universalism of a patriarchal understanding of life.
Plato, in The Republic, recorded Socrates as saying, “Do you know anything at all practiced among mankind in which the male sex is not far better than the female?”
Xenophon stated, “The ideal woman should see as little as possible, hear as little as possible and ask as little as possible.”
In the sacred texts of the Hindus, we learn, “It is the highest duty of a woman to immolate herself after her husband’s death.” In another part of the Hindu tradition, we read, “Women are to be debarred from being competent students of the Vedas.” The Hindu laws of Manu state, “In childhood a female is subject to her father. In youth a female is subject to her husband. When her lord is dead, she shall be subject to her sons. A woman must never be independent.”
In Buddhism one is reborn a woman because of one’s bad karma. Buddhist prayers include: “I pray that I may be reborn as a male in a future existence.”
Jewish men are taught, in a book of Jewish prayers, to say, “Blessed be the God who has not created me a heathen, a slave or a woman.” Talmudic writers added: “It would be better to burn the words of Torah than to entrust them to a woman.”
In the Muslim Qur’an (Koran) we learn that the woman is regarded as “half a man” and that “forgetfulness overcomes the woman. They are inherently weaker in rational judgment.” 2
The reasons for this overwhelming negativity toward the woman are varied, but its reality is consistent. One reason, in early human history, was that the woman generally did not grow to be as large as the man and her ability to run and to compete in various tests of strength, upon which the survival of the tribe depended, were obviously limited. She was thus determined to be something of a second-class human being. The vulnerability of the childbirth process and the necessary dependency the woman exhibited in the later stages of pregnancy and while nursing helped cast her in the role of “the weaker sex.”
The mother and the child were seemingly connected to each other in such a way as to put both out of circulation for long periods of time, causing women and children to be thought of as inextricably bound together in weakness. The phrase “women and children first,” associated in our own folklore with the sinking of the great ship Titanic, captured this ancient attitude that defined both females and children as the helpless and dependent ones of society, people quite obviously not to be treated as equals. The children, at least the male children, might grow out of this second-class status, but women, it was thought, could never escape their destiny.
The study of ancient human traditions has uncovered other sources of fear that illumine this inquiry. Anthropologists and mythologists, such as Joseph Campbell, suggest that there was a time in human history when the feminine was the analogy by which God was defined. 3 The fertility cults of prehistory were dedicated to the Earth Mother, who was seen as the source and sustainer of tribal life. In time the male deity who lived beyond the sky and who impregnated the passive Mother Earth with the rains of his divine semen replaced her. This powerful sky deity was modeled after the tribal chief, whose strength led the tribe both in battle and in the hunt.
This shift from the earth goddess to the sky god can also be discovered in the lingering tension that existed in the ancient world between nomadic people and agricultural people. The former were always seeking food and water for their herds, which tended to produce a male deity who governed the wind and the rain. The settled agricultural people were more intent on causing the earth to bring forth a sufficient amount of food to sustain their life, which tended to produce a female deity of fertility.
In the nomadic societies better weapons were developed to fight off predators, both human and animal. It was not enough to
Plato, in The Republic, recorded Socrates as saying, “Do you know anything at all practiced among mankind in which the male sex is not far better than the female?”
Xenophon stated, “The ideal woman should see as little as possible, hear as little as possible and ask as little as possible.”
In the sacred texts of the Hindus, we learn, “It is the highest duty of a woman to immolate herself after her husband’s death.” In another part of the Hindu tradition, we read, “Women are to be debarred from being competent students of the Vedas.” The Hindu laws of Manu state, “In childhood a female is subject to her father. In youth a female is subject to her husband. When her lord is dead, she shall be subject to her sons. A woman must never be independent.”
In Buddhism one is reborn a woman because of one’s bad karma. Buddhist prayers include: “I pray that I may be reborn as a male in a future existence.”
Jewish men are taught, in a book of Jewish prayers, to say, “Blessed be the God who has not created me a heathen, a slave or a woman.” Talmudic writers added: “It would be better to burn the words of Torah than to entrust them to a woman.”
In the Muslim Qur’an (Koran) we learn that the woman is regarded as “half a man” and that “forgetfulness overcomes the woman. They are inherently weaker in rational judgment.” 2
The reasons for this overwhelming negativity toward the woman are varied, but its reality is consistent. One reason, in early human history, was that the woman generally did not grow to be as large as the man and her ability to run and to compete in various tests of strength, upon which the survival of the tribe depended, were obviously limited. She was thus determined to be something of a second-class human being. The vulnerability of the childbirth process and the necessary dependency the woman exhibited in the later stages of pregnancy and while nursing helped cast her in the role of “the weaker sex.”
The mother and the child were seemingly connected to each other in such a way as to put both out of circulation for long periods of time, causing women and children to be thought of as inextricably bound together in weakness. The phrase “women and children first,” associated in our own folklore with the sinking of the great ship Titanic, captured this ancient attitude that defined both females and children as the helpless and dependent ones of society, people quite obviously not to be treated as equals. The children, at least the male children, might grow out of this second-class status, but women, it was thought, could never escape their destiny.
The study of ancient human traditions has uncovered other sources of fear that illumine this inquiry. Anthropologists and mythologists, such as Joseph Campbell, suggest that there was a time in human history when the feminine was the analogy by which God was defined. 3 The fertility cults of prehistory were dedicated to the Earth Mother, who was seen as the source and sustainer of tribal life. In time the male deity who lived beyond the sky and who impregnated the passive Mother Earth with the rains of his divine semen replaced her. This powerful sky deity was modeled after the tribal chief, whose strength led the tribe both in battle and in the hunt.
This shift from the earth goddess to the sky god can also be discovered in the lingering tension that existed in the ancient world between nomadic people and agricultural people. The former were always seeking food and water for their herds, which tended to produce a male deity who governed the wind and the rain. The settled agricultural people were more intent on causing the earth to bring forth a sufficient amount of food to sustain their life, which tended to produce a female deity of fertility.
In the nomadic societies better weapons were developed to fight off predators, both human and animal. It was not enough to
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