wiccan Mythological cycle I described earlier in the article? How valid is the Wiccan Mythological cycle to your practice? Is it just another metaphor for the Wheel of the Year?
I hope this discussion has given you some food for thought, especially if you're someone who has been struggling with the concepts of fertility, polarity, and gender in Wicca. While Wicca isn't for everyone, looking at these things from a fresh angle
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