Speaking about the topic of “women and water” is really impossible. The conceptual category “woman” is a socially constructed and constructing set of ideas that varies from historical time period to time period and culture to culture.
This would of course mean that “women’s” (as a conceptual category) relationship with water changes throughout time and across cultures as well. There is no homogoneous category of “woman” into which all women at all times fit into. Read more
In the study of religion, water is used as a symbol and as a ritual object. Even in rituals, however, the use of actual water is laden with symbolic content, and its function is a symbolic one.
Symbols, then, are where we should begin a discussion of water in Western religions. Symbols are any figuration, whether in image, material, or in language, which is invested with cultural meaning. The meaning that a symbol has, however, is not limited to denoting one thing–symbols, by definition, mean many things at once. The classical distinction was made by Ferdinand deSaussure; he wrote frequently about the differences between “signs” and “symbols.” According to Saussure, a sign is arbitrary, whereas a symbol is not. Read more
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