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

But men also co-operate with other men, and women co-operate with other women, and women and men compete against each other when attempting to command resources.

So I don't see a contradiction between what Himalaya and SAF are saying.

SAF was in reply to your observation that men and women can not live in separate societies in the way that other groups can because men and women's reproduction are tied together.

I don't think the 'behind enemy lines' analogy makes sense. Men compete with other men, and women with other women in terms of 'success' in comanding the resources to have more descendants.

Anyway, 'tis late and this is well OT.

That was speculation by the way! I don't know if societies do explicitly say that about menstruating women, but it could be a motivating factor.

I think it can also be about controlling women. Many women (worldwide) of childbearing age who are neither pregnant nor breastfeeding a young baby do not menstruate because they don't have an adequate diet. A menstruating woman can be seen by a misogynistic society as a woman who is using up too many resources.

Follow the taboo. ...

GB - I'm not sure either. I guess everything was a bit more supernatural to prescientific people. But menses is regular and understandable/predicatable even if you don't really understand the physiology. Much more comprehensible than infection before there was germ theory for example.

Also it would have been obvious to people with more day to day contact with blood - human and animal, and with life and death that menstrual discharge is not the same as blood. It has blood in it, but it's not the same stuff.

My late night theory is that as with food taboos, taboos around menstrual cleanliness are 'about' enforcing group identity and preventing intermixing. E.g. Like the gypsy menstruation taboos which are ostensibly about relationships between men and women, but which have the effect of making everyone outsde of community unclean because they don't follow the table -- so keeping people in the community.

SAF, Susie Orbach says things that are very similar to that.

I don't disagree SAF. But I think there is also the simple fact that women who are pregnant or who have just given birth are easy to control because they are physically more vulnerable than people who are not in that situation. That makes it possible for people who want more power to control pregnant women, by force if neccesary. Then people will make social justifications as to why they should be allowed to control those women, and that social justification is then extended to apply to all women whether they are pregnant or not. It then becomes a social habit, and basic cirumstances of how it arose get forgotten or dismissed, or flipped to make it seem as if it is about protection rather than control. Once that social habit is in place, people (in this case men) don't want to give up that power and control and are unlikely (as a group) to actively work towards relinquishing power.

Thanks, SAF, too. You've described more of what I was thinking about.

I think I came to consider this (have forgotten exactly why) after reading some woman-hating tract from long ago, which made the point "women bleed and don't die". Yes, they would have noticed that ewes menstruate once (?) a year and can only be impregnated at a certain time of the year. But they'd still have seen that as the work of mysterious powers. It would have seemed even more illogical that humans do it all year round?

Must go away now - last night was disturbed by nightmares of witch-hunts, don't want to be dreaming about periods tonight
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Milly.

I don't know GB. There seem to be a lot of what ifs. For a start, people bleed all the time for various reasons and don't usually die as a result.

But certainly if people did think like that at any point, they're going to stop thinking about that once they have worked out how to domesticate animals and control animal fertility.

I'm about to do a bit of what-if-ery, then go to bed. Bear with me (or ignore me).

If you were a person of either gender, living at any time before a couple of hundred years ago, you would find the fact of menstruation very weird. You have little idea of what happens inside the body and you believe that everything is the mysterious work of supernatural forces, even down to the monarch being personally chosen by your god/s. It is observed that women bleed a lot, every month, but don't die. You must, surely, think this is evidence of something supernatural about women?

Whether you think it's evidence of being especially gifted by the god/s, or of having powers originating from darker sources (which is probably determined by what your cultural leaders told you), it just can't seem rational to you. You've no idea about biological reasons for menstruation. Moreover, not all females bleed. They start when they become able to reproduce, and they stop when they're old. Therefore, this weirdness is specific only to women of childbearing age. Thus, 'logically', fertile women are superhuman.

I think that would lead to a degree of fear amongst those who could not bleed without dying - men, children and old women. I'm sure somebody's written a perceptive book on this, so would welcome a summary or a link to one!

But people will make choices that benefit (or sometimes don't benefit) their offspring within the context of the society they are in, and what is in the best interest of their child within that society. There is a risk taken in giving your child the best chance within a society that is not operating in their best interests, but also a risk taken in attempting to change the wider structures of that society so that your child has a better chance in one that is more advantageous to them.

Which then leads on to the more extreme situation of people choosing not to raise girls at all, because the chances for their offspring are so much greater if they, individually, just raise boys.

Yes, homophobia and misogyny are frequently to be found festering in the same place - which I imagine is connected with male conquerors' raping boys as well as women.

So much violence against women seems to be penis-related, either literally or symbolically. I am unconvinced that testosterone actually makes men dick-driven: most males manage to live peacefully most of the time. So male oppression of women must be either fear-based or economic. Or both. I suspect both, but then I would wouldn't I?!

In our present lives, I seriously feel it's largely a social habit. If I didn't, I'd probably have to give up being a feminist. You can change social habits: not easily, but more readily than nature or law. Where we live, we've already changed the law.

SAF indeed, but it also doesn't make sense to think of how societies have evolved as if women have been completely passive, victims, 'livestock' etc...women have also shaped society through their behaviors, the strategies they have taken as in choosing mates, in parenting and in making economic choices -- things that have benefited their offspring and therefore been passed on whether as genetic traits or as cultural memes.

GB, you had to read my sentence several times was because it was written so badly. I kind of meant what you wrote, although I don't think things are neccessarily better for the women of group A just because all of group B are also being attacked.

Some forms of hatred seem to go hand in hand. Homophobia and misogyny are frequently to be found cuddling up together.

Yes that makes sense. Perhaps moving into more extreme situations has to then target women who are expendable (old, single women) or who women who are considered too independent (in fertility, sexuality, living arrangements, occupation).