Analysis Of Mary Daly

With Mary Daly we discover that in the Christian faith and many other religions, we portray God as male. This shared belief according to Daly is stated to be one of the leading causes of male dominance; also called “feminism, where women are seen as the second sex”. Here we will be breaking down Daly’s arguments and try to understand her ways of possibly fixing this problem. In Daly’s book we notice three main aspects that serve as the root of the majority of her claims. The first one is god as a verb rather than a noun, this concept address how by saying god is only a noun we are limiting the power of him. The second point is god is male and male is god, this part of her book talks about how males have been cast as the superior gender thanks

Daly addresses the fact that we often address the word god as a noun, “Why indeed must “God” be a noun? Why not a verb – the most active and dynamic of all?” (Daly, 33). At first we tend to think of these concepts as weird at first, but after reading over this section again, it begins to show what she is trying to say. Daly says, “Verbs are infinitely more personal than a mere static noun” (Daly, 33). She is arguing the fact that if we leave god as just a noun, he is not personal when we ask him for help. What she means by that is we ask God to help us usually in a time of need, like a hard test, during an illness or just everyday things. However, he is usually doing the action, God is the verb in the sense he is the help, and having him as a noun limit that ability or idea that we often expect. Let me put this is a better example to help clarify; If I am about to take a hard test you might catch me saying a little prayer in my head, I am asking God to give me strength to conduct myself in a matter most pleasing to him, in other words strength and knowledge. When I say this I am not expecting God to literally send me the help I am asking for, I am asking God to be with me, and to guide me in the right direction and to help me pick the correct answers. In a weird sense I almost

Daly knowns that the process to getting proper recognition for the women who played important roles will be hard to obtain as she stated earlier in her book, but later in the book would say, “women need to open their eyes and have the courage to keep them open.” (Daly, 97). This is the problem that has allowed sexism to grow into what it is today, people are afraid to take action in fear not only the repercussion but also the reality. Daly in her journey realized that the Christian faith as well as other faiths will never change their teachings, and this will forever encourage feminism and “historicize” (lecture) the image of women. In the end we will see the Daly breaks away from the church because of the injustice caused by the lack of women figures and that her fight will vanish because of the lack of women willing to fight for this. However, in the defense of the Church it would be hard to just create new female figures or rediscover them. Plus, we do have some, not many but some figures; examples like Mary, obviously, Joan of arcs, Mother Teresa and I’m sure if I did more research I would uncover even more female