Shouldn't we be setting our sights higher than the Stone Age?

[urbpan]

In art school, I was taught that some 40,000 or so years ago, there was matriarchal society (or societies) across much of Europe, if not the whole of the peopled world. (I should stress that I was not taught this in the context of a history or anthropology course.) This society, peaceful and artistic, produced artifacts like the "goddess of Willendorf." Many people I was close with embraced the notion of this society as fact, and moreover, as a model of what we--should we choose to discard the patriarchy--should aspire for our own culture.

Alas, there is a paucity of facts to back up the existence of this great matriarchy, and a great deal of wishful thinking. My bs detector wasn't as sensitive back then, but I did sometimes wonder how the fact of this unknown society had come to be so obscure. Shouldn't I have learned about it in, well, a history class? I should have, if there was any evidence that it ever existed, or any actual scholarly research done backing it up. For more than a decade I've let the possibility that it existed simmer on the back burner of my mind--it's a good story, at least.


Today's Straight Dope describes the idea, what's right with it, and what's wrong with it. Always good to hear from Uncle Cecil.

Comments

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

The grand old days of the matriarchy is one of those topics that makes my anthropological blood boil. I'd love to believe in one as much as the next chick, but there's nothin' remotely factual to hang your hat on.

[lavenderjones.livejournal.com]

Correction: "The Venus of Willendorf". There were only certain parts of her that were god-like.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

In my art history class she was Venus, but to my pagan friends she was the Goddess.

[lavenderjones.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh.. yes, she's a Goddess, but the piece of art is called "Venus". Makes for a confusing time. Let's call her Goddess 009 *grin*

[brian-z.livejournal.com]

I totally grew up on The Straight Dope, glad to know Cecil is still awesome.

I would just add that not only "early hunter-gatherer societies", but even agricultural societies past AND present have "men and women fulfilling distinct, complementary roles of equal perceived value". At least in a narrow economic sense if not a broader social sense, I would even say that was the case in rural communities of our own region as late as 1800 or so (source), although that's not to say women had real freedom over their bodies and lives.

I would agree with his argument that certain scholars are wrong to jump to conclusions like "statues honoring woman = matriarchy" but the reverse could also be said: mainstream scholars see patriarchy where there is equality. Sometimes they see it not only where there is equality, but where the basic binary of male/female doesn't even exist (source).

But definitely, actual matriarchy, with men subordinate to women across all domains of social life, I doubt you could prove that ever existed.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I recently picked up a cheap book about the Goddess theory (partly as a starting place for further research on ancient ideas of gender, partly to stretch my BS detector) but I never got beyond the second chapter. Why? Because Catalhuyuk *freaks me the fuck out*. If that's our ideal ancient matriarchal culture, I want to go back to feudal Europe instead plz. *shiver*

(And early feudal Europe, of course, wasn't nearly as male-dominated as the traditional narrative makes out anyway...)

Great book to read....

[weavingfire.livejournal.com]

The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory by Cynthia Eller. I can't say it changed my life or anything, at that point she was rather preaching towards the choir, but it's an excellent book.

Sic transit gloria mundi

[frith]

The pipe dreams wafted by Cecil in that Straight Dope essay are so ridiculous that I find it difficult to believe anyone gave them any credence, unless it was to laugh up their sleeves at the simple minded. I think that people trying to postulate the existence of an organized matriarchal civilization are hampered by romanticism and puritanical ideals. In any society that incorporates hierarchy beyond close familial ties is going yield the power base to the most aggressive -- the men. Language is the key to spreading influence outside of the familial group. Language allows alliances to form between unrelated individuals. Male biological strategy is to breed with as many females as possible. Female biological strategy is to selectively breed with the best males. Male contribution to gestation and nutrition of the young is about nil. Female contribution to gestation and nutrition of the young is crippling. So here you have two distinctly different strategies at work here. Women's benefit from language would be to organize their resources and resolve conflicts (facial expressions, mutual grooming and a few well placed slaps will do the job just fine). Men's benefit from language would be to strengthen casual alliances, increase the number of individual males cooperating in maintaining their status, to forcibly acquire more women in their breeding pool and to overrule mate selection by women. In the struggle between the two breeding strategies, once armed with language, it was no contest. Language promoted the patriarchy. The more civilized the culture the greater the probability that men dictate the rules.

So if their is evidence of a matriarchal society, it is not in the pottery shards of civilizations past but in the genetic baggage we carry but cannot prune.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

i feel the same way about the idea floated (especially in some african studies books/classes) that the mesoamerican societies got a large percentage of their cultures from africans who sailed across the atlantic long before the europeans did. to me it seems that the less believable claims of some, in various disciplines, are well-intentioned yet do the opposite of what they mean to do by making most people skeptical of things that really did happen along with the claims that are so difficult to back up with any sort of proof.