Why spiritually powerful women are targeted and why the rest of the world believes they are not

In a recent YouTube video titled ‘why spiritually gifted women are persecuted’, I discussed the gendered violence that spiritually powerful women experience throughout their lives. While I am aware that both spiritually powerful women & men experience persecution, I intended to shed light on the ways women who yield great power are targeted simply because they are powerful and happen to be women.

The typical response I receive from men when I make these kind of videos is that men also experience these things thus implying that it is not gendered. What many do not or choose not to recognize is how there is a deliberate attempt to bastardize what it means to be a woman & what it means to be a spiritually powerful woman.

While I am tempted to firstly pull examples from the historical persecution of powerful women, I will start from my own experiences, and the experiences of women I have known.  In the short yet impactful time I have been on YouTube, I have had men attempt to emotionally manipulate me to having relationships with them while implying that my lack of consent would somehow undermine my claims of being a healer. I have had men feel entitled to my energy and withdraw when they realize that I will not play along, and I have had men view me as a ‘soft’ woman whom they can subtly flirt with.  These experiences mirror my wider experiences in my personal life. From oversexualisation from both men and women, to men specifically targeting me because of my power yet feeling intimidated by me, to men feeling intellectually inferior, this is part and parcel of what women as a collective deal with, but particularly spiritually powerful women.

The power that spiritually gifted women have often times defies conventional logic of what is 'normal' for a woman to yield. This is especially the case for women of colour, young women, and women whom have not had the support or resources they are expected to have, yet yield immense talent. Often times, what they are able to do and accomplish shatters the societal expectations for what should be ‘normal’ for them.

When we have created a society where most men believe they are entitled to certain benefits or privileges simply because they have a penis, it is no wonder when they experience a spiritually powerful woman, their ego has no choice but to break. It breaks to show them that most of what they believed themselves to be was an illusion and indeed no match for a spiritually powerful woman. When this happens, 9 times out of 10, even the most ‘decent’ man will respond with some kind of violence that forces the spiritually powerful woman into domestication. This is the gendered persecution I speak of. When this violence unleashes, most men will target her with abuse that is a mixture of physical, emotional, and spiritual.

I have seen this countless times with exceptional women and spiritually powerful women. Usually the man will attempt to completely obliterate the self-concept of the powerful woman, domesticate her so she no longer has the time and capacity to fulfill her ritual obligations of communicating with the Most High to receive downloads from other realms. It is precisely the potency of the spiritually gifted woman’s power and the seriousness of her purpose that leads to most spiritually powerful women choosing to not marry or have children or in some cases not being allowed by their spiritual counsel to have children or to marry. While this may sound foreign or even extreme to some people, as a west African,  I know of African healing traditions that require healers to have strict regimes where one may not even think of having children or a partner.

The truth is, most men - yes, even those who claim to be spiritually awakened, have not done shadow work. This is because men can easily rely on the patriarchy to get ahead without actually being sincere, genuine, or qualified. We see this as men are paraded at the forefront of movements as the most knowledgeable or spiritual. The subtle idea that women must go through men to seek knowledge or even permission to attain that knowledge has permeated the minds of both men and women. Because men can rely on the widely regurgiated idea that they are already qualified by virtue of just being a man, there is no real pressure or need to be righteous when all they need to do is to project that image. We frequently see this with men leading in the spiritual or religious community just for another scandal to come out.

On the contrary, women are rarely given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to positions of authority and power. As part of her initiations spiritually powerful women are forced to go through the dark night of the soul to confront her demons and make them kneel. This ensures that when spiritually powerful women attain an audience, begin to do healing work with people or have mass influence they do not misuse their power.

The reluctance to acknowledge the gendered persecution of spiritually powerful of women occurs when we divorce spiritually from gender. In spiritual communities there is often the tendency to minimize or even disregard the influence of gender, race, class etc. An essay I wrote as an undergraduate specifically focused on this and how this ironically ends up reproducing hierarchies of gender, race, and social class. Human difference and structural differences do not just disappear in spiritual settings.

It is important to innerstand that spiritually powerful women, especially women of colour have gone through years of systemic pillaging through slavery and colonialism. This pillaging has sought to domesticate spiritually powerful women and keep them in the shadows of shame and fear so they do not answer their calling. As an African woman who has been guided to reconnect with ancient African practices after years of demonizing them, I know what it’s like to be stripped from indigenous wisdom and told to stay as far away from it as much as possible. The misunderstanding of this power is further emphasized through patriarchy where the spiritually powerful woman is taught to simmer down her power and become palatable to the male gaze.

All blog posts are originally created by Nana-Hasia. All rights reserved.