Women who fly Goddesses, witches, mystics, and other airborne females

"Why is a 'flighty' woman a bad thing?" Young (research associate, anthropology, American Museum of Natural History; adjunct, classical, Middle Eastern, and Asian languages and cultures, Queens College) poses this question in the introduction to Women Who Fly, and she deftly answers it in the rest of the volume. She scrutinizes an ongoing mythological archetype of the flying female through religious traditions that span millennia and practically every human culture. Young groups her investigation into three major clusters: ancient Near Eastern and European cultures, Asian cultures, and shamanistic traditions. What emerges from this thorough examination is a common image of the flying female as free and untamed by the destructiveness of patriarchal culture. Accordingly, Women Who Fly should be considered as much a work of critical feminism as a religio-mythic analysis of a single extended image. Though the bulk of the investigation considers the role of women in ancient and medieval religions, Young does bring forward several of those themes to deal with more recent times, such as female pilots Hanna Reitsch and Amelia Earhart and pop culture (e.g., Wonder Woman). This work of comparative symbolism moves fluidly through the grand scope of religions and mythologies in an engaging and readable manner. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Dann Everett Wigner, formerly, The University of the South

In this powerful and thought-provoking book, Young (Courtesans and Tantric Consorts) draws on a variety of mythological and religious traditions to explore the concept of flying women and how representations of aerial females have reflected male anxieties and the changing status of women in society. From ancient bird-headed deities to the Valkyries of Norse myth, from medieval Christian mystics to Wonder Woman and 20th-century female aviators, Young shows how aerial women throughout history have represented themes such as fertility, prophecy, the protection and guidance of the dead, and the bridging of the mundane and divine. On a more fundamental level, Young argues, female figures with the power of flight have embodied the longing of women for escape from the constraints imposed on them by men. Yet, Young also shows how the transition from matriarchal to patriarchal societies has been accompanied by a metaphorical clipping of the wings of these female fliers: the diminishment and demonization of the powers of goddesses and other flying women mirrors the increasing constraints placed upon women in patriarchal cultures. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers of women's studies, gender studies, and mythology and comparative religion.-Sara Shreve, Newton, KS © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.