Episode 8 - Lilith: Reclaiming the Lost Voices of Women

What if the original “fallen woman” wasn’t sinful—but simply refused to submit?

In this powerful and provocative episode, I’m joined by historical and mythological fiction author Nikki Marmery to explore the story behind Lilith—the first woman before Eve, banished from the Garden of Eden for daring to stand up to Adam and God.

Together, we delve into why this story matters today.

We discuss how Lilith, long demonised in religious and cultural narratives, is reimagined in Nikki’s novel as the fierce, wise, and courageous heroine women have waited thousands of years for. We explore the roots of patriarchal thinking in ancient mythology, the worship of female deities erased from history, and how our inherited cultural stories continue to shape perceptions of women today.

This episode is a timely and necessary conversation about reclaiming the stories we’ve been denied—and understanding the deep historical patterns that still influence the way women are seen, treated, and silenced.

• Why the Garden of Eden was never neutral ground
• How myths shape gender roles across generations
• And why rewriting the narrative matters—for all of us

Connect with Nikki:

Instagram -  @marmerynikki

Website - https://www.nikkimarmery.com

If you’re a woman leader who’s ever doubted your confidence, explore my programme “Exploding the Confidence Myth” → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploding-the-confidence-myth-tickets-1617750698889?aff=oddtdtcreator

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✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to She Leads Collective podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies and bold truth tellers who are changing the game, not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer and stronger. What if the first woman in the Garden of Eden wasn't Eve, but was Lilith? And what if she wasn't sinful, but simply unwilling to be ruled? In this episode of the She Leads Collective podcast, we step into the world of myth to explore a deeper reality around how women's wisdom, sexuality and leadership have been erased or vilified for centuries. My guest today is Nicky Marmory, who is a UK-based author of historical and mythological fiction. Her novel, Lilith, reimagines the ancient story of Eden through a bold feminist lens, rooting This is a very different story to the one we commonly know. In Nikki's telling, Lilith refuses to submit to Adam and is cast out of paradise. Immortal and determined, she continues her journey, encountering other powerful women whose stories have been distorted or buried. Asherah, God's forgotten wife, Jezebel, condemned for defying dominant power, and Mariam, a prophet who stood for feminine truth and was executed for it. Nikki shines a light on centuries of hidden strength, quiet rebellion and the deep cost of exclusion. As we talk today, we'll explore the real world parallels behind this mythical retelling, how religion, power and patriarchy have shaped the way we see women and how stories like this can help us see differently. Nikki, thank you so much for joining me today. It's a real pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for having me, Mary. I'm so looking forward to this discussion. Yes, I think it's going to be a really, really stimulating one. And what I really am looking forward to is I think it'll help us look at things from a very different perspective, because certainly when I read the book, Lilith, it really got me thinking about all sorts of things to do with how we as women experience the world today and how that's been influenced by so many things that are way, way back in our unconscious. It brought things to my forefront of my consciousness that I wouldn't have known before. So I'm really curious about what drew you to the character Lilith, how you discovered her and also I'm going to ask you a multiple question here, how you discovered Lilith but also in terms of what you uncovered in your research, what surprised or unsettled you the most?

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

People ask me this a lot of course, how I first heard about Lilith and I have known about her for a very long time. I think I was first introduced to the whole concept of Lilith through the sitcom Cheers, which is probably about 40 or 50 years old now. Of course, yes. Frasier's wife. Yes, so Cheers was the forerunner to Frasier and his wife, who was this very sort of cold, sort of human, but sort of the big joke is that she's kind of this demonic character and she is named, well, There's actually a discussion about whether she was named deliberately after Lilith, the demonic woman in Hebrew mythology or not. But that's how I first came to the concept of Lilith. And that's a very long time ago now. I was probably a teenager at the time. But that was at the back of my mind when I learned more about her mythological background, which is fascinating. She's probably the oldest female archetype in world myth. Her story starts thousands of years before this incarnation as a Jewish demoness, because her story actually starts in ancient Iraq in what was then Sumer, so approximately 5,000 years ago. Lilith was a species of demon, a she-demon, and her sort of qualities are associated with the night. And she combined with another ancient Sumerian demonic figure, Lamashtu. And was kind of these sort of archetypes, demonic women associated with the night, dangerous to pregnant women, dangerous to small children, very dangerous throughout pregnancy and childbirth, seduces of men in the night. These are all the sort of the aspects of Lilith. And they all started in ancient Iraq, thousands and thousands of years ago. And that archetype was inherited really by pretty much every culture in Western Asia, Eastern Mediterranean. And they all have kind of their version of this demonic figure. She became Lamia in ancient Greece. But in the Hebrew tradition, She's Lilith. But she was that sort of demonic aspect for thousands of years before she acquires this backstory as the first wife of Adam. So the first time that appeared in print is thousands of years later. It's around 1000 AD. And that appears in writing in a satirical text. And that means that we don't really know what the... sort of the straight myth is that it's referencing because we don't know what has been invented for this satire or not. But in that, that's the first sort of reference to the elements of Lilith that are really associated with the myth today.

SPEAKER_00: 6:17

Okay. And so what I hear from that is she, as a woman, was demonised once. way way way way way back yes before any of us you know for any of anything even touched the modern world today so we're we're talking thousands and thousands of years ago women symbols of women were demonized definitely

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

but there's a very interesting possibility there's an alternative possibility that is fascinating um which is that she the sort of original aspect of Lilith which is mainly concerned with with danger in childbirth and for small children is that she could embody the fears the very natural and very rational fears that women had because of course that is an incredibly dangerous time to be pregnant and to give birth before modern medicine um and if you are able to um conceptualize that fear in terms of sort of a demon, it becomes something that you feel you have some control over because you then, you know, people had amulets to sort of ward Lilith away, there were incantations, there were things that you could do that supposedly would, you know, prevent her from entering your house. And so, you know, that is fascinating because, you know, there's the very real possibility that she starts about embodying women's very real fears. But then she kind of gets attached to all of these other fears, men's fear of being, of female sexuality. That's where this sort of, this idea of Lilith who seduces men in their sleep comes from. You know, she acquires these different aspects as she requires meaning for different people. So yes, but what you then have is this sort of explanation for why you have this demonic figure. And the explanation that gets attached to Lilith in the first millennium AD is that she's demonic because she refused to and I'm using air quote marks here, she refused the natural order, which is male superiority, because the myth of Lilith in the Garden of Eden is that she was created equal to Adam, unlike Eve. Eve was absolutely not created equal to Adam. And when Adam tries to assert his authority over his wife, she refuses. And she utters the ineffable name of God and sprouts wings. And she leaves the Garden of Eden. And God sends these three angels to try and compel her to return. But she's having absolutely none of it. She doesn't want to be submissive. She doesn't want to be second rate. She wants to be equal and she wants to live life on her own terms. And that's what she does. She then becomes this sort of demon god. figure who preys on women and children, you know, as a symbol really of that, a threat to patriarchal family life, which needs to control women. It needs to control children. And the most important thing it needs to control is female sexuality, because you need to control female sexuality to control reproduction. You need to control that in order to know that you're the father and to ensure that that you're not raising another man's child. That's the sort of fundamental need in patriarchy. So yes, she exists for thousands of years, this demonic archetype, and then acquires this backstory, as Adam's first point, to explain why she's demonic.

SPEAKER_00: 9:55

So I'm getting that she's, demonized by the patriarchy actually because when i read the book i didn't get that she was a demon to be honest i she was my heroine during the book and she did amazing things and she was on the side of supporting women absolutely there was even a period in the book where she was having women coming together and she was educating them in yes you know the whole world of how things worked and everything so she actually what she wasn't a demon but i suppose what my question is was she demonized by the Well,

SPEAKER_01: 10:29

again, it's sort of very complicated because you have all of these different versions of Lilith and she has slightly different sort of meanings in different times and places. But I think this is fundamentally something that you see recurring in myth, you know, not just in Hebrew myth, but in Greek myth. In myths over and over again, you see this. You see a demonic female figure. And what has usually happened is that that figure started off as, much earlier in time, not as a demon, but possibly as a goddess, as a female with power. And then as these cultures have become more patriarchal, they reinterpret the existing archetypes and the existing symbols, the existing gods and goddesses that they have all around them, and they give them new stories, they attach new stories to, to much, much, much older archetypes. It's, you know, it's exactly this in Greek myth. You have the, the, all of the sort of major goddesses are much, much older than Zeus. Rhea is much older than Zeus, her son, but she, the stories that we know, you know, are the, the classical Greek myths and they obscure, you know, what, what came before when women had more power, where women were, were celebrated, were, for wisdom, where women were associated with regeneration, with the creation of life, which is why they were considered divine. So whenever you look at a myth, you've got to peel back the layers because what you are usually getting is a myth from recorded history, which is inevitably patriarchal and which has a new layer of meaning onto it, which may not have been there Originally, so you have to sort of be aware of all of that. And Lilith is fascinating in that respect, because, of course, she has this extremely long history with extremely sort of with changing meanings attached to her. And one of the things that's happened to Lilith sort of in the last 50 years is that she has. Her story has kind of changed again because she has become a symbol of, she's become a feminist hero because she embodies those qualities that women in the last 50 years have been striving for. She refuses domesticity. She refuses God. Not only does she... refuse God's command, but she gets away with it. God never succeeds in compelling her to go back to Adam. She rejects male authority. She lives life exactly on her own terms. So that's why she was picked up by feminists starting in the 60s and 70s and became this feminist icon. And so that's what kind of what she represents in my book as well. But for me, really, the reason I wanted to write about Lilith is because of this sort of core idea that that women are equal. And, you know, because it's the opposite of what we have been told. It's the opposite of the story that actually opens Genesis, where you have a male God who creates heaven and earth. He creates man in his own image and women as an afterthought. She's his helpmate. She's there as a servant, basically. She's not remotely equal. She's there to serve. And that's the story that we all... grew up with whether you're religious or not it is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it is everywhere and it affects so much more than we are aware of I think because you know in the modern world people are often secular they don't they're not aware of sort of following any religious stories but I don't think we appreciate how deeply woven some of those biblical stories are all around us

SPEAKER_00: 14:36

that's what struck me and you know the whole thing of eve was a complete contrast to lilith you know she was passive she was accommodating she was also the temptress who succumbed to temptation and then persuaded adam to take a bite of the apple or pomegranate or whatever fruit the forbidden fruit you know it was the forbidden fruit and therefore there was another woman who was passive who did go along with but was still labeled as a wicked woman because she actually ended paradise. Of course.

SPEAKER_01: 15:08

She's very convenient, isn't she? She's very convenient. How interesting it is that it's the woman who leads the man to this forbidden fruit. How interesting that it's her who persuades him to eat and it is all her fault. How interesting that that was the decision that was made. This story kind of became finalized in the form that we would recognize it around 500 BC. Elements of it are much, much, much older than that, but the form in which we see it today in every Bible was kind of finalized around 500 BC. So that is fascinating. And for the early church in particular, Eve becomes hugely, hugely demonized, much more so than she is in the Jewish world. It is the early Christians who really demonized Eve. And that is where the really hideous misogyny of Eve of what Eve represents came about. You have these early church leaders who has, there's Tertullian who said to women, don't you know that you are each an Eve and he's blaming all women for this idea of women defying natural authority. And it's because of Eve's supposed leading Adam astray that women should have no authority, that women should never be allowed to do this. have authority over a man. And, you know, it's there in the Bible. You know, it's there in Timothy where Paul, the apostle, these are supposedly his words, says, I do not permit, you know, woman is to remain silent. I do not permit woman to have authority over a man. You know, for Adam was made first. I'm paraphrasing here. And it was Eve who defied you know, the God's word. So that's why, you know, this idea comes about that women should never have authority, that it's natural for man to lead. It's natural for women to be submissive. But these are very much later inventions. That's not, you know, that sort of message is hammered home really in, you know, the first millennium AD. Now that's not necessarily true. those ideas are not necessarily what were an original part of the story. You know, there are fascinating suggestions that in fact Eve in Hebrew tradition was once considered a goddess and there are clues, for example, in the sort of earliest Hebrew versions of this story. Later on, you have Eve saying, I have created a child with Yahweh. And the language used is fascinating because she's using language that is traditionally used of deities, of the divine. And that goes against this idea that we have of Eve as a servant, as a helpmate. So You know, that's fascinating. The way these things change, the way the meaning changes over time and the way that later cultures impose their own readings onto much older stories. All of this is fascinating. But the end result, as you say, is that Eve is utterly demonized. You know, when the European witch burning started to happen, you know, in the early modern era, That is absolutely connected to Eve. This idea that women were more likely to be witches comes from this idea that Eve was led astray by the devil. That is a direct link. So this story, this story in Genesis, you know, that has been around for millennia at this point, it then, it becomes clear not wholly responsible, but is absolutely linked to the real... murder of real women. Because that is why women were thought to be more likely to be witches. This association of women with the devil, of women with evil, their natural inclination to evil, their natural inclination to gullibility and leading men astray. That's all part of the biblical

SPEAKER_00: 20:08

story of Eve. Incredible. I mean, so such an impact. And that, you know, as you say, an impact in those centuries where women actually ended up being murdered because of that belief system. But it still impacts today. But I want to come back to the book because it's a wonderful story. It's such a rich story. And it's not just Lilith herself, but the other characters that she comes across, the other women that she comes across, who also possess some wonderful characteristics and elements to their personalities and their archetypes themselves.

UNKNOWN: 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:43

that you present in such a different light to how they necessarily would get looked at in the modern world today. So tell us a bit more about how that story evolved. Well, I

SPEAKER_01: 20:56

wanted to correct the problem that I see with the Bible, which is that it is a book written by men for men. I see it entirely differently. as a man's book, the... There are several problems with it, of course. We talked about how Eve is demonized and blamed for the fall of man. But that's not a one-off. It goes throughout the whole Bible. And the erasure of women in the Bible, the way that women aren't named, the way that God's relationship is with the men. It's very rare that God... talks to women it's very rare that women are even named um you know and that's what i wanted to correct i wanted to kind of uh ex expose that i suppose in a way i wanted to talk about the fact that um it is such a male uh centered book because again i think because it's such a huge part of our culture i don't think we necessarily notice it i don't think we ever i don't think we question some of the most sort of fundamental parts of the Bible. You know, how many people have, you know, for example, you know, when you sort of read the opening chapters of Genesis and you've got this father God creating life, how many times, you know, in your life have you thought, hold on a minute, where's the mother? Why is there a father creating life without a mother? And that goes throughout the Bible. You know, you get to the story of Noah and Noah's, Noah, Everyone will know the story of Noah's Ark, but after the flood, obviously it's his children who repopulate the world. And in the Bible, you know, they're talking about the whole known world. And so, you know, after the flood, the Bible lists 70-something descendants of Noah and describes every single tribe that has their origin in these children of Noah. And of course, they're all men. There isn't a single tribe. female mentioned. Noah's wife is never given a name in the Bible. The three daughters-in-law who were on the ark never get a name. And the mothers, the matriarchs of every single one of these tribes that's listed in the post-flood world is not mentioned. These are the women who who are the women who gave birth to these tribes. They are the founders and they don't get a name. So that's kind of what I wanted to turn around. And I also wanted to turn around how much we think of things from men's point of view and how it changes when you look at things from a woman's point of view. Just as a sort of very basic example, you know, the phrase go forth and multiply, which is, you know, God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Now, from a man's point of view, that's quite straightforward. It sounds fun. From a woman's point of view, it's incredibly dangerous and it will quite often kill her. And so because we think of everything through a man's point of view, we think of having children, know you know throughout history until very recently the idea of having as many children as you possibly could now that is only something that a man wants a woman doesn't want that because it is very dangerous uh it is very uh uncomfortable um of course men women do want to have children but very few given the choice would have 20 children very few would spend 20 uh or even 30 years of their life being pregnant and giving birth. So I just wanted to talk

SPEAKER_00: 24:47

about that really. You wanted to give another view that actually I suppose it shone the light on how biased the Bible is. And then also you told the story from the other perspective as well. And, you know, one of the characters you introduced us to was Jezebel, who again, Jezebel, I remember the, is it the Bette Davis film where she wore the red dress? Jezebel, you know, wicked woman. But actually in your book, she's painted as a really powerful, charismatic, beautiful woman. Priestess, actually. So she was a leader, a woman of influence, living and leading a very nice life and a very nice community as well. So tell us more about how she came to be.

SPEAKER_01: 25:34

Well, astonishingly, as you say, everyone knows the name Jezebel. It's kind of synonymous with sluttishness, with vanity, with preening. But Fascinatingly, when you go back to the story in the Bible, and it appeared in the Book of Kings, even the Book of Kings, which the whole point of this, the way that Jezebel's story is told, and the whole point of it is to sort of demonize her, is to sort of paint her as this absolute evil. She's probably the most demonized woman in the Bible. But those elements aren't even there. She doesn't cheat on her husband. She does some of the things that we know that she's famous for, but she doesn't do anything that's different to what any of the men around her are doing. Now, she was a queen. She was the queen of Israel. And often when you see women demonized in Israel, ancient history and in myth, they're demonized because they have power. They're demonized because the story that men wrote and that they're trying to tell you is that women shouldn't have power, that women with power are dangerous, that women with ideas or authority are dangerous and evil. So she was deliberately demonized. But the other fascinating thing that I discovered when I went back to the original versions of these stories is that, I mean, sort of always known, of course, that she worshipped other gods, which in the Bible, of course, is a big no-no. But what I haven't realised is that she specifically worshipped Asherah. Now, Asherah was the Israelite mother goddess, and she was written out of the story progressively over the course of the first millennium BC. And the reason for that is that the writers... of the Book of Kings. They're writing several hundred years after the events they're talking about. The events in Jezebel's story take place in the ninth century BC. And the Book of Kings was written about 300 years after that. And that is a point in history when the Israelite religion becomes much more monolatrous. It was much more common before that. to for israelites to worship asherah um king solomon did openly uh in uh in jerusalem that's in that's in the bible there are many references to israelites uh worshiping the queen of heaven um in the bible but that is being suppressed now um and So what is fascinating is that we don't really hear much of that. We don't hear of Jezebel as a worshipper of the mother goddess, but that is absolutely there in the original story. And of course, that's really why she's demonised. She's demonised because the point of the story is to communicate that you shouldn't be worshipping the mother. you need to be worshipping their father only and no one else. That's kind of the whole point of these stories that take place at this time. Yes. So that's the whole point. So that fascinated me. And I wanted to explore that. And the likelihood, you know, Jezebel was a Phoenician princess before she was the queen of Israel. So the likelihood is that as the king's daughter, she would have held religious function. And so I wanted to explore that. And I wanted to show her as a priestess and to show that her belief in her God was deeply held. No different to the other people who held very deeply religious convictions about Yahweh, but it's no different. She has these deep religious convictions and everything she does is driven by those convictions. What's wrong with that? Nothing. There's nothing wrong with that. And she is demonized. Yes, she does murder the prophets of Yahweh, but that's exactly what the people celebrated in this story in the Bible do as well. They murdered thousands of prophets of Baal, of Asherah, and that's presented as a good thing. So I wanted to talk about that. I wanted to talk about... who is good, who is bad in the Bible and what is it that they have done that makes them good or bad. Because a lot of the people held up to be, you know, positive figure in these stories in the Bible are really truly terrible people, murderers, murderers of children often. They're not people that should be held up as moral authorities. And of course, it's written in a very different time and place. It's perfectly fitting for its time and place, Iron Age Israel. why do we still hold that up today that's my that's my question

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

I think what I get about this is it was a different time and place it was a different way you know we as human beings were always about trying to survive so in those days that the way we survived was very very different to how we need to survive today I think what I'm running as you're talking you know and this is why I think it's such an important book it's about the myths it's about the legends it's about um how beliefs and archetypes have grown up and influenced how we view different genders today. And what I'm running is, gosh, you know, you're saying, well, she killed some prophets, but then the other people killed some prophets, that the men killed even more prophets. And there's something around This is a much more... We're not killing people in the workplace, thank goodness. No, especially not

SPEAKER_01: 31:57

profits. Especially not profits. I don't think anyone should be killing profits.

SPEAKER_00: 32:02

But what I notice is, you know, men are rewarded for being assertive, for example, whereas women get labelled as bossy. Now, that sounds like a much more simple, much milder, is it such a big deal type version. But it is... sort of influence it is influenced by what's been going on for thousands and thousands of years that your role as a man you should be doing this and i say should i'm not saying that that's correct it's just it's like a global societal belief that you should be behaving like this and as a woman you should be behaving like that and it makes it very difficult um Particularly if there are women in the workplace who want to get ahead in their careers, for example, or women who are very confident and want to speak up. She's suddenly called bossy. Absolutely,

SPEAKER_01: 32:54

yes. And I think those, again, you know, those things are sort of done in such a sort of... blow the surface way, that it's hard to see. But if you think about the words that are used to shame women for leadership, bossy is one of them, shrill is another, that women's voices are too shrill for men to listen to. You're too dominating. Dominating, yes. That all comes from this culture that is informed by myths and the stories we've told about our deep past, which says that women shouldn't The point is women shouldn't lead. There is no good way for women to lead. They shouldn't lead because that's the story that was originally told. And it seeps into modern culture all the time. And in fact, I thought about that a lot watching Hillary Clinton when she was going up against Trump for the presidency. I think in my opinion, the background of the misogyny that is part of our religious landscape is absolutely part of the reason why Americans find it difficult to elect a woman. Absolutely. You saw it over and over again in both the last two presidential elections, the demonization of women who dare to lead, who dare to step forward. Her voice is wrong. The clothes she wears is wrong. Everything she does is wrong. And it doesn't matter what she does, because it will always be wrong, because the problem is that she's a woman. It's not the clothes she wears. It's not her voice. It's that she's a woman. And I think that is all a part of it. The history of the way women have been portrayed in religion and culture for so long. I think that's a huge part of it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:52

Yes. So, you know, the listeners to my podcast are women who are working, who are running their own businesses, who are having to navigate the workplace, who are leading in the corporate world. What do you think, you know, you've written this incredible book, which has the, you know, you might think at first sight, what has this got to do with the workplace, but there are so many themes in it that are relevant. What, From your experience, what you've seen in the research, what would be your advice to women to help them navigate these very tricky, labels is the wrong word, because it's more nuanced than this. It's much more subtle than that. I suppose it's inherited biases, I suppose, archetypal biases, actually.

SPEAKER_01: 35:37

Yes, it's the bias that we sort of take on sometimes without even knowing it. So I think there is a huge amount to learn. from ancient history and myth for modern women in the workplace and in all aspects of their life. I think it is hugely inspiring to learn that women, that this is not inevitable. I think it's hugely inspiring to learn that this idea of male superiority is not natural. It is not inevitable. It was imposed. It was imposed and it was enforced by stories, myth, religion, culture for thousands of years and if you go back far enough uh you can see what came before that you can see women celebrated you see mother you know the mother goddess being absolutely supreme they're being yes you know before you know there was ever a male god for thousands of years they were only female gods they were yes you know that is the you know overwhelming archaeological evidence shows that it's women being worshipped for thousands of years before this idea of a sole father god. And I think that flips everything on its head. I think when you learn about a prehistoric past, when you learn about the times when women's wisdom was celebrated, when female leadership was celebrated, when it was perfectly natural for women to lead, who have religious authority, that flips everything on its head. It didn't need to be like this. The reason things have evolved, there are many, many, many countless variables for how we've ended up where we are, but it was not inevitable. It is not inevitable that the sex that creates life, the sex that brings all human beings into the world would end up being considered inferior. Absolutely not. So I think that is hugely inspiring to modern women just to learn your history, just to learn that it was never natural.

SPEAKER_00: 37:50

And that there was a time before, there was a time before is what I'm hearing as well, where it wasn't like that, which gives me hope that there can be a

SPEAKER_01: 37:57

time again. The first person that we ever know who's put their name to something they've written was a woman. She was a priestess. She wrote these absolutely incredible hymns to her goddess, who was Inanna. And Inanna was this incredibly powerful Sumerian goddess. And these hymns that N. Hedwana wrote are so moving. They're so different to everything we have ever heard before. in our religious culture, you know, celebrating sex, celebrating bodies, male and female, celebrating the act of sex, celebrating the power that women have is that for me, again, it kind of flipped everything on its head. You just think, imagine growing up in that world. Imagine growing up in a world where it is, you know, the religious hymns and stories you hear are, about female power, female leadership, and the complete lack of shame and modesty around the female body, recognising it for what it is, which is unbelievably powerful and important. The body that does the most important thing there is. I'm not saying that all women should give birth. Absolutely not what I'm saying. But the point is that women do give birth if they choose to, and it is phenomenally powerful. There's literally nothing more powerful. Men had to create a male god to appropriate that ability because they needed to feel that they had some power over it. I think that is hugely, hugely inspiring to women today.

SPEAKER_00: 40:07

Incredible. Wow, Nikki, I mean, I'm not sure this conversation has gone anywhere. It's been really, really fascinating. You know, in terms of what you wanted to achieve through writing this book, do you feel you're having the impact? You know, is the book having the impact you want it to have? Because I imagine it's almost like in itself, because it's speaking out against the patriarchy and we still live in a patriarchal society.

SPEAKER_01: 40:35

I would say the answer is yes and no. Now, people either love or hate this book, which I fully expected. But what is fascinating to me is that I hear a lot from women with very religious backgrounds, especially in America. And I love hearing from them because I hear from so many women with especially evangelical backgrounds or Catholic backgrounds, whatever, who say they have found this book healing to them. Growing up with these stories that have told them that women are second, that their job is to serve men, that men are the ones who are doing things in the world, and their job is to support that. No. Hearing that women are absolutely equal and powerful and wise has been... helpful for them. So that's absolutely fantastic. I love hearing from people who have that reaction to the book. But I also think that there are some sort of reactions to the book that are really rooted in patriarchy. And one of them actually is that there are people who have called it biological essentialism. And that's the idea that because women could give birth, that's all they should do. That's what they should do. Now, that is not what my book says. But it's interesting to me that any sort of discussion about the female body, any discussion about this thing that the female body can do, gets accused of being biologically essentialist. And that's nonsense. Because I think you only think that if you don't understand how powerful and how important it has been throughout history to create the next generation, to bring forth the new generation. We only think of it. We only think of motherhood. A lot of the other things that I think people with this background, this mentality say about the book is that they hate that I made Lilith a mother. They hate that... The big part of the book is about motherhood because they don't think that's very feminist. But actually, I think that is a response that's rooted in misogyny because the only reason we don't think of motherhood as powerful is because it has been denigrated for thousands of years and it's been denigrated by by The patriarchy is literally about fatherhood. That's what it is. It's not about men over women. Patriarch is about the power of fathers. Throughout history, men have gained power from fatherhood. It's why you have kings throughout history obsessing about their male heirs. It's because of their legacy. The only reason we don't think about that when we're thinking about motherhood is because throughout history, motherhood has been presented to women as a service. They must provide to men, and that's the patriarchy's view. For women, no. We should celebrate women. Why don't we think of children as women's legacy? Why isn't women's power in the world enhanced by motherhood? Because of patriarchy. So those are my kind of responses to that. the people who sort of have that mentality. And I don't think they even know that their sort of denigration of motherhood is absolutely a part of patriarchy. And that's something else.

SPEAKER_00: 44:17

What I'm hearing is they can't, it's hidden from their view, they can't see it. I think we are

SPEAKER_01: 44:21

so used to thinking of motherhood as, and women who choose motherhood perhaps over a career, I think we're so used to thinking of that as a submissive role that we don't see the power in it. Now, again, I am not saying that women should choose motherhood over a career. Absolutely not in the same way that men have never had to choose fatherhood over a career. I would like a world in which women who can do whatever they like. I would like a world where women can forge incredibly successful careers and be mothers should they choose to. But I think we don't see that a lot of female experiences are denigrated because they're female. And I would like people to look at that with fresh eyes and think, how would you think about that if we hadn't been told for thousands of years that motherhood is something that's weak and submissive and a service? It means you have to retreat from the world. Absolutely not. Why should the people who are creating the world retreat from the world? They are creating. By creating children, you are creating the world. But, you know, I just... it annoys me

SPEAKER_00: 45:41

well actually that was one of my questions because there were times in the book because actually what I want to say about the book is it is putting a fresh perspective on things on old stories that we we have just taken for granted and I think that's what's so powerful about it and at the same time I found myself getting angry as I was reading so not all of it some of it I absolutely it was joyful to read but other parts of it I found myself getting particularly politically angry. How did you, I mean, I can only assume you got angry as you were

SPEAKER_01: 46:13

writing it. I was pretty angry to start with. And actually I was writing this throughout COVID as well. So I was very much sort of withdrawn from the world as we all were while I was writing. And I was very angry. I was angry at, I was angry at what I see around me. Whenever I see women being treated as less than human, as inferior in any way. It makes me very angry. It makes me very angry to see how women are treated in Afghanistan, in Iran, in countries where their experiences are absolutely inhumane. That angers me. On a much lower level, it angers me when I see women's experiences being devalued, women's voices going unheard, and everything being seen through the male perspective. And the other thing that was angering me a lot as I was writing throughout COVID was the It's kind of secondary, but it's also very much part of this book, actually. The lack of respect we have for the natural world. And I felt very much, you know, when COVID was happening, we weren't really sure about what had started it or what was happening. But there was very much a suggestion that human mistreatment of the natural world of animals and animals was kind of linked. And I was angry about that. I was angry about this idea that humans think they are in control of the world as opposed to being a part of it. And I think that is a big part of many of the problems we see in the modern world. And that actually is really linked to patriarchy because the two things that happen at the beginning of Genesis is that God gives Adam power over Eve, but he also gives Adam power over the natural world. He asks Adam to name all the animals and that's in ancient times, that idea of naming is an expression of having power over. And so Adam names all the animals and the last creature he names is woman. And that kind of shows you how those you know, animals in the natural world and the idea of women kind of go hand in hand. And this idea that Adam has power over the natural, that kind of runs all the way through the Bible as well. You know, there are many, many times when God is extolling this need to control or dominate the world. And that, for me, is all wrong. Humans are part of the natural world. And until we see ourselves as part of the natural world, we won't look after it we won't cherish it

SPEAKER_00: 49:05

yes well they there's talking about the poly crisis and there being three different strands to what's happening in the world at the moment and one of those strands is our disconnection with nature and you know this whole imbalance that we we feel that we're dominating we own it we don't own it we're guardians we're protectors of it you know have to work in harmony with nature rather than feeling like we are owning it and we'll we'll plunder all the resources that are on it and That is totally, that's the path to self-destruction. Absolutely. And when

SPEAKER_01: 49:38

you sort of go further back in time and you see the way humans sort of thought about religion before that, it's very different. You know, a lot of ancient religion is invested in the world. And this sort of change from when we thought about, you know, the divine being around us, being incarnate in trees or rivers or mountains. And the next step is this idea, not that sort of what is divine is in the world, it's above it. It's a God who sits above the world in power over it. He's not part of the world. He's literally supernatural above the natural world. That, for me, is kind of why we're in this mess. I think we need to... think again of the divine being earthly. And it goes, you know, it's the same reason that bodies are considered lesser than, you know, spirituality. I think we need to refocus ourselves in this world, in our physicality, in what we have. Get reconnected. I think we would be much healthier, much happier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:55

And

SPEAKER_01: 50:58

there are many modern movements that promote that idea. That to me is a much healthier way of thinking about our relationship to the natural world and this idea that we control it, that it's ours to exploit in whatever way we see fit. It's ours to mine or exploit with no concern or regard for sustainability because we can do what we like with it.

SPEAKER_00: 51:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 51:23

Yeah, that for me is wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 51:26

That's the price of disconnection, I think, isn't it? So I'm really mindful of time. I'm wanting to bring this conversation to a conclusion. I'm curious about, you know, you've had, you've had this, Lilith isn't your only book that you've had published, but Lilith is sort of your current. It's just been out in paperback this year. So it is available in paperback and hardback. What is next for you, Nikki? You're obviously a woman of passion and wanting to make a difference in the stories that you're writing. There is something

SPEAKER_01: 51:56

I'm working on. I'm very interested in the ancient world. I'm very interested in the ideas that people used to have about how we lived and these things that I've talked about, our relationship with the natural world, our relationship with each other. So I'm fascinated by the ancient world for that reason. And I'm also fascinated by how women have historically been represented in the ancient past. And of course, you know, for pretty much the entirety of recorded history, that has meant they have been described by men. And when that happens, you know, you get this very distorted idea of women. So this, you know, I'm working on something that is about women in the ancient world. It's much more historical than mythological this time. But it's kind of, I think I keep returning to the same I return to themes of women being raised, women being misrepresented by men, women being devalued, women's experiences, voices and beliefs being devalued and misrepresented. I'm very much interested in the female experience. So that's something I'm working on. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 53:16

Well, it has to gestate to produce the quality. And to be honest, you know, you've opened my eyes. Lilith was a real eye-opening book for me and I really thoroughly enjoyed it. I've bought it for several of my female friends, including my... I've even bought it for my daughter as well and passed it on because I think it's... And I'm also encouraging my partner to read it as well. It's valuable for both men and women to read because it is very, very eye-opening. So thank you so much for coming and sharing Thank you, Mary. Thank you

SPEAKER_01: 53:59

so much for having me. And if people want to connect with you, how can they

SPEAKER_00: 54:04

connect with you?

SPEAKER_01: 54:05

I'm happiest on Instagram. So that's the kind of the easiest place to find me.

SPEAKER_00: 54:10

Instagram is the place to find you and I notice you've got a lovely dog. What's your dog called again? Thank you so much for listening to the She Leads Collective podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 54:18

If this

SPEAKER_00: 54:19

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