Reflections Of A Good Nazi

[poliphilo]

It's only a hundred years or so since men in the West stopped regarding women as property.

Of course I'm talking Law here. In private lots of men still do regard women as property. We've learned to be shocked by slavery, by genocide, but the overwhelming horror of a set-up where one sex dominates and abuses the other hasn't quite hit us yet. We're recovering, we're in denial. The thing is too huge and we're all pretty much incriminated.

So when we sail into third world countries and beat them up for not being like us, we tend not to put women's rights very high on our agenda. Damn it all, you will have a democracy! But the burkha, female circumcision, forced marriage, the denial of education to women- these are all cultural phenomena and maybe it would be a little racist and imperialistic to criticise.

Where women are concerned all men are nazis. Some of us, perhaps, are good nazis.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh Him- yes, the Ultimate Underachiever!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

A fascinating thread. Thanks.

I wonder what makes a matriarchal society?

I keep thinking: mothers have all the power at first, when they rear their baby sons. When do they hand over that power? Or when is it taken away?

I don't know the answer, but I'm curious.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

During my Pagan hey-day I was very taken with a book called the Chalice and The Blade, which argued that back in the dim distant past Europe had been wholly matriarchal- and then the nasty horsemen rode in from the Steppes.

Apparently the archaeology backed this up. But I looked at the archaeology and it didn't and I was forced to conclude that the men had always been in charge.

When does the mother lose control of her child? How about it's first day at school?

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

It does match and it doesn't. It is not conclusive. We make a lot of assumptions based on our own bias. But what seems to point to at least pockets of matriFOCAL and matriLINEAR (different than matriarchal) culture is the mythological record. There is a point in all western myth where a great male hero wrests power from either a goddess, a group of powerful women, or a goddess' representative. The doric invasion coincides with the rape of Delphi by Apollo and the defeat of the Amazon by Hercules, for example.

It's hardly as solid as some pagans and feminists want it to be. But it's not as idiotic as Christians and men want it to be either. It's not knowable, but there is some evidence--as much as we can ever know about pre-classical cultures.

Have you ever read the Moynahan Report? A stunning performance of racism and sexism in one: a US senator claiming all black culture is decadent and evil because the slave cultures were matrifocal.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You are right. I've swung too far the other way (a counsel of despair.) The archaeological record gives us no certainties. We interpret according to our prejudice.

I guess a little bitterness has crept in. I was sold on the work of people like Gimbutas and then I looked and saw how she had imposed her own theories and desires on the evidence.

But, yes; Myth bears witness to the one time power of the Goddess.

I hadn't even heard of the Moynahan Report. Oh wow!

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's a classic. Black folk are irredeemable because their roots are tainted by matriarchy. And he's still in the senate.

I'm still pagan, and I'm a feminist. I once bought into all the same books--I smiled ruefully when I saw you talk about The Sword and the Chalice. It's disillusioning to see the bias at work. But just because wild speculations were treated as fact doesn't mean they don't come from somewhere, and there have been matrifocal societies all throughout history. Some, like Jewish culture, are still matrilinear.

As with everything, the truth is somewhere between "women are evil and have never been anything but" and "women are the true rulers and men stole everything from them."

It's strange, though, that we seem to feel we need a pre-historical precedent in order to be powerful now. As if, if it never happened before, it can never happen...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm a feminist and if you twisted my arm up my back I'd probably admit to being a pagan still. After all one of the beauties of Paganism is that you're not committed to any set of doctrinal beliefs.

Your final point is bang on target. Why are we so mistrustful of the New that we have to insist on it being of immeasurable antiquity?

If it's right it's right- and why should it matter what great-great-great-great-grandmother did?

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Of course, I can answer my own question.

Men's argument for the oppression of women has always been that we are "naturally" inferior and servile. To disprove this, we look for foremothers to destroy that arrogant presumption by those who do not even share our nature.

In fact, if pressed, I think most men would still say women are naturally fitted to be mothers and caretakers and helpmeets, and not even see how little that differs from Aristotle's conviction that we exist to serve.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see that.

And I suppose that's why I felt so badly let down when it was pointed out to me that the Chalice and the Blade was fantasy. I had built a belief system on these foundations and they had been shown to be incapable of bearing the load.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Keep an eye on the author names--anything markedly new age pseudonymish is usually crap.

But you and I did the dippy pagans one better--in our disappointment we went out and got real knowledge. It's up to us to interpret that knowledge as a good, and not a consolation prize.