Comparing Over The Fence And The Liberation Of Christology From Patriarchy

The Destruction of the Male God in Emily Dickinson’s “Over the Fence” and in Rosemary Radford Ruether’s “The Liberation of Christology from Patriacrchy” Rosemary Radford Ruether in her article, “The Liberation of Christology from Patriarchy," and Emily Dickinson in her poem, “Over the Fence,” destroy two structures, at the core of which resides the male gendered God. The two interconnected structures — the patriarchal/gender structure, which is hierarchical, and therefore, vertical structure, and the language structure, which is a linear structure— create the traditional and cultural God in Christianity. By deconstructing these structures, Dickinson and Ruether both destroy the male God. Reuther claims that since Christianity is grounded on “the Greek and Hellenistic Jewish tradition,” which was shaped by patriarchal culture, God turns to be a male God, and He became the essence of the hierarchical system of this patriarchal tradition (138). Reuther states that the overall hierarchical structure of the Christian religion is God-man-woman-the physical world. Most of the Church Fathers

Because of the speaker’s immaturity, she cannot be classified and gendered as female, and, consequently, she is not part of this gender base structure. As a child, the speaker is free from this structure. In fact, she is beyond structure. Thus, she is more capable of climbing over the fence than God: “I could climb—if I tried, I know.” God could also climb over the fence “if He were a Boy,” but the fact is He is not a boy. He is a grown up and gendered and classified as a male, which makes Him part of the structure. The speaker’s ability to climb over the fence makes her more godly and powerful than God himself; it is in her hands to destroy the hierarchal structure by climbing over the fence, and by doing so to destroy the male