The Goddess in Politics
by Tabby Biddle
The following essay was first published in 2016 in an anthology of women’s voices called Goddess 2.0. The original title was “What Does the Goddess Have to Do With Politics?” With our current election in play, I thought it was an appropriate time to re-visit the essay.
Whether we consider ourselves religious or not, male spiritual leadership holds immense power in our cultural consciousness. God the Father. Jesus, Son of God. Allah. Buddha. Brahma. With a man “at the top” of every major world religion, is it any wonder women and girls feel less than worthy?
As women, so many of us have been made to feel that something is wrong with us simply because we are female. We have been made to feel less than, unimportant, and second-class. We have doubted our self-worth, self-knowledge and self-authority, all in the name of patriarchy.
I personally did not grow up in a religious household, but I most certainly absorbed the idea that “God the Father” was at the helm. How could I not when every day as a young girl in school, I pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, embedding into my consciousness the mantra: “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Or, at my brother’s guitar recitals, when I joined in the sing-alongs, cheerfully clapping and singing: “He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands . . .”
I often wonder, what if I grew up every day pledging my allegiance to one nation under Goddess. Or, one nation under Mother God? Or, what if I instead were singing, “She’s got the whole world in Her hands. She’s got the whole world in Her hands. She’s got the whole world in her hands . . .” And what if boys grew up this way, too?
Today, masculinity and maleness are the standard by which we measure things. With a male orientation to God, masculinity and maleness have become synonymous with holding the ultimate authority and having power to exercise that authority.
Femininity and femaleness, by default, have taken on the quality of being of lesser value, second-class, and, most definitely, of lesser authority.
While some women might think we are empowered and everything is okay. It is not. Why else would we women remain stalled at less than 20 percent of leadership across every industry, despite how hard we work?
According to a study by FairVote, a non-partisan electoral reform organization, if we continue at the rate we are going in the United States, it will take 500 years for women to have parity in political leadership.
In business, too, it’s no secret that women lag substantially behind. Women represent just 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs; just 12.4 percent of executive officers in the financial services industry; and only 14 percent of senior management positions in Silicon Valley startups.
This is all happening while women are earning almost 60 percent of undergraduate degrees, and 60 percent of all master’s degrees. So there is certainly no lack of qualification on the part of women. That argument is null.
As a young woman early in my career, I worked in Washington, D.C. for the Women’s Campaign Fund, a non-partisan organization devoted to recruiting and training women political candidates and helping them fundraise to dramatically increase the number of women in elected office.
I fully supported this mission, and was proud to be a part of 1992’s “Year of the Woman,” where we tripled the number of women in the U.S Senate (from 2 to 6), and almost doubled female leadership in the House of Representatives. But when it was time to choose the next step in my career path, I opted out of politics. I could not bring myself to remain in a system and culture that felt dirty, cutthroat, divisive, manipulative and overly aggressive.
I felt that I would have to sell my soul to join the game, and I was unwilling to do that.
I’ve had many conversations with women since that time, and I have found that this feeling about politics is common, whether the women have worked in politics arena or not. They feel the political arena is not a compassionate place, or a warm and welcoming place for women. Why would they want to put themselves in a place of violence to the feminine system?
My conversations with women who haven’t been involved in politics also revealed that many women felt they didn’t “know enough,” didn’t have the “right credentials,” or weren’t qualified to hold intelligent conversations on the issues.
As women, we sadly have so much self-doubt around our qualifications, our abilities, and even our right to be leaders.
For instance, take what’s going on in our careers. A study done a few years ago by Hewlett Packard revealed that men were happy to apply for a job promotion if they met 60 percent of the job qualifications, while women were tending to apply only if they met 100 percent of the qualifications.
Pretty telling, isn’t it?
Living in a paradigm where men and the masculine are seen as the rightful owners of authority, and women and the feminine are the underclass, it’s no wonder that so many women second-guess themselves, their qualifications, and their voice in the world.
Even Hillary Clinton, who is an incredibly accomplished woman with a dedication to the rights and empowerment of women and girls, has time and time again dampened her voice and betrayed her authenticity to make it in the patriarchal game.
This has serious ramifications for us.
When our voices are missing from the tables of leadership — particularly our authentic voices —the truth of our lives is also missing. The cultural conversation and zeitgeist is then based on male voices, male opinion and male values. As a result, law and public policy don’t represent the truth of women’s lives, and therefore do not support us.
Take for example the fact that it’s 2016 and women are still not equal in the U.S. Constitution. You got that? Women and men are still not equal under the law in the United States. The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified.
I have often wondered how all of our lives might be different if every girl and boy learned about the 25,000-year history of the Goddess that existed before the onset of patriarchy, and how we would feel if our spiritual leader was depicted as a woman and referred to as a “She.”
Would women and girls value themselves more and feel a rightful ownership of their authority? Would women and girls speak out more and inhabit more space in the halls of power? Would women and girls be proud of their bodies, proud of their voices, and self-confident simply because they were female?
And would more women enter politics?
Although I worked in politics as a young woman, I was not embodied and empowered from a feminine perspective. I was a woman playing in a “man’s game” with men’s rules, trying to emulate something that I wasn’t and never would be.
Ten years ago, this all changed. I awakened to the Divine Feminine, our female history, and, at the same time, I found my political voice. Not only did the Divine Feminine awaken me to the power and potential in women, including my own, she awakened me to the thousands of years of suffering we have endured living in a patriarchal paradigm.
As the Goddess entered my life, I became aware of the human rights abuses happening to women and girls around the world: genital mutilation, bride burning, stoning, rape, murder, child infanticide, acid attacks, denial of education, the silencing of our voices.
I could feel the pain and fury in my body from women and girls suffering all over the world.
Simultaneously, I began to wake up to the oppression of my own voice and everyday sexism here in the United States. These were things I, embarrassingly, turned a blind eye to previously. I was so immersed in the male-paradigm, I could not even see the suffering of our sisters all over the world and right in front of me, myself included.
In this moment, I knew I couldn’t be silent any longer. I had to share what I was awakening to, and play my part in the rise of the Feminine.
I started a blog, named The Goddess Diaries, to share about my awakening to the Divine Feminine and all that I was learning in the process. I wrote about sexism in the United States, gender stereotypes, feminine spirituality and women’s relationship to power and leadership.
Not long after this, one of my blogs was read by an editor at The Huffington Post, and soon enough, I was invited to blog on their platform. I now had a larger platform to share my feminine perspective.
My first post, written in August 2008, was about my renewed hope and excitement for politics in America with Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden all speaking passionately at The Democratic National Convention in Denver about finally bringing our country to a point where women receive equal pay!
I discussed my intimate connection with this topic, having been a preschool teacher for many years -- a profession heavily represented by women who were underpaid.
I wondered, in the blog, what would happen if more women were in power and leadership positions and we turned to a time where women and men were respected and rewarded equally in the workplace.
I stated clearly my belief in Barack and Michelle’s ability to walk us forward into a time where women and men could renew their self-respect and respect for one other as we rebuild our country in partnership, collaboration and unity. In short, after many years of silence, I took a stand with my political voice.
With my newfound confidence, I continued writing on a steady basis, expanding my beat to cover the human rights abuses of women and girls.
My dedication to this topic was recognized by a female leader at the United Nations Foundation, and I was encouraged to apply for a press fellowship to report at the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York when all the world leaders and political dignitaries come to town and meeting for decision-making.
I applied and was accepted.
Soon enough, I found myself writing about the Divine Feminine, human rights and global progress all in one breath.
I got the opportunity to give voice to the feminine perspective at a very influential level and be a voice for women and girls in meetings and conversations that were mostly dominated by male leader and old-paradigm thinking.
I believe my voice and presence helped to bring new awareness to the conversation around women and girls.
Not enough women, myself included, have honored our feminine authority and world view. We have underestimated the importance of our values, our belief systems and our vision for the future.
Learning about the Goddess, I believe, can change this for us. It did for me.
Knowledge about Her story gives us a new vantage point, one that legitimizes female power and honors feminine authority. It helps us call into question our current social system, and it provides a framework for understanding our experience. It also provokes a reconsideration of the roles of women in society.
Perhaps most importantly, the Goddess provides a very different image of womanhood than that which is offered by male-oriented religions of today and heals the deep wound within us that tells us we are unworthy.
When I awakened to the knowledge, wisdom and history of the Divine Feminine, I began to see life from a feminine perspective. This is when I found my true political voice.
I believe each one of us as women is holding a missing link to the Feminine. As we find our voice to express this wisdom, we not only empower ourselves but all women.
This is the key that the Goddess holds to growing feminine leadership.
As more women learn about the Divine Feminine as an essential part of our human story, we begin to question our culture’s ingrained view that all legitimate power is male. This, I believe, is what can speed up the rate of progress for women’s rights and advancing more women in political leadership.
Author and activist Jean Shinoba Bolen talks about the Millionth Circle and how when we form a women’s circle, it makes it easier for another women’s circle to form. In short, a ripple effect occurs and continues until we eventually reach a tipping point: something that once seemed out of the norm, then becomes the norm.
As more women find the courage to use their voice on more leadership platforms and public speaking stages, we will reach a tipping point where the feminine voice is in her rightful place — heard, loved and respected. What once seemed out of the norm — like a female president, 50 percent female representation in Congress, and equal pay — will become the norm.
Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed. works at the intersection of women’s leadership, feminine spirituality and social change. She is the co-founder of 50 Women Can Change the World in Media & Entertainment, the bestselling author of Find Your Voice: A Woman’s Call to Action, and an internationally celebrated women’s leadership coach, educator, strategist, and group facilitator for her unique approach to activating women’s leadership. Learn more.