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The Chalice and the
Blade =
This book opens a door.
Rianne Eisler..
EVIDENCE – 19th
c
first saw those female
figures & male anthro decided:
Matriarchy. Then looked for evidence of
matriarchy & couldn’t find, so concluded
that these statues were nothing but
naughty.
Some terminology
CONCEPT: Gynocentric –
creative power of nature not the power
to destroy.
The
original direction in our evolution was
Cataclysmic:
literally turned around:
Turned away from the nurturing powers
of the universe.
Invaders
The Blade. For
millennia, men in war = Blade
. . . BUT that doesn’t mean men
are inevitably violent & warlike.
A social syst in wh/ the
Blade is idealized: violence and
domination. Those who do not conform to
this ideal are “too soft” or
“effeminate.”
The Blade is how
we structure the most fundamental of all
human relations (w/o which our
species wouldn’t have gone on) –
this has a profound effect on every one
of our institutions, values, & evo.
Many many … Hitler’s Germany ...
Khomeini’s Iran . . . Japan
Samurai . . . Meso Amer’s
Aztecs – all rigidly
male
hierarchic
violence
warfare
Blade: designed to
destroy and dominate
Technology
– is ok itself. It is the
technological emphasis, not tech
itself, that is threatening.
In fact,
given our
present high level of tech development,
the dominator model of soc organization
is maladaptive . . . .
WHERE DO WE Go next
to Chaos … or transformation?
Present system if
breaking down – we want
breakthrough, not breakdown – new
era of partnership.
Ancient sculptures
– what signif?
Red
– woman was giver and sustainer
of life Psychic record - Mystery of
life and death
______________________________________________________________
Paleolithic period: female figs were in
central chamber; male symbols on
periphery.
Our ancestors saw
life-giving and life-sustaining as
female . . .
Red
drained out to
pink
EVIDENCE
Catal Huyuk
and Hacilar in Anatolia
(modern Turkey. “The cradle of civ.”
Agriculture:
10,000 years ago. Agri freed human
energy and imagination. Pottery and
basket making, textile weaving and
leather crafting, jewelry and wood
crafting, painting clay modeling and
stone carving flourished.
Neolithic: equality
between the sexes and all people.
Our “image” – Old
Europeans as frightfully barbaric
tribesmen. But really locations were
chosen for beauty, water, soil,
pastures. Excellent views ..
peaceful character … not fortresses.
Exquisite vases,
sculptures, etc. in Old Europe, were
women’s work. Citation: Gimbutas
Early
Civilization of Europe
ABSENCE
of elab. “chieftan”
burials
Devoid of ruler-ruler,
master-subject imagery
Sense of fantasy
and dream about the images (not
worldly)\
Shrines
– everywhere. Prob in every house.
Everywhere – a reminder of the Great
Goddess.
Communal
basis of living rather than centralized
and hierarchic
Catal Huyuk – women’s
sleeping position was always East,
and man’s was various and is
smaller
Seems to have been a
power that was more equated with
responsibility and love than with
oppression, privilege, and fear.
CONCEPTS
Happy, carefree
“The whole of
life was pervaded by an
ardent faith in the goddess
Nature, the source of all
creation and harmony. This
led to a love of peace, a horror
of tyranny, and a respect for
the law. Even among the ruling
classes personal ambition seems
to have been unknown; nowhere do
we find the name of an author
attached to a work of art nor a
record of the deeds of a rulers.”
Bare breasted
style of dress for women and the
skimpy clothes emphasizing the
genitals for men demonstrate a
frank appreciation of sexual
difference and the pleasure made
possible by these difference.
From what we now know through
modern humanistic psychology,
this “pleasure bond”
would have strengthened a sense
of mutuality between
women and men as individuals.
(see Masters and Johnson)
So how did we go through
this cataclysmic change???
Going all the way back to
the time out ancestral primates first
began to change into humans, scholars
are beginning to reconstruct a more
balanced view of our evolution—on in
which women, not just men play central
roles…
Invaders – all had
dominator style organization.
p67--how did we get that way?
-
Back to time our
ancestors began to change into
humans … man the hunter .. male
bonding required to hunt: kill the
prey.
-
Alternative view is
that the erect posture
required for freeing the hands was
NOT linked to hunting, but rather to
the shift from foraging (eat-on-run)
to gathering and carrying so food
can be shared and stored.
Acc to this theory, 1st
tool was not a weapon; rather,
carriers.
Images of primates,
chimpanzees, females more
often use these tools
Woman the gatherer -
Man the hunter
1st indie use
of hands and feet:
women in charge of
processing food
Primarily horticultural
economies – cultivation of
soil is to this day primarily in hands
of women in “developing” societies.
-
Pottery
-
Cloth
-
Justice: Demeter
-
Intelligence: cobra,
eye, Goddess, shrine at Delphi
-
Writing
-
Artistic
-
Remarkably peaceful
time
-
Pen and sword
-
Then … 2500 yrs where
power was systematically transferred
fr women to men
Change-- > shedding of
blood
-
Beating of women and
children
-
Killing of women and
children
-
Even an exaltation –
Jesus on cross is exhalation of
pain, suffering
-
Pythagoras was a
feminist. Socrates and Plato had
women students. Jesus had Mary M.
_______________________________________________
Persecution of women in
our history (and still)
Industrialization &
Public schooling: removed home power of
women
RECENT HISTORY:
Vote – then depression
and war (time out) then Women’s movement
-
First, the
pill: 60s – a couple of years of
“The Garden”
-
Next, the
shoulderpads: women tried to be
like men
-
Now, the “sexy”
exposed time: women showing
womanhood but not necessarily
sharing it – it’s “dominance”
based: I’m more sexy than you are
Next: seeing
the love and beauty of the [non sexual]
feminine |
