On Sun, 30 Aug 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DITTO!
> Someone else has read Riane Eisler's book The Chalice & The Blade!
> If you haven't read this book do the world a favor & do so please &
> soon!!!!!!!!!!
>
Here, here! Here's a theory espoused by Riane Eisler and Francoise
d'Eaubonne: Patriarchal oppression has roots that go way back before the
bible to the beginnings of mans understanding concerning fertility. When
man (because of his association with animals and his effort to capture and
domesticate them) discovered (WAY back when before anyone was taking
notes on some fig leaf in the "garden of eden" or knew how to write even)
that he could impregnate woman and that the holy cycle of birth and life
was dually dependent upon his participation and his actions and not solely
upon some divine intervention through the previously-revered-as-goddess
females in his company (check the Goddess of Willendorf and all her lovely
voluptuous friends...) patriarchy was born, and can, from one vantage
point, be seen largely as a reaction to previously held womens priviledge
in a society that privileged women because of their seemingly miraculous
ability to recreate life.
It was around the same time of his discovery about womens reproductive
cycles (after viewing the animals he was domesticating to oppress and
dominate) that he figured out he could not only impregnate woman with his
phallus but could impregnate the earth with seed (with his phallic plow
.... a tool that dominates animals, as opposed to the previous female
gardeners' hoe, used by the women themselves) to grow food to allow him a
more leisurely, convenient life.
And thus fifty thousand years later we are teaching women that to be good
Christians/Muslims/Hindus/yaddha...yaddha almost all the old religions...
that for women to aspire to worth they must reproduce. This ideahas been
instilled in women (and men) by men (and women) since a long way back, but
as Francoise d'Eaubonne states in her writings, it IS only when women
truly take back control of reproduction that patriarchy might mutate into
something that could sustain human life on planet earth ... and this is
where there is perhaps one opportunity for the onset of a hot
womens-only-issue in eco-feminism and that is an ecofeminist campaign on
the reclamation of not only womens reproductive RIGHTS but also their
reproductive RESPONSABILITIES in this world we've got going on. I feel
that women should and must be educating other women on these issues... to
empower each other to take back true reproductive control because we can't
keep popping out little copies of our fucked up selves all clamoring for
big macs and soda pop and a clean toilet bowl. How does a militant
campaign of the responsabilities of reproduction to the women of the world
fit into the ecofeminist dialog?
jacob
in montana
