Nostalgic Pushhead

I'm talking the historical past, not modern day life. Men are built physically stronger than women. They could, in the past, when we weren't civilized, smack them around to get what they want. The sad truth.

I completely agree that, in today's society, women are on par with men, if not ahead in many ways. That's how it should be. But it *wasn't* that way in the past.

This is what I hate, randomly labeling stuff "patriarchal", etc. I'm sure men think about things other than oppressing women.

lulay

yeah, hehe...YOU hate 'patriarchal', think about the women whove been under its yoke for many many centuries. what 'patriarchy' mean sis 'rule of the fathers'...where property become 'his' through his line of sons, and his wife also becomes his property too. cause as you say if not he'll 'slap her around'...piscez. if i like you imagined that THAT vileness is the way 'its always been' i'd go an hang meself now

you sound VERY sure about this cause you've read your choice of archeologists. but i ask you to look broader. you use your intuition about this. which means to get poetic....'feminine'

understand that womens bodies have always been known to be more EARTHEd than males mainly cause of there menstruation. in myth it is this which GROUNDs the woman. it has been called the 'Wise Wound". it has been held in so much awae by men, that some have appropriated it. an example, Australian Aboriginees ritual for young men had them hold them down and slit the dick from stem to stern. this was the emulation of the woman's 'mana' for bleeding

also how menstruation seems to synchronize with the phases of the moon, hence the link between women's mysteries and the Moon

When women were DEEPLY respected therer would have been no, or at least very little, 'slapping about'. you only do that when you lose your own SELF-respect. which has happened with the patriarchy. they cling to their association of the Feminine with Nature, and slap BOTh about.

Nice Squirrel

It appears we have a fundie of a different color upon us.

Lulay,
I will not have time today to study and (most likely) refute the archaelogical interpretations of Çatalhöyük today. I am very skeptical of the claims made about the cultural beliefs that is not based on contemporary written accounts.

Here is a link to some papers:
http://catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/catal_bib.html

I see one that addresses the goddess:
Barstow, A. (1978) "The Uses of Archaeology for Women's History: James Mellaart's Work on the Neolithic Goddess at Çatal Hüyük". Feminist Studies 4(3), pp. 7-17.

Being from Feminist Studies I question it's slant.

Hopefully, if time keeps this thread open, I will find time. Until then, I should remain skeptical and so should you. Have fun.

lulay

"being from feminist studies i question its slant"....hey nice squirrel, donna get mad. i am lughing not in disrespect, but just that that perspective is classical patriarchal attitude

that because women (which is being interpreted by the male-dominated classes as being 'femin (e)ist') have looked into things that that means it simply MUSt be slanted or bias. the nerve.
why not say same for the dudes doing the research?? you know the whole invested-interest 'boys club. do they NOT have 'slant'? what do you say

also, what about their rewriting of African history etc (no need to go into this and make things too complex here. but it's true nevertheless)

i am sure nice squirrel you have a whole library of dudes, with mayb one or two women who strongly question the whole idea of Goddess
earth religion. but at the end of the day, how could you KNOW? really know? i ask this very seriously?
alright you could shoot that at me. how can i know the contradiction of that--My position

so. what i do is a view this in a relational way. meaning that i look afar from specialized fields such as archaeology. mythology for example. it is VERy clear the misogyny that is in patriarchal dogma.
are you seriously telling me that ie., the Hebrew creation myth isn't putting down woman/Goddess.
making sure she is 'BIRTHED' by the male? don't you think that is un-natural? a simple question don't you think. i am asking you: do you think that myth of man giving birth to a female seems incongrous?

(btw.....i llok foreward to your imput, but if along the way i cease to join in, it's not lack of spirit. it's my blessed system which has seriously imited memory. when threads get too long i cant access them)

Nice Squirrel

First off I realized that the burden of proof is on you to prove to me that Çatalhöyük's society is based upon peaceful egalitarianism. I have found no sources that claim this. Please provide.

Well, if you study Nazi scientific literature, you will find all sorts of assumptions about Jews based on selective evidence. (I don't compare Femminism with Nazism, but wanted a clear example of how (social) scientific claims can used to support a philosophy.) I would be much more impressed if a reputable Archealogical Journal supports this vision of an egalitarian utopia of which you spoke.

No, Feminist journals in the 1970's did have a philosophy to push. That philosophy was to break down gender barriers. They suceeded in many ways.

I'm not saying the men doing research don't have a slant. Heinrich Schliemann apparently has a self-aggrandising slant. http://www.archaeology.org/9907/etc/mask.html

But don't we want to look objectively at the site to find if it is egalitarian. The evidence does not support this.

You are correct, histories are biased. That's why we need to look at the evidence.

I know women who question it to. I question things. I'll answer seriously: Show me evidence supporting the Goddess theory and if it is sufficient and there is not other theory that better explains the archeological evidence, then I will accept it.

I'm not saying that your theory is wrong, only that the evidence does not support it.

No there is no woman hate. We are trying to uncover the truth. This takes evidence. I'm not saying that Çatalhöyük and cities like these did not have a matriarchical or partiarchical society. I'm just saying the evidence supporting such a claim is shaky at best.

I make no claim for the Hebrew creation myth. That is not what is being discussed.

This has nothing to do with what I have said. I have no arguement with the the myth, only with the facts that are used to support the myth that there was a time when a large chunk of European/Middleastern was living in a peaceful egalitarian matriarchical society that was invaded by a partiarchical warrior culture from somewhere in Asia.

That's too bad because I would like your input.

Chris Weimer

Whoa wait a minute. I never said anything about utopia. I think I must start being more specific about what I'm defending here. The truth is that most agrarian/agricultural societies started with a "Mother Earth" goddess that provides the wheat etc... This was also coupled with the Sun God, and the two provided everything the farmer needed. War gods, we think, were the invention of warrior tribes, most notably the Assyrians and the Indo-Europeans. (cf. Day-Father). It wasn't a utopian society, and there wasn't widespread peace, just no major wars. Wars can't happen with only one family. But, it wasn't utopian by any means. Plagues, drought, invaders, and even population was subjected to the agricolae. They were farmers, nothing less.

Chris Weimer

This, too, I agree with you. Also, it doesn't necessarily happen from invasions, but population, and it was far from egalitarian.

Shven

Evidence?

For what its worth there is absolutely no definitive gender of the sun in all myths. It is male in some and female in some. I would imagine the same applies to the Earth.

Nostalgic Pushhead

Sorry, the "utopia" thing was more about the absurd claims in the website... In any event, I still don't buy it. I have no clue what the earliest cultures with decipherable writing were; we need to look to them to find out if goddess worship was widespread, and that it was tainted by an inferior, less Womyn-affirmative culture.

The thing is, the REAL earliest agrarian cultures didn't have writing, or its lost, or we can't translate it. How do we know they worshipped Mother Earth and the Sun? I'm sure many worshipped them, others worshipped the moon, other worshipped the stars, the whale, the lion, the jaguar, etc, etc. But I'd like some sort of proof that they all (and where are we talking about, anyway?) worshipped a feminine "Goddess" and that that was superior to the "warrior tribes" that invaded them.

Kalkin

lulay, though I'm sympathetic to a great number of ecofeminist ideas (and it sounds like that's where you're coming from), I'm going to have to side with Piscez and company on this one.

Oh, the Hebrew creation myth is quite bizarre and highly misogynist. That provides zero evidence that earlier cultures were goddess-worshipers, however - if it were relevant at all, it'd be evidence the other way.

Archaelogists have discovered some number of matriarchal societies in Eurasia, I believe (I know only specifically about a few more recent Native American ones) but there's no evidence for a peaceful era.

In fact, the need for there to be a great overarching story to history, of which your demi-utopian Goddess-worshipping matriarchal society, corrupted by patriarchy is an example, is a product of an excessive rational-observer syndrome in our culture, which many feminists (not me) say is itself a product of patriarchy.

Give up the grand unifying path of events.

Being feminine shouldn't mean ignoring evidence. That's not exactly a liberatory idea for women. It especially shouldn't mean relying excessively on the intuition, given that under a theory in which our society is dominated by patriarchy, what seems intuitive to us would be cultural products not to be trusted.