Leda and the Swan: The Rape of Femininity

[sHiZo963]

The Rape of Femininity

Leda and the Swan (1924)

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

http://en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan

William Butler Yeats’s poem Leda and the Swan deals with a well-known Greek myth about a sexual affair between a mortal noble woman named Leda and the immortal king of all gods, Zeus. This myth has been explored by many intellectuals in the past, including such remarkable men as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, who painted magnificently detailed works that capture the risqué nature of the classical myth. The encounter between Leda and Zeus was indeed legendary; being one of the more prophetic events in Greek mythology, what spawns from it is perhaps one of the best-known myths of all time – that of the Trojan War. This and many other myths have been chronicled by Homer in the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, considered to be one of the oldest works in Greek literature much akin to Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. It is from these works that one can look back in time, so to speak, to ancient times and examine the foundations on which Western Civilization was founded. It is of no surprise that many of the fundamental paradigms dealing with human existence and experience have carried over from ancient times to be observable in today’s world, albeit in subtle ways. In this respect, Eric Puchner does a magnificent job in his short story Essay #3: Leda and the Swan, in which he uses Yeats’s interpretation of this particular myth to re-create the event in all its glory, set in modern times. What is especially interesting is the striking resemblance of the more subtle human paradigms – specifically that of gender relations – between the world of the ancient Greeks and the world of modern-day Americans.

According to the myth, Leda was the wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta and the mother of Helen, Clytemnestra, and the inseparable twins Castor and Pollux. One day, Zeus appears to Leda and has sexual intercourse with her by seducing her in the form of a great swan, “engendering there" the seed of his children, who are later borne from an egg laid by Leda. Only two of the children are Zeus’s, but different versions of the myths can’t seem to agree which ones. From Yeats’s poem, one can deduct that Helen of Troy is definitely one of the offspring from the Leda-Zeus affair: “A shudder in the loins engenders there / The broken wall, the burning roof and tower / And Agamemnon dead." This particular choice of words seems to refer to Christopher Marlowe’s (1564-1593) famous line in his play Doctor Faustus about Helen and her role in starting the great invasion of Troy by Greece: “Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium�" (Ilium refers to the city proper in the province of Troy). Additionally, we know that Agamemnon gets murdered by his wife Clytemnestra upon his victorious return from the Trojan War. These are just two of many examples in Greek mythology in which women of great beauty lead otherwise honorable men to commit violent acts against their fellow men or are directly responsible for tragedies which often end in death and despair.

This archetype is abundant in Greek mythology and in the myths and legends of many cultures worldwide, and its presence is a direct reflection of the currently dominant paradigm of patriarchal, or male-dominated, hierarchical society. From Pandora in Hesiod’s poems to Eve in the Garden of Even as described in the Bible’s Genesis, woman is continually depicted in a less-than favorable light. The following excerpt from Laura Knight-Jadczyk’s The Secret History of the World summarizes this point quite well:

In the Theogony [Hesiod’s account of origins of those divine beings who created and preside over the cosmos], the first woman is the “kalon kakon." Kalon means “beautiful" and kakon means “evil." In other words, the first woman is a living oxymoron. […] Woman is revealed as unambiguously evil: “Thuderous Zeus made women to be a kakon for mortal men […] he fashioned this kakon for men to make them pay for the theft of fire." […] Woman is a “lure" and men have no “resistance" and it was designed that way by the gods.

And so it is, the moment of woman’s creation is the moment of man’s destruction. […] The “first woman" in Works and Days, Pandora, is again, bait set by the gods to trap men. She is given the appearance of a goddess, the character of a hyena, and the heart and mind of a jackal. Woman, adorned by the gods, brings to man all that is hideous and devouring. Her name, Pandora, means both “All Giver" and “All Gifted." Hesiod tells us that she is called Pandora because, “all those who dwell on Olympos gave each one to her a gift, a grief for men who strive and toil."

The gifts Pandora receives from the gods – the contents of Pandora’s jar – are intended to produce endless torment for man. It is only centuries later that a “box" was substituted for a “jar." This change of imagery was attributed to the sixteenth century monk Erasmus who mistranslated the original Greek word pithos with the Latin pyxis. A pithos is a jar that is womb-like in shape and is a symbol for the earth, the mother of all.

The implications of pithos to the story of Pandora are obvious. Pandora’s gifts are released from her own womb. Her fault lies not in her curiosity, but in her being. She is constitutionally deceptive and lethal because she draws men into her pithos, and brings forth new men for a life of misery. She further perpetuates the misery of man by bringing forth female babies. The image of Woman as a pithos is extremely ancient. […]

Hesiod presents the view that woman is a disruption to nature. Because of woman, man must be born in suffering, and them man must die in suffering. […] In Genesis, man is created and lives in a deathless, god-like existence, and woman is the “second" creation, the “afterthought." She soon brings death and destruction on mankind by “eating of the fruit of the tree of good and evil."

In these accounts, we perceive a common thread of woman as an “interloper" into the original scheme of things, bringing sex, strife, misery and death. Hesiod works with the ancient images of the all-giving mother, twisting and disfiguring them until they reflect only the shame and degradation of the creatress of life. Woman, created from clay according to Hesiod, is not only not semi-divine as is man, she is something less than human. (388-391)

The myths of Leda, Helen, and Clymenestra clearly perpetuate this negative image of women as described by Knight-Jadczyk’s analysis of Western Civilization’s earliest written works. Leda’s inception by Zeus could be seen as yet another divine trap for mortals set by the king of the gods to spark yet another era of death and slaughter that would be initiated by evil and deceptive women so “gifted" by the gods.

Knight-Jadczyk concludes that such myths and legends were popularized for political reasons to establish and, more importantly, to justify a radical shift in paradigm to that of patriarchy:

The Theogony – like the Bible – is not metaphysics; it is, plainly and simply, a political tool. In the Theogony, the regime of Zeus and the reign of Olympian justice are celebrated as achievements of the aeons just as Yahweh is celebrated in the Torah. In the Theogony, Hesiod recounts his new version of the beginnings of Creation, making certain to regularly propagandize in favor of Zeus who is as “just as he is terrible." Many passages in the Theogony can be compared to the hymns to Yahweh supposedly composed by David, or to the Enuma Elish which sings the praises of the warrior king, Marduk. In each case, there is a fusion of military might with absolute authority, glory and promised justice to the exiled and enslaved. And clearly, in each instance there is a complete subordination of the female to the male, presented as a philosophical achievement, as evolution from the old, savage, order to the new, glorious world of male theriomorphism [ascription of animal characteristics to human beings and deities]. (389)

Taking into account the fact that some of the earliest works of written history show this obvious gender bias, it should not be surprising that the very foundations of Western Civilization, from myths and legends to the tenets of most organized religions, are inherently sexist and patriarchal in nature. Only in relatively recent times has this paradigm been extensively analyzed and questioned by enlightened intellectuals, spawning the Feminist Movement and a myriad of “alternative" looks at and re-evaluations of mankind’s history. Further analysis of Yeats’s poem and Puchner’s short story will show that these literary masters may have identified the gender bias in Greek mythology in particular and the human experience in general and may have seen the hierarchical patriarchy as a destructive force in human society.

Yeats’s interpretation of the encounter between Leda and Zeus is unique; while in the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci Leda is represented as being happy and willing to engage in sexual intercourse with the swan, Yeats makes it seem like Leda was seduced, corrupted, and essentially raped by the great swan. The whole scene is very physical in nature, with multiple close-ups which clearly show the ultimate subordination of Leda, referred to as “the staggering girl," to Zeus, the “feathered glory" : “…her thighs caressed / By the dark webs, he nape caught in his bill, / He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. […] Being so caught up, / So mastered by the brute blood of the air." The focus in this poem is not on the mighty Zeus but rather on Leda and the loss of her innocence in the most degrading of ways. Not only is she raped, but by taking on Zeus’s seed she is, in effect, forced to be responsible for the tragedies of her and Zeus’s children. Yeats makes it seem like Leda has no choice but to give in to Zeus – that she has no chance in the face of such relentless evil, for, how can “indifference� on Zeus’s part during such an act of rape not be considered evil on moral terms?

Looking at the myth from this perspective, one can begin to see the intentions of Yeats in writing the poem in this unique way. Could Yeats, having first-hand experience of the evils of the human world after having lived through World War I (the poem was published in 1924), have realized that there is something wrong with the history of man, so replete with wars, death, and suffering? Perhaps what is so wrong with the history of man is the absence of woman: it becomes clear that the patriarchy has not, in essence, made the world a better place, and that the perpetual “rape" of femininity – the creative essence, pure emotions, Mother Nature’s precious resources, women’s rights and respect, etc. – is continually degrading the human experience. Thus, Yeats’s poem is an attack on the patriarchal paradigm; by twisting Greek mythology in this way, he criticizes the foundation of Western Civilization and its hypocritical ideals.

Puchner uses Yeats’s interpretation of the Leda myth and applies it to the modern world, also in a rather unique way. In his short story Essay #3: Leda and the Swan, the narrator is a teenage girl named Natalie whose assignment for English class it is to analyze Yeats’s poem. Instead, she ends up narrating her “love" story, which ironically ends up paralleling the events of the poem almost exactly as written by Yeats.

In her drama, Natalie falls in love with a manipulative boy named Colin who’s in a band called Pagan Liver. One of his songs has the following lyrics: “All you mortals, I can and will bend … Cuz I’m the father of gods and men!" which is a direct comparison to Zeus. Colin also gets electrocuted during a concert and is subsequently able to of zap people at will – also very similar to the lighting-wielding Zeus.

At one point, Colin wants to get Natalie to sleep with him and promises her the “Gift" of foresight in return:

That was when he told me about his secret powers. He made me promise not to tell anyone and then explained that he could see into the future before it happened, which is why he could play pinball forever without losing a coin. I was very startled and didn’t speak for a long time. I asked him if he could see into my future like the pinball’s. He said, yes, he could see my whole life and even beyond that, but that knowledge was in his body and the only way to share it was to pass it directly. The Gift, he called it. […]

Colin opened the door. He looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen him, face glowing with confidence and his hair kind of floating around him like a commercial. I was very scared. He walked over to the bed and knelt beside my face. He didn’t say a word, just reached down and touched my lips, which made my eyelids sparkle at a very high frequency. I knew I wouldn’t stop him from transmitting me the Gift. (Puchner)

The narrator has all kinds of clues before surrendering to Colin that he is not loyal and truthful; her own sister tells her that he has been cheating on her. Natalie refuses to accept any of it because she claims that she is “in love." She is completely seduced by his confidence and his Gifts, and once the deed is done and Natalie is impregnated with his child, Colin skips town with her sister, never to be seen again.

Natalie comes from a typical American broken family. Her mother has been divorced and re-married multiple times, and most of her friends’ parents are also divorced. Her step-father, Franz, is portrayed in a similar light to Colin – he doesn’t care much about the women with whom he’s associated. In fact, it seems that the two men in this particular story share the evil “indifference" of Zeus from Yeats’s poem. The women seem to be disillusioned about the ideal of “love" and the point of relationships, easily falling for the same traps and ending up “raped," so to speak, every time. We see the same cycle in Greek mythology, except there it is the men falling for the evils of women. Clearly, in reality it is the other way around. In this fundamental way, Yeats’s poem and Puchner’s short story criticize the hypocritical values of materialistic society, one of the perpetual destruction of feminine ideals through false illusions and manipulations by the male-dominated ruling class.

Some comments:

The above is an essay I wrote for English class about my interpretation of Yeats's poem. I had to "cut it," so to speak, in how far I was to go into it because of length restrictions (and fear of confusing my professor).

However, it is quite possible to bring Lobaczewski's research on psychopathy into this in order to help "explain" Zeus's/Colin's "indifference" during and after their despicable acts of rape, which then could further symbolize the take-over of our world by the male-dominated Pathocracy. Also, QFS's research into hyperdimensional influence on human history and the "inception" of the Predator's Mind into the human masses could be brought into the discussion of the perpetuation of the Rape of Femininity into modern times.

All in all, the connections are endless because ALL is connected with the thread of Truth, and I'm happy to realize that I am able, little by little, to see these connections, whether it be through news or English assignments :)

Hope sharing this was of benefit to anyone.

- Mateusz

 

[atreides]

Pathocrats are not necessarily men, and neither are psychopaths. Much evidence points to the fact that the ante-catastrophe culture was predominantly Matriarchal. Yin must become yang and yang must become yin.

While all things in western culture have been grazed and glazed by patriarchal mentality, this myth of Leda and the Swan perhaps has something deeper to say. Remember, the oppressed love the oppressors and cannot wait to follow in their example. In 3600 years there will be a woman like me responding to a man like you about Johny and the Swan and how he was seduced to impregnate the swan etc. The irony makes me smile, everyone gets what they deserve, the meek inherit the earth and suffer the strong to become the meek who will again inherit the earth and so on.

 

[sHiZo963]

Pathocrats are not necessarily men, and neither are psychopaths. Much evidence points to the fact that the ante-catastrophe culture was predominantly Matriarchal. Yin must become yang and yang must become yin.

While all things in western culture have been grazed and glazed by patriarchal mentality, this myth of Leda and the Swan perhaps has something deeper to say. Remember, the oppressed love the oppressors and cannot wait to follow in their example. In 3600 years there will be a woman like me responding to a man like you about Johny and the Swan and how he was seduced to impregnate the swan etc. The irony makes me smile, everyone gets what they deserve, the meek inherit the earth and suffer the strong to become the meek who will again inherit the earth and so on.

I see what you are saying, but by saying this you seem to assume that a Matriarchal society oppressed men and "raped" Masculinity, so to speak, much like it is happening to Femininity in this cycle.

While there is no clear evidence that I know of that supports or refutes this assumption (considering we pretty much only have myths and legends to work with to reconstruct the very distant past), to go along with your Yin and Yang cycle idea, would that not mean that instead of living immersed in Lies and Destruction/Suffering (as we are), the people under Matriarchy would have lived in Truth and Creativity - or rather, that living under the paradigm of Femininity there would be no hierarchy or "rule" per se?

Maybe I'm confused here. I was going along the thought that the change in paradigm to that of Patriarchy coincided with the Fall of Mankind and the rise of the Pathocracy, whose first goal was to "demonize" women in order to justify its take-over - so essentially we went from "good times" to "bad times" in the cosmic cycle.

Perhaps I'm clumping too many events into one?
PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong :)

 

[Z...]

Interesting points on both sides.

I often wondered how was it for the man in true matriarchal culture and I am sure it was very far from heaven some of the people imply to matriarchal cultures.
In todays society there are women equaly ruthless as men and I am sure it was like that everysince the fall.
After all Katherine Medicci - my favorurite psychopath and pathocrat of all times was a woman :)

Greek myths have ample referrence to different matriarchal communities, amazonians being just one of them, and if we can judge from their descriptions there wasnt much difference between matriarchal and patriarchal culture. In other words according to ancient Greeks matriarchal societies did opress men and did rape them.
One of my favorite novels is Golden Flece, always forget the name of the author - he was a british archeologist and wrote it in the first half of the last century- if someone knows?
anyhow this novel starts with the bashing of men (actually clubbing if I am not mistaken - it was long time ago) at some meditereanean island west of greece, where women reign.
Many people try to prove that megalithic structures in the island of Malta ( as a testimony of once highly advanced civilization) were actually produced by matriarchal Godess culture.
Unfortunately there is not eneough evidence for this.
Highly advanced culture did exist here, probably when Malta wasnt even an island but my guess is that this culture was very far from our present conceptions about polarized society.
I think that Godess culture that trived on its remains just tried to copy it in best way they could which doesnt mean that they were necesarily better then any subsequent patriarchal culture.
There is evidence of human and blood sacrifice in pre patriarchal Malta .


But Shizo has few valid points too.

In any case I just wanted to add that we shouldnnt observe myh of Leda and Zeus in that way,
I would never take Zeus as simbol of human male, its rather a symbol for hyperdimensional entity or a race, rape or sexual intercourse in the myth is always symbol of genetic manipulation

after all Zeus has preety much in common with Jahve

 

[Z...]

actually we have a quite a few hints here,

first we have a woman which is giving birth to an egg- how peculiar is this,

But the most peculiar thing is that she has mixed offspring then, which wouldnt be anything unusual if her identical twins were not said to have - different fathers.
According to the myth from the egg came out Dioscuri twins - one is fathered by Leda's mortal husband Tyndareus and the other one by Zeus , subsequently one of them- Kastor was mortal, he was an expert in martial arts who even taught Heraclo how to fence -
The other one- Polydeuces was immortal and was also skillful in martial arts, especially boxing and archery

Generaly they weren't such a good seed as you would expect from a union of mortal woman and king of gods, while these two bringing misery and destruction wherever they went ( like with any other ancient greek heroes) they also did some noble deeds, and were also involved with argonauts on the quest for golden fleece.
One of the noblest acts was actually Poydeuces giving up his immortality when his brother died. This could also be symbolism.

Apart from the twins Leda also had two girls, one fatehered by Zeus and the other one by mortal men Tyndareus.

Helen - Zeuses daugther will be the cause of greatest war ever in ancient greek history,
while her other daughter Clitemnestra as a mother of Edipus and Electra probably symbolises corrruption of human psychee

 

[Marie]

Very recently Laura wrote in a post that the oppressors tend to become the oppressed - which kinda gave me food for thought, and squares in with this subject.

I do have a problem imagining a world where women beat, rape and enslave men - though for the sake of fair play it should be mentioned that there are two cases (that I've heard of) on the record of men being raped by women, and one of those men developed symptoms, including a rather mild version of post-traumatic shock syndrome (the gravity of the syndrome was probably related to the violence of the attack). And there might be more - after all, you'd expect victims of such crimes to be rather reticent to report.

And well, it is obviously true that some women exhibit psychopathic behaviors. Curiously, both of those that I have known were anti-feminist. Maybe their lack of empathy makes them blind to the fact that what is done to other women can also be done to them?

As for matriachal societies... Huh? (could someone link please?) From what I understood of the cass material there are basically two social systems we have known - the egalitarian one of before the fall, and the dominator one implemented after, which *as I understood* was patriarchal from the word go.

Though thinking about it... once saw a tv documentary that theorized that at the start of the neolithic "revolution" there had been a revolt against women who had previously occupied the dominant role.

But then, the same channel passed documentaries that claimed the pyramids were built using earthen ramps

So I'm not really sure what to think about it...

 

[atreides]

I see what you are saying, but by saying this you seem to assume that a Matriarchal society oppressed men and "raped" Masculinity, so to speak, much like it is happening to Femininity in this cycle.

While there is no clear evidence that I know of that supports or refutes this assumption (considering we pretty much only have myths and legends to work with to reconstruct the very distant past), to go along with your Yin and Yang cycle idea, would that not mean that instead of living immersed in Lies and Destruction/Suffering (as we are), the people under Matriarchy would have lived in Truth and Creativity - or rather, that living under the paradigm of Femininity there would be no hierarchy or "rule" per se?

Maybe I'm confused here. I was going along the thought that the change in paradigm to that of Patriarchy coincided with the Fall of Mankind and the rise of the Pathocracy, whose first goal was to "demonize" women in order to justify its take-over - so essentially we went from "good times" to "bad times" in the cosmic cycle.

Perhaps I'm clumping too many events into one?
PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong :)

The oppressed love their oppressors and can't wait to follow in their example. To me it is very presumptuous and somewhat indicative of exactly what I am saying by fowarding the idea that the feminine way is better, isn't that exactly how men think? There is someone who once said that no person does something for the sake of evil, instead they do what in their subjective view is "good". I saw a movie once that posed the question of what the world would be like if women ruled it. While part of me says "smear me in honey and through me to the lesbians" the more reasonable person accepts the perspective that power corrupts, even women. I don't presume to correct, instead I am simply forwarding my view so that you may compare it with yours. And there is some small evidence to suggest that men were "abused", then again, that evidence could have been part of the "take over" by men.

In the end though, I am a man, so my opinion will always be slanted towards men, and I have no intention to overcompensate for this. Man should celebrate masculinity and woman should celebrate her femininity and each person should view themselves as part of a whole. A coin is still a coin, whether it lands on heads or tails. What is man without woman? And what is woman without man?

I would also point out that all myth is about transformation, while women are painted as antagonists, they actually are, in an alchemical sense. For instance, no man can reach the final transformation without woman, women cannot attain it without man.

 

[sHiZo963]

As for matriachal societies... Huh? (could someone link please?) From what I understood of the cass material there are basically two social systems we have known - the egalitarian one of before the fall, and the dominator one implemented after, which *as I understood* was patriarchal from the word go.

I was thinking the same, and that crushing the "Femininity" AKA the Creative paradigm was part of the Matrix Control System, and one of the main reasons why it has been so "successful" in putting humanity to sleep through the ages. After all, turning men against each other is one of the chief mechanisms being used to maintain control, and how can that be done if not by TAKING AWAY Creativity and Truth?

I am a man as well, but the more I study this world and its hidden history, the more I see the unnecessary destruction, suffering, etc that is propagated continuously by the male-dominated Pathocracy. Sure, some women may be in power and even psychopaths, but they, as you point out, largely mimic their oppressors i.e. MEN and do as they often do. The fact is that what traits are ascribed to Masculinity are deemed superior BY OUR SOCIETY to those traits ascribed to Femininity. The Creative functions that go hand-in-hand with such a paradigm are disappearing and are, more and more, being replaced with Lies and Illusions and Power and Hierarchy.

This is what I was getting at when I wrote about the "Rape of Femininity," not the destruction of Matriarchal societies, which could very well be very Masculine in how they maintain control. But then, my original (and Marie's) confusion about the "order of events" in the Fall has not been addressed yet, so I might still be talking non-sense.

 

[atreides]

Very recently Laura wrote in a post that the oppressors tend to become the oppressed - which kinda gave me food for thought, and squares in with this subject.

I do have a problem imagining a world where women beat, rape and enslave men - though for the sake of fair play it should be mentioned that there are two cases (that I've heard of) on the record of men being raped by women, and one of those men developed symptoms, including a rather mild version of post-traumatic shock syndrome (the gravity of the syndrome was probably related to the violence of the attack). And there might be more - after all, you'd expect victims of such crimes to be rather reticent to report.

And well, it is obviously true that some women exhibit psychopathic behaviors. Curiously, both of those that I have known were anti-feminist. Maybe their lack of empathy makes them blind to the fact that what is done to other women can also be done to them?

As for matriachal societies... Huh? (could someone link please?) From what I understood of the cass material there are basically two social systems we have known - the egalitarian one of before the fall, and the dominator one implemented after, which *as I understood* was patriarchal from the word go.

Though thinking about it... once saw a tv documentary that theorized that at the start of the neolithic "revolution" there had been a revolt against women who had previously occupied the dominant role.

But then, the same channel passed documentaries that claimed the pyramids were built using earthen ramps

So I'm not really sure what to think about it...

My first recommendation would be the Minoan culture. The women were bullfighters, and wielded double sided axes into battle, though I am certain men fought, they were subservient to the women, the Minoans are thought to be the Amazons, and in my own personal opinion went to spain post catastrophe. It is said that Heracles, funny enough who changed his name to Heracles after being "reconciled" to Hera, killed the Queen of the Amazons who wielded a double sided axe.

 

[atreides]

I think in the end, my main point is this, matriarchal or patriarchal, they are human societies, there are no, nor can their ever be perfect or even egalitarian human societies, perfect balance is stagnation, the wheel is made to move by the constant change of pressure.

For those who follow Chinese thoughts on energy and Yin and Yang, you can see a perfect example of overabundance of Yang (Global Warming?) war, death, destruction. Like in TCM when Yang reaches a certain point, it snaps around and becomes Yin (Ice Age, cold tranquil refertilization etc).

So, back to where I started with my first comment, I don't think it has anything to do with pathocracy or patriarchal suppression of femininity. It's the vorlons vs. the shadows, we are all either kings or pawns, or in this case, we are always pawns. The way the world is now is NOT a repercussion of psychopathy or pathocracy, psychopathy and pathocracy are the symptoms, not the illness, OSIT. Anyway, that's my ten cents, my two cents was free.

 

[Z...]

and in my own personal opinion went to spain post catastrophe.

Are you refering to the destruction of atlantis or the destruction of Krete?
Why Spain?
All the refrences from greek mythology point out in the direction of asia minor and cappadocia. Some scholars believe these female wariors were part of Scythian tribes who lived north of the Black Sea.

and wielded double sided axes into battle,

I never heard of this before. All the images (I ve seen) from Minoan culture depict women as very feminine, typicaly exposing breasts and in a very long skirts which probably wouldnt be suitable for the battle.
Surely bare breasts and the outfit of minoan women tell us about their position in the society. It is widely acknowledged that they participated in what we would term as very masculine sports such as boxing and bull jumping ( the scope of the game was not to kill the bull but to jump or leap over it grabbing it by its horns) but I never encountered notion of Minoian women as wariors, actually very little is known about Minoians, especially their military culture.

They were a people of magnificent social organization, culture, art, and commerce. There is no evidence that they were a military people; they thrived instead, it seems, on their remarkable mercantile abilities. This lack of a military culture, however, may have spelled their final downfall. For the Minoans also exported their culture as well as goods, and a derivative culture grew up on the mainland of Greece, the Myceneans, who were a war-like people. Strangely enough, the direct inheritors of their traditions may have been the agents of their destruction.

for those interested in Minoians a bit more on the matriarchal qualities of Minoan culture:

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MINOA/WOMEN.HTM

Urbanization dramatically changes social relations. In place of real, biological relationships based on kinship, urbanized cultures organize themselves around more abstract, less stable, and inherently unequal lines. In particular, urbanized society is organized around "class," that is, economic function, rather than kinship. Economic function produces a kind of social inequality, as administrators, kings, and priests, come to occupy economically more important roles (distribution and regulation) than others. While there is really no such thing as social mobility in the ancient world, class is inherently unstable as a way of organizing society. Urbanization also produces a split in human experience; life is divided into a public and a domestic sphere. In small tribal societies, this split is non-existent or barely evident, but urbanization produces a marked distinction between these two spheres. Almost universally, men dominate the newly formed public sphere: administration, regulation, and military organizations. Social inequality, then, gets established along sexual lines as well as economic function. This is a dramatic and traumatic change for any society to go through; literally, the entire world view has to adapt dramatically to account for this new inequality. For instance, most religions probably began as goddess religions; the new urbanized societies, however, develop god religions in their place.
Crete, so singular in everything else, seems to have avoided this. Not only does Crete seem to be a class-based society where there is little class inequality, archaeological evidence suggests that women never ceased playing an important role in the public life of the cities. They served as priestesses, as functionaries and administrators, and participated in all the sports that Cretan males participated in. These were not backyard sports, either, like croquet. The most popular sports in Crete were incredibly violent and dangerous: boxing and bull-jumping. In bull-jumping, as near as we can tell from the representations of it, a bull would charge headlong into a line of jumpers. Each jumper, when the bull was right on top of them, would grab the horns of the bull and vault over the bull in a somersault to land feet first behind the bull. This is not a sport for the squeamish. All the representations of this sport show young women participating as well as men.

Women also seem to have participated in every occupation and trade available to men. The rapid growth of industry on Crete included skilled craftswomen and entrepreneurs, and the large, top-heavy bureaucracy and priesthood seems to have been equally staffed with women. In fact, the priesthood was dominated by women. Although the palace kings were male, the society itself does not seem to have been patriarchal.

Evidence from Cretan-derived settlements on Asia Minor suggest that Cretan society was matrilineal, that is, kinship descent was reckoned through the mother. We live in a patrilineal society; we spell out our descent on our father's side—that's why we take our father's last name and not our mother's last name. While we can't be sure that Cretan society was matrilineal, it is a compelling conclusion since the religion was goddess-based.

and then there is this part which I find particularly interesting:

The Minoan religious world apparently had numerous demons as well, who are always pictured as performing some religious ritual or another, so their exact nature is difficult to assess. They are always depicted as human beings, with the hands and feet of a lion. While they are certainly monstrous, they may, in fact, be symbols of religious worship.

 

[Marie]

This forum really is a good place for uncovering cognitive dissonance – in this case, my own.

See when I first Laura`s original comment, and then atreides’ first post in this thread my immediate emotional reaction was the same:

“What?! Women treating men like they treat us now? That could never happen, we would never do such things, we’re better than that!``

Aha! See that? Wishful thinking in action! My ego’s identification with half of the people on this planet was manipulating me to not perceive reality as it is.

Which made me think of a book I read several years ago – it was “Lip service" by Kate Fillion. The core of her book revolves around, as she calls it, “the myth of female moral superiority" . In it she argued that women had made a precarious trade-off – namely, giving up on true equality in exchange for being erroneously considered morally better, which led to aberrant behavior on both sides of the gender line.

Now that I am in a more rational mood, it’s obvious that I cannot account for or predict the behavior of female psychopaths (or derivatives) any more than good, “normal" men can account for or predict the behavior of rapists and slave-traders. And well, we all have seen women who craved power and abused it, so I can see how it could be, indeed, that the only difference between a male-run pathocracy and a female-run pathocracy would be that whisky and scotch would be replaced by mint and cocoa cream in the bars of the elite.

I think in the end, my main point is this, matriarchal or patriarchal, they are human societies, there are no, nor can their ever be perfect or even egalitarian human societies

Shoot! And I thought that was what we were aiming for! {or part of it anyways)

perfect balance is stagnation, the wheel is made to move by the constant change of pressure.

Ah, think I see what you mean. Developmental need for evil (as inequality) in 3d STS reality, or something similar? Makes me think of Bernard Weber’s comparison between ants society (chaotic and evolving) and termites society (equalitarian and stagnant)

My first recommendation would be the Minoan culture. The women were bullfighters, and wielded double sided axes into battle, though I am certain men fought, they were subservient to the women

Will look it up – doing a search on cass led me to the Truth or Lies series, I’ll read it and go from there.

the Minoans are thought to be the Amazons,

Unrelated bit about the amazons: maybe 1-2 years ago I saw a documentary covering the mtDNA project (which from my understanding is good science, someone please tell me if it isn’t), and where the researcher had found genetic markers associated with the amazons in present-day Mongolian population, which if I remember right paralleled an ancient greek story (Homer?) about them being captured and loaded on ships, overthrowing their captors, but not knowing how to sail which had them end up in Asia. Will see if I can find some links regarding that.

Dear sHiZo963 : you make several good points, and it seems to me like a few things by Laura touch on the same subjects – I delayed answering you because your posts did not “shock� me so much, but now I am going to do some reading and I’ll be back, hopefully with links and extracts. :D

 

[Charles]

I think in the end, my main point is this, matriarchal or patriarchal, they are human societies, there are no, nor can their ever be perfect or even egalitarian human societies, perfect balance is stagnation, the wheel is made to move by the constant change of pressure.

While I do see what you are trying to say, or coming from, I disagree with the gross generalisation. What you state, and even the sound of it, is very close to Straussian philosophy, OSIT.
The devil is in the details and stating that perfect balance is stagnation in THIS context (matriarchal versus patriarchal society) creates a blind spot for seeing other possibilities AND for seeing the real stagnation that humanity is embedded in DESPITE the constant strive, mass murder, clash of religions, civilisations, sexes and what have you not.

I have the impression that you are thinking within a system of duality. Contemplate the triskele. If you go outside a system of duality and try to see the third element, than there will always be evolution, for the mere fact that two seeming opposites are not really opposites as in the two poles along one dimension as in high–low, cold - hot. No, in real life the two "opposites" that people speak of are often so much different that they rightfully should be seen as adding another dimension. In such case a third element simply has to arise, not necessarily because two "opposites" are in conflict, or in disbalance, or strive against each other, but because of the simple fact that they INTERACT. More even, the better the understanding and cooperation between such opposites, the stronger a third element, another dimension will result from such interaction.

For instance:

Man – Woman --> Child

Vertical axis - horizontal axis --> Cross (here a one dimensional line, interacting with another one dimensional line results or at least defines a two dimensional space.)

Here is another one:

Mind – Heart --> discernment

Or :

4th chakra (heart) – 6th chakra (crown) --> third eye.

The better the harmony and balance between such opposites, the better the interaction and cooperation between such opposites, the stronger the possibility becomes that a third element, an added dimension, creation itself will pop into existence.

What sHiZo also shows with his post (I enjoyed reading it) is how mythology is not only able to stir up misogyny or a clash of the sexes in general, but also dampens the potential interaction and cooperation between the two sexes. To me the question is not to think about the ideal **archy, matri or patri, but about how to learn to listen to and cooperate with the other sex. I can assure you that you will end up with a two-oneness that is more than the sum of the two alone. In harmony and balance, you create a third element.

Every relation will be different, so for each individual, within a particular relation there will always be new things to learn, to listen to, to interact with, and to cooperate. I for instance am masculine, but there are situations wherein I am more on the feminine side of the two-oneness of the relation I have. I am masculine by nature which comes with a certain body, and mind structure, but towards my boss, I do have a feminine position. This in no way means that my boss is worth more. I provide him with things he is in need of and even with things of the unknown (I am (still) in research), and if he is functioning from an honest masculine position, he will listen to me, care for me, and provide me.

Skipping my direct bosses, and going to the higher management and how "human resources" are literally being exploited, I can only conclude that if a woman would have to bare such misuse, and is expected to follow orders with blind obedience, that such woman if she were to respect herself, would leave such abusive relation.

I am looking. But there are just not much alternatives.

 

[sHiZo963]

In any case I just wanted to add that we shouldnnt observe myh of Leda and Zeus in that way,
I would never take Zeus as simbol of human male, its rather a symbol for hyperdimensional entity or a race, rape or sexual intercourse in the myth is always symbol of genetic manipulation

after all Zeus has preety much in common with Jahve

Yes, but remember what don Juan, Laura's research, Marciniak, and the C's have said: "They gave us their minds."

The mechanical, predator mind was given to us by the "gods," our hyperdimensional genetic manipulators. Doesn't the Bible keep saying that man was created in the likeness of God? Didn't the Greek "gods" show very human-like characteristics - especially predatorial traits like greed and jealousy?

I think in the end, my main point is this, matriarchal or patriarchal, they are human societies, there are no, nor can their ever be perfect or even egalitarian human societies, perfect balance is stagnation, the wheel is made to move by the constant change of pressure.

In a STS world, yes. I was, all this time, referring to the rape of "Femininity" since the FALL. From what I've read so far of Laura's work, the Cass sessions, Marciniak, etc: before the Fall human beings were quite "different" from contemporary human beings, living possibly in an STO/pseudo 4th Density state. It is a great assumption, indeed, to say that in such a state there is a Matriarchy just because of the Yin/Yang philosophy.

The better the harmony and balance between such opposites, the better the interaction and cooperation between such opposites, the stronger the possibility becomes that a third element, an added dimension, creation itself will pop into existence.

In my honest opinion, Charles hit the nail on head with his comment about "harmony" involving the third force, the neutralizing force of Gurdjieff. Isn't that what Gurdjieff teaches all along - a balance?

And since all the laws of the universe work EXACTLY the same way on every level/scale, so it is that it may be possible to parallel man's self-WORK and his constant struggle to achieve a ONE-ness i.e. harmony/balance and the right working of the HUMAN machine AND this being the ONLY way to EVOLVE ...to humanity's self-WORK and its constant struggle to achieve a ONE-ness i.e. harmony/balance and the right working of the SOCIETAL machine AND this being the ONLY way the human race can EVOLVE.

Couldn't the struggle between patriarchy and matriarchy, men and women, be seen as the different "I"s trying to have their say, but in the societal scale? In this way, as Charles pointed out, when the struggle ceases and the two forces are able to INTERACT productively, the third element comes in and adds a new "dimension." I think that THIS was lost in the FALL.

Take a look at Donald's editorial about the hunter-gatherer societies. He says that in such a society, since property and materialism is non-existent, there is no struggle for power of any kind, and both sexes live in harmony, each doing what his/her masculinity/femininity is naturally good at for the betterment of the community. In the eyes of a modern human, such societies have not "evolved" but I feel that in Gurdjieff's opinion, they are much more "evolved" than us. Perhaps THIS is an example of a pre-FALL society, albeit on a MUCH smaller scale.

EDIT: Here's the link to the thread in which Don's piece was discussed: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4335
In it, there is a link to the actual editorial as well.

 

[Marie]

Ok, so I’ve read around a bit and found, well, not that much, and nothing that unambiguously answers the question of whether we ever lived in a matriarchal pathocracy (or a matriarchy for that matter), but I very probably didn’t dig deep enough, so if anyone has any more ideas please do express them. I found that several times when Laura mentions patriarchy in the speculative/ theoretical sense she writes: “a patriarchy OR matriarchy" , so that would lead me to think that matriarchy is a real possibility, at the very least. It should be noted that we have a very big hole in history – between the apparition of human beings about 300, 000 years ago and the switch to patriarchy about 5,000 years ago – there’s time for a whole lotta things to have happened.

For those interested in the gender issue or the start of patriarchy and the switch from partnership to dominator social models I would highly recommend The Chalice and the Blade. I have decided not to quote from it as if I did I would quote half of it and that would make for a very, very long post, but it is a very enlightening text imho.

Besides that, I found some relevant stuff in the Mouravieff articles, most of which is about in the same vein as:

The principle of Woman's intervention is found in ALL crucial periods of history.
Periods where the ennobling role of the woman in the life of human society has faded are marked by a triviality of morals and manners, expressed in particular by a taste for realism carried to its utmost limits.
Today, human relations suffer from a real distortion in the innate role that woman is destined to play at the side of man: instead of being the active force in these relations, the inspiring and fruitful complement to the man, the woman tends to follow a parallel path, which no longer permits her to exercise her own creative vocation.

This seems to me to have something to do with the notion that women’s natural role is that of subordinate/ helper/ assistant. Obviously for women to be able to exercise their own creative vocations, they would need to be allowed to work on and be in charge of their own projects.

Also I wonder a bit whether it is something specific to women in and of themselves that is the cause of this necessity for “woman’s intervention" – because it could also be a matter of balance, in that for any group to make significant progress in the creative/ STO way there has to be an understanding of the fundamental humanity and equality (in terms of dignity, rights and potential etc.) of all its members, and in the civilization we know it is women who are usually refused this understanding. Maybe last/next civilization it was/will be about “the ennobling role of the man" ?

Now, I understand that most people think there are fundamental and intrinsic mental/ psychological differences between men and women, but in my mind the question is still open for debate.

For example it is thought broadly and sincerely that there are such things as male and female attitudes, modes of thinking, roles, social positions etc., and I know this is what mass media, prevalent social constructs, our parents, our schools and books and tv shows and a thousand other sources say, but for myself I have never seen definitive proof of this and I have seen quite a few things that would tend to disprove that.

For example, almost everybody says that women are more emotional than men, but in my experience in real-life 3d, several men will act out their emotions blindly, sometimes to the extend that it gets destructive to themselves or others, while several women will take a more logical and dispassionate approach.

Yet obviously there are differences in the ways that different genders (as groups) act, but I think it might very well be a product of the huge differences in the way that girls and boys are socialized and programmed, and there is a catch-22 factor here – if you say that a certain group has certain characteristics long enough, eventually most people will believe it, including most people of that given group, which would lead them to act out those characteristics, which will reinforce the idea that the characteristics are linked to that group, and so on ad infinitum…