Women who run with deer: Feminism and the huntress
Since early civilization, so many cultures around the globe have female deities that represent the huntress. I recently heard an interview with Starhawk, feminist writer and scholar, in which she shared an old Scottish creation story that involved the horned goddess: goddess of the animals and the hunt. As I sink deeper into my own feminism and veganism, which are to me intrinsic to one another, I find myself disconnecting more and more with this archetype.
I also find more of my female friends engaging this archetype, the huntress, as a source of female power. I acknowledge that in ancient culture, hunting was a source of sustenance and therefore symbolized good health and care for the people that you love. And so on the one hand the huntress is a mother figure for her tribe. However, the feminism that I think will lead us into the future is one of universal love. Love that knows no sexism, no racism, no religious persecution, and no speciesism.
In some ways I think that the Hillary Clinton and Joan Jett feminists didn’t necessarily embrace their own femininity so much as traded it for a form of masculinity. We traded the feminine skirt that connects us with mother earth for masculine pant. We cut our hair short in an effort to be more masculine, not embrace our genuine femininity. G.I. Jane and Joan of Ark weren’t feminists, they were a soldier and a general.
Katniss Everdeen, the star of the recent popular series ‘The Hunger Games,” is often cited as a strong female role model and feminist character. But when you trade her role with a male character, the story doesn’t change. She hunted and brought food to her family, she assumed the role of the father figure and the soldier. Is that a strong female character? Or, is a female in a male character’s role. It is an amazing and admirable feat to face inequality and prove that you are just as good as a man in a patriarchal world. There are female body builders, hockey and football players, female generals, female presidential candidates, and female hunters and they are all impressive. All women should be able to find what they are passionate about and pursue it, regardless of the adversity that they may face. However, if your pursuit at some point requires you to sacrifice your own femininity…is that still a pursuit of feminism? I think many women connect with a sense of power seated in the huntress archetype. The very act of hunting is domination and therefore power over another sovereign and sentient being. True power, deep earth rooted power, the power of the mother comes not from domination. It actually comes from boundless and unconditional love. Love and vulnerability are the most powerful aspects in the universe and they are both feminine. Vulnerability not to be confused with weakness.
Vulnerability done right is difficult (ask Mahatma Gandhi), without a rooted sense of love and righteousness it can turn into fear and violence…or it can turn to justice and redemption. Elizabeth O’donnell Gandolfo, author of “The Power and Vulnerability of Love: Theological Anthropology,” touches on this double aspect of the nature of vulnerability. Pointing out that it is our reaction to vulnerability that has shaped our cultures toward the masculine or the feminine. vulnerability rooted in love so deep that the strongest storms can’t shake it. That is bravery, that is the internal power that I think so many women seek. I find it in veganism and the principle of ahimsa. I am wild, I am from the wild, and the wild lives within me…I can summon a hurricane, I can lay ruin to armies, I can cradle a single thought until it is bones and dust. There is heart wrenching, gut turning love within me and it is the most powerful force I’ve ever known.
This aspect of reconnecting with the wild feminine spirit that Clarrissa Estes so eloquently talk about in her book, “Women Who Run with Wolves,” does not diminish for lack of blood lust. On the contrary I find that tracking the animal spirits to commune with them, and not to dominate them, lends a deeper connection to the wildness within and without.
- A fearless existence knows no violence. -
So I am not a woman who runs with wolves. I am a woman who runs with deer. When the wolves come for my children or my parents I stand rooted in love as powerful as the earth rests in her gravitational bed and they run in fear. I shepherd I do not hunt. My ecosystem is a sanctuary that forms niches for those in need. Justice is only half the battle, love is the win.
