The Feminine Reclamation of Friday 13th: The Impact of patriarchal storytelling

Happy Friday 13th everyone!

For many the build up to Fridays is often highly anticipated, the gateway to the weekend, rejuvenation for some from the standard working week, exciting events to take place we can’t fit into our scheduled routines or tirelessly catching up with tasks we deem necessary to achieve on a weekend. But for some, the looming date of Friday 13th can be an overwhelming feeling of dread, anxiety caused by negative connotations to ill placed and misinformed superstitions in Western cultures. So much so, that there are a few names for the fear that people experience around this day.

Say them with me in a singsong voice…altogether now… paraskevidekatriaphobia, (coined by Dr. Donald Dossey who told his patients that "when you learn to pronounce it, you're cured!”), triskaidekaphobia (specifically the fear of the number 13) and my personal favourite, friggatriskaidekaphobia. I would not recommend attempting to pronounce these without copious amounts of caffeine-maybe that’s just me!

Whilst I respect and empathise with the reality of people’s emotional and physiological experience with genuine phobias, levitation of fear may come from some enlightenment around the origins of today.

I am not a huge fan of the idea of tokenism attempting to temporarily balance out societal injustice and inequality, but appreciate the opportunity to raise awareness and have vital discussions, so… long before we had the likes of International Women’s Day and International Day of the Girl, we had Friday 13th.

Whilst there is no hard evidence to support the theory that today is an unlucky day or that 13 is an unlucky number, it has a greater impact on society more than we may realise. For the average of 1.72 days per year, this day causes a lot of disruption, for example, airports worldwide do not often have a 13th gate, but a 12b to avoid superstitious customers panicking or rescheduling flights, many tall buildings are designed to omit naming floor 13, Formula One does not have a car 13, Winston Churchill would be known for not sitting in a 13th row in theatres or on planes and of course we have a string of horror films dedicated to feed into people’s dread.  Not only do these fears and accommodations around them, negatively affect an individual’s health and wellbeing, personal interactions, social plans, missing medical appointments etc but the impact of history, transport, architecture, sport, media, religion, businesses etc all rippling into our daily lives, costs our economy millions of pounds each year. Money that could no doubt be better spent on some stuff we desperately need more funding for in this country like, erm…easing the cost of living, closing the gender pay gap, supporting our criminal justice system for a more trauma informed, holistic way of working, supporting our NHS, mental health crisis, filling potholes,  regenerating our education systems, supporting younger and elder generations, protecting nature, minimising global warming, helping the homeless and preventing racism and violence against women and girls…just a few ‘issues’ off the top of my head.

Why? What is the cause of the negativity around Friday 13th?

The Patriarchy.

The patriarchy?! I hear you ask (enter overdramatic gasps) surely not! 😉

Yes! The stigma and phobia are rooted in the ongoing misogynistic, sexist and patriarchal reframing of our cultures and history, causing trepidation of female empowerment and celebration.

The ‘unluckiness’ of the day Friday and the number 13 is a relatively recent historical development, with it only taking a more centre stage approach from the 19th Century as beliefs of superstitions from folklore, mythology and religion increased, spreading patriarchal tales of debacle that men caused.

The connection with 13 being unlucky in its own right, is entrenched with examples such as Zeus being the thirteenth and most powerful, vengeful Greek god. In Norse mythology there is a superstition surrounding having thirteen guests at a dinner table is bad luck, based on twelve deities who sat down for a meal at a gods’ feast in Valhalla, to have Loki, the god of mischief and disorder, come along and cause havoc, increasing the number to thirteen, and when called out on his misbehaving had a temper tantrum and arranged for the death of Balder, the god of light and beauty. Sound familiar…?

The Christian teachings have long plagued western civilisation with mirroring of this mythology as to Judas attending the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples before betraying Jesus resulting in his death. They were the bad rolls of the bunch, the imperfect rise of the ‘Baker’s Dozen’.

Christianity continues with the discernment around Friday being cursed, as it was supposedly the day that Jesus died. Friday was also the day that Eve, offered-not forced (just saying), the forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge to Adam which led to the eviction out of paradise to the depths of real-life poverty that apparently man created, leading to another fateful Friday where the murder of their son Able took place out of a jealous rage by his brother Cain. Friday was also the day Adam repented, died and was cremated. This of course has been the misogynistic allegory in history that women should be subservient to men due to God creating Adam first, and male theologian claims that all women were responsible for ‘original sin and the odium of being the cause of the fall of the human race,’…do I detect some hysterical jumping to conclusions here? Must have been their time of the month or something!

Speaking of times of the month, this is a major contributory factor as to the number 13 originally being celebrated. The etymology of the word Friday and origins of 13, is also steeped in our human fascination with mythology, however, with a more positive, and biological aspect of worship for the feminine gods, respect of natural cycles of the moon and mere human female menstrual cycles.

The name Friday derives from the Greek Latin Dies Veneris, the Day of Venus. Venus, our brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon, and is praised for being so since prehistoric times. Venus, the Roman goddess equivalent to the Ancient Greek’s Aphrodite,(incidentally also accused of being the indirect cause of the Trojan War) and Egyptian’s Isis-The goddess’ of Love, Life, Beauty and Peace. This was then developed further into Old English as frigedæg "Friday, Frigga's day," from Germanic goddess of married love, queen of heaven, married to Odin. Frigg often gets combined or confused with the goddess Freya from Norse mythology, also the goddess of love, pleasure, motherhood, sexuality and beauty, known as the northern Venus.

Basically, they all exhibit the expectations that we are told in our civilisation of what an ‘‘ideal’ woman’s attributes should be. It would seem that even ancient goddesses face the struggles to have their identities maintained within society, even when being gossiped about centuries later. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, the men were intimidated by the worshiping of her and Frigga/Freya was branded an evil bleeding witch and shamefully banished to a mountaintop, where she met with 11 other witches and they had a party with the Devil, equalling a party of 13.  Labelling Friday as the witches sabbath and 13 becoming the evilest number of all. I hope they had the best time.

Fridays, in Pagan history was originally believed to be united with the divine feminine, which due to her qualities and magic were connected with the 13 phrases of the moon in a year, which are also heavily associated with the feminine menstrual cycle, making 13 a sacred feminine number. A number and day of enlightenment, worshiping of nature, love, femininity and life. A woman menstruating around the cycles of the moon was considered to be at the height of her power, regarded for her wisdom and intuition and celebrated for the ability to receive and create life. It is only from patriarchal development that society, have succumbed to thinking about menstruation as something dirty or made to be ashamed and embarrassed of, due to the direct power that it represents and the differences it establishes between genders.

Our evolutionary need for storytelling, belief and connection is a magical thing that keeps cultures and communities thriving…but the misogynistic, sexist undertones that cause biased narratives, help build dangerous stereotypes of women and the world we share. It encourages misogynistic traditions and superstitions to continue to hide in plain sight within our society, and it shouldn’t be underestimated the damage that it causes. It’s important that we combine critical thinking, holistic approaches of topics such as spirituality, humanities and feminist research theories together to dismantle these harmful and derogatory narratives.

So, today, or any day for that matter, don’t make it a ‘should be day’ for the female population to be liberated. Enjoy today for the joyous revelry of divine femininity that it is, however your feelings of what a goddess should represent and reflect for you.

Embrace your wisdom, creativity, enhance your sensuality and reclaim the powerful day of Friday 13thto celebrate the woman you are, or/and the wonderful women around you.

As always, have a lovely weekend

Take Care,

Love, The Feminist Ambivert xxx