The following is an excerpt from my Advanced Project. I was obviously not able to include videos in my Advanced Project. So I put in videos of the two songs I discuss in this section. I want to experiment with this and see what, if anything, the videos add to the argument. Are they necessary? Do they help the argument? Or do they complicate it?
Amos has written several songs reproaching organized religion and its patriarchal centrality. Christianity, the most popular religion in America, is male-centered. It teaches people to put their complete faith into a male being, God. This God, the almighty, all knowing, and final judger of one’s humanity is worshiped and trusted. Although there are different sects within Christianity which have some differing practices, they all share the belief that God is the almighty. The problem, clearly, is the lack of female representation and power. Instead, women’s position suffers because of their absence in the religion. In her song entitled “God,” Amos aks, “God sometimes you just don’t come through/ Do you need a woman to look after you?” (Under the Pink, 1994). This critique of the Christian God reflects her dissatisfaction with the lack of female power in the religion. She is implying that this assumption of a strictly male God is not good enough and he cannot always “come through.” This can be interpreted as God not being able to come through for everyone because women are alienated by the male deity. Amos goes on to ask, “Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall?” Amos’s use of the pronoun “her” highlights women’s exclusion. Amos has to ask if God will tell her, meaning all women, if he is going to make the sky fall. This suggests that men would already know because they are included and not alienated as women are. Amos is also suggesting that a woman would be able to do what this male God is unable to do. Amos may also believe that the situation would be better if God consisted of a male and a female, rather than just a male. It would be more successful, and God would always “come through” if men and women were both given some power in the religion.
In a later song, “Muhammad my Friend,” Amos declares, “It’s time to tell the world/ We both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem” (Boys for Pele, 1996). With this statement she completely rejects the male God and insists on a female God, implying that Jesus was born as a baby girl instead. This, though, does not necessarily mean she is claiming that we should worship the Goddess. In the article “Why Women Need the Goddess,” Carol Christ explores the benefits of the Goddess and states: “The symbol of the Goddess has much to offer women who are struggling to be rid of the ‘powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations’ of devaluation of female power, denigration of the female body, distrust of female will, and denial of women’s bonds and heritage that have been engendered by patriarchal religions. As women struggle to create a new culture in which women’s power, bodies, will, and bonds are celebrated, it seems natural that Goddess would reemerge as a symbol of the newfound beauty, strength, and power of women” (173). Christ envisions the Goddess as a completely separate being than God. Although this way of thinking is understandable, it is not completely effective. This would still give God all the power and function as a way to “Other” women. The problem is that women are not able to identify with God because God is perceived to be male. Christ is accuate in her statement that women need a religion in which they and their bodies are celebrated, rather than ignored and repressed, but if it is a separate religion, such as Goddess worship, then women are still excluded from Christianity. Amos insists that we see the female in God, that God is female, and is still God. By demanding that Jesus is a woman, this presents the opportunity for women to better identify with the being they are already putting their faith into.
