There are many who object when God is commonly referred to as a He. Although we can trace this back to the evolution of language and how subtle forces generally shifted the focus from females to males, thereby making them the supreme leader of the species. Now don’t for a second think that just because they are called supreme leaders means that they govern or rule. It’s just an honorary title, one that allows them certain privileges, like ‘He’ being used in most languages as the common gender neutral pronoun.
But, and especially in the case of God, I think using the masculine isn’t entirely incorrect. Many think that God, should it exist, has an equal probability of being man or woman. Well, here are a few reasons why God can’t be a woman.
l God created Adam, whether it was in his image or not let’s not argue for the moment. The fact that man was a flawed creature from the very start, means that God did a bit of a botch up job, to begin with. This trait is much easier attributed to a man than to a woman who, as we all know, can never do anything wrong.
l The God of the Old Testament got angry frequently, and in fits of rage, smote people often. He brought on an entire flood just to wipe the slate clean. Women would have taken a subtler approach to reprimanding their own creation than to simply scorch them to ashes or drown them out before starting all over again.
l People of any one religion tend to believe that there’s is the only legit one and all else is blasphemy and heresy. This simple one-minded thinking can only be propagated by a God with an equally simple mind i.e. a male-god. A female God would have found a much more accommodating solution to creating unity in spite of diversity.
l An ideal God wouldn’t leave things unexplained. All this silence that we get in spite of so much wrong going on in the world is the very macho silence of a male of any species. A female, in his place, would have explained her actions or inactions, and definitely been more emotionally caught up in the whirl of things. The aloofness that our God displays is a characteristic male trait.
l God would never want his disciples to worship him through sacrifice. From killing a baby goat to giving up something for Lent, all these are the sadistic workings of a male mind to entertain their bored self. Eternity can be a long long time so one needs to get creative with their routine. Women would do something much more constructive with all that time instead.
So if you still feel that God must be a female I would need some compelling arguments to support that theory. That said, language being masculine-dominant has its down side too. For the same language gurus who put the men on top also gave us ‘man’ge, ’man’handle, ‘man’acles, ‘man’slaughter, ‘man’drake, ‘man’nerless, ‘man’ipulative, ‘boy’sterous (OK, now am just making up words)…am sure you get it, there’s a lot of derogatory stuff in language too that taints us males for no particular reason. Guess being the common noun of the species isn’t all it’s made out to be.
The writer is a lover of wine, song and everything fine
