Female God images can serve to balance the predominantly male God images of Western monotheism. Women who have not been equally supported to see themselves in personal relationship with the divine may need to express anger at the dominant religious paradigm and explore alternative images that express their sense of connection to the divine as female.
The lack of feminine God images in contemporary Western society is a common stumbling block for women’s spiritual development. Religious historians wonder why God is so commonly depicted as male when feminine God images are as prevalent throughout history and may actually precede masculine ones (Baring and Cashford 1991; Leeming and Page 1994; Billington and Green 1996). Those who seek images of the feminine divine discover an abundance of goddesses and female archetypes in the historical record. Ancient images of the divine are frequently primitive art celebrating generativity and birth. Archaeologists have uncovered pottery and cave art...
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Peterson, A. (2020). Female God Images. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_236
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