Why Women Need The Goddess

In spite of all that Christians say to the contrary, they conceive of deity as male. They will protest that they do not believe in anthropomorphism, that God is spirit, etc. But these protestations do not completely dispose of the above contention.

~W. Holman Keith, as quoted in Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler

Western women have been excluded from the deity quest for thousands of years, since the end of Goddess worship in the West. . . . So if one purpose of deity is to give us an image [that] we can become, it is obvious that women have been left out of the quest, or at least have been forced to strive for an oppressive and unobtainable masculine image. [Upon experiencing deity as feminine, one woman wrote,] "I could actually feel my last prejudice against my own female mind and body falling away."

~Drawing Down the Moon, by Margot Adler