God is like a woman

I found a reference to God being like a woman in our church bulletin today.
I must say that I have always heard God referred to in the masculine, apart from that joke (when God made man she was only joking). Literature, film and art all seem to depict God in the masculine. He is the father and many metaphors are based around the idea of him being our father. It has bothered me for a while because God should have no gender.

This is an excerpt from the parish bulletin

' ...we are often old in the bible that God is like a woman. For example, like a woman in labour; like a woman who can never forget the child of her womb; like a mother eagle that shelters her chicks beneath her ample wings....(of course God has no gender. However we humans are obliged to use both masculine and feminine images in order to talk about God).....'

 It's interesting because apart from images of Mary, we don't see too many female depictions of God in our culture.