I had this thought a while ago that the “Pillar of Mercy” could be better seen as the feminine column and the “Pillar of Severity” could be better seen as the masculine column.
First of all, the concept of “mercy” is more feminine than “severity.”
The traditional interpretation, Chokmah is in Sephira 2 because in Judeo-christian religions the masculine image of God, the Father, is assumed to be the highest “point of contact” compared to the feminine image of God in Sephira 3, previously assumed to be Binah.
However, Chokmah translates to “Wisdom.” In the Bible, a primary source for Qabalah, Wisdom is personified as Sophia. In Gnostic Christianity the personification of Sophia is not just a literary device. Sophia is the Lost Goddess of Christianity.
What if your highest point of spiritual contact, the one you pray to, is a Goddess? We all know the Hermetic Qabalah is highly syncretic (to a fault) anyway, so what if you wanted to reconstruct it to better fit a Goddess-worship practice? Then one might find it profitable to see that Chokmah/Wisdom refers to the Mother not the Father.
This causes us to reconsider the “Pillars” of the Tree of Life.
With the feminine Pillar now on the right, which is the left if we think of the Tree as the front of a person (left-handedness being associated with creativity and femininity), then the astrological correspondence makes more sense than before. Arguably the combination of Jupiter and Venus is a more feminine combo than the combination of Mars and Mercury.