Dear Lady Whistleblower,
I was raised to be a submissive, obedient woman by my high-control religion. I hate calling it a cult, because I hate that word. But we were told what kind of clothes to wear (skirts had to be below the knee, pants were frowned upon, for example), we were discouraged from ever voicing our own opinion, we were not allowed to “teach” men, some people in my religion didn’t even like the word “partnership” to describe a marriage because that word made it seem like men and women were equal.
Was this Afghanistan? No. I live in an affluent, liberal-minded city on the West Coast. I guess I’m curious about where to start in terms on how I view myself as a woman going forward. I want to shed these toxic beliefs about myself as a woman but where do I even begin?
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Wow, this is an amazing question. First, I’d like to recommend a book that helped me tremendously as I tried to figure out who I was as a woman after leaving Gilead: Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives by Jean Shinoda Bolen. Written in the 80’s, Shinoda-Bolen is a psychiatrist and MD who found a unique way of presenting the psychology of women based on the goddesses of Ancient Greece. The stories around these Greek goddesses have been around for more than three thousand years, and are definitely worth a look. My answer to you will be mostly based on what I learned from that book.
Although not as insane as being a woman in Afghanistan, being raised in Gilead had warped my own view of being a woman and how we should move about in this world (Gilead wanted women to move and talk quietly, modestly and obediently).
Seeing how women were viewed from the lens of 3,000 years ago in Ancient Greece turned out to be empowering, inspiring and very educational.
I was surprised to learn about the feminine archetype of Athena. She’s very strategically minded, confident, competitive and a clear thinker. Did you know that it was Athena who was the best strategist during the Trojan War? But she was never considered “masculine” or “too manly”. She just had her own style of feminine energy. I hadn’t been taught to develop those Athena-like qualities: developing a business sense, managing and investing my money, feeling equal to a man, speaking with confidence and authority.
As I exited a religious cult, I needed that Athena energy to assess my new situation. In this time of crisis, I needed to be strategic and practical. I needed to be unemotional and rationally decide who I could trust with my secret plan of leaving my religion and who I couldn’t. I had to assess what the trajectory of my life would look like: would I stay in my current city, how’s my financial situation, do I need to go back to school, what relationships can I maintain and which ones do I need to let go of. Rational Athena never loses her head, her heart or her self-control. I wouldn’t want to be Athena for the rest of my life, but during this stage in my life, it served an important purpose.
Then there’s the goddess Artemis. Exiting a religious cult is a bit like leaving a controlling, manipulative relationship. That’s why learning about Artemis was so important for me. Artemis was known for not needing a man, and not doing anything just to please a man.
In Shinoda Bolen’s book, she uses the example of women who marry young; they often won’t find their Artemis energy until much later in life — usually after a divorce. That’s because they’ve gone from the role of a daughter straight to role of a wife. They haven’t had a chance to develop the strong, independent spirit that Artemis is known for. I began to think that a divorce was a good analogy for what I was going through — I was divorcing Gilead. It was going to get messy, painful and even ugly. I needed to develop my Artemis energy in order to survive this divorce.
I had been raised by a pretty strong, feminist-leaning mother but it was within the context of a patriarchal religious hierarchy, so in order to really activate my inner Artemis, I needed to relearn a lot a things about how I saw myself as a woman and discover how to be a strong, independent woman without the confines of what a religion had taught me.
Learning about the Artemis archetype turned out to be a lot of fun! We already know that Artemis is very independent, but she also tends to feel strongly about principles. She’s quick to use her strength to come to the defence of someone smaller or younger. Think about Katniss in Hunger Games and how protective she was of her younger sister. She stepped forward and volunteered to take Prim’s place in the dangerous and deadly Games. I think I already had some Artemis energy but this time, instead of advocating for others, I needed to protect myself.
I realized that my Artemis energy had been very useful to me in my former religion because it gave me meaning and purpose. I liked the challenge of learning a new language or navigating different personalities and cultures. I’ve never felt the pressure to have kids and now I understand why: Just like Artemis, I was comfortable putting that particular kind of mothering energy into other young women or other people’s kids.
That Artemis energy also comes with an ability for coldness and cruelty. It surprised me how quickly I could “ghost” or “write off” certain people in my life, as I left my religion. Maybe I felt like if I shunned them first, it wouldn’t hurt as much? But it still felt pretty terrible to act so coldly in my task of regaining my power. To balance that aspect of my Artemis energy, I’m still trying to figure out the right balance of compassion while protecting myself. So a little bit of Aphrodite — the goddess of love — will help with that!
Aphrodite is my kind of girl. She’s whom I aspire to be. To Homer, she was “a lover of laughter”. She was sensual, creative and loving. If you’ve ever fallen in love, that’s your Aphrodite energy coming through.
I once had a good friend who was constantly falling in love with everyone she met. She’d have multiple crushes on people. She struggled with adult acne during most of her 20’s but that didn’t stop her from feeling attractive and sexy. And guess what? People were magnetized to her, too. Men of all ages loved her. She was also always full of ideas and plans. She wanted to move to Italy one day, the next day she was going to become a therapist. Another time, she convinced a group of friends to join her belly-dancing class. She loved good food and although she didn’t drink wine, she appreciated it when other people loved and savoured their wine. Without being corny, she would constantly say stuff like, “you need to love yourself, girl”.
Sadly, our very strict, fundamentalist religion tried to suppress any type of Aphrodite energy — being flirty, falling in love easily, a fiery personality, intense relationships with everyone she would meet — so my friend was always considered as someone weak, “bad association” and was never socially accepted within Gilead.
As I left my religion, I tried to harness some of that Aphrodite energy. I wanted to be loving and creative. But how?
Aphrodite lives out of abundance, not scarcity. She loves generously and without judgement. In my religion, I had been taught to live out of scarcity, not abundance. There was scarcity of everything—the number of hours in the day, single eligible men, privileges, money and other resources.
Having called myself a Christian my entire life, I thought I knew the Bible. But when I started doing my own studying and research of the Bible (outside of my religion’s own library of publications), I was surprised at how much the message of abundance, and not scarcity, is everywhere. Jesus and the miracle of the loaves, the miracle of turning water into wine. The Israelites were commanded to leave the edges of their harvest in harvested so that foreigners and single-parent families could harvest the edges in what’s called gleaning; the abundance of manna that appeared every morning (except on the Sabbath which was their day of rest). Even the Sabbath was a sign of abundance: you and your family would always have enough, even if you took a day off.
Along with that abundance mindset, Aphrodite removes any type of guilt and judgment. She really doesn’t care how people spend their time. If you want to take a two-hour nap every day, Aphrodite would be the friend who would say, “Go for it, girl!” She simply doesn’t judge who we are or what we do. Oh my, this was the total antithesis of who I had been in my former religion. I had to let go of knowing everything, judging others, being right all of the time.
We all want to be friends with Aphrodite because we feel comfortable being in the presence of someone we know isn’t secretly judging us. It’s how we all want to be loved – to be accepted for who we are – and when we do experience it, there’s an immediate bond and deeper connection.
Back to my Aphrodite friend. She was always very much living in the present. Do-now, think-later. Now that I think about it, it was completely opposite to what my religion taught us: Don’t-now. Do-someday. And that someday would be in a future paradise. So not even in this life!
My friend seized each day with full optimism and delight. It makes me think of Maya Angelou’s line: “This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before”. I think we can all channel that Aphrodite energy by doing new things, spending time with people without an ounce of judgement and being open to connecting deeply with others. That killer combo of Aphrodite’s openness and charisma in women can be so intriguing.
Shinoda Bolen says, as women, we will experience Aphrodite’s influence most intensely during the time of ovulation — 14 days before our period — that’s when we feel our most sexy, flirtatious and extroverted self!
In essence, there’s hope for all of us who were raised inside a strict, patriarchal religious cult. If we can learn to harness the triple threat feminine energy of Athena (goddess of courage, wisdom, strategy, skill), Artemis (independent, protector of young girls, healer) and Aphrodite (love, passion, pleasure), we would be well on our way to becoming well-balanced, powerful woman. I highly recommend reading Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives by Jean Shinoda Bolen for a deeper dive on this topic.
