I thought the sartorial excellence displayed in this video had gone somewhere to die.
Never to be resurrected again.
Ever.
:-)
But it seems I was wrong.
These trousers are back with a vengeance.
With a few modifications.
For example, only a certain type of shoe goes with it.
Ladies' version...
:-)
As part of my 'homework' on feminism, I wondered if there has truly been a matriarchal society.
Yes, there were the Amazons, and other communities with the same all-female blueprint...but did these societies really prosper?
There are lots of matrilineal societies in the world, in which the feminine holds a great deal of power. But these societies are not matriarchal as such, except where there is also a Patriarch, in which case the Matriarch is Queen to the Patriarch's King.
And these societies continue to prosper quite nicely till today.
If third wave (Third Reich?) feminism seeks to create a mariarchy of the modern world, are there not enough lessons in history to dissuade it?
Or perhaps I missed something.
I really need someone to point out a truly matriarchal socety that prospered for more than a century, and whose legacy still exists today.
It would be nice to know, in order to adjust my thinking on why third wave feminism is bound to fail unless its metamorphosis into fourth wave feminism (which I am told is a whole new beast with society-friendly properties :-) is swift and decisive.
It looks like we are stuck with the word 'feminism' in any case.
Whether or not we are referring to 'the good kind' or 'the bad kind' of feminism, one big question remains:
Can we ever re-invent the wheel?
Hasn't it ...um.... all been done before?
8 comments:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes, 1:9
Well, I thought platform shoes, tie-dyed and bell bottoms were gone too never to return and yet, I was wrong, woefully wrong.
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 59
The Amazon’s are myth, as are the “other communities with the same all-female blueprint.” Such social organizations would be utterly untenable with half the work force missing, a substantially depressed birthrate and, in an age in which slavery was normal and everyone wanted to own some and any one was potentially subject to it (Remember, Julius Caesar himself was once held for ransom and could have been sold into slavery) a settlement of all women would have been a never-ending temptation for its neighbors. Even if they had been able to successfully defend themselves (a rather dicey proposition), the attrition in dead and captured would have been untenable.
Yes, I am aware of Jeannine Davis-Kimball’s archeological findings but, while the findings are what they are, her interpretation of the evidence is wildly fanciful. Other, less reaching explanations are available such as the “warrior women” simply being members of the warrior class, without being warriors themselves, or camp followers (likely wives and sister and daughters of warriors) who provided support but no fighting.
Patriarchy and matriarchy, anyway, are on their way out in anthropology as they do not provide particularly useful descriptions of human social organization and are too weighed with ideology to serve a clear purpose. There is still much arguing about it but it is mostly along generational lines. Soon enough the old guard will exit from the stage and the concepts will be gone with them.
Matriarchies and the “Patriarchy” of feminist imaginings never existed and nothing productive can ever come from founding ones inquiries on reality on imaginary facts.
@ TOM,
Yes, I am beginning to wonder if the Amazons really existed as a successful community at all.
Are they just a figment of a feminist's imagination, I wonder?
I don't want to be here when bell-bottoms come back.
Wasn't it bad enough the first time round?
:-)
No, there were no Amazons. All the accounts from Classical and Early Medieval times are clearly hearsay. They are always to be found beyond the known horizon of the writer and their location moves conveniently with changes in known geography (from Pontus to Scythia to the land beyond the Germans…) They are no less mythical than Atlantis, the Lotus Eaters, Shambala, Prester John, the Seven Cities of Gold, the Fountain of Youth, etc. There may, or may not, have been women warriors in antiquity though, again, the reports are always third hand at best and there is no incontrovertible archeological evidence that any existed. Curiously, none of the peoples who left us documented history had women warriors of their own, they were always someone else’s just beyond the horizon.
It is far more likely that girls from pastoral tribes learned to use a sling and/or a bow and arrow to protect the livestock from predators when men were not handy. They may even have been pressed into warfare in desperate times when the very survival of the tribe was at stake but this scenario is a far cry from that of Warrior Women and even farther from the “All-Warrior-Women Tribe” of Amazon lore.
Women leaders who ruled and even led men into battle have long existed, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Jean d’Arc, Good Queen Bess, all come to mind. None of these women, however, led companies of women into battle, just plain old uncouth men.
Feminism is one of those things, like socialism, that mean many things to many people. To some of them it means grabbing any historical myth or crazy theory or anthropological misrepresentation to present a false history of the time before the fall, when women ruled and all was fair and men were docile under the aegis of female wisdom until men invented violence and overthrew the established order to create the “Patriarchy,” which has oppressed women ever since.
Alas, the manosphere’s version of paradise before the fall is just as fanciful, though in a different way.
Bell bottom’s came back once already, sometime during the 90’s. They were called “flared legs” or “flare bottoms” or “flare something” if memory serves me right.
As TOM said about the concepts of patriarchy and matriarchy, they're mostly useless. They're still lying around because in Official version of History, changes and updates are painfully slow or don't happen at all if it's going to cause a big disturbance. It's easier to just go along with the lie sometimes.
"I really need someone to point out a truly matriarchal socety that prospered for more than a century, and whose legacy still exists today."
It didn't exist. How can it exist if almost everything that makes a society, a prosperous society, is made by men?
One quick look at our History and you'll see that even from the point where Official version of History picks up ("first civilizations.. etc"), it's a story of constant wars of conquest and killing. So I would be really surprised if the kind of society you're referring to, would last even a decade. Maybe in some kind of isolation without any enemies and a sperm bank. ;-) ..and don't forget the vibrators. ;-) In ancient Greece they 'baked' similar 'tools' for women. :-)
You said you've done your 'homework' on feminism? How come you're then talking about different waves of feminism without some real digging? ;-)
Most people sit inside the theater, listening and looking at the puppets on stage and that's somehow enough for them. They don't care about who or what those puppets are, who is funding and putting them in certain positions in media or political power..., what's their agenda...? It's the same with feminism. Follow the money. Look who funded those first feminists and 'womens' movement (usual suspects, the Rockefeller family)...
owned a pair in 1991. don't judge me.
they went well with my oaktree tops.
TOM and Metak,
Absolutely. I believe the 'Amazon' story may have been a hype of feminism that unfortunately, we all believed...
Not that they didn't exist - but that they were not a viable society, from the start.
Metak,
My thoughts on Feminism are still a work in progress :-)
Baked tools? Please tell me this is not true...
Danny,
Mate, you WILL absolutely be judged for this.
How could ya let the side down like this?
HOW COULD YA?
Does Brody know about this?
LOL.
What can I say... they were very resourceful.
You would be very surprised if I said what else they did... ;-)
Those were the times when women knew so much more about their bodies and spirituality, than nowadays. They were valued because of this. They didn't need feminism, government, etc..
Metak,
Resourceful?
LOL.
Hm, I think I know what you mean. It's a certain 'lost art'. A 'je ne sais quoi' ...
Post a Comment