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

[sakura]

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ANd why women are feared to the extent that they are accused of witchcraft and killed for it

What saddens me the most is that this is still going on today in some parts of the world. I think we must take comfort from the fact that men are clearly threatened by us, and our time in the world is coming and very fast too. It will tilt our way within the next 100 years.

Can I add a boastful anecdote to this discussion please?

I'm glad somebody wants to talk about the fact that this is Still Happening! I was thinking of starting new thread.

I think I mentioned that way back on page 1.

Mitchie - I'm interested, if you do want to start a new thread or talk here.

dittany Mon 30-May-11 19:14:56*

Women should know our history and the fact is that the christian church tortured and killed us as witches.

It's why no woman should put one step inside a catholic or protestant church for starters.

Since churches were the keepers of records, setting foot inside them is a useful way to learn about history.

Good point GB. Besides which, if we never put one step into anywhere where women had been oppressed, we'd never leave the house, which would be more than ironic.

Hell - lets talk here.

We in the west have fought hard for where we are now. I think it is important to realise how far we have come in the past 100 years after centuries of oppression. There are women in the world who are still treated like the witches were. The problem is men's hard wiring. (I will save the boast for later)

No, boast!

Ha ha OK then.

A few years ago I had the pleasure - and it was very nice - of being invited to a charity do at Windsor Castle and sat at the same table as Prince Edward. In between us was a lovely guy who was also a strict catholic. They were talking some nonsense about education and how it was now geared towards teaching girls rather than boys and that it should be reversed because the poor old boys were suffering.

Although I understood what they were saying I was also quite incensed - so I piped up and said that women had had to put up with centuries of male based teaching, most of it driven by the church and it was about time women had an advantage.

Needless to say neither of them spoke to me again that night - Pathetic!

Nicely done!

goodkate Mon 30-May-11 19:28:12

Tyr I don't quite go with that. I would say that religion was already indoctrinated into the vast majority of the population, so by saying they were secular at that time doesn't have the same connotations as it does now.

Goodkate,

On that I would say that you have made a fair point. However, the church did to an extent distance itself from the malleus and the hysteria so there was something of a conflict between the church (usually held to be the culprit) and the secular courts (such as they were)
I would be the last one to defend the christian church but the degree of obfuscation and myth attached to their involvement in this (and they were far from blameless) lends itself to the kind of comic book version of history being peddled here from some quarters.

Btw, the fact they didn't speak to you ... kinda suggests it hit home, doesn't it?

Speaking of the royalty and sexist education, my mum was really pissed off that Prince Charles got a free place at Oxbridge when he obviously wasn't bright enough, and she once got to meet the then-principal of his college (I forget which one it is), and asked him how he justified it. He replied that women's colleges were a bigger example of special pleading, weren't they?

Thanks you bunch of feminists you!

Dittany - you're right I must admit that I was shaking afterwards.

LRD - Never OMG What a shit! Aren't they supposed to be educated

God they must feel very threatened

My question is "Was John Proctor an early feminist?" Or was he just a philander realising the error of his ways?

Philanderer! Definitely!

I do find him creepy in the film version, too.

But yes, I think men being threatened by women is a theme through history, isn't it?

lesbians used to be accussed of being witches and murdered!
and i have no idea if this is true or not but apparently witches were put in the water-if they drowned they was a witch and if they didnt-they wasnt.
[or the other way round-i cant remember]
if a woman had a third nipple she was also accused of being a witch.
i hope you feel better soon SAF!