The different faces of the feminine in astrology

If you asked people to assign a gender to the Sun, the Moon and to each of the planets, which of them would they call feminine? They would pick the Moon and Venus for sure. And apart from these two? Probably none. The Sun (Apollo), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all male in classic mythology (or androgynous like Mercury). Women make up slightly more than half of the population on planet Earth, but Moon and Venus are the only two out of a whopping ten celestial bodies to represent feminine principles? That’s only 20 %! I don’t know about you, but I can’t help noticing a slight imbalance here.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to squeeze Mars and Jupiter into tight skirts and have them walk on high-heels nor do I want to eliminate more than half of the ‘male’ planets in an act of feminist rage to balance the score. You could even argue that the archetypes and principles represented by the ‘male’ planets are part of the female psyche as much as the female ones represented by Moon and Venus are part of the male psyche, too – and I would agree with you. Nevertheless, I have noticed in quite a few women that some aspects of what they feel to be a natural expression of their feminine nature seem to somehow remain unaddressed in mainstream culture. In this article I will take a closer look at two of these aspects and the respective ancient Greek Goddesses and asteroids Vesta and Pallas Athena. But let’s start with what most of us are familiar with: the Moon and Venus, symbolic shorthand for female reproduction, nurturance and beauty:

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