h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree about the hijab, Ed.

Just to continue with my annoying policy of promoting my home, look what our local IKEA store did a while ago:

'IKEA's new Edmonton branch contacted TheHijabShop.com to design and produce a 'hijab' – a Muslim headscarf - that would fit in with their current uniform.'

http://thehijabshop.com/press/index.php

>>
Enough with this worshipping the goddess bullshit, already. *We simply do not know* who our pre-literate ancestors worshipped, if anyone. Gods, godesses, trees, the sun...whatever. On contemporary anthropological evidence of technologically undeveloped cultures, our best guess is that some (but not all) of them probably worshipped - or, at least, gave attention to - their ancestors. But this notion that ancient societies were matriarchal, nature-worshipping hippies is modern wishful thinking.
<<

Ed, the problem is that if you look at the mainstream academic work on pre-literate cultures, it is overwhelmingly full of patriarchal bullshit and bias. You're right that we don't know, but how interesting that we've accepted a Western male version (eg the Venus figurines are about pornography ) but we recoil from feminist re-interpretations. Personally I'd take the latter version (for many reasons)

I'm not sure that Marija Gimbutas' work could be characterised as "matriarchal, nature-worshipping hippies ... modern wishful thinking"

The matriachal bit I've already addressed. But we don't have to go back 10,000 years to see systems where women have egalitarian roles. We just have to look at those native peoples who have different gender relations than we do.

>>Ah. That's OK then. Belief's are exempt from the critical scrutiny that's applied to mere thoughts. <<

I was thinking you should be talking about native British gender relations, I was merely speculating

The island of Lesbos was the last outpost of the antediluvian matriarchies. Other evidence recently discovered throughout the ancient world is still being suppressed by those who consider the theory 'wishful thinking'. They will tell you the oracle at Delphi was just some misguided bimbo and not the descendant of a lost golden age of goddess culture. They'll say Athena and Diana and all the rest were just pin-up girls for the warrior classes.

~jwf~

kea contd.

>>We know that there have been many cultures, even in recent times, where women have a degree of autonony that is almost unrecognisable to Westerners. eg native women in many places had access to abortion and other forms of birth control when Western women didn't. I can't see any reason why the UK native women would have been any different.

Indeed. We know also that women in the UK, and elsewhere, have always had access to abortion, albeit unsanctioned by the men in power. (although, in early 20thC UK, carried out by men as often as by women). Now. Do we know what native-to-other-places men thought of abortion? As you say...what's the difference? I feel you're making my point, not yours.

>>I'd have to disagree of course smiley Where the wider society is involved eg late term abortions that require another highly skilled person to kill a baby, it seems more reasonable that the wider society should have a say. But for early pregnancies where women could probably terminate pregnancies in a straightforward way I can't see any reason why men should have a say in that.

Yes. I have to endorse that. I'm not Pro-Abortion, per se. In the case of my wife's pregnancies, I can't imagine having wished for a termination...and neither can she. (eg. she didn't go for amnio.). But I'm Pro-*Choice*. I'm neither qualified nor entitled to judge on individual cases. Ultimately, only the individual (specifically) woman can do that. And I promise you I'll support any woman, whatever her choice.

>>For the people that find the concept of the patriarchy triggering, try thinking it in terms of being a domination system.

Actually...I might wish to backpedal slightly. In the primitive condition, male dominance is surely a matter of brute force. It's probably significant that we don't find any matriarchal societies with severe power imbalances.

>>I just wish more men would realise that

Don't be fooled! I only profess Feminist views because the chicks seem to dig it.

thanks for bringing up Gimbutas, kea.


I've always had a soft spot for her.

From Wiki:

"Gimbutas' books and papers are housed, along with those of her colleague, mythologist Joseph Campbell, at the Joseph Campbell and Marija Gimbutas Library on the campus of the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara, California."

Where, once again, the Truth is vulnerable to Flood and Quakes.


~jwf~

kea:

>>You're right that we don't know, but how interesting that we've accepted a Western male version (eg the Venus figurines are about pornography

Dunno. I don't know why we imagine that ancient (or contemporary non-Western) men are any less ed up than the likes of...well, me. We're precisely the same kind of mammal, after all. Of course - it's possible that the neolithic Venus figurines were carved by women. But...cmoooooon!...would *you* have carved their tits and asses like that?

Another prophesy comes true!

I said: "They'll say Athena and Diana and all the rest were just pin-up girls for the warrior classes."

And sure nuff Edwardo says:
".... cmoooooon!...would *you* have carved their tits and asses like that?"


~jwf~

again I refer us all to Guthrie's 'The Nature of Paleolithic Art' http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/The-Nature-Of-Paleolithic-Art-R-Dale-Guthrie/9780226311265-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%2527nature+of+paleolithic+art%2527 (you can read my review at the link.)

~jwf~, what makes you think Lesbos was a matriarchy (in the sense of women dominating)?

>>Guthrie brings to the study of the art his training as a zoologist, his experience as a routine big game hunter around his home in Alaska, and his remembrance of once being an adolescent male flush with hormones<<

And his knowledge of shamanism was what? I think ~jwfs~ (and my) point still stands


>>Far from being the product of shamanistic magic, most of the cave art seems to be the product of raging male adolescence.<<

And yet extant stone-age cultures would disagree with that.

well, you have to actually look at the book, Kea. Guthrie uses measurements of paleolithic handprints intentionally left by the artists as well as paleolithic footprints preserved in the floors of the caves to demonstrate that, in fact, the vast majority of the paleolithic visitors to the caves were adolescent males.

Don't get me wrong, my secret fantasy (oops! the secret is out) is that the cave art was *all* executed by paleolithic women. Unfortunately for my fantasy, the evidence, such as it is, points elsewhere.

U think it's graffiti?

My abject apologies for using U instead of You in that sentence

anhaga's secret fantasy:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000VH8M2.01-A2X3FMBNSRPS6U.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Thinking about the 'Is it porn' vs 'Is it a celebration of the goddess-like power of women' aspects. (And whether the two are mutually exclusive might be another interesting )...

Going back through history we observe, do we not, a prevalent traditions of pornographic art - in urban cultures at least. Whether it's Japanese Pillow Books, Mughal illustrated Karma Sutras, Karnatka temple carvings, Pompeiian frescoes...wherever...just as today, porn is all around us.

(Incidentally...I'm chosing not to distinguish between 'erotica' and 'porn'...or even 'celebrations of the nude body'. The literal meaning of pornography is 'whore art'. If we take something like Classical Hellenic statuary - well my understanding is that Greek women did not normally parade around in the nip. Men, yes, sometimes. But a woman modelling for a statue was probably being paid to get her kit off.)

So if my assumptions are correct and porn goes back at least 2,500 years...at what point before that should we assume that any nude figurine was not erotic in intent?

>> ...the sense of women dominating)? <<

I regret using the word 'dominant'. It is obviously laden
with values I did not mean to imply. I only meant to point
out that invention, innovation and social organisation which
gave early societies learning, justice, nurturing, etc., were
probably the product of female guidance and 'leadership'.

But I said 'Dominance', which is true in its essential sense,
and I now realise the word is just too kinky and negatively
charged to convey my intended meaning.

peace
~jwf~

See...I really don't get this ancient/modern matriarchal/patriarchal dichotomy. If ancient people were such fluffy hippies...when did they change? And why?

'U think it's graffiti?'

No. What I said is that Guthrie argues convincingly that *most* of it is graffiti.