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Silver_Wolf
Promoter
Posts: 325
Registered: Apr 2006 |
 Posted March 13th, 2008 11:26 AM IP   
A former professors gave me this book after a discussion we had about one of Simone de Beauvoir's essays (the one a lot of people have to read in college). Anyway, the author, Leonard Shlain, is a neuro-vascular surgeon and he uses this expert experience to construct an intelligent and thought provoking hypothesis investigating the disappearance of matriarchal societies and the subsequent treatment of women as 2nd class citizens.
As Shlain argues, hunter/gatherer and early agricultural societies almost exclusively worshiped female deities--the all encompassing Great Mother. This and the greater respect given to women in pre-literate societies such as Minoan Crete, where property passed from mother to daughter, were in large part due to an emphasis on right-brain thinking--which is more pronounced in women than it is in men. For millennia this situation sufficed, but then someone invented writing and, later on, the alphabet.
Suddenly everything began to change, claims Shlain. Writing and more specifically the alphabet is a predominately left-brain and abstract mode of communication (non verbal communication being the right brain's domain). Because for many millions of years our male ancestors had to hunt to survive, evolution encouraged the dominance of the left brain in Man- not Woman. Hunting takes strategy, a very abstract and left brain principle. As Slain argues, this ability to formalize tactics for future hunts allowed men just enough left-brain-edge to master the alphabet and literacy before women did.
As writing caught on, it increasingly became a study only offered to men. This allowed them to dominate society at the expense of women and without their organized resistance. Shlain goes on to correlate a surge in literacy (such as during the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and 20th century Germany) and an increase in Western civilization's brutality.
The book isn't as complicated as it may sound, and Shlain does a very good job of avoiding jargon. The chapters at time seem disjointed, and they tend to cover a great amount of seemingly irrelevant material, but it is really all within the framework of a very broad thesis. To think literacy caused so much catastrophe is something I never thought too deeply about. Reading is a sacred cow in our society.
So, check out the book if it sounds interesting. It is. It isn't as feminist as it may sound too, as it is a great look into human culture as well.
He's just being nice so my real dad doesn't freeze him in carbonite and trade him for spice.
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KentuckySoundArsenal
Moderator
Posts: 1919
Registered: Apr 2006 |
Posted March 13th, 2008 11:47 AM IP
An interesting way to say how women are inferior 
I have the tendency to believe without evidence that writing wouldn't be the only cause of male dominance and heiarchy in the family system or culture. Males have for the most part been dominant. There are but a few cultures left in the world that women have the authority over men (as in head of household). But I suppose that it would play a role.
However, in the Upper Paleolithic Era, there were the carvings of " Venus Goddess' ". Basically they were fat ass women torsos carved out of various stones. But simple art doesn't mean that women were the bosses.
Which millenia did this suffice in?
---James
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Silver_Wolf
Promoter
Posts: 325
Registered: Apr 2006 |
Posted March 13th, 2008 12:53 PM IP
I agree that literacy wasn't the only engine of patriarchy, but I believe society was much more equal between sexes before writing and other advances (such as despotism, established religions, and commercialism) that occurred around the same time. Women may not have run everything, but for the great majority of human history (100,000+BC to 1500BC) they occupied a role (mother, nurturer, gatherer, farmer, etc) as least as equal as man's two roles of meat provider.
I know very little about art and such, but some of these Mother Goddess statues look rather intricate:
This one, Wikipedia claims, is about 27,000 years old
I've seen others with a lot of detail, and these from ancient societies we tend to think of as uncultured. In fact, since then we've regressed as far as Western religious imagery goes. The God of Abraham has very few icons and images today (forgetting Orthodox Christianity, some Jewish sects, and Sufi and Shia Islam of course). The Son of God is portrayed by nothing more than a bare cross. Is this not simple too?
He's just being nice so my real dad doesn't freeze him in carbonite and trade him for spice.
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KentuckySoundArsenal
Moderator
Posts: 1919
Registered: Apr 2006 |
Posted March 13th, 2008 01:53 PM IP
Quote:
Silver_Wolf wrote:
I agree that literacy wasn't the only engine of patriarchy, but I believe society was much more equal between sexes before writing and other advances (such as despotism, established religions, and commercialism) that occurred around the same time. Women may not have run everything, but for the great majority of human history (100,000+BC to 1500BC) they occupied a role (mother, nurturer, gatherer, farmer, etc) as least as equal as man's two roles of meat provider.
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I understand your point a little better now. I wasn't really demeaning the Venus figures intricacies, the ones I have seen were fairly crude, but I suppose that wouldn't make too much of a difference.
---James
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NDINDIEROCK.COM! :: Currently I'm..... :: Reading :: The Alphabet vs. the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image |
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