In the modern world men continue to dominate in all spheres of influence. This is despite the acceptance by many nations of basic human rights as outlined in the International Convention on Human Rights following World War 11; the advances in the education of women and girls; the gradual collapse of some of the traditional ideas about women’s innate inferiority in some parts of the world. Yet, old ideas about women’s characteristics and roles continue. Male dominated societies and organisations tend to refer to 'tradition' and/or culture when defending the male 'right' to control, discipline and assign roles to women. But, where did these traditions come from. Whose ideas were they? When did they begin? Why do they continue to persist? Do they stand up under scrutiny?
Standard ‘truths’ for male superiority do not stand up to scrutiny. For example, the claim that men are physically stronger than women – yes, men can have up to ten percent more muscle strength than women; yet the majority of hard labour in the world is done by women. Surely some of those women have more muscle strength than some men. More male than female babies tend to have congenital defects at birth; boys tend to have more childhood illnesses than girls; women live longer than men. So, how can all men be ‘stronger’ than all women in every respect? Some men and some women have similar physical strength; and some do not succumb to childhood illness regardless of their sex; and some men live longer than women. The statement – men are stronger than women- cannot be applied to all men and all women. Therefore it is not a ‘truth’.
Neither is the presumption that men are more intelligent than women. Not true, some men are more intelligent than some women, but some women are more intelligent than some men. The truth is that some people are more intelligent than other people. A man’s presumed greater intelligence is not a ‘truth’. Men are presumed to be the ‘warriors’; they protect women and children. Not true, some men are warriors, but some women have also been warriors and continue to be so. Some children are also forced or encouraged to be warriors. Men are not the only warriors; and not all women need protecting. None of the ‘truths’ associated with male superiority explain why men believed, and continue to believe, themselves to be superior, because they can so easily be disproved. They certainly did not explain the presumption that all men were superior to all women. So, where did these notions come from? Who said what and why?
We could begin our search for origins with the age of the Great Mother, from as late as 7000 BC, which proceeded the age of the male God. The evidence for the reverence, respect, and fear, in which women were held in many societies, has been comprehensively outlined by women historians. This Mother God was gradually supplanted by a Father God in the greatest power-grab in history. A good place to begin our search for the origins of traditions, which have subordinated women, is the Mediterranean Basin around two thousand years ago; because the ideas and beliefs of Ancient Greece, Judaism, Christianity and Imperial Rome formed the basis of later European thought. So, what were the beliefs, attitudes and practices accepted as 'natural' and God- given in the Ancient World? The ideas of the Greek philosophers and physicians and the Hebrew creation story reflect the ‘common sense’ notions of the age. These provide a lens on ideas in the Ancient World and religious thought that have provided legitimisation for the primary ‘truth’ for man’s presumed superiority.
Understanding where these notions of male superiority originated is important as we see traces of these ideas in contemporary society. Traditional ideas about women and about men continue to exist. Unless and until these original ideas are exposed and examined the presumption of male superiority will continue to exist and have meaning.
AbstractThis period, c.25000 BCE - 5000 BCE, has been described as the Age of the Goddess. The decline of the Mother God and the rise of the Father God was the greatest power-grab in history. God was re-sexed as a man. Men gradually appropriated every area of women’s perceived power: male gods replaced female gods; queens became the exception rather than the rule; religious meaning became the sole prerogative of men. Man appropriated the primary role in reproduction. It was man not woman who held the secret of new life. This takeover of conception was the first step in the ultimate total domination of women. Man now considered himself to the initiator of new life, a co-creator with God; ruler of the universe. The male organ, the phallus, became the symbol and source of male power.
Women have been the greatest race of underdogs the world has ever known. Recorded history is the history of only one half of the human race – men. One of the best kept secrets in history is of the period when women assumed a special status due to the ability to produce new life; and the mystery of non-fatal yet incurable emissions of blood. This period, c.25000 BCE -5000-BC, has been described by some commentators, as the Age of the Goddess.1 This is not to say that there was a ‘Golden Age’ when women were not subordinated by men, but archaeological evidence reveals a substantial period in pre- and early- history when female gods were worshiped and revered. At the beginning of the 20th century modern scholarship accepted that ‘the Great Goddess’, the original ‘Mother without a Spouse’ was in full control of all the mythologies as a ‘worldwide fact’ prior to the emergence of Father God religions. Scores of figurines of women have been found from Siberia to the Mediterranean. 2 Later, Father God religions, dismissed accounts of the Age of the Goddess, or the Great Mother, as a myth or a cult.
In an attempt to understand the world, early humans created explanations for their existence and natural phenomenon. The vagaries of nature were explained by the existence of a superior entity.3 This entity was reduced to human form and sexed. The entity became known as ‘god’ and the anthropological evidence is that the earliest gods were women. Women’s status in early communities may have been a consequence of the ability to bear children and to bleed regularly without dying; or because women gathered the bulk of food for the group. When women were seen to ‘create’ new life it was unsurprising that women were revered and respected. Links were made between the female God, nature and abundance. 1
Male-centred anthropologists and historians promoted the idea that men were more important to the group because men did the hunting. Yet, meat was only a small percentage of the diet. Recent studies of teeth of early humans show that their diet was mainly vegetarian. More recent scholarship, 5 has suggested that early groups operated as a community; hunting of large animals would have more likely have been done in a group, possibly driving sick or wounded animals to exhaustion or over a precipice. The notion of woman sitting at home in the cave waiting for her man to return from hunting dragging a mammoth behind him, is the stuff of myth.
There is evidence that women’s biological rites of passage, especially menstruation, were something to be envied and emulated.6 Male-centred initiation rites suggest attempts to mimic women’s biological rhythms. For example, in the Aranda tribe of Australia, in order to be able to take the title ‘possessor of a vulva’, boy initiates undergo penis mutilation…a long, thin bone is inserted deep into the urethra and the penis is cut with a small piece of flint. The penis is cut through the layers of flesh until the bone is reached and the penis opens up ‘like a boiled frankfurter’. Regular re-opening of the wound showed that the boy could now menstruate’.7 Many rites continue to survive in stone-age cultures…. ‘In the beginning we had nothing, we took these things from women’.8
The fall of the female Goddess and the rise of the male God was the greatest power-grab in history. God was re- sexed as a male. Men gradually appropriated every area of women’s perceived power: male gods replaced female gods; queens became the exception rather than the rule; religious meaning became the sole prerogative of men.
‘The divinity of the sun, lord of time and space was essentially masculine- the phallic sunbeams striking down on Mother Earth- a maleness impregnates the earth and causes the seeds to germinate’.9
During the millennia immediately before the birth of Christ, all mythologies speak of the overthrow of the Great Mother Goddess … whatever form it takes, the fundamental power shift from female to male is reflected in the emergence of patterns of dualisms. A key duality was that of sun and moon.
The male, represented by the sun, had positive characteristics of intellect, knowledge, light, growth, re-birth and renewal. The moon represented the dark, dreamy and watery characteristics of woman. This sun-moon dualism was applied to woman and man;
‘Man is active, full of movement, creative in politics, business and culture. The man shapes & moulds society and the world. Woman on the other hand is passive. She stays at home as is her nature. She is matter waiting to be formed by the active male principal…‘whatever man is, woman is not, and with this imposition of the principal of sexual contrast comes the gradual definition of man as commanding all the human skills and abilities and woman as the half formed, half-baked opposite’.10
Eventually the link between copulation and birth was made. Man appropriated the primary role in reproduction. Woman no longer held the primary role in conception. It was man, not woman who held the secret of new life.
‘…Man plays a major part in reproduction, the woman is merely the passive incubator of his seed … According to Aristotle, ‘the male semen cooks and shapes the menstrual blood into a new human being.’ 11 Man described himself as ‘co-creator’ with God. His was the sacred organ of generation, the phallus, the source of all that lived’. 12
the male organ, the phallus, became the symbol and source of male power.
‘And what better weapon of dominance was there to hand but the phallus…in its fragile human form, prey to unbidden arousal, stubborn refusal and unpredictable deflation it could not compete with woman’s unfailing power of birth….elevated above the reality into a symbol, transformed into ‘phallus’ and enshrined into materials such as metal and stone it would do very well’.13
The overthrow of the Great Mother did not happen overnight. Firstly, the ‘Great Mother’ created the world; then she acquired a consort; the spouse/consort ruled equally with her; then he manages to rule without her.14 The takeover of birth was the first step in the ultimate total domination of women. Man now considered himself to the initiator of new life… a creator, ruler of the universe. This paradigm shift in thinking, about who was responsible for the creation of new life was as significant as the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and the Renaissance put together. Nevertheless, the significance of this has yet to be acknowledged and discussed by religious leaders.