The old culture of the Great Goddess was different in many important ways from the male dominated culture that has supplanted it, the most important being in the realm of authority. The essential difference between these two disparate cultures wasn’t in which gender held which positions of authority, but rather in how this authority was perceived and used.

In the time of the Great Goddess, when a woman or a man took a position of authority, it was because she or he wanted to be responsible for the people. Today, when a man takes a similar position, it is because he wants to have power and control over other people.
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Now, this isn’t inherent in the nature of men. There were many men in positions of authority in the days of the Goddess. They did not seek power over others. They focused upon being responsible for those in their charge. No, the difference between men then and men now is to be found in the differences between the underlying spiritual structures of these two different cultures.

The old culture worshipped the Goddess, and in worshipping her, worshipped the way of the mother – of giving life and raising it to its full potential. Members of this older society were seen as the children of the Goddess. One who accepted a position of authority became in essence a mother or a father of the people, focusing upon nourishing and fulfilling them.

In our present culture, only the masculine is worshipped, and that, in spite of the example of Jesus and others, only in its aspect of power and violence. Those caring aspects that do exist in the masculine have come to be seen as being too close to the feminine and have been repressed (sissy, mama’s boy, etc.). However, when the world of the insecure and angry father has finally died of its destructive one-sidedness, it will be replaced by the world of the Great Mother and the Great Father, both whole and complete, and again authority will be used for responsibility and service.