i'll take this opportunity to post my first paragraph. it's still really rough--i'm not really arguing anything yet. so that's why i think anybody who has questions about it, or thinks of something they wish the paragraph would do that it isn't doing, should probably leave a comment. thanks!

“Thus our Lady is our Mother in whom we are all enclosed and of her born, in Christ: (for she that is Mother of our Saviour is Mother of all that shall be saved in our Saviour;) and our Saviour is our Very Mother in whom we be endlessly borne, and never shall come out of Him” (Revelations 139-140). These words, written by Julian of Norwich, illustrate the impossibility of separating male and female from each other within the context of Christianity, and are indicative of Julian’s struggle to find meaning for women in a religious world that was (and as we will see, still is) so man-centered. Here, Julian first refers to the Virgin Mary as “our Lady” who is “our Mother,” and then, in the same sentence, refers also to Christ as “our Very Mother” out of whom we never “shall come out,” entwining the sexes into one Godly figure of Christ; by bestowing Christ with both male and female identities, Julian not only alters the traditional all-male trinity, but also attempts to find a place for women in the Christian power structure. Julian of Norwich, in writing her Divine Revelations, began a tradition of niche-carving, a tradition that continues today in the writings of Ruether, Kristeva, Clement, and in the lives of ordinary religious women everywhere.