John: Sexuality in language is an interesting point.
Gerry: In one of the early Semitic languages, these doesn't appear to
be words (?articles) for masculine and feminine. Piotr, do you still
have this reference?
John: The Chicago Cross Cultural Studies between 137
different groups showed gender relations between men and women were,
generally, more equal in unstratified societies, less equal in more
stratified societies. This would seem to confirm in part Eisler's
thesis of "partnership" versus "dominator" models of social relations.
Gerry: Where in today's world is there an unstratified society? And in
which societies does "partnership" exist? IMO, these terms can exist
only as "parts" of different world groups.
>John: From an analysis of successive law codes (From Urukagina, Lugalzagesi,
Hamurabi, Nuzi to Moses) one can see a clear long term fall in the
status of women, from having ownership and occupational rights and
status equivalent to men to becoming increasingly confined and
oppressed. This has nothing to do with the invasions of naughty IE
nomads, as Merlin Stone and Riane Eisler have proposed, but rather
seems to be due to the natural debasement of women that occurs in
societies where military prowess and social status are extolled.
Gerry: I agree that the status of the female has been in a long term
decline and the "woman's movement" of the 70s and 80s was only a tiny
blip on the gender screen. I see the emphasis on military prowess as
one example. I also see the religious ranking of superior male present
in the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant etc. faiths as perhaps the
main reason for this progressive decline.
Gerry
--
Gerald Reinhart
Independent Scholar
(650) 321-7378
waluk@...
http://www.alekseevmanuscript.com