The Burning Times: fascinating docu on women's power before Christianity

Hi, AyeRobot. Have you read Malcolm Gaskill's book on Matthew Hopkins? Or the 1579 trial pamphlet, which is located around St Osyth? Could dig up the title if you'd like. Rather oddly, Manningtree was a hub for the coal trade from Newcastle in those times, not the middle of nowhere, but more like Aberdeen.

Tyr, thanks for those kind words. Love your name.

Oh dear......
At this stage, it would have been interesting to have had some contribution from Christian MN?ers; I?m sure there are some.
I appreciated some of the posts of MillyR, Garlicbutter and Sieglinde. While I may not have agreed with all the points made, I was at least given cause for thought and at least one book I intend to add to my collection.
Some of the other posts, not least the last bunch, would not look out of place on the walls of a public lavatory.

I really did live near Manningtree, I just had a brain fart spelling wise.

I was having a look (prompted by this thead) for trials that happened where my ancestors lived as I have an interest in genealogy. Nothing. And not because the weren't recorded. They just didn't happen. Or maybe they did and they weren't recorded. Hmmm.....

Great play suggestion, IC. I'm going to bring that up for consideration at my next Am Dram meeting.

Yes, the witches phenomenon is fascinating. As well as upsetting and horrifying. And the part-pagan, part-feminist attempt to reclaim the witch idea in positive terms is also intriguing. I read a fair bit about that while at university.

Also I recommend Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill as a great play for anyone interested in the witch trials. It's written from a feminist point of view and I remember finding it a very powerful and engaging piece of work when I saw it performed by a student group back in the late '80s.

hahahaha

Actually, the more I think of it, the more disgusting that message becomes. Not you, IC, of course. If they didn't want PIV to be involved in the story, they could at least have added in a bit of clitoral stimulation.

In relation to the earlier stuff on this thread, I have read it all in one go and am, quite frankly, bemused by the whole thing. It's often the way on long threads - they read differently in one sitting as opposed to in the heat of the moment. Anyway, I have splinters in my arse because I understand where both dittany and LRD are coming from. Integrity of the information is important, yet how can throwing the baby out with the bathwater help discussion of feminist topics?

I really want to learn more about witches, so I hope that once this thread is full someone starts a new thread. If no-one else does, I will. I did know something about the witch trials as a youngster, but I don't remember how. I did live near Maningtree for a time, so learnt a lot then, especially because Matthew Hopkins was born in the next village along. And I was part of a trick-playing when Most Haunted vsited the area.

Did someone call?

Heh at the idea that christianity isn't based on misogyny. For all the reasons given by dittany and sAf. And Mary didn't even get a decent shag out of God in order to conceive Jesus.

It's not quite correct to say that they erased it; in fact it's completely incorrect. It was subsumed and accomodated for in the RC church.
Neither is it correct to say that the basis of christianity is misogyny, although that has played a part in its history.

In fact here is a nice link to make my point.

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/

There are a lot of more general documentaries about the Christian church too, Tyr - e.g. Diarmuid MacCulloch's recent series The History of Christianity. I haven't watched it (would be very interesting to see how he addressed the woman issue) so this isn't a specific comment about that series, I'm just backing up dittany's general point.

I'm sure a quick Google/look through BBC archives will find many other Christianity-related programmes that don't really discuss the role of women, and many that are generally supportive of Christianity/the church.

"You know there are uncritical documentaries about christianity and the christian church on TV all the time, which never mention its basis in and on-going hatred of women. That isn't regarded as poor scholarship even though it is, but becuase it's made by men or people propping up male institutions so they are seen as serious historians."

Dittany,

Which documentaries are those? Unless I?ve missed something, most documentaries on the RC church have focussed (quite correctly, in my view) on the child abuse scandal.
Considerable coverage has been given to the issue of the ordination of women as priests in the C of E.
Then there was the docu-film on the Magdalene Laundries, which did address the systematic abuse of women within the RC church- by other women- nuns.
It's been a long time since the Church got an easy time over anything.

Actually, something else I hope you'll feel is important too, re. so-called 'serious historians' - remember the comments about the way Mary Beard looked by, I think it was, A.A. Gill? There were loads of comments in support of her on that issue! And I think that's important too - not just objecting to bad scholarship or misogynistic presenters but also pointing out people who do the job well.

Let's leave aside the issue of whether this film is merely 'mistaken' or not - we're not going to agree, are we?

However, I object to poor documentaries on other topics too - and Sakura and I agreed very early in this thread that there are some appalling 'documentaries' out there that seem to go unchallenged because they support the status quo. You are right that this is important too, absolutely.

When you say, though, 'this isn't regarded as poor scholarship' I'm confused - by whom is it not recognized? I'm not doubting you here, I just want to know an example so we can all attack it and maybe find better alternatives - that way we can all pool what we do know and get better educated. I think that's a great thing to do in this section actually - it'd be good to have a feminist review of documentaries and so on (like the book club) so with luck, when we see something we think sounds misogynistic, someone will be able to tell us what the truth is. I'd really appreciate that actually - so often it annoys me that I will see or hear something (eg., about 'brain differences between men and women') that sounds plausible, and I don't have the training to take issue with it. Then recently someone told me to read the Cordelia Fine book, and I though 'Oh, great - so it is wrong!' It'd be lovely to have more of that.

'Can you really not see that a more balanced approach might have been - "this film has serious historical flaws, but as an account of the witchcraze itself it is a useful piece of work" - you know, separate parts out a little, rather than writing the whole thing off and traducing the makers as liars.'

No, Dittany, that wouldn't be 'a more balanced approach', that would agreeing with you.

I just don't, here, on this one. People disagree sometimes. What we can surely agree on is that it's important for us on this section to find ways to talk and think not only about the abuse that has been or is being done to women, but also about how to get past that and fight that, and find some kind of integrity in the face of that. I think it is really important to work that through.

I think at the base of it what we are getting at here is the problem with the 'men's-violence-and-misogyny-explains-the-patriarchy-and-whathehell-explains-men's-violence-because-men-and-women-are-identical- (bar the obvious physical differences)' school of thought.

The witch craze is quite clearly an example of violence and misogyny at work, and yet when you get down to it thats just a description, not an explanation of why it happened. To say that it was driven by men's hatred of women is not a satisfactory answer to why it was and why it played out differently in Finland, Spain etc.. All these questions are just brushed away by the argument that it's misogyny and that all you need to know, and that understanding the institutions, politics and getting the dates right is mere quibbling over insignificant detail.

Playing fast and loose with history wasnt just a mistake by the video makers that could be corrected with a bit of editing and an errata. The video looked like a devotional piece rather than a documentary - written to promote the mystical- religious view of a time before when women were revered and had power and special women-knowledge, before it got swept away and stolen from us and replaced by man-knowledge (the kind that quibbles over dates and statistics). Which seems to be part of the same Garden of Eden story.

The story just doesn't stack up.

What if society evolved through the differential behaviours of men and women to maximise each individual gene's chance of being passed on. In the tough environment we evolved in that meant trading off some equality for survival. Agriculture made that trade off stronger ( as SAf said) technologies have made it even stronger so power got more concentrated. And power without axcountability corrupts, sometimes in terrible ways (and power always outraces accountability)

MillyR,

I'm not saying it has been crossed, whatever that line is. I was basically asking what if.....
I'd still like to know why Dittany appears to believe that the rights of men and women are so mutually exclusive in her view that she uses that term as an insult.