Feminist Notions

If someone called you "Jezebel" would you consider it a compliment? Probably not. Her lingering bad name is an example of the power of language.

Language was the battlefield where feminists fought from the beginning. In the case of Jezebel and pagan thinking, the language of gender-politics successfully shamed and vilified an entire way of life, and the followers of it. Remember the 1960's when Jane Fonda's name was used in certain circles as a curse because her politics were at odds with those of people in power? Since then the extremes of the Viet Nam experience have come closer to a middle ground for many Americans and Jane Fonda has regained a position of respect. However, the battle of faith that painted Jezebel as wicked lasted hundreds of years. Remnants of pagan thought hung on through all sorts of opposition, even up to the present time. For all that time, men in power tried to control the behavior of women using the language of social ostracism as a weapon. When God is "the Father" rather than "the Mother," and when men make the rules of morality, then the power of language is slanted toward the masculine.

Jezebel showed strength, courage, determination, loyalty and the unshakable belief that the feminine represents divinity. She must have been a feminist!