Women, what brings you to paganism?

[Doc_Holliday]

Its been a long time curiosity for me as to why Paganism seems to attract mostly females. And believe me, I am not in any way saying its a bad thing, I am a strong believer that gender makes no difference in a person. Its the heart that counts in life. But I just wanted to hear what draws most women in?

[thalassa]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

I was raised in a liberal and progressive Christian religion and was encouraged to read and make my own decisions regarding my beliefs. In my family, the Bible was inspired by God but written by men and it was fallible...belief in religion AND an understanding of science was encouraged and was never considered to be in conflict. As I got older, because I of that understanding of science, I thought the doctrine of original sin was wrong...and if original sin is wrong, then unbaptized babies don't go to hell...and from there, I came to the conclusion that baptism couldn't make a baby any more godly than it already was, and if that was the case, then what about the rest of us? God supposedly made us in his image...if that is the case, a god that punishes its creation for what he created it as is imperfect. And, if God isn't perfect, then there is no special reason to need forgiveness from him, and if that is the case, then there is no need for salvation. If I didn't need to be saved, then I'd negated the basic claim of Christianity, and I was free to look elsewhere.

...it just so happened that I read a book where the main character was Wiccan, and so I looked it up at the library and picked up the only two books on the subject, Drawing Down the Moon and Spiral Dance. I suppose, at a very liberal and feminist 12, I was attracted also to the feminist and rebellious not-mainstream aspects of it as well...but, that wasn't terribly important for very long, and needing to rebel against anything wasn't ever a part of my upbringing (because I really had nothing to rebel against, my parents were pretty reasonable people). I suspect that the reason I mostly was interested in it had less to do with my gender and more to do with my interest in science in general and biology in particular.

But regardless of what got me here, I stayed because of my experiences with the Divine and divinity.

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

I personally cannot speak for women in general, just me. I firmly believe that my heart has been pagan since the begining, I just hadn't connected the dots, and did some mental acrobatics to fit my beliefs and such into the Christianity of my up-bringing. As a thing, I think my mom suspected that I was going to end up pagan before I did... It had nothing to do with me being a lady. There may be some other threads on this, lemme find em...


This one about there being more chicks than dudes

And this one about dudes getting the rub in paganism, its closed now, it got stupid...

[DanieMarie]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

I don't feel my beliefs have anything to do with my being a woman.

I grew up near a forest, and always felt that growing things and life were the real divine presence in the world. It wasn't exactly something you could touch or pray to, but there's something more going on there.

[thalassa]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

there is part of me that thinks that there are more women because there are men that are scared off by that...

[Gardenia]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

My grandparents raised me, and I wasn't raised with any particular religion since neither of them are especially religious. I grew up in a very rural and heavily forested area, went camping and hiking a lot, played outside at the edge of the woods often. Both my grandparents kept a vegetable garden which I helped with where I could, and my grandfather hunted and fished, and I often went fishing with him. My grandfather taught me what the solstices and equinoxes were, and I celebrated them by drawing pictures and hanging them up around the house. He also taught me about some of the edible plants one could find outside, and we always spent a lot of time picking wild blueberries each summer.

So, when I found a book on Wicca in my cousin's room? Not really a surprise that I was very interested in what I was reading. People who really loved nature, who celebrated the seasons and the agricultural holidays, as well as the moon cycles, and learned herbalism, animal symbolism, and all that? Not only those things, but also the belief in the classical Gods and Goddesses (which teachers said were dead, that no one believed in them anymore), as well as the interest in history and mythology, all those aspects really pulled me to Wicca, and paganism as a whole.

[Juniper]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

The mead and naked dancing.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

It's funny how we almost all stumble into paganism around the age of 12-14. I've rarely met anyone that's told me that came into it in their twenties or thirties.

I grew up without religion. And I don't even mean in an atheist way. I just mean, I grew up completely ignorant of religion. I had no idea what god was supposed to be, why people went to church, and I didn't even know you could be something other than Christian (except hindu, and according to my grandpa those people were smelly and ugly)

I don't even remember what exactly caused me to find paganism. I've always read a lot of fantasy novels, and somehow, I found myself with my first wiccan book (did I buy it in a bookstore? I don't even remember) ...and, I kinda always kept coming back to it. I have a really hard time with authority, and I thought if I was going to start learning about the religions of the world, I was going to stay away from the ones with dogma, because I had just finished living through hell, there was no way my actions could send me into a hell in the afterlife too. I wasn't going to believe in a god that demanded things of me. Eff that god.

And then I found out you could worship the outside world. And I liked it. And somehow, it stuck. My memory has a lot of gaps in it from my early teens, so I don't have that great of a story. All I know is that I wasn't going to be dominated anymore, and nature doesn't demand anything of you except survival. And that was something I could deal with.

- - - Updated - - -

The mead and naked dancing.

...and all of those reasons too!

[iloveaniimals123]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

my grandmother.. she's roma, and have always been very spiritual, nd stuff like that

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

It's funny how we almost all stumble into paganism around the age of 12-14. I've rarely met anyone that's told me that came into it in their twenties or thirties.

I was 22 years old

The mead and naked dancing.

This is also a spectacular reason!

[Aeran]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

Have there ever been any studies done that demonstrate conclusively that more women than men are drawn to paganism? While some branches, namely Wicca (especially the more goddess-oriented traditions) seem to be female-heavy, for obvious reasons, there are a lot of others that appear to be the reverse, Asatru and Druidry being the major ones off the top of my head.

It also seems, and obviously this is completely anecdotal, that women are more drawn to group practice, while men are more likely to practice solo.

[Ophidia]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

I'm one of those women who had been doing Pagan things as a child, even in a nearly non-religious household... and I was about 10 when I found out what I was doing all along had a name.

I came into Paganism, Wicca and witchcraft in the mid-to-late 80s, which was a heyday for New Age and Paganism in America. I met a lot of women who had just discovered it all, and they were all there for a similar reason: The Goddesses. We had the birth of feminist and Dianic Wicca with Z Budapest, Starhawk, Morgan McFarland, a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head. All of them preached empowerment, throwing off the shackles of 2000 years of patriarchal religious doctrine - and a lot of women who were hitting the glass ceiling at work and at home ate it up (that's why women had huge shoulderpads back then - they were glass ceiling shock-absorbers). Feminist Wicca went hand-in-hand with nuclear protests and pro-choice activism. As a teenager, I couldn't walk into the occult section of a bookstore without having to wade through feminist witches.

All that's kind of faded away. Z Budapest is now causing controversy at various Pagan 'cons (PantheaCon, Pagan panels, etc.) by supporting cis-gendered-women-only-rituals*.



*I don't know the word for banning transgendered people from things. I see 'transphobia' on a lot of blogs screaming about Budapest, but I'm not sure if that's the right word for her behavior or if it's... you get my point, I just don't want to confuse the whole thing. When I tell people there is still gender-bias and homophobia present in Wicca, the only ones who believe me are ones who've seen it happen.

[Willow]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

Is there going to be a male equivalent to this thread so there's some kind of comparison? I don't think the reasoning is any different between genders at all. We have a calling, we were born, bred, raised, or otherwise stumbled into it for moral or perspective alignment interests.

And now I really want mead... and chocolate liquor.... hmmm

[thalassa]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

I wonder how much stuff like buffy, Charmed, etc might have to do with it...

Because yeah, there ARE more women than men (enough to be statistically significant) in Paganism.

...though, its been my experience on PF, that we are not your "typical" Pagans.

...or maybe we ARE your typical Pagans, and the other people are atypical (whatever typical means).

[Gardenia]

Re: Women, what brings you to paganism?

There's a thread similar to this on another forum I visit (only, not limited to women), and a lot of the answers seem to be similar to the ones here. Another common theme is being raised in a 'fundie' Christian environment, and being dissatisfied with what their churches taught. That was the answer of several women, and I wonder if it does have something to do with the fact that some fundie Christian groups do tend to treat women poorly...

I wonder how much stuff like buffy, Charmed, etc might have to do with it...

In my own experience, the people I've met who came into Wicca/witchcraft through Buffy or Charmed tend to go through a really extreme "LOOK HOW WICCAN I AM" phase for a few months... then totally drop it and move on to something else.