Marsha, I'd like to just sorta start from scratch on a few issues that you brought up, without doing the whole line by line thing. I wanna talk about your charges of the oppression of women through patriarchical organizations of politics and religion, especially religion. And I figure the best place to start is by looking at what I'd call our predessesors, the victorians. It doesn't make as much sense to discuss the fallout of mesopatamian attitudes toward women, they're so far removed their effects have been blunted. The victorians, on the other hand, we feel more immediately present. Not to mention, the Lila connection.
Furthermore, I'd say the victorian culture most exemplified the kinds of oppression you describe of masculine denigration of women to mere roles in kitchen and bedroom. Primogeniture and all that. However, I think you are mischaracterizing this as "male" domination - I think, much more you are seeing patterns of feminine domination of society - other women, than you are male patterns. You do know Victoria was a woman, don't you? You blame religion all the time, but you know who the real church goers are? Go sometime. Look around. It's almost all women. And if you looked deeper into the relationships, the men who are there are there because their wives dragged them. They'd much rather be at home watching tv. It's probably always been like that. Do you honestly think men came up with rules about strictly covering female flesh? Hah! Believe me, if men were in charge the rules would be way more lax. Even during the Victorian era. Concerns of fashion appropriateness is women controlling other women's dress. Well, until modern times. I think gay men are in charge now, and I must say it's an improvement! You think it's men who burn witches? It's usually women who gossip about the outcast or gang up with social networks to ostracize the different other. Men just give them the muscle and intellectual justification to get it done. It's this way because it's in women's interest to rein in the purely biological urges in the interest of a social arrangement. The human infant is the longest-developing in infancy of any animal, and it takes teamwork to survive while raising one. Therefore the woman has the most vested interest in social controls, and it's women who shape the society's leanings. Also, women are just more in tune with social cues and facial expressions and communicating from infancy. Until they find a way to raise children in test tubes or whatever, men need women and the acceptance by a woman has always been the driver behind all civilizing progress, all intellectual or athletic competition among males. So what you see as a male dominated society, I see as a female-dominated one. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
