Mary Daly's 'courage to sin big'

This was a woman with real courage who faced severe limitations in her lifetime from a highly patriarchal church. She overcame many of them to get her three doctorates, under conditions most commentators couldn't imagine, and then overturned the applecart and hoofed out of there.

As someone who both admired Daly for her gutsy critique of patriarchy and was critical of Gynecology for its negative slant on women of color (plenty of examples of severe patriarchy but lacking in positive models), i do have to point out that it is not true that Daly did not respond to Audre Lorde. This longstanding charge was addressed by Lorde's biographer Alexis deVeaux who uncovered Daly's letter, which Lorde ignored. I admire Audre Lorde very much, and as you see agreed with her critique, but the situation was more complex than it has been represented. So please look into this. I think Daly was mistaken to dismiss discussion of colonialism, genocide, and racism, treating them as merely secondary artifacts, but in fairness there is more to this particular story. Just as there is to the much-repeated story about her refusing to teach male students. She did teach them, but she insisted on teaching female students separately so that they would feel free to speak, not be interrupted or intimidated. Disagree all you like, she was on to something there.

Mary Daly's books changed my life, they were food to my starving intellect miserable in a cognitive wasteland. I honour this Great Hag's passing, and wish her great Sailing on the Cosmic Seas!
I am saddened but not surprised to see her Elegy annotated by snoolish comments about how men created the internet (I stopped reading after that).
I think it's important to remember that she
understood gender dynamics, and this is why she taught men and women separately. She didn't refuse to teach men.
Also, she did admit that her work wasn't perfect, and warmly invited us gynocentering beings to springboard off her work!

Blessed Be Mary, and many thanks
)O(
Emma Dowling MA

It was such a breath of fresh air to read Mary Daly in the 1970's. What a eye-opening gift to consider the notion of female divinity.

For an interesting visual aspect to this story, see an article about San Francisco artist Colette Crutcher's mural of the Goddess/Virgin Tontanzin. The article is in part a tribute to Mary Daly:

http://lydiabreen.com/2009/12/11/the-virgin-among-us/

sergio3

You wrote, "To PGR31: You wrote "Men don't actually create anything".

Really? Did you type those words on a computer and posted them to a web site on the internet - all three of which were predominantly created by men?"

Men, humans, have never "created" anything, we have made things.

Creating is making something out of nothing.

Making something is using what is available and doing something with it.

We have been "creative" in our use of what has been created but ultimately, we have not created anything but we have made quite a few things.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

magus12

You wrote, "But your false efforts at a subtle bolstering of male preeminence is showing."

You can take what I wrote for what I wrote or you can take it for what you read into it with your preconceived notions, that is up to you.

There was something that I was taught in second grade and that is "We are all equal in God's Eyes" and I happen to believe it.

We are not the same but we are equal, at least in God's Eyes and maybe one, whether or not they believe in God, should maybe at least give it a ponder.

If you think that women are "superior" to men, how is that any different than men who think that they are "superior" to women?

I have met God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and that is why I make the statement that we, humans, try to put God in a "box", God won't fit, and that God is neither a Male, a Female nor an It.

Are you so wrapped up in bitterness that you would rather look at the "cliche's" of the person in front of you or the person irregardless of what sex they are?

There are both men and women that look down on the "other" for the reason that they are the "other", of course this "other" thing is not restricted to those that are prejudiced by sex, there are many, many ways that people use to look down on the "other".

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

To PGR31: You wrote "Men don't actually create anything".

Really? Did you type those words on a computer and posted them to a web site on the internet - all three of which were predominantly created by men?

to Thebump

"Rad wymynism is so over, thank God.

God bless patriarchy."

Your celebration is premature and by no means guaranteed, particularly as you applaud the damages done by patriarchy these many thousands of years. Here's some news for you: a human life is not a binary proposition divided neatly into "male" and "female" expectations of the kinds and duties of a life one is to lead.

To Thomas Paul Moses Baum

Interesting - well, really it isn't interesting or at all unique - that you would "give" with one hand and "take back" with the other...at the same time. Nice that you begin by saying God is neither male nor female...and then you reify the maleness of God by capitalizing God with a "His". Your explanations? "I use the male pronoun because it is convenient and also because there is no 'correct' pronoun that is available." So, are you too damned lazy to come up with a suggestion or are you reverting to your phallocentric and phallocratic ideas of God? Do you think we're all too dumb or in awe of your "we can't put God in a box" to miss your [but] "we have to use language and even tho language falls short in this endeavor, this should not stop us."? Or that we'll behave ourselves and go back to being be good little girls and admire you and thank you for your false generosity? And you can keep your penis privilege? And God gets to keep a penis? It's just another rear-guard action on your part. Go back, Tom, and try again. Or be honest and don't. But your false efforts at a subtle bolstering of male preeminence is showing. All you've done is reengineer the same old box...with the same proportions. Same old same old.

"If women are equal then why do they need the force of government to achieve whatever it is they wish to achieve, which seems to this observer to be the theft of other people's property! (at least the feminists seem to want to achieve this- "by their actions shall ye know them.")"
Posted by: vince33x

Vince33x, What the *@$% are you talking about? Theft of other people's property? There are bands of feminists roaming around holding people up at gunpoint? Feminist cat-burglars are scaling buildings and slipping out the window with jeweler and laptop computers? Force of government? Men have been disenfranchised? When was any this in the news? Did I doze off again?

Seriously, can we stay on topic? What do you think of Ms. Daly's work? Do her complaints about many religions being "boys-only" clubs have any merit? To this observer, they do. Does she make the classic mistake of blaming an entire class of people (in this case, an entire gender) for the sins of a few? To this observer, she does.

What does her work have to do with your generic condemnation of an entire gender? Are you taking a page out of her book?

Rad wymynism is so over, thank God.

God bless patriarchy.

It's amusing yet disturbing that our great and magnanimous nation provides space for pseudo-intellectual crackpots like Daly (or the author of this post) to make a living polluting the landscape with such utterly mindless garbage.

There is no universal category of "women"--that is where I part company with Daly. Racial dominance can blind us to the real differences of other women's experience. The experience of transgendered people may mess up your theory, but in my view it's the theory that has to change, not the other way around.
========================
Ah, Susan. How very liberal and politically correct thou be'st. Now let us see if your liberalism extends beyond that of the occasionally madding crowd.

JEWS, dear SUSAN, as well as JUDAISM, should disrupt both your theology and your theory, but, alas, they do not, leaving your discourse with gaps as big as the Grand Canyon, aporias as deep as the Atlantic.

But, we'll wait for you, Susan. We Jews are a patient people.

If women are equal then why do they need the force of government to achieve whatever it is they wish to achieve, which seems to this observer to be the theft of other people's property! (at least the feminists seem to want to achieve this- "by their actions shall ye know them.")

Well, Ms. Daly's writings do come off as rather man-hating - especially if you're a man. But, like everything else, take it with a grain of salt. She has a lot of good ideas.

I guess that I was wrong about what I thought "feminism" was suppose to be about.

I thought that it was suppose to be about the inherent dignity of women and their equality, not sameness, with men.

It seems that with some "feminism" seems to mean to show that women can be just as arrogant, ignorant, power-hungry and sexist as men.

I suppose that in a way this does show the equality between men and women.

We are all a present from God to each other and what kind of present we are in the present to each other is our choice.

See you all in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

"More than three decades ago, Daly wrote, 'If God is male, then male is God.' She was right then, and she is right now."

I agree that the idea has led to terrible suffering for women throughout human history. However, I caution that this suffering isn't evidence against the claim that a single god exists and that he is male. If a single god exists, if this god is male, female, or neuter, this question is a matter of evidence.

God is neither a Male, a Female or an It, God Is a Being of Pure Love.

God-Incarnate was a Male but it was a woman who God asked permission of to become a human being and Mary said YES.

Before Jesus became Jesus, He was neither a Male, a Female or an It but was God and since God Is One and yet a Trinity, we refer to Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity both before and after Jesus's Incarnation.

Also, Jesus was not the Son of God nor the Son of Man before the Incarnation but became both when Mary said YES.

Isn't it something that some men and some women make such a big deal out of whether God is Male or Female when God is neither.

For those that insist that God is male or that God is female, I would say that it speaks volumns about the smallness of their "conception" of God.

It seems as if many, if not most, people whether or not they believe in God, wish to cram God into a "box" and this is, sad to say, very true of many that happen to have God's Name right.

God can and does make His Presense known but when we try to put God in a "box", it just doesn't work.

By the way, I have said this before and I repeat it, I use the male pronoun because it is convenient and also because there is no "correct" pronoun that is available.

When speaking of God, we have to use language and even tho language falls short in this endeavor, this should not stop us.

As I have also said, it is beyond my comception that LOVE can be a BEING but that is the simple TRUTH.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Ditto what PGR31 says. I went to an all-women's college in the 1980's, but didn't hear about Audre Lord or Mary Daly until I started exploring women's spirituality after I graduated. Daly was one of the first authors that I read on the subject.

I do sympathize, but the solution is simple. We are fortunate in our culture that we get to choose our religion. We are vastly more fortunate than our sisters who are born into violent, heavily patriarchal, cultures and have no choices.

All you need to do is reject patriarchal religion. As an anthropologist who has worked in matriarchal cultures, mostly Hopi, I am much mmore comfortable with the concept of God as female. If there was/is a creator, she would obviously be female. Men don't actually create anything.

Once you have taken that step, everything else falls into place. If there are nine alternate universes, clearly it is a woman pulling the strings that keep them in balance. No need for endless, tortured analysis.