We create limitations when we assume that the intelligence that created everything in existence is a ‘He’. It is only a ‘He’ through the filter of patriarchy and only a ‘She’ in retaliation to patriarchy. The true feminine divinity within us all would not limit God to one gender. She’s too wise for this. She may retaliate for the sake of balance but this would be temporary. She does not desire to replace patriarchy with matriarchy, only with egalitarianism. I, therefore, prefer to call God an ‘It’, or for the sake of cultural transitioning a ‘She-He-It', pronounced ‘Sheeit’ or ‘Shit’ for short!
NOTE: The intelligence of the Universe does not care which pronouns we use. We are the ones who benefit from not projecting gender onto existence because we stop reinforcing systemic violence against half of our own nature.
Stephen Tompkins, who wrote, 'Why is God not female?' for BBC News stated: “To talk about God we have to call God something, and avoiding pronouns altogether is cumbersome(…) 'It' seems a bit rude, talking as if God was an impersonal force like gravity or inflation. So God has to be 'He' or 'She', and in a patriarchal society, there's no contest. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "God is neither man nor woman: He is God”.”
And herein lies the problem; the default 'He' setting when we choose to give God a gender.
Many spiritual traditions acknowledge God, not only as male but as female, androgynous, genderless, and intangible. Gender may also be used allegorically and analogically, but after a preponderance of masculine references across millennia, the wiring in our collective old brain still says that God is a 'He'.
Personifying God by giving it a gender can certainly create a more intimate relationship with it, but if this intimacy has segregation built into its core then perhaps we need to rethink things. I would like to make the case for 'It'!
Personally, I have a very intimate connection with 'It', a profoundly loving Bhakti relationship that floods my heart with love every time I think of It. I also have an impersonal way of connecting to It as a universal force of energy or chi that supersedes all emotion, and I adore this way of relating to It too. The primary name I use for It is “Great Spirit” because that is what was given to me by my spiritual teacher, but the intelligence does not care what I call it.
I also refer to the ‘feminine aspect' and the 'male aspect' of the universe as the means to describe dualistic forces of creation moving through form. The feminine is the intuitive intelligence that bubbles up from within our lower dantian and the masculine is the mental and physical parts of us that act upon this intuitive intelligence. Both must be working in harmony for spiritual union. But I don’t ever call the omnipotent creative intelligence a 'he' or a 'she' directly as if that is its exclusive identity. Nor do I see It only as a human or a monkey or the sun. To me, this is limiting and exclusive of all other aspects of creation that do not fit into that particular gender or form. I personally relate to It as intelligence that pours through ALL forms to guide, expand and love me. I also relate to It in many archetypal and deified forms such as Kuan yin; the Goddess of compassion, Kali; the Goddess of destruction, Lao Tzu; the wise sage, or the Samurai as the fierce warrior, etc.
God is all of it, so I relate to all of it however the moment sees fit. But even when I’m calling upon Kali, Buddha, or Christ, I understand these figures to be reflections of God’s attributes, not the sole manifestation of God. The closest representation to me is the light that reveals itself as powerful surges of loving energies pouring through the veil to heal and awaken us. This is the same light we’re going back to when we die. But no matter which representation of the Universe I’m identifying with in any given moment, Spirit, to me, shall always be the all-encompassing genderless creative intelligence that gives form to it ALL.
Sometimes, not always, when someone refers to God as a 'He' I will say, “oh you mean ‘She-He-It’, 'Sheeit', or 'Shit' for short!” It takes a little longer to pronounce and always gets a giggle, but most importantly it keeps me connected to what I know and feel to be true: that giving God a gender (in this old-male context) reinforces ancient patriarchal programming that undermines and disempowers the entire human race, plant, and animal realms.
Side note: I was just about to say plant and animal ‘kingdoms’, which demonstrates my case in point: that the implication of male dominance, ownership, and rule has infiltrated its way into every fiber of our collective human unconscious, wrapping itself around our cells and DNA, languages and institutions like an invisible cloak (or not-so-invisible burkha). And why did I say “the entire human race” instead of “half of the human race” (ie: females)? Because in truth we’re all systemically suffering beneath the violence of segregation. The female slave-class are getting the short and brutal end of the stick (for now), but the slave owners; those who harbor the illusion of authority, superiority, entitlement, and control, are accruing a mighty level of karmic whiplash. Suffering is inherent for all within the illusion of segregation, whether it is felt now or in future lifetimes. The spell excludes none.
To create balance we must do our part to bring the shamed and shunned, beaten and ignored back into the foreground. So long as we need to give God a gender then we damn well need to make God a 'She' as much as a 'He'. As Mary Daly, feminist theologian and philosopher wrote in her work 'Beyond God The Father’, “If God is male, then the male is God.” Daly emphasizes that the commonly held view that God is male causes us to identify male domination and female subordination with the will of God.
Our collective perception of the source of creation is the foundation that cradles our humanity. To perceive God as male reveals an inherent split in the foundation of that humanity, let alone a split within theology, and this split runs through every single one of us whether we’re atheist, agnostic, or fundamentalist. It festers and pulls at the level of the collective unconscious. To favor one gender or form of God over another controls the flow of power within a hierarchal structure and the consequences have been, and will always be, devastatingly violent.
Attempting to counteract patriarchy with matriarchy may seem like a necessary weight needed for balance, a reactive force to bring about equality. Yet I believe that gender slides along a scale. Internally (and for some externally) we are all aspects of gender and slotting ourselves into a binary position limits the full expression of our consciousness. I hold the obvious view that more women in power equals a better world for all, and I also feel that the prescription is not for one sex to govern the other but for the full gender scale to be embraced and embodied by all, starting with giving more weight to females, LGBTQ and gender-fluid individuals.
In the pursuit of a heart-felt, humanitarian, balanced, equal, and peaceful world I will continue to acknowledge the need for some to call God a ‘He', so long as they are awakened to the fact that God is a 'She’, 'They’, 'It', 'Sheeit' and ultimately, since God doesn’t take itself too seriously, a 'Shit'!
Jennifer Millar © copyright 2020. All rights reserved.