"As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says:... I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood"(Damarosch,478). In today's society it is commonplace, even routine to think of Christian divinity in terms of male gender. How amazing it seems then, to be presented with medieval language which portrays God as a female gendered divinity. Where did the idea arise to portray God as feminine? And what purpose does it serve? This essay seeks to examine whether Julian of Norwich's gender construction of the divine is subversive and radical in light of the reduced power of women in medieval Christianity.

To say that the religious power of women was reduced, is of course, to suggest that they held...