Shadows and Lights: Outstanding Debts to Women

Abstract

The symbolic order underlying Western society imposes violence as the structuring model for relationships among human beings and between them and nature, generating exclusion, fragmentation, destruction, and dispossession. The negation of the Great Goddess — a symbolic expression of the powerful existence of the feminine — of her creative and regenerative force, has caused numerous forms of violence against women, stigmatization of difference, destruction of the natural environment, inequity, enslavement, corruption, and human rights violations. In response, numerous women, past and present, have developed expressions of resistance, opposition, and proposal, seeking to dismantle these political and cultural mechanisms that drive war, foster inclusion, defend rights, promote recognition of creative forces, and propose a dignified life for all.