Guzman 1

Ashly Guzman
Professor von Uhl
FIQWS 10105
7 November 2016
Nonconformant Goddess
Gender Roles are something we are all exposed to since birth. We are told girls dont like
to fight and boys dont like dresses. Society's skewed ideology of what a girl can do and a boy
can do has been present for centuries. Recently, there has been an immense uproar of people who
simply can not agree. The trans and gender nonconforming communities around the world have
recently changed the way society thinks. Individuals have come to learn that gender roles are too
binary for us humans, who have such complex and unique personalities. Examples of these ideas
have been rarely seen in religious texts, as many religions were unaccepting of people who did
not fit these gender roles. But a very early mythological text effectively represented a gender
nonconforming goddess named Devi. Devi was a goddess with no real gender and possessed
qualities of both binary, female and male genders she had the beautiful and confident appearance
of a woman, but had the power and strength of a man. The story of Devi was the first of its
kind to oppose societys existing gender roles and effectively contradicts Bettelheims claims as
her story ended with a very optimistic ending of victory that Bettelheim said myths do not have.
The original story of Devi was first written in approximately 4th century CE by the
poet Valmiki as a part of the hindu religious epic Mahabharata. When the story of Devi was
published it was the first of its kind as it's very uncommon to see evidence of non binary genders
in religious texts or at least modern renditions of religious textsthe influence that Devi has
had on the Indian culture is groundbreaking as Devi, is seen as the mother figure of india

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nicknamed Durga i.e The Invisible. Although Devi was described as someone who is
timeless and sexless, being neither man nor woman, but both (Narayan 54) she is typically seen
as a woman. Comparably, to how conservative cultures viewed gender ambiguous individuals
and simply labeled them as one gender or the other. The truth is Devi was one of a kind as she
was created with the purpose to kill Mahisha. Mahisha was a half demon half buffalo king who
in order to become invincible performed tapas, and requested that Brahma make him immortal.
Brahma refused and instead made him invisible to gods and men meaning he could only be killed
by a woman. Mahisha began to tease and torment the gods so they called upon the Great God to
than transform into Devi (a female) but still have the power of a god.
Devi was able to defeat mahisha because of her androgynous qualities, but she was also
battling gender roles. Women in india were not allowed to join the front lines of battle. While
men could easily start wars women needed their husbands to start wars for them, like Draupadi
who convinced her husbands to get back their kingdom and fight for her honor. (Narayan 160)
Unlike Draupadi, Devi, started the war on her own and won the war herself. This shows just how
brave and unique she was, since she contradicted the Indian traditions and wasn't afraid to take
on the role of leader which had never been done by other women in the Mahabharata.
The story of Devi seemingly cannot be classified into a specific category of fairytale
or myth. While the story is mythological since it deals with gods and heroes. But it has a happy
ending which Bettelheim said was a key point to making a story a fairy tale, an optimistic
ending in the story of Devi completely disproves Bettelheim's claims. Bettleheim argues that

Works Cited

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Narayan, R. K. "Devi." Gods, Demons, and Others. New York: Viking, 1964. Print.