I thought Tavern patrons might be interested to know how women’s liberation affected astrological readings.
Before the 70s, astrology was mainly concerned with a male view of the world - the Moon and Venus were the feminine, all the other bodies were male. So in a woman’s chart, and astrologer would look only at two planets and the ascendant to determine the qualities of a female client. Everything else in her chart was male influenced. Mars was the kind of men she attracted, the Sun and Saturn were powerful males, Jupiter male mentors and teachers and so on.
Of course, many women in fact did express their own male planets quite successfully, but they were considered an abberation. Now we look to see if a woman expresses these male qualities herself, or whether, through conditioning or lack of self esteem, she simply projects them onto the men in her life.
Let’s have an example, from, of all places, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Eowyn, the shield maiden of the Rohirrim, obviously has a very strong Mars and Sun. She longs to perform deeds of valor, and show off her prowess with a sword. But the dominant male in her life, King Theoden, wants to keep her away from battle. She meets Aragorn, a powerful warrior, and falls in love with him. Once more consigned to the sidelines, Eowyn takes destiny into her own hands, dresses as a man, and goes into battle against the forces of Mordor. As it turns out, she is just what is needed to turn the battle, but she is wounded and is taken to Minas Tirith to recover. There she meets the young captain of Gondor, Faramir. Having proved herself in battle, and rid herself of the need to project her desire for glory in battle onto someone else, she is free to find real love with a man more suited to her emotional needs. (One wonders how a quiet Oxford don had such insight into a woman’s heart - his wife must have been quite a woman!)
The astrologer would say that, until she was able to express Mars herself, she had no choice but to project Mars onto the men in her life and fancy herself in love, when all Aragorn represented was what she wanted to be.
So today we take it for granted that many women - high profile sportswomen, even those sent to war as soldiers - will express their own Mars.
As well, there is now a discipline of astrology called Goddess Astrology, which is a purely feminine centered form of reading. Here we draw on the asteroids Ceres, Juno, Pallas and Vesta to flesh out the feminine side of a chart.

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