(October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010)
Writer, teacher, sister, radical, exasperating antagonist, exhilarating wordsmith, profoundly influential U.S. feminist thinker and activist
WE CELEBRATE HER WORK AND SPEAK TRUTH TO HER HISTORY
Please join in this online re-membering by sending your submission to foundation@MatildaJoslynGage.org.
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Daly & Gage: the best of Feminist spirit. I think I may have just stayed in a pasture chewing my cud without the inspiration of Mary Daly. Hail Isis!
—Laura Jeanchild, P.O.W.E.R (Peoria Organization of Women for Equal Rights)
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I had not heard of Mary’s passing until the Foundation announcement of yesterday. My heart is heavy and, for all her unique and crusty brilliance, Mary Daly had a profound influence in our lives. Thank you for having her there a few years ago.
I’ve asked about 40 feminist friends across the land to be in sync with the gathering you’re holding up there, lifting cups of tea or other beverage in tribute and remembrance at 7 PM on Tuesday. That’s what I’ll be doing for sure.
Namaste.
—Gloria M., St. Petersburg, FL
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Mary Daly’s Courageous work and indomitable spirit are a beacon for women everywhere. Her words cut through the reversals of the world to reveal a brilliant, dynamic realm of possibility. Naming and claiming for women a place in the Background, Daly made real, concrete opportunities to begin living life differently in the very here and now. And, this opportunity to fully participate in Be-ing is not just for women, but for all things living. Mary’s deep connection to the earth and to creatures great and small infused her work with a fierce compassion that called us all to account for the increasing destruction of the world around us.
One of my fondest memories of Mary is traveling with her to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. She was thrilled to be able to connect once again to the animals whose pictures adorned the walls of her room and whose faces peered out on note cards, calendars, and magazines that she collected. When we entered the gorilla habitat, a large domed area with a thin sheet of glass separating spectators from inhabitants, Mary immediately locked eyes with the alpha gorilla. I remember warning her that direct eye contact with the gorillas can be interpreted by them as a challenge and it might upset the gorilla. But, of course, Mary said, “That’s ridiculous! We are talking!” and she continued to stare intently at the large looming creature. The gorilla noticing her gaze walked over to the glass and sat down directly in front of Mary. There the two stayed, locked in each other’s gaze for well over a half hour. And then, Mary simply said, “We’re done.” And as we turned to walk away, so did the gorilla.
Mary connected to the world in a way that few people ever do.
Thank you Mary for all that you did and all that you are!
Paz.
—Tiffany Steinwert
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Mary Daly changed how we viewed the world with our speech. The word is the world (Paulo Freire).
—Denise Wheeler
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Mary Daly did not transform Catholic feminist thinking; in many ways, she invented it. It was through reading her path-breaking books—especially The Church and the Second Sex and Beyond God the Father—that a generation of Catholics, women but also men, began to reconsider both the identity of God and the meaning of “church.”
Daly invented her own vocabulary, as well as her own lens for envisioning the transcendent. As time passed, her work became increasingly complex and controversial, exciting both plaudits and critiques from admirers and opponents alike. She was creative, audacious, and intellectually uncompromising. Upon hearing of her death, one of my colleagues, now a professor of sociology, who took a class with her at Boston College, said: “hers was my most challenging undergraduate course. She made me
reevaluate myself, my values, and the society as a whole. Her course was unlike any other that I have experienced. She passionately lived her own life. While I didn’t always agree with her, I will never forget her.” Neither will anyone who encountered her, in life or on the printed page.
—Margaret Susan Thompson, professor of history, religion and women’s studies at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
(Statement previously appeared in the National Catholic Reporter)
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I never met Mary Daly nor heard her speak, but when I learned that she had died last week at age 81, I was reminded of the powerful influence she had over theology in the 1970s and 1980s, and how her writing shaped one of the courses I taught. For twelve years I taught a class called Feminism and Theology at South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings, South Dakota. It was a really exciting class to teach, both because I started from scratch each year and never used the same text twice, and because the students who were drawn to it, at a land-grant university, were pursuing majors in areas like nursing, engineering, and agriculture. There were some traditional humanities majors, of course, but most of the class came from a non-humanities background.
And, since I was teaching the course, there were some brave male students who enrolled despite its title, something they could not have done under Mary Daly at Boston College, since she would not admit male students to her classes.
My class was one of two required courses for the minor in Women’s Studies at SDSU. The other was a course on Women in Literature, taught by my friend, Professor Ruth Alexander, in the English Department.
In the early 80s, when Mary Daly was at her most controversial, I decided to devote the whole semester to following the evolution of her thought from liberal Roman Catholic to radical critic. [Note: Daly was an observer at Vatican II in 1963]. I assigned three of her texts, to be read in order of their appearance and increasing radicality — The Church and the Second Sex, Beyond God the Father, and Gyn/Ecology. I gave just one assignment in addition to class discussion. It was this: write a paper documenting where you part ways with Mary Daly, and support your case. If you don’t part ways with her to the end of Gyn/Ecology, present your case for agreeing with her evolution of thought.
It was one of the most lively and interesting classes I ever taught. One of the things that made it most interesting was the take that nursing students had on Daly’s emphasis bodily theology in Gyn/Ecology. Nursing majors had a very different context for approaching that book.
So I note the death of Mary Daly as someone who provoked her students and peers to think, to question, to reflect, to argue, and to examine their most basic assumptions and beliefs about religion. And I am thankful that she provided the content for one of the best teaching experiences I ever had.
—Dr. Dennis A. Norlin, Executive Director, American Theological Library Association, Chicago, IL
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“God’s plan” is often a front for men’s plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil. — Mary Daly
Mary Daly died on January 3 at the age of 81. Without her writing, the Lesbian Tent Revival would not exist, and it’s very likely that Sister Carolyn would not be here either.
Mary Daly’s synaptic feats were legendary. She used her massive intellect and her uncompromising vision to demystify the workings of patriarchal religion and philosophy and to give us the linguistic tools to break ourselves out of the prisons of our colonized thinking, to create worlds beyond our wildest imaginations.
Many of us remember that Sister Audre Lorde published “An Open Letter to Mary Daly,” where she expressed concern over Daly’s book Gyn/Ecology, criticizing the absence of references to the herstory and mythology of women of color. In the open letter, Audre claimed that Mary had refused to respond to these concerns. Audre’s open letter was widely read and discussed and taught, and many colleagues and students distanced themselves from Mary and her work because of this charge of
racism.
In fact, Mary did write a respectful and responsive letter to Audre. We know this, because Audre’s biographer Alexis de Veaux discovered it among Audre’s papers after her death. We will never know why Audre chose to pretend that Mary had not responded, but the harm done to Mary was very real and permanent. I write this, because thousands of women know of Audre’s accusation, but very, very few know the truth of the situation. It’s documented in Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde.
Sisters, this business of synapsing is hard. We don’t always succeed in bridging the gaps. Audre’s “open letter” resulted in a huge amount of consciousness-raising among white academics and it did a lot of good … and it came at the expense of scapegoating Mary Daly.
— Carolyn Gage, carolyn@carolyngage.com
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Mary Daly: A Truly Revolting Hag
A hundred times a person has told me that their dream is to own a bookstore. I totally understand and lament with them over what a bad idea it is. Discount books, online stores, Kindle, the greening of the industry, impossible margins and, yet, all the negativity could never trump books, books, books. Order them, unpack them, shelve them, dust them— just love them. A bibliophile cannot be deterred.
The person in brown with a hand truck yanks the load over the thresh hold and every day is Christmas. You pet them, call people who placed a special order for them, you skim them and take the best ones home. I remember the arrival of Sagan’s Cosmos, Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle and, most of all, Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly.
I had made prior arrangements with Maria that when it arrived, I would take it upstairs and she would work for me until it was devoured completely. One day in 1978 it arrived. It had a dust cover but under that colorful paper exterior was a solid textured red which to me was as fine as Italian leather. I opened it like Pandora’s box, smelled its newness and held my breath as my life was about to change and I knew it. I paced. I raged. I shouted. I threw myself into a chair and smoked. I wrote questions in the margins but mostly wrote YEAH!!!! RIGHT!!!! Alice B. Toklas, my tortoise shell feline friend watched me, cheering me on.
Two days later, as if bursting out of the dark cave of patriarchy, I finished. I shut the back cover, flipped it over and began all over again because I wanted it to sink beyond my bones, clear through to my soul. When I had read it twice, I wrote inside the front cover, “Who could write such a book? Only Mary Daly.” That was just yesterday in the cosmic education of my soul, though in time and space it was 1978. I was transformed and she was my stone cutter.
In her book tour, Mary Daly was going to speak at Claremont University. Of course, Maria and I would be there. I sat on pins and needles wanting her every word to pierce through complacency and activate me, annihilate me, invent me as I wanted to be revolting, a hag, a womyn. When she finished, she offered to sign books and, without a thought about what I had written inside the cover, I threw myself into the line. She signed in monotone manner, not looking up, taking it on as a task. It was my turn. I handed her my war torn adored copy. She opened it and read what I had written. She stopped, looked at me, smiled as if to say, oh this one gets it. Yes, Mary, this one gets it.
Tonight, while sifting through my Facebook Live Feed, I read the news today, oh my. Mary Daly has left us. In an email from the great feminist theologian, Mary Hunt:
With a heavy heart, yet grateful beyond words for her life and work, I report that Mary Daly died this morning, January 3, 2010, in Massachusetts. She had been in poor health for the last two years.
Her contributions to feminist theology, philosophy, and theory were many, unique, and if I may say so, world-changing. She created intellectual space; she set the bar high. Even those who disagreed with her are in her debt for the challenges she offered.
When I return from vacation at week’s end I will post more. But I want WATER colleagues, of which she was a stalwart one, to know this now. She always advised women to throw our lives as far as they would go. I can say without fear of exaggeration that she lived that way herself.
May her spirit soar and her ideas endure.
Mary E. Hunt
Hoechenschwand, Germany
It was posted both at iRobyn|iWitness and Catholic Anarchy. Fantastically, it was already posted on Wiki.
Our paths crossed several times, not the least of which was a phone call during the ERA fast in 1982. She told us to stop immediately and that government was part of the patriarchy. We were wasting our time asking for any rights from the boys.
Mary was our positively revolting hag, in-venting a language for womyn. As a person who believes in reincarnation, let me say, god help the family she is reborn into—they better be dykes.
No one, absolutely no one, informed my feminism more than Mary Daly. I am proud to have known her. Tonight I miss her. She breathes through every activist thing I do. I am so very grateful.
—Zoe Nicholson
