Righteous Rage: Why Feminism Needs the Fierce Goddesses

With the backlash against feminism and reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many people are asking whether feminism is lost, if not dead. With so many rights on the chopping block, including rights to contraception and IVF, Righteous Rage helps inspire women (and their male allies) for the fight ahead. And although the feminist movement cannot be reduced to the fight for reproductive justice (with issues such as maternity leave, equal pay, childcare, healthcare, and violence against women still on the table), banning abortion has become the tip of the patriarchal iceberg.

Righteous Rage can reinvigorate the women’s movement by invoking the fierce energy of the dark, or fierce, goddesses of ancient times. These goddesses represent an archetype of female rage against injustice. They carry a primordial energy of destruction of those systems and paradigms that no longer serve us, such as patriarchy. They also have the power to create new non-patriarchal structures that promote wellbeing and align with justice. These archetypal figures reside in what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious—the deepest layer of our psyches that contains ancestral wisdom passed on through the generations. The dark goddesses have been submerged in our psyches, but they serve as a repository of fierce energy which, if tapped into, can rejuvenate the flagging women’s movement.