Matriarchal and Patriarchal Consciousness and Culture

Do you have a conversation topic that doesn't seem to fit any of the other conversations? Here is where we discuss ANYTHING about Joseph Campbell, comparative mythology, and more!

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noman
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Post by noman »

Yet evolution has been sculpting us for millions of years to function in two completely different ways. To deny this is to deny our human nature – a nature that has us on a short leash.

- NoMan

* * * * * * *

It is very hard for me to understand. I do not consider nature has us on a short leash…

- Andreas
Andreas - I got that phrase from primatologist Frans de Waal who was actually quoting Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson.
P233 In the words of Edward Wilson, biology holds you “on a leash” and will let us stray only so far from who we are. We can design our life any way we want, but whether we will thrive depends on how well the life fits human predispositions.

Our Inner Ape, Frans De Waal, 2005
De Waal is a primatologist but he writes popular books on what primate studies are telling us about human nature. It’s part of the spirit of our time, that as the Bible is being usurped you might say by Origin of Species, people look to nature and evolution to help craft a value system. I don’t know how wise that is. But it has to be better than using prehistoric symbolism.

Traditional scholarship in various fields—mythology, religion, anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, literary criticism, etc.—has operated from the premise that a distinct psychohistorical line can be drawn between gynocentric (female-centered, feminine) and androcentric (male-centered, masculine) cultural symbol systems and derivative values.

- Cindy
I don’t know what values could possible be derived from the symbols of the Neolithic. What we know for certain is that the female symbols were more prevalent than the male in much of the Neolithic. It may, and probably does, speak to a goddess. But there’s no reason to believe that a culture with a goddess would indicate that there were ‘derivative values’ such as a more peaceful society, more egalitarian, or that there was better treatment of women by men.

It’s a nice myth. And still a very powerful one. There’s still a matriarchal cult, a cottage industry, and a tourist industry, for images and symbols of Neolithic goddesses or any other pre-Christian goddess images. But my experience of world mythology tells me that the presence of a female deity doesn’t translate or reflect the better or worse treatment of women in a society – or even of a more peaceful or egalitarian society. The move from small tribes to cities and civilization was a move to a less egalitarian society. But that is beside the point.

We have an example closer to home. The ‘Mary cult’ that began in the Middle Ages is associated with Catholicism, whereas the Protestants wonder why people would worship this graven image. But the presence of this goddess in the life of Catholic women hardly translates into more political power compared to Protestant women. From my experience it tends to be just the opposite (with exceptions like Sonia Sotomayor – and Nancy Pelosi).

The polarity between men and women, patriarchal and matriarchal I think is overdone in our time in many ways. We are different in many ways. But many of the most important things in life have to do with values that apply equaly across the sexes; charity, honesty, kindness, forgiveness, integrity, and where to get your hair and nails done :mrgreen:

Interesting quote by Bohm, Andreas. I need to read him someday.

- NoMan

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Post by Evinnra »

noman wrote:

The polarity between men and women, patriarchal and matriarchal I think is overdone in our time in many ways. We are different in many ways. But many of the most important things in life have to do with values that apply equaly across the sexes; charity, honesty, kindness, forgiveness, integrity, and where to get your hair and nails done :mrgreen:
Interesting quote by Bohm, Andreas. I need to read him someday.

- NoMan
Ouch. 8) :lol:

While reading this thread it suddenly became clear to me why you, NoMan and I couldn't come to complete agreement in a previous discussion of a similar topic. We both appear to emphasise the significance of making clear demarkation lines between the genders in order to uphold social cohesion, however our reasons for holding this view differs. As I gather your reasoning appeals to the necessity of living in accord with cultural inheritance and genetic/biological predisposition. (So far so good, we are on the same page.) However, when I claimed that both genders can do - if necessary - the job that is predominantly the function of the other gender, my thinking was that indivuduals possess the blue-print for functioning in both masculine and feminine mode. My claim was NOT that society makes us what we are, my claim is that what we are CAN AND DO respond appropriately to what survival requires from us. (Women can be assertive, men can be receptive.) That said, it is not my claim that man and woman are the same or that they ought to act the same. (If we did, it would land us in a truly repulsive asexual hell hole. :twisted: )

Since I am not a psychologist, let me explain what I mean with an example. When my eldest son was 3 or 4 he asked for a Barbie doll for Christmas. I called my Dad and told him what happened and asked if it is alright to give a doll to him? Dad said, it will only make my son more masculine if he is allowed to experiment with role playing and the same thinking made him buy me a little ambulance car when I asked for it at age 3 or 4.

There is nothing new about the idea that each individual has both masculine and feminine sides to their psyhe. So too, societies function either in a more masculine or a more feminnine mode. However, this fact means only so much that this mode suits the times/context best and not that the very same society can't switch - so to speak - to another mode of functioning when the occasion calls for it. Right now I think we need leadership to re-instate a sense of purpose and re-instate appreciation of the virutes in our new global society. That is a job for the outgoing masculine part of the human psyche IMHO.
'A fish popped out of the water only to be recaptured again. It is as I, a slave to all yet free of everything.'
http://evinnra-evinnra.blogspot.com

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Here's an interesting reference: Not in God's Image

...I would think the probability of matriarchal cultures would be about as likely as that of patriarchal. I find it noteworthy that there is such a strong reaction in some corners (of a patriarchal culture with one or two vested interests) to that possibility. There is little doubt about the central character of the goddess image in the Mediterranean basin prior to the population shifts of the Aryan and Semitic tribes.

Perhaps the current attitude towards that matriarchy may be inflated (a touch of enantiodromia?), but the dismissive nature of the argument that it didn't exist at all comes off as, well, really patriarchal (another touch of enantiodromia?).

Nothing much can be scientifically proven. This is no cause for dismissal, especially if the artifacts and mythology direct one to a fairly logical conclusion.
We have an example closer to home. The ‘Mary cult’ that began in the Middle Ages is associated with Catholicism, whereas the Protestants wonder why people would worship this graven image. But the presence of this goddess in the life of Catholic women hardly translates into more political power compared to Protestant women. From my experience it tends to be just the opposite (with exceptions like Sonia Sotomayor – and Nancy Pelosi).
Noman, the Catholic Mary 'cult' is, quite basically an expression of the feminine from within a masculine structure. (My own catholic memory of 'worshipping' Mary on May Day is quite strong and has a decidedly pagan aspect to it.) If memory serves, there was quite the gathering at an ancient city on the coast of Turkey by the church hierarchy early on, to determine Mary's position in it all. Just so happened that particular city (can't recall it's name at the moment) had been central to the worship of Diana (Artemis?) and the locals turned out in strong support to give Mary a prominent position. To them, apparently, it was a no-brainer.

That her position didn't do much for the status of women in general is no surprise. The patriarchal ancients may have respected the feminine aspect, but they too treated women none too well by today's standards. Especially the Semitic traditions which turned the goddess into a temptress to be covered up and held down. That's the soil Catholicism grew from. The feminine aspect was demonized.

What does come down to us from before the winner started writing his-story are images of human sacrifice and ritual regicide. Interpretations of images, frescoes and remnants of an oral tradition may not be scientific evidence, but, as they say, if it walks like a duck....
Last edited by Clemsy on Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

noman wrote:A woman asked Campbell once about the ‘woman’s hero journey’ and if it was the same as a man’s. Here are parts of his answer...
You omitted the part, noman, where Campbell also mentioned that women have no need for a hero's/heroine's journey. :P Initially when I started this thread, I planned to keep my own comments at the objective level for the most part, but what the heck--it's true that on occasion I disagree with Campbell (and Jung) when it comes to his views about women. Maybe you remember that in another thread I already addressed this, so below I'm going to save myself writing time and reprint one of my past posts:


. . .As for me, a confession of sorts. Those who've become acquainted with me since I returned to this board know the respect that I hold for both Campbell's and Jung's insights into the human condition and experience. But...I admit that when push comes to shove, I'm of two minds about both these men's teachings, and I have to interpret and reframe much of what they said in ways that best suit me. Yes, the key word here is "men," because they, like all of us in those cultures rooted in patriarchy, view the world from the privileged perspective of men and "the masculine" wherein women and "the feminine" are conceived as the "other" and somehow foreign. Even our languages are essentially masculine in character, such that we women must learn to think and to speak from that privileged perspective and somehow make it our own. Consciousness is just as much a socially learned and linguistic phenomenon as it is biological and psychological, and the masculine flavor imbued in our Western collective consciousness is here to stay, no doubt, for a very long time.

Anyway, when Campbell speaks of the hero and Jung of its equivalent ego, both concepts arise from the male psyche and a traditionally masculine psychology; and it's because we modern women who focus on "following our bliss" or pursuing "individuation" must live our lives in patriarchal and patristic cultures that we can and do imitate the masculine journey since for now there are few, if any, other realistic options. In the most general sense, girls and women in Western societies are encouraged and taught how to behave as the assigned "other," while at the same time we are also expected to become similar to boys and men in our personal psychologies and consciousness, and only later in life do many women question this way of living and this view of themselves and their daughters. Yet what optional view should women adopt when every alternative that we might think of, believe in, or know about ourselves and the world is by necessity a reaction to long being cast as the "other"? Whatever might be a pure expression of what is essentially "girl" or "woman" or "female" often seems lost to us psychologically and socially, or it's buried so deeply in the masculine mind set that it's barely recognizable. And those of us who turn to myths to shed light on the essential female psyche must keep in mind that the vast majority of Western stories handed down arose from varities of a male/masculine-based consciousness.

Jung, I believe, and despite the overt sexism in much of his writings and his perception of women, the feminine, and the anima as "other," does--with his concepts of the archetype and the collective unconscious--offer women the best chance of coming to recognize what is the essence of our own psyches and individual psychologies. As we currently conceptualize them, archetypes in and of themselves are androgynous, so to speak, or better yet, gender neutral, so it's up to us women to re-evaluate and to reinterpret the archetypal images made known to us, both personally and collectively, present and past, and discern their meanings and value for ourselves as individuals. Even the terms "masculine" and "feminine" are culturally contrived and defined, so of course an honest exploration of our own psyches will reveal characteristics of both. What matters most is those personal meanings ascribed and their associated implications that can help to inform a woman's capacity for choice when it comes to following her bliss or pursuing individuation.

As for Campbell suggesting that women have no need to complete the hero's journey or that there is no such thing as a heroine's journey, well, what can I say but "other"? :wink:


***

I have something else to offer along the lines of biology and culture, too, but I'll have to come back to this one later. In the meantime, some might be interested in reviewing the following threads that focus on archetypes (psychophysical instincts) and archetypal images. I suggest this in part to highlight the difference between these two concepts in relation to this discussion, but also to point out that they're at the root of the distinction between sex (male, female) and gender (masculine, feminine). More later.

http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0
http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0


Cindy
Last edited by Cindy B. on Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

Thanks for the article link, Clemsy. I'm looking forward to spending time with it later today. :)

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Cindy, I don't think it's that Campbell said that women have "no need to complete the hero's journey or that there is no such thing as a heroine's journey." His point is that women do complete a hero journey: childbirth. (POM, episode 1) Having watched Mrs. Clemsy do this twice, especially the first time, leads me to agree. She does also.

Indeed, he also says being born is a hero journey, and we all do that.

The question arises then, if women who have managed and medicated birthing experiences have this experience. Perhaps, in this case, women would have to find a different dragon to slay.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Andreas »

Cindy, I don't think it's that Campbell said that women have "no need to complete the hero's journey or that there is no such thing as a heroine's journey." His point is that women do complete a hero journey: childbirth. (POM, episode 1) Having watched Mrs. Clemsy do this twice, especially the first time, leads me to agree. She does also.
Here is the quote if it helps.
Moyers: So even if we happen not to be heroes in the grand sense of redeeming society, we still have to take that journey inside ourselves, spiritually and psychologically.

Campbell: That's right. Otto Rank in his important little book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero declares that everyone is a hero in birth, where he undergoes a tremendous psychological as well as physical transformation, from the condition of a little water creature living in a realm of amniotic fluid into an air-breathing mammal which ultimately will be standing. That's an enormous transformation, and had it been consciously undertaken, it would have been, indeed, a heroic act. And there was a heroic act on the mother's part, as well, who had brought this all about.
I forgot this important part
Moyers: Then heroes are not all men?

Campbell: Oh, no. The male usually has the more conspicuous role, just because of the conditions of life. He is out there in the world, and the woman is in the home. But among the Aztecs, for example, who had a number of heavens to which people's souls would be assigned according to the conditions of their death, the heaven for warriors killed in battle was the same for mothers who died in childbirth. Giving birth is definitely a heroic deed, in that it is the giving over of oneself to the life of another
Later when he is talking about rituals he explains why, if i remember correctly, women don't have to pass rituals and he explains that nature is doing that to them.

And about the dragon.
The question arises then, if women who have managed and medicated birthing experiences have this experience. Perhaps, in this case, women would have to find a different dragon to slay.
In POM again, somewhere.
Moyers: It is a journey--you have to move out of the known, conventional safety of your life to undertake this.

Campbell: You have to be transformed from a maiden to a mother. That is a big change, involving many dangers.
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Well, Clemsy...

Here are a few Campbell quotes from Pathways to Bliss that address women's experiences, and the bottom line for him is that biology reigns supreme. The perspective is decidedly male/masculine, the main point that I was trying to make, i.e., woman as "other." My hunch is that women who may read my last post and this one will indeed appreciate where I'm coming from. :wink: Whether or not they might agree with me in all respects is something else, though, and for them to decide.

Campbell:

All of the great mythologies and much of the mythic story-telling of the world are from the male point of view. When I was writing "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and wanted to bring female heroes in, I had to go to the fairy tales. These were told by women to children, you know, and you get a different perspective. It was men who got involved in most of the great myths. The women were too busy; they had too damn much to do to sit around thinking about stories.

[T]he male body lacks that recall to nature, to the female nature that is there automatically in the female body.. .I noticed that one after another, as they (women) approached the age of thiry, the marriage problem came up, even for my sister. This mantra began to take hold of them: got to get married now and have a child and all this kind of thing. . .This is one of the points of the female journey, I would say, that there's a heavier load of given nature to deal with.

[M]y sister and her friends, they weren't washing the dishes; they were sculpting and so forth. And then their bodies said, "Oh, gee, there's something left out here.". . .It's inevitable. . .Vocational destiny.

I'm not saying that this thing (being a mother and being actualized) has never been resolved, but I'm saying that a typical agony there that makes the actual achievement of the goal different, between a man and a woman, is the strength and the weight of the call of the woman's body to have a child, to have whatever else is associated with all this. A man could go on without it.

The call of the body, this call of nature, is very potent in the woman, in her own life but also as the man experiences her. . .[W]hen she goes by, he's activated; she is the activator. . .So the male gets seduced into the field of action in that way.

So it's much easier, I think, for a woman to identify with the male than it would be for a male who is committed to his lie, to his particular abstraction, if you will, to the sphere of action, then to move back to that general thing. . .It's really no problem for a woman, if the situation is one that calls for it, for her to assume the male role. I mean, all she has to take on is a specification of power that is hers. . .But for a man this is a totally different thing; he doesn't have that woman base out of which to then move into another factor...I would find it very difficult to identify with some symbol of life that had to do with giving birth to children. I mean, as you say, a man can't give birth. We're not linked to that energy field system of life in the same direct way. We're in the field of a specific action function.

Patriarchal consciousness at its best. :wink: Comments, ladies?

Cindy


P.S. Having had two natural childbirths, I can say that personally the experiences were, well, no big deal in the scheme of things. The only one who genuinely performed heroically in those instances was my children's father who did manage to survive after all. I instead was in the precarious position--literally, :P --of having to attend to his needs while trying to give birth. Both were natural things to do, and I didn't have to slay a single dragon along the way...
Last edited by Cindy B. on Wed Dec 16, 2009 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by A J »

As much as I admire Joe - and I do think he tried, I cannot help but get a little amused when men try to explain women.

I think we need to look to other sources to understand a woman's heroic journey. The Heroine's Journey, by Maureen Murdock resonates with me.

She uses a cycle that has similarities to The Hero's Journey, but with some significant differences. For instance, the need to separate from the feminine and identify with the masculine in order to take the journey, as well as the eventual need to reconnect, to "heal the mother/daughter split." I can relate to these stages on a personal level, both as a daughter and as a mother.

I believe, too, that women of a younger generation than I (I am 66 now), might have a different perspective. I married and had a family before the feminist movement and the resultant women's rights. My daughters are now in their 40's, and we have only recently come out the other side of that split, and are working on healing it. Anyway, my perspective may be different.

Although younger women have more options available, and the strength of the patriarchal attitude is lessening, it seems we still have a society that is hierarchical, and dominated by a masculine perspective. We still have a way to go.

Just my thoughts

AJ
"Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy."

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

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Post by Clemsy »

Well then the question for me (and far be it for me to disagree with a perspective I can't really know, but Mrs. Clemsy, on the issue of childbirth, does agree it is a hero journey but let's let that go) is, therefore, the nature of the hero journey gender neutral?

I do agree that Campbell can be read in the light of your comments. However, Campbell is also working with a body of material that is, generally, the product of male dominated societies. However, he does make valid points regarding the difference in male female biological imperatives. Biology may not be all, by a long shot, but neither can it be dismissed.

BTW... There are examples of living matriarchal societies. The Haudenosaunee for one.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

AJ wrote:I think we need to look to other sources to understand a woman's heroic journey. The Heroine's Journey, by Maureen Murdock resonates with me.

She uses a cycle that has similarities to The Hero's Journey, but with some significant differences. For instance, the need to separate from the feminine and identify with the masculine in order to take the journey, as well as the eventual need to reconnect, to "heal the mother/daughter split." I can relate to these stages on a personal level, both as a daughter and as a mother.
Hey, AJ.

I agree that sources such as Murdock's are a good place for many women to start, that is, from a familiar place (an example of those alternatives I mentioned that arise in reaction to the common patriarchal perspective), and I've read them, too. I would also suggest, though, that at some point along the way tossing aside such guides--whether from Murdoch, Campbell, Jung, or whomever--and relying on self-exploration and personally interpreted symbols. In this way we're more likely to transcend aspects of the the dominant symbol systems in which we find ourselves enmeshed and come from a more authentic place; this also presents us with more choices along the way--play the patriarchy game or not at any given time as suits us best. Such transcendence, though, must realistically be seen for the idealistic goal that it is, something to strive for that will likely be elusive in its totality for most of us average folks. :wink:

I'd suggest the same for you guys, too, by the way, when it comes to the hero's journey. Maybe your journey will indeed mirror Campbell's (and Jung's, too) description of this path, then again, maybe your authentic pattern might differ in some way. Who else can better determine such a thing than you?

Just a thought. :)

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

Clemsy wrote: Biology may not be all, by a long shot, but neither can it be dismissed.
I do agree with you, by the way, Clemsy. And this likely goes without saying, but I was speaking only for myself on the issue of childbirth and would never presume to speak for your wife or for another. Every path is different.

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Clemsy »

Having had two natural childbirths, I can say that personally the experiences were, well, no big deal in the scheme of things.
Spoken like a true hero!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

:mrgreen:
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by A J »

Cindy B. wrote:
I agree that sources such as Murdock's are a good place for many women to start, that is, from a familiar place (an example of those alternatives I mentioned that arise in reaction to the common patriarchal perspective), and I've read them, too. I would also suggest, though, that at some point along the way tossing aside such guides--whether from Murdoch, Campbell, Jung, or whomever--and relying on self-exploration and personally interpreted symbols. In this way we're more likely to transcend aspects of the the dominant symbol systems in which we find ourselves enmeshed and come from a more authentic place; this also presents us with more choices along the way--play the patriarchy game or not at any given time as suits us best. Such transcendence, though, must realistically be seen for the idealistic goal that it is, something to strive for that will likely be elusive in its totality for most of us average folks. :wink:

Cindy
That's a very good suggestion. Do you have any examples?

AJ
"Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy."

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

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