I never really bought into the whole “herstory” thing. It seemed nitpicky, over a word. Those crazy feminists and their spelling issues.
But, if you think about it, it does stand to reason that the majority of archaeoligists and historans were men. Not only were they men, but they were Judeo-Christian men. They found the artifacts, they saw the cave drawings and they interpreted those visuals based on their own experiences and visions for the future. They didn’t see the idols of women as divine, they saw them as porn. Cave porn. Ugh, ugh, oooh baby, ugh.
Its from their perspective that we have learned history. What would the differences be if a woman had been given free reign to interpret the symbols on those walls? Once again, the question of how women became second-class citizens rears its ugly head, even as we discuss the history of how that very thing happened. It seems impossible to get a clear answer when half of the information has been destroyed or misinterpreted to begin with.
So, really, where is the “herstory” in all of this? We haven’t always been secondary. Even before we duped that silly Adam into eating an apple, we were there. We were vital and important. We were divine. So what happened?
10:31 pm on February 14th, 2009
Good question.
Every subject is about men by default- we just call them history, political science, etc. Anything to do particularly with women has to be singled out.
I was recently reading something by Bruno Bettleheim where he said that the origins of women’s subordination came from men’s fear of their reproductive power.
When you look at Native American history, most tribes shared this same view. Women were segregated during their moon time and in many places women were forbidden from touching sacred objects like drums and rattles that were believed to have strong medicine.
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10:40 pm on February 14th, 2009
Good to see you again!
When did it start, though, especially for Native American tribes? Was this a “natural” cosmic shift that allowed the turn from matriarchy to patriarchy, if you take into account the seemingly unrelated instances of that very thing?
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3:30 am on February 19th, 2009
My guess without digging up any research is that Native American tribes did the same thing that anthropologists have found that other primitive societies did- they used warfare against one another to achieve domination over women. They used warfare and then started using women as the reward for winning. Those societies in particular also often practiced infanticide of female newborns in order to keep the female population lower to give the men incentive to keep fighting. The men then created a patriarchal religion to help enforce their dominance.
Alliance theory is another explanation used to find the root of male domination. A lot of researchers (including similar theories by Freud in Totem and Taboo:Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Freud is a sick fuck, imo, but interesting [though mostly wrong] when it comes to issues of women and gender) have looked at that one, too, so you may be able to find plenty of material. This theory has been used to say that male domination began when, in order to avoid incest, men began trading women with other men outside their small groups/families.
It’s such a trite phrase, but history really is written by those in power. It’s also been written backward.
There are definitely many anthropologists would tell us that cultures have always been male dominated, despite what we feminists like to think otherwise. There have been no true egalitarian societies.
I tried to argue with point with the example of the Mosuo village in China, where women rule- but my professor argued that that society isn’t truly matriarchal because there is a noble patriarchal council that presides above the matriarchs (who are peasant families). At the time I couldn’t remember the name of the other matrilineal culture in existence, but it was the Vanatinai of New Guinea.
I don’t see how people can completely disregard the evidence of goddess worshiping neolithic societies. Riane Eisler compiled a lot of research about ancient Crete and how men and women were equal. I looked around a bit for it but couldn’t find the exact article I was thinking of, but if you have access to your colleges online library she is a good name to look up when searching for historical gender-equal societies. I couldn’t remember if she had a theory about how that changed.
Now I’m just rambling with no end in sight. LOL
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Melia Reply:
February 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Oddly enough, in the 15 minutes of time I managed to acquire today to read the book from hell, it started talking about the Native American culture and their own witch hunts. They think the tribes saw the colonists do it, and it was a good way to snatch power. Go figure. It still doesn’t explain everything and my explanation is pretty simplistic, but I think that was the gist of it. Patriarchy, the virus.
I just finished The Chalice and the Blade by Eisler. Its a great book and gives more of a view on the reality of what probably happened vs. what we’ve been told through the male historian lens.
The dominant theory about the change is that men realized that they are part of the whole procreation equation, so instead of sharing that honor, they chose to dominate. I think its a natural tendency that went completely awry.
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