Reclaiming the Power From Within

Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics, by Starhawk (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982).

By Susan Woodworth

The feminist spirituality component of the women's movement has produced a wealth of books, pamphlets, tarot cards, herbals, astrology charts and other self-help tools for personal growth and healing. For the past several years the books have been available sporadically through women's bookstores as publishers and bookstores both struggle with the economics of distribution. Recently, however, the straight press has deigned to publish a few pieces that diverge radically from the current category of "corporate feminism." These titles quickly gain the attention of the feminist media, and undergo the scrutiny that feminist critics relish. Dreaming the Dark represents one such publishing splash from Beacon Press, following the success of The Spiral Dance, Starhawk's first book.

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Dreaming the Dark presents a broad feminist analysis of patriarchy that points specifically to the despair and powerlessness so widely felt by both women and men. Starhawk attributes these feelings to people's estrangement from themselves, each other, and the environment. This alienation results from living with a religion and culture that foster and support authoritarian hierarchical structures and justify principles of domination by one class of people (male). She then presents how and why the goddess religion is a feminist alternative vision, and what functions magic has within this spiritual/political context. The last few chapters of the book focus on specific actions and attitudes individuals can take to develop the necessary vision to create real social change.

Starhawk's analysis of patriarchal power structures and domination patterns draws from her familiarity with western religion, myth, and history. Because the myths that illustrate power and authority have so saturated our culture, their content and morals shape our thoughts, images and actions. As an example, she discusses the myth of the Great Man Who Receives the Truth and Gives It to a Chosen Few. This Man gains knowledge from a god figure and passes it to a select group (e.g., Chosen People, Cadre, Brotherhood, Klan). The Great Man, or his devotees, usually write a Book which is regarded as the only source of the real Truth. Women, of course, cannot possibly comprehend the truth, and their experience and understanding are regarded as worthless.

These myths serve to justify and explain why men have power, deserve privilege, and oppress women and minorities. Women and minorities are oppressed because they do not deserve better treatment, according to these cultural moral fables. They are different, alien, and less human than white men. They exist to serve the purposes of men as mothers, workers, slaves, property. Starhawk suggests that myth also rationalizes the manipulation and exploitation of the natural environment in the same way; that land and its resources are merely raw materials for man's manipulations. By exposing the violence and inhumanity of patriarchal solutions, Starhawk states a feminist case for a new vision of society based on respect for the total human and natural environment. Starhawk's strategies for breaking the grip of patriarchal patterns are based on her sense of individual human potential and the possibilities offered by more humane cultures. The redefinition of power

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is a crucial keystone to the transformation she envisions:

This Book is about the calling forth of power, a power based on a principle very different from power-over, from domination. For power-over is, ultimately, the power of the gun and the bomb, the power of annihilation that backs up all the institutions of domination.

Yet the power we sense in a seed, in the growth of a child, the power we feel writing, weaving, working, creating, making choices, has nothing to do with the threats of annihilation. It has more to do with the root meanings of the word power, from the (late popular) Latin, podere, ("to be able"). It is the power that comes from within.

Starhawk calls this power from within by several names: spirit, immanence, possibly God. Perhaps the most evocative image, however, is the Goddess: And I have called it Goddess, because the an-

cient images, symbols, and myths of the Goddess as birth-giver, weaver, earth and growing plant, wind and ocean, flame, web, moon and milk, all speak to me of the powers of connectedness, healing, creating.

Starhawk's emphasis of new goddess and god images suggests that a cultural transformation must ac company and support individual spiritual work. She does not endorse the solitary spiritual quest as the political strategy that will change society. She insists that politically and spiritually aware people must work together in groups to create lasting cultural change. She does acknowledge the skepticism that has been the response of some feminists to her work: The word Goddess makes many people who would define themselves as "political" uneasy. It implies religion, secularism, and can be mistaken for the worship of an external being. (continued on page 14)

A Sensitive Singular Life

By Linda Jane and Mary Walsh

The economic plight of a lone woman in a world ruled by men is hardly a new theme, but it has rarely been so poignantly portrayed as in the play The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, by Simone Benmussa,

Carla Miner as Albert Nobbs

in performance at the Phoenix Theatre through March 19.

Albert, a waiter at a posh Dublin hotel in the 1860's, is a woman who for years has lived as a man in order to make enough to survive. Her life is "singular" indeed, both in the sense of being unusual and in the loneliness inherent in her masculine

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disguise. Born a bastard and not knowing her true identity, she lives a life of isolation, avoiding social and emotional contact so as not to betray her gender. She is a model employee, living at the hotel and thoroughly submerged in her work. Numbed to feeling, she only becomes conscious of the tragedy and waste of her life when she tells her story to Hubert Page, another woman living as a man. Hubert had left her drunken, abusive husband 15 years earlier, but found a way to alleviate her loneliness by marrying another woman.

Albert, thrilled by the possibilities Hubert's life has shown her, begins to dream of following her example: marrying a woman, opening a small shop and having a real home. Her feminine side begins to assert itself, cracking the veneer of her imposture. Unfortunately Albert, with little knowledge of the world, chooses the wrong woman and woos her in a masculine way, with tragic results.

The play, imaginatively directed by Carol Weiss, is written in a spare, stylistic fashion which mirrors the austerity of Albert's life. The pain and longing suppressed beneath the surface, however are amply evident and strongly affecting.

Thus the play is a feminist parable, extremely contemporary in its application although set more than a century ago. Albert's life, although "singular," is in fact ironically similar to those of many women today. Despite our gains, we face a similar plight: to succeed economically, we must act like men, dress like men, and think like men-wihout sacrificing our femininity. The price of this charade is loss of self and betrayal of all that feminism stands for.

The all-woman cast of The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs displays the acting excellence which one has come to expect of Phoenix productions. Carla Miner as Albert and Carolyn Dickson as Hubert are wondrous to behold in their portrayals, convincing as men and yet showing the pain beneath.

Readers of What She Wants will have a chance to see this excellent production and also help the newspaper by buying tickets to the Sunday, March 13 WSW benefit performance of The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, at 2:30. Tickets for that performance are $20 supporting (which includes a one-year subscription), $10 regular, and $5 for un-and underemployed. For more information, call 321-3054 of the Phoenix box office at 371-7766.