ISBN: 0140035044
Godina izdanja: 1976
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Elizabeth Gould Davis - The First Sex
Penguin, 1976
382 str.
meki povez
stanje: vrlo dobro

The First Sex is heavily influenced by the Mother-centered mythological interpretations of history developed in part by Johann Jacob Bachofen, Robert Graves, and Robert Briffault. Davis postulates women developed and dominated the earliest civilizations and that the Celtic races were able to preserve and pass on some of the values and skills of these matriarchies despite the onslaught of barbarian Germanic tribes and the surge of Christianity. She believes the abuse of woman by the succeeding patriarchies validates her theory of former female dominance—`a dominance that man felt compelled to stamp out and forget.`

In Part I of the book, Davis establishes the existence and superiority of the peaceful Golden Age of the matriarchies. She speculates males were eventually able to overthrow them because the women, in selecting the largest and strongest males as mates, contributed to superior physical development in men. It is clear Davis believes female society was destroyed and replaced by something infinitely inferior: `When man substituted God for the Great Goddess, he at the same time substituted authoritarian for humanistic values.` According to Davis, a war is still being waged between the physical superiority of the patriarchal male and the inherent moral and mental superiority of the female.

Part II deals in some detail with the patriarchal takeover, especially as it is recorded in mythology and reflected in the continuing hostility between men and women. Part III demonstrates the extent to which remnants of female dominance survived in pre-Christian and Celtic societies. The conclusion treats the `Tragedy of Western Woman,` who has fallen so far from her rightful place.

Although The First Sex is neither the most sensible nor the most scientific book to come out of the contemporary women`s movement, it seems destined to be one of the most influential.

JUDITH P. JONES

Contents:
Prologue: The Lost Civilization --
The Evidence of Language --
The Evidence of Maps --
The Ancient Mariners --
Part 1. The Gynocratic World --
1. Woman and the Second Sex --
The Origins --
Woman the Civilizer --
The Logos --
Woman the Divine --
2. Mythology Speaks --
Renewal and Diffusion --
Sumer and the Celtic Cross --
Orpheus and Druidism --
The Sacred Bull --
3. The Golden Age and the Blessed Lady --
The Ages of Man --
The Golden Age --
The Blessed Lady --
4. Archeology Speaks --
The Great Goddess --
The Matriarchal Theory --
Catal Huyuk --
Even Tombs Have Tongues --
5. Anthropology Speaks --
The First Family and the Origin of Taboos --
the Crime of Incest --
The Sanctity of Woman`s Blood --
Strength and Sexual Selection --
6. Fetishes and Their Origins --
Phallus Worship --
Castration and the Priesthood --
Male Circumcision --
The Breast Fetish --
Sexual Symbolism --
7. Mother-Right --
The Mothers --
The Natural Superiority of Queens --
Matriliny --
Matriliny in the Bible --
Part II. The Patriarchal Revolution --
8. Ram Versus Bull --
The Taurian and Aryan Ages --
Cain and Abel --
Counterrevolution --
Babylon and the Jews --
Adam and Eve --
Zeus and Athene --
9. The Sexual Revolution --
The Need to Punish --
Penis Envy Versus Womb Envy --
Female Circumcision --
10. Patriarchy and Hymenolatry --
The Hymen and the Blood Taboo --
Infibulation --
The Chastity Belt --
Hymen Worship Through the Ages --
Part III. Pre-Christian Women in the Celto-Ionian World --
11. The Pre-Hellenes --
12. The Women of Greece and Italy --
The Woman of Classical Greece --
Etruscan Women --
Roman Women --
13. The Celts --
the Emerging Celts --
The Women of Gaul --
the Warrior Queens --
Tall and Beautiful and Fair --
The Brehon Laws and Christianity --
Lugh and the Great Goddess --
Part IV. The Tragedy of Western Woman --
14. The Advent of Christianity --
The Early Fathers --
Helena and Constantine --
The Most Christian Emperor Constantine --
Descent into Barbarism --
15. Mary and the Great Goddess --
The Discovery of Mary --
Can the Eternal One Be Female? --
Mary in the Middle Ages --
Mary and the British Celts --
16. Women in the Middle Ages --
Domestic Chastisement --
Ribald Priest and Bawdy Friar --
The Cruel Destruction of Women --
17. Some Medieval Women --
Saint Joan --
Pope Joan --
Gynikomnemonikothanasia --
Philippa the Feminist --
the Social Reformers --
18. Women in the Reformation --
Brief Flowering --
The Sixteenth Century --
Back into Bondage --
the Seventeenth Century --
19. The Age of Reason --
The Eighteenth Century --
Restricted, Frowned Upon, Beat --
I Have Thrown Down My Gauntlet --
Crime and Punishment --
20. Not Quite People --
The Nineteenth Century --
A Special Kind of Property --
the Pyre of Hymen --
21. The Prejudice Lingers On --
Some Masculine Myths about Women --
The Myt of Masochis --
The Sex Myth --
Hysteria and Related Myths --
Womans Image --
22. Woman in the Aquarian Age.


Nonfiction, Feminism, History, 0140035044