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.
Praise for Righteous Rage
"In Righteous Rage, Susan Foster does more than chronicle the trajectory of American feminism—she revitalizes its essence with intellectual depth, lived experience, and a spiritually grounded Jungian perspective. Drawing upon her personal evolution and the enduring archetypes of the fierce goddess, Foster follows in the lineage of thinkers like Esther Harding and Soraya Chemaly to assert a crucial truth: female rage is not dangerous—it is sacred, transformational, and urgently needed." —Danica Anderson, author of South Slavic Women's Transgenerational Trauma Healing Through Oral Memory Practices
"Susan Foster has written a book for all American women, a vivid mosaic intertwining vignettes of the fierce divine female through time and space with the need for a new feminist rage against patriarchal demonization of the female in our world today." —Lora Holland, Professor Emerita of UNC Asheville, author of "Cervidology and the Antlered Deer of Artemis: Representation Between Myth and Reality," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 68 (2023), JSTOR.
"Righteous Rage is a juicy book for our times, when women's frustration, anger, and rage at the patriarchal powers that be have reached yet another boiling point. Susan Foster nimbly combines feminist history with stories of the dark or fierce goddesses of various cultures to help us understand where our rage originates and why it matters today. These fierce goddesses are with us showing us how to claim our power in the name of love." —Stephanie Anderson Ladd, author of Goddesses of Self-Care: 30 Divine Feminine Archetypes To Guide Us
"Righteous rage, ancient and modern, a stay against cruelty and violation, a force to be reckoned with." —Patricia Reis, author of Through the Goddess: A Woman's Way of Healing and Daughters of Saturn: From Father's Daughter to Creative Woman
About the Author:
Susan J Foster, PhD, has worked as a philosophy professor, clinical psychologist, and journalist. She has published articles on the Feminism and Religion website and has been a writer and wellness editor for a local newspaper. As a longtime advocate of women's rights, she has taught courses in women's and gender studies. She currently has a private psychotherapy practice.
Righteous Rage can be ordered through Chiron Publications or Amazon.