I signed up for Women’s Studies; After all, I thought, I am a woman…
In the first few minutes of class I was presented with the idea that in the greater culture, ‘Man’ is seen as the Primary, basic human gender, while ‘Woman’ is seen as a secondary sex; some kind of off-shoot or side kick. Well, I thought,
isn’t that how it is? But the facts are the other way around. People, like all mammals, begin life as female. If the child
is to be a boy, the female fetus begins to change into a male. If the hormones that cause these changes are interrupted, the fetus will revert back to female. Boys are modified girls….that’s why men have nipples.
All people begin life as girls, then some change into boys. This in itself is not important. The shock lies in understanding the magnitude of institutionalized brainwashing that has lead us to see ‘Man’ as the primary gender; He is the King, the tax collector, The Grim Reaper, the imagined voice of the dictionary, all the way up to God, who created ‘Mankind’ in his image.
I had seen documentaries that claimed that at conception a human fetus has no gender, then becomes male or female at 7 weeks. They were lying. It was discovered early in the 20th century that we all start out as girls, but the information was ignored by men out of embarrassment, and denial. Decades later I saw a modern documentary that was still lying about it. Woman is the basic model of ‘Man’ kind.
The information exploded like fireworks; Of course females had been important agents of human development from the day that Eve or Lucy decided to wrap her baby in animal skin, and stand up. And who would be motivated to build shelter or discover medicine, more than a mother caring for her young? Who would have started the first little gardens, and kept the first little animals? Who would have made the first little scratches on a stick to count these first possessions, or the days in a pregnancy or menstrual cycle?
I read that at the dawn of civilization, there were peaceful settlements, and apparently woman centered religions. There is evidence that numbers, letters and early calendars were the work of women. Yet, until very recently, Women had been almost written out of the story, and the story we were given was a fantasy which is actually called ‘His story’; the name says it all.
The level of sexism in the dominant world cultures, is nothing less than a full scale institutionalized brainwashing of staggering proportions. And that lost era, where time is counted backwards, known as B.C. really means something else. Much of the world’s culture was not centered around alpha men back then, and so the era was obscured. If A.D. is History then B.C. is Her’s. The ancient world holds many secrets and that is why we have been intentionally severed from it; Libraries were burned, and temples were smashed, not out of blind vandalism, but with the intention to blind us. Warrior cults had taken over the world, plunging humanity into a dark ages.
What else did I learn? It seems that oppression of women and social injustice go hand in hand. Where you find excessive exploitation, intolerance, and violence, you will find disempowered women. I also learned that across the globe, from small tribes to big cities, most women do more hours of work than men, and have done so for as far back as we can see. Between paid work, and the unpaid work of caring for home and children, it is women who do the most human labor. Then isn’t it a shame that across that same globe, women are paid far less than men for doing the same exact job, and are the poverty class of the world? In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that in many cultures women are actually enslaved by men.
How did this state of affairs come about? How did women fall from being doctors, land owners, and high priestesses, to being slaves and maids?
I kept reading; The oldest religion may have been monotheistic; the worship of the one great mother. Seems like women’s early contributions to civilization where fresh in everyone’s mind back then, and creating new people was the ultimate emulation of the devine. People commonly traced their lineage through their mother, and land was passed from mother to daughter. Simply put, women had a lot of power, and a strong culture.
The Goddess had a baby boy, who was also her brother, and her lover.
With time the divine family grew, as people became polytheistic. Eventually, that cute little baby boy, became the leader of the pantheon, and women’s status dropped. Or you could say; Eventually, women’s status dropped and that cute little baby boy became the leader of the pantheon.
It may be that prior to the domestication of animals, the father-child relationship was less a part of daily life. But when people began to control animals, it was made clear to everyone, that males were the necessary ingredient in the miracle of creation. Now men’s divine seed would enter the spotlight, and grow in importance. For that, and other reasons, the balance of power between the sexes shifted.
New cultures emerged in which families now traced their lineage through men. This created a new set of problems for women who were now seen as devices to produce male heirs. Since men didn’t like the idea of someone elses son inheriting their estate, they now had a reason to try to control womens bodies, because that is the only way for them to control their own reproduction. From man’s desire to guard his lineage, evolved an entire world of societies that have been taught to fear female sexuality and reproductive freedom. What a drag.
The Goddess’s little boy grew up to be the Warrior God, and the world was becoming warlike. His armies were overtaking their peaceful neighbors. Thus the Cult of the Warrior kept growing, swallowing whole civilizations in a single conquest.
Eventually, in the Middle East, a lone male God emerged, who forbade his followers to worship the Goddess and other Gods. He declared war on the rest of the devine family, instructing his followers to destroy their temples, and kill their followers. His priests were men. In his new world order, women were not full citizens, but essentially slaves to men, with limited rights and liberties, and no sexual freedom. This religion, of course, was early Judaism, and I was getting pretty angry. No wonder I never liked God, or Hebrew school! I had been lied to, when as a child I was told that Jewish law respected women. Compared to what?! Certainly, a lone male god with an all male preisthood was a step down for the women of the ancient world.
The more I learned, the more I saw that the bible based religions are really mind control cults which enslave the masses, and place women under the control of men.
So what’s a girl to do but fight back… by Tattling on Patriarchy!
Thank you for visiting the Magdalene Foundation, Tattling on Patriarchy since 1992