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As my final months of Grad School quickly approach, I have been working hard to narrow in on the body of work I will continue to build on post graduation. The universe has led me to research and create work around the ideas, themes, and history of the Goddess as she relates to women and all aspects of the feminist movement today. There is something very intriguing to me about Goddesses and the way in which they existed within their societies.

Throughout our learning in school, we have read many myths/stories about Goddesses and their beauty, strength, and ill-willed intentions. The curious thing about these stories is that many of them were orally told or written by men. So, what happens when a woman’s story is told through the lens of a man? I can only be so bold as to say, it is not told accurately and is sifted through layers of insecurity and bias.

I am interested in discovering at what point or points in history the male voice began to speak for the woman. How, when, and where was power no longer balanced and an entity of respect, but a tool used for control? How can we as 21st century women harness the internal power we once uniformly held and bring about change in ourselves and those around us?

As I continue to research and learn more about the history of Goddesses, I constantly find myself turning inward and examining my own views on what a Goddess should be. I think women have the power to create the Goddess self we want to be. All the great Goddesses were bold and brave, but they also made conscious choices based on the lives they wanted to lead and the legacies they were deemed to leave behind.

What’s your Goddess Legacy?