Is “He/She” the same as “She/He”? To Sarah: here’s my take on God and maleness!
A word: before any reader criticizes the following piece for its literary shortcomings, I’d just like to say that I’m aware that I may have broken quite a few rules of grammar (such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc.) and other such aspects of good writing. All I can say in my own defense is that it was an absolute delight to do so!
BEFORE THERE WAS A MALE GOD
It strikes me as quite curious that the word “He” is used the way it is in religious circles. I mean, in the Old Old Days, before the Prophets and Apostles and Disciples got to cavorting about in the Middle East and Europe—before the coming of the White Man’s Imperialistic Military Effort to conquer All the Savages of the World—I imagine most people were content with a non-gender non-denominational Holy Creator Power.
There were Spirits all about dancing and cavorting and enjoying themselves, fluidly sliding from one realm to the next, visible to invisible, understandable to mysterious, without any single one of them being confined to a lifetime of rigid gender inflexibility.
That all changed once the monotheistic religions finally whipped their competition and drove polytheistic diversity from the field and any divergence from newly formed “orthodoxy” became heresy. Once Christianity gathered sufficient momentum to gain the ascendancy during the Roman Era, God became male, didn’t he?
What happened to all those female deities the Greeks and Romans worshiped? The pronoun “He” replaces them all!
But one wonders: suppose there was no story of Jesus or suppose we could travel back in time more than 3,000 or 4,000 years ago . . . . what would we find? Would the God that was worshiped 2,000 years before Jesus still be a He?
Of course, some may argue that God is not a male at all but a Super Omnipotent Deity beyond all sense of measurement and physical form in paltry human terms. Therefore, the pronoun “He” is used merely to denote masculinity in general and the various wonderful attributes thereof associated (with “manhood”, that is). Okay, that makes plain sense to me.
However, it does seem as though once God managed to have a son by coming to Earth to be reborn as a Man as it were—as it were Jesus—then sometimes we can say God = Man in quite another sense, too. “He” now equals “Jesus” and “Jesus” was a “Man”, certainly, by all accounts.
NO ORDINARY MALE GOD
God’s masculine attributes are no longer accidental or linguistically convenient but virtually inescapable (except for a few Pantheist types and a handful of Quakers and of course your atheists who don’t get the necessity of inventing male gender theology in the first place.)
Philosophically, it’s no big deal to most of us (except for a few theosophists) because everyone understands what is meant by it anyway, more or less. God = Man (and not Woman) and to further cement the connection, both God and Jesus are regularly represented by the pronoun He — “Get it, Got it, Good!”
I once read a comment by a Jewish scholar that he found it preposterous to believe that “God”—the real one, the High and Mighty, the All-Powerful Deity—would find it necessary to come to Earth to be born of a woman in order to appear as a man as a way to prove his divine powers . . . and I definitely think there is some merit to this point of view.
I mean, if there were a God before Jesus—and I suppose everyone except Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans, Pantheists, Polytheists, Quakers, and Savages would have to agree there was—then such Godly existence must involve virtually unlimited power from the very Beginning! What need be there of a short human-based biblical drama to prove something so obvious?
Why would omnipotence become “finite” to prove its omnipotence? What need God to prove to anyone that God is God?
Let it pass, as of no great matter. It is not my intention to debate that question but simply to ask: if there were a God before Jesus, then how would prehistoric peoples in the long long ago have referred to said Godliness? (after they mastered a modicum of articulate speech, of course).
THE PRONOUN PROBLEM
I am especially curious to discover how our ancestors handled the “pronoun problem” if I may be allowed to refer to the issue of gender thusly. If this God were genderless (neither man nor woman) such a God would presumably be “pronounless” as well–save perhaps for the ubiquitous “it” of modern languages, at least those of them lucky enough and thoughtful enough to have included an ‘it” in the first place. God can be a “he” or an “it” but almost never a “she”. Why is that?
The Creator, the Creator Spirit, the Great Mystery, the Great Unknown–to borrow a few phrases from our Native American brethren–is something so vast primordial, cosmic, and and incomprehensible that slapping a biological pronoun on it makes no sense whatsoever!
I wonder who was the very first person in the world to use this “He” pronoun? Or more to the point: Why be the first to use “He”, if I may ask?
Is God endowed with some special form of masculinity? Not to be crude, but does God have male genitalia?
If there is no ordinary human or mortal physical form, then from whence derives this attribute of “maleness”? How is God a “he”? Is God a man?
Pshaw, you know the answer to that yourself: absolutely not! Even when “anthropomorphism” is carried to an extreme, no sane theologian believes “god” and “man” are interchangeable terms. That would virtually defeat the whole purpose of theology, would it not?
For such Godly powers are “infinite” in all ways, according to the scribes, and god-existence is “eternal” and way past eternal in both directions (beginning and end) so there can be nothing of humanity’s mortal limits in such magnificent grandeur!
Godliness ‘twas here at the beginning of Creation (we assume) and it will still be here at the end—or at least long after the likes of you and I and everyone else we know are long gone. Men and women need their gender and pronoun-generating genitals in order to procreate . . . but the Lord?
THE QUESTION REMAINS
So why is this Vast Omnipotence called “He? Does God have a body, a shape, a human form, a material reality? No, no, no, and again no!
Does “He” the All-Knowing have a penis, then, or some other male sexual tell-tale sign, visible and palpable?
No one would say “yes” to this question who wishes to accept the omnipotence and omnipresence of the Great Creator which necessarily involves a much grander scheme of infinite dimensions of which the human mind can barely conceive, theologically-speaking.
If “everywhere at once”, such Godly presence cannot be limited by physical form of any kind whether in the shape of child or adult, male or female, young or old . . . be it bone or flesh, height or weight, mass or density. God is not human and does not look like, act like, or behave like a human.
To say otherwise is to deny the foundation of all religious thought itself which looks upward toward a heavens of unknowable grace and grandeur and seeks the Creator behind Creation.
What meaning, then, such words as “race” or “age” or “gender” to an all-knowing infinite Deity? Would we say God is white, red, black, yellow, or tan?
Would we say God is young, middle-aged, or old? What meaning has such human attributes as these? No meaning at all!
AFTER THE TRIUMPH OF THE MALE GOD
There must be another answer and there is. The pronoun “He” represents the chauvinistic attitude of male superiority, pure and simple. That “meaning” was added by ambitious men who craved and abused power, by men who beat their wives, by ministers who threatened their congregations (especially sinful women) with the fires of damnation, and by imperial emperors who destroyed entire nations and rejoiced when their own subjects were made to cowardly quake with fear!
From the likes of these arrogant male chauvinists and ambitious sadistic rulers bent on brutally conquering innocent peoples, we should accept their views as to God’s nature?
Deductively, then, what other interpretation can we give to the pronoun “He” but this one . . . especially as we see that, over centuries, the male pronoun becoming the only literary construction ever chosen in describing God?
One thing alone is certain: this pronoun minimizes a woman’s right to true independence of thought and freedom of spirituality–her right to a life not dependent on Man’s every command and whim.
I know it sounds funny to our ears when female comediennes refer to “God” as “She” to garner a laugh. “Ha ha! that’s a good one!” Our first well-trained impulse, after the laughter passes, is to shake off such a mind-boggling conjecture with an emphatic “That’s impossible!” But is it?
Why is it any more impossible to say “She” than “He” if God is genderless and supposedly represents a scale of omnipotence and omniscience that knows no physical trait or boundaries?
Or, reversing the polarity, why is it so much more credible to promulgate for twenty-plus centuries the view of “God” as “He”? Oh, I know you can say this “male pronoun” was chosen just for the sake of literary convenience; it made scriptural writings the easier to copy and write down, especially after the whole Jesus business.
The “male pronoun” equation (God-Jesus-Man) certainly worked well enough then, didn’t it?—but here’s a pronoun for a godly cosmic phenomenon whose own birth preceded the story of Jesus by scandalously long oodles and oodles of time! It appears that pre-Jesus Old Time Male Chauvinists had already made up their minds, hadn’t they?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WOMEN?
Women are excluded from the domain of the higher realms of holiness and all powers and practices derived therefrom. Blame everything on the women and give them none of the glory or the power, be it secular or theological. Anne Hutchinson is banished and cast aside for merely reading and teaching the Bible on her own.
Certainly, a pronoun can substitute for any name and perhaps it just became the easiest stratagem of all to use “He” as that pronoun–pure literary convenience, that’s all.
But is that the only reason? Perhaps there is another far better reason: here on Earth, when you get right down to it, Man rules the House, the Army, the Church, the Nation, the City, and the Family. “Man” rules just about everything. Women must be taught to obey their fathers, their ministers, their husbands, their masters.
Man likes the Easy Life with himself at the center of power. His wife may cook, clean house, work in the fields, give birth, take care of children but she may not share power and intellectual equality with him. For this, a grand philosophy and an unimpeachable theology are required proving male superiority and female inferiority.
Man, therefore, uses this religious pronoun to ensure he has all the Authority and Woman none of it. Man gives the orders and Woman obeys! If God has supreme authority then the pronoun “He” is the only one that can possible make any logical sense, right?
It’s a little circular but a little circle never hurt anyone . . . unless you belong to a different pronoun group). The “He” in religion is held up as immutable, inevitable, and invincible.
To which I say: Hogwash!
That’s a bunch of male chauvinist nonsense if ever I heard any and believe you me, I have heard plenty. Yet maybe such a retort does bring us closer to the crux of this matter: what deleterious influences can we expect on the minds of boys and girls, men and women—especially the minds of girls and women—for well nigh two millennium to perpetually and exclusively hear “God” expressed by the pronoun “He”?
Does not this linguistic convenience “suggest” that all logic, power, and wisdom necessarily belongs to the male half of the species? Ultimately, who or what could be stronger or wiser than God, “He” who created the Universe, “He” who made Mankind, “He” who did everything and can do anything, and “He” who knows everything?
He, he, he . . . 1,776 years later a new American democracy was just barely able to grapple with the perplexing notion over whether women were even intelligent enough to receive an education!!!
What this must do the minds of women, both their conscious and subconscious thoughts, is anyone’s guess but this “he” pronoun certainly is another clearly defined and ultra-chauvinistic way of hammering home their “inferiority” to men time after time after time—every time the capitalized pronoun “He” is flaunted in their faces, as a matter of fact!!
IS THE “HE” PRONOUN FAIR TO WOMEN?
How terribly limiting it must be for our fairer sex to be born into a world dominated by males completely dedicated to preserving this pronoun hoax for as long as they possibly can.
They do so not for theological reasons but primarily as a way to maintain their own power inviolate: domestic, social, economic, political, military, ecclesiastic . . . and any and all other kinds of power you care to name!
This is not about religion or spirituality but about male control over women in all spheres of society—they the master, she the servant . . . with the occasional lip-service to higher ideals (along with some pretense of gender equality) while men fight tenaciously to preserve male power and privilege every step of the way.
Hey, from the Male Chauvinist’s point of view, the theological-to-grammatical equation is elegant in its simplicity and pure in its potency. One can only imagine what kind of strokes, heart attacks, temper tantrums, meltdowns, and hissy fits men would be having if the pronoun for God was “She” instead!
As it is, the male pronoun “he” helps perpetuate indefinitely Man’s domination over women. God is “Male” since God is a “He” and so then here on earth you know for a certainty that the rulers of nations are always going to be Men. God said so or at least “He” must think that way since that’s the way it turned out after all–another cute little circular piece of reasoning!
In short, there are always going to be a whole bunch of “He’s” in charge of everybody–including women–one male head honcho right after the other in endless succession. Why? Because as kids express it on the playground: “Boys Rule and Girls Drool”. That’s a common jest, although these days girls are just as likely to throw it back in the boys’ faces with “Girls Rule and Boys Drool!”
On the serious side–where grown-ups and adults live–theologians, social scientists, and politicians all asserted (and, until quite recently, used to make this claim openly) that men are meant to rule. Can you imagine the nerve, the chutzpah!
Lately, the assertion of this claim has gone somewhat underground due to the growing pressure of the women’s movement for equality, but scratch the surface of this half-hearted compliance with notions of equality and what will you find? Look deep beneath the hypocrisy and platitudes and what core beliefs remain? Look into the depths of these men’s souls and what do you see?
You see the same idiotic, chauvinistic, domineering “me Tarzan, you Jane” nut complex alive and well as always!
Oh sure, society will let a few women up the ladder a rung or two from time to time to demonstrate a kind of paternalistic tokenism . . . but would they ever let women grow so strong as to threaten to topple the whole Male Dominated Social Structure?
Not on your life—“Never, Never, Never!!” Because God is a Man and on the side of Men and so that’s all there is to that!
Period mark, exclamation mark, end of discussion, finis, kaput, cased closed, discussion over, go to your room and think about your naughtiness!!
FINIS
The psychological effects on the female half of our species are too mind-boggling and horrendous to recount in full at this time due to the brief and scholarly nature of this commentary.
“He” the author is now through and would like to thank the audience—of any and all genders—for its (his/her?) patience. Thank you!
