March 8 is International Women’s Day, and the entire month of March is dedicated to remembering women who made a difference for women. For Women’s history month, here are six women who have influenced feminism, religion and Wiccan cultures.
Margaret Starbird
In her first book, Margaret Starbird hypothesized that Jesus and Mary Magdalen had a daughter. Starbird has gone on to publish seven works that discuss feminism, the Gospels and the Goddess. She was influential to the popular novel “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. She has been criticized for her theories about a sacred bloodline of descendants from Jesus, but she continues to work on her research and write.
Merlin Stone
In 1976, Merlin Stone challenged Christians through her book, “When God Was a Woman.” She proposed that matriarchal societies shaped Judaism and Christianity. This book was instrumental to the Goddess Culture that began in this decade in the United States. She also published another work, “Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood,” which is about goddess figures and heroines from around the world in both ancient and modern cultures.
Zsuzsanna Budapest
- Budapest is the founder of the Susan B. Anthony Coven, the founder and director of the Women’s Spirituality Forum, and author, playwright and songwriter. She was born in Hungary, but emigrated to the United States when she was older. In the 1970s, she was arrested for fortune telling, but this brought her religion, Wicca, to the legal system. She spent many years challenging her conviction on the grounds that she was spiritually counseling women through the Tarot cards of her religion. It’s said that she was “the first witch prosecuted since Salem.”
Carol P. Christ
A feminist scholar who presents thoughtful essays about the feminist movement, Carol Christ is probably best known for “Why Women Need the Goddess.” The work was first presented as a keynote address for the 1978 “Great Goddess Re-emerging” conference to an audience of more than 500 people. She believes “the symbol of Goddess has much to offer women who are struggling to be rid of the ‘powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations’ of devaluation of female power, denigration of the female body, distrust of female will, and denial of the women’s bonds and heritage that have been engendered by patriarchal religion.” Read the whole essay at the website for Ariadne Institute.
Mary Daly
Ms. Daly called herself a “radical lesbian feminist,” and she taught at Boston College for more than three decades. Although she taught male students in her introductory classes and in private, she refused to allow male students into her advanced classes. This violated university policy, and she resigned, but some say that she was forced to retire. She has written many works about the injustices of women in the church, calling the church oppressive and “hopelessly patriarchal.”
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be contemporaries of Matilda Joslyn Gage. Gage grew up in a home that was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and she, herself, faced jailtime for her actions in helping slaves escape. Although Anthony and Stanton get much of the press for women’s suffrage, Gage was more radical than either of them. Her argument for voting rights was because it was a “natural right.” For the times, it was a very unpopular philosophy. One of her most remembered quotes is that, “It is sometimes better to be a dead man than a live woman.” She wrote this because a man could will his children to another guardian, unrelated to their mother.
Take some time this month to pick up a book written by one of these influential women. Even if you disagree with their philosophies, you’ll gain a better understanding of the feminist movement in the United States and why it matters so much today.