When God Was a Woman

Merlin Stone’s When God Was a Woman emerged in 1976, during a transformative period in American social and intellectual history during which second-wave feminism was fundamentally challenging traditional institutions and assumptions about gender roles. The book’s publication coincided with a broader cultural movement that questioned patriarchal structures across multiple domains, from workplace equality to reproductive rights to spiritual authority.

The 1970s marked the height of second-wave feminism, which moved beyond the suffrage goals of first-wave feminism to examine systemic gender inequalities embedded in social, economic, and cultural institutions. Feminist scholars were beginning to critique male-dominated academic disciplines, revealing how supposedly objective scholarship often reflected masculine perspectives and biases. This intellectual climate created receptive audiences for Stone’s argument that archaeological and historical interpretations of ancient religions had been shaped by patriarchal assumptions.

The feminist movement’s emphasis on consciousness-raising and personal empowerment provided a framework for understanding Stone’s work as both historical analysis and contemporary liberation. Her documentation of ancient goddess worship offered women a sense of reclaimed heritage and spiritual legitimacy that challenged centuries of religious teachings about female subordination. The book functioned simultaneously as academic research and activist literature, providing historical validation for contemporary feminist critiques of religious authority.

The 1970s witnessed unprecedented questioning of traditional religious institutions among young Americans.