Western women have endured 5,000 miserable years of patriarchy. We have been told to “submit” to our husbands. We have been told to keep silence, and we have been forbidden to teach. We have even been taught that it is somehow our fault when we are raped and mistreated by men. Above all, women are not allowed leadership positions in most Christian churches. Few women can answer a spiritual calling that does not forbid feminine sexuality and motherhood, as in a Roman Catholic or Orthodox convent.

Wicca isn’t always fair, either. Some Wiccan traditions do emphasize the feminine to the extent of treating the God as little more than a cosmic sperm donor. However, that lack of balance is the exception rather than the rule.

In most Wiccan traditions, men and women enjoy an equality unheard of in the Judeo-Christian faiths. Leadership and teaching are open to anyone, of any gender, who are suited to perform the tasks themselves. Most covens are led by both a high priest and high priestess, working together as equals, as men and women were obviously created to do.

One of the very great tragedies of patriarchy was that in suppressing and marginalizing the feminine over so many millennia, the masculine was also destroyed. As every Witch knows, there can be no light without darkness, and no masculine without feminine. All too often, men reared in these traditions believe that the only form of masculine strength they can exercise is outright cruelty.

In Wicca, both men and women are free to achieve their highest potential in a true partnership with one another.

All graphics on this site obtained from Witchway Graphics. They do not ask for credit, but they do the finest, most incredible, most STUNNING Pagan graphics on the Web - and they deserve all the credit we can give them!