Tag: Gender

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Mythologium 2021 welcomes Jennie Wiley

Jennie’s presentation is called, “Hosting Radical Other-ness: Hestian Consciousness and Non-Binary Gender”

Gender is breaking out of the two-sided paradigm we tend to imagine as more people identify with non-binary or gender fluid expressions, challenging the myth depth psychology uses to imagine gender and the psyche. Jung situated psyche in a binary model of gender, and post-Jungians worked to loosen the cultural biases about that bisexual gendered understanding but left it in place as a binary model. As we grapple with how best to discuss gender, counsel and support non-binary and gender-fluid persons, and even understand gender in relation to psyche itself, we need a myth, a style of consciousness, in which to ground ourselves so we can begin to welcome all possibilities toward healing the wounds of gender. Hestia, the goddess who hosts, listens, and welcomes all is ideally suited for conversations about our first and most enduring home, the body, and its primary resident, the psyche. This paper advocates for Hestian consciousness in conversations and interactions about, and with, non-binary, gender-fluid persons as well as binary gendered concepts pertaining to the therapeutic relationship and the psyche itself.

About Jennie

Jennie Wiley holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is currently studying in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies PhD Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

2021 Mythologium program
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The Mythologium welcomes Stephanie Zajchowski

Stephanie’s presentation is called, “The Whore of Babylon: Mythemes in Contemporary Reproductive Politics”

The Whore of Babylon is a diabolical female figure in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the canonical Bible. Throughout history this image has been used metaphorically to communicate a threat. The focus on the Whore as a woman and mother infuses the female body with apocalyptic significance and reinforces stereotypical gender roles. This presentation traces how a fundamentalist mythological interpretation of the Whore of Babylon enters into current reproductive politics that aim to bolster moral codes of female procreation. Focusing on religious imagery associated with the Whore of Babylon in conversation with contemporary socio-political discourses, the project identifies three mythemes: False Religion and Deception, Empire, and Monstrous Births. Attentive to the reciprocating relationship between story and culture, this study shows how these mythemes form a mythological narrative important to meaning-making in contemporary American reproductive dialogues. A feminist critique exposes how the appearance of these themes in anti-abortion discourse influences cultural ideas about gender, sexuality, and reproduction manifesting in public policies that police female reproduction.

About Stephanie:

Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD(c) holds a MA in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute (PGI) and a certification in Spiritual Direction from Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Her doctoral dissertation, The Mythology of the Whore of Babylon in Contemporary Reproductive Politics, examines how religious narrative moves beneath the surface of current reproductive politics and emphasizes the importance of reclaiming the female power in the myth of the Whore placing the authority over procreation back within the domain of the procreative body. Stephanie has presented papers at the Association for Women in Mythology (2016), the American Academy of Religion Western Regional Conference (2017), and the Popular Culture Association National Conference (2017, 2019). Her publications appear in PGI’s Mythological Studies Journal (2014) and Between: Literary Journal (2015, 2016). Stephanie lives in Texas. She has worked in corporate marketing at Southwest Airlines, as a docent for the Dallas Museum of Art, and in communications and ministry assistance for the United Methodist Church. Her academic interests focus on the reciprocating relationship between culture and story.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Wolterink

Elizabeth’s presentation is called, “Beyond the Binary: Trans-sacrality in Vedic and Indigenous American Cultures”


We in the West often think of religion and transgender issues as being at odds. However, there are many religions in which trans-imagery and being is not only accepted, but seen as a sacred aspect of the Divine. This paper examines two examples of this phenomenon: Native American and Vedic traditions. The act of seeing oneself and of being seen, of perceiving one’s own being in the images of myth and belief, connects us to history and culture and is one way in which we construct identity. Reclamation of religious transgender imagery and history not only furthers dialogue between religious and transgender communities, but helps affirm trans modes of being. These mythological images and roles also illuminate ancient wisdom in modern day trans people’s questioning of gender assumptions and of the concretization of binary modes of being.

About Elizabeth:

Elizabeth Wolterink earned her Ph.D. in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2017. Her dissertation, Cloaked in Darkness: Feminine Katabasis in Myth and Culture, explored the differences between male and female mythological descents to the underworld and found that female katabatic figures not only have far more agency than is traditionally granted to them, but that they hold important psychological and cultural insights into female identity. Elizabeth has presented at the Western and Midwestern American Academy of Religion as well as at the Parliament of World Religions. She has also worked with youth for over twelve years using myth, depth psychology, philosophy, martial arts, and wilderness skills as means to psychological and spiritual development. Elizabeth guest lectures on mythology and gender for high schools and community organizations and on gender identity and welcoming in churches.

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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Darlene “Maggie” Dowdy

Maggie’s presentation is titled, “Metamorphoses of Gender and Identity in Ancient and Modern Myth”

“Metamorphoses of Gender and Identity in Ancient and Modern Myth” focuses upon two mythic characters, Tiresias, the blind prophet from ancient Greece, and Estraven, the visionary politician of Ursula LeGuin’s sci-fi novel, Left Hand of Darkness.  An exploration of their masculine-feminine shapeshifting dispels the fallacy that the Western perspective has always viewed gender and gender identity as rigidly fixed in Nature.

Darlene “Maggie” Dowdy received her Ph.D in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute.  Her dissertation, Harbingers of Change: Images and Archetypes of Imminent Transformation, explores the co-creative relationship between psyche, soma, and an ever-changing environment.  She presented a variation of her dissertation, Birds as Nature’s Harbingers, at the 2018 conference for the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.  Maggie advocates for an interactive approach to learning through myth and literature as is evidenced by an M.A. in English and past volunteer tutoring in English as a Second Language.