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

[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...)