Editing Starhawk (section)

==Feminism==

Starhawk's feminism and spirituality are closely interconnected.<ref>Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow</ref> Her ecofeminism links life-giving Mother Nature with the life-giving of women through birth, as well as the link between ecological destruction and patriarchal oppression under male-dominated Western political economies.

She calls for a reconceptualization of the way we think about power that is different from what she posits as our typical understanding of 'power over' others, and believes that patriarchal systems of oppression are dying out and will be replaced by more egalitarian structures that have existed previously with many women in positions of power, including as priestesses, poets, healers, singers, and seers. Such matrilineal lineages, she argues, have been erased from history because of their "political implications."

Starhawk argues that our patriarchal culture of domination has confused the erotic with domination and violence.<ref>The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979) by Starhawk</ref>{{Self-published source|date=December 2022}} Sexuality, she says, "...is sacred because through it we make a connection with another self — but it is misused and perverted when it becomes an arena of power-over, a means of treating another — or oneself — as an object."<ref>Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982) by Starhawk</ref>{{Self-published source|date=December 2022}} Such analyses of gendered power relations are explored in her books ''Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising'' (2003) and ''Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery'' (1988). In the latter, she links the rise of kinship to patriarchal domination, and traces a psychology of liberation in analyzing an oppressor she argues is embedded deeply in all of us, the 'Self-hater.'<ref>Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery (1988) by Starhawk</ref>{{Self-published source|date=December 2022}} She is interested in how such oppressions can be reformed into new sources of power, particularly amongst women, that arise innately and reject dominion over others.

Her feminist writings have been used to analyze the differences between mainstream rhetoric and feminist rhetoric, particularly in relation to her motive of writing rhetoric as revealing immanent truths rather than being utilized for persuasion.<ref>Foss, Sonja K., and Cindy L. Griffin. "A Feminist Perspective on Rhetorical Theory: Toward a Clarification of Boundaries." Western Journal of Communication 56.4 (1992): 330–49. Print.</ref> She views this latter purpose of mainstream rhetoric as adhering to patriarchal logic, and her vision of 'empowered action' – which involves rejecting the tenets of the oppressive system and then openly challenging them – attempts to transform persuasive mainstream rhetoric to immanent feminist rhetoric.