Starhawk's paganism and Witchcraft provide an excellent example of how connotations allow us to draw conclusions---and perhaps not always accurate ones. Both paganism and Witchcraft conjure up sinister images for me, exactly the "woman on a broom" image that Starhawk mentions. Bending energy and shaping consciousness, as well as weaving new possibilities, is certainly a different way of looking at Witchcraft, though perhaps it's a bit vague. Why, when something is named, does it suddenly become more powerful and meaningful? In this respect, Daly and Kramarae (from last week) were right! Words can change mindsets. For example, in my faith (Catholicism) witchcraft is something awful; one simply doesn't follow it. Yet, if a Catholic mentioned he or she bent energy and shaped consciousness, perhaps that would be less threatening. After all, "love for life in all its forms is the basic ethic of Witchcraft" (Foss, Foss and Griffin 146 RFRT), which is also true for catholicism.
Starhawk's attraction to witchcraft seems only natural given her definition of patriarchy, which she says is "the belief that some people are more valuable than others (Foss, Foss and Griffin FRT 166). Witchcraft itself seems to be more feminine than masculine. Sometimes Starhawk strikes me as similar to Paula Gunn Allen, though, in that both seem to live on the edge of society and dapple in what's considered abnormal. Their credibility is thus lessened, at least in my mind. It seems as though Starhawk tries so hard to assert herself as a woman that she feels it's necessary to join a group with clearly defined (and unusual) practices, to somehow make up for the oppression she faces in society, if that's indeed the case. At the same time, if a feminist tries to change mindsets and society by appealing to the status quo, and hence patriarchal values, she is in a sense undermining her very values, so perhaps Starhawk's approach is sane after all. I question, though, how seriously men (not all men, of course, since she doesn't want to lump them together) take her given her nontraditional means of embracing feminism.