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

[sakura]

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#at=380 youtube]]

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

SAF - didn't want you to consider a thread-killing career on your sick bed (seems unhealthy somehow.) So I thought I'd give you this:
feminists never end up writing/theorising anything
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

The author clearly hadn't visited this forum!

Oh, I didn't think so. Never mind: I need to go to sleep, and I hope you feel better tomorrow.

The Burning Times. the witch burnings in other words need to be taught in school as a proper part of the syllabus.

None of this men's studies that we all have to suffer through under the psuedonum of 'history'

It is disgusting that so few people know about how women have been persecuted for a) being women and b) being women of knowledge

Today women are seen as stupid but that is because knowledge has been witheld from them over the past few centuries

We need to take that further and make it common knowledge that not only has education been witheld from us but that knowledge of herbs, midwifery and medicine was actually stolen from women and they were killed on a massive scalefor being knowledgable .

And for being spinsters too: it was the end of the age of the single woman. Women were targeted because they lived alone (with their cats) and this　 the patriarchy could not have. Their healing professions with knowledge passed down from woman to woman would have enabled them to earn a living. Again, this the patriarchy could not have.

Mentions in Buffy and Harry Potter don't quite cut it MisterDarcy

The feminists that made this film have made a good start

IT's not perfect, but it's a good start

Who would have thought they'd tapped into such a well of outrage! If find the outrage on this thread at the fact they dared made that film (perfect or not) as fascinating as the film itself.

Whereas nobody is outraged at the daily LIES told by the patriarchy about women in every. single. documentary. and. film.

A good example is that insects in movies are portrayed as male.Ants etc. THis is a patriarchal LIE. Almost all ants are female. Most bees are female too. These are the type of patriarchal lies that people need to be fed constantly in order to maintain dominance.

edit: I find the outrage on this thread a source of fascination in itself

I do think the outrage is fascinating as well, Sakura. It happens a lot though, because in many situations like this you have:

People who want to take aspects of the past and make them part of their identity, often aspects of the past that are from other cultures geographically or from very distant time periods. Sometimes this is politically motivated from an ethnic perspective or from a gender perspective.

People who experience the past as folklore.

People who study evidence from the past and have competing views, and different political perspectives.

All of these people may feel a sense of responsibility to remember people's experiences in the past. That is incredibly emotional because people will feel that if the suffering in the past can be forgotten then the suffering of people we know now can also be disregarded. It can feel as if we are being dehumanised.

That is going to cause conflict. But all three are necessary, as long as there is a distinction made about which is which. People want to remember the past in different ways, but people can use their interpretations to justify some terrible things in the present.

I don't live in a major witch trial area now, but I did when I was younger. It casts a very long shadow. There was an area near us (a wood) which we were not allowed to go into as children, because of its association with the witch trials. That is essentially a folk connection; you cannot teach that emotional response to a tragedy from hundreds of years ago in a school. Schools teach the past in the context of learning a set of historical investigation skills; it is never going to replace people learning about their culture from their own community. It is an entirely different process, and while it is worthwhile to study history in school(although my kids aren't going to, beyond the compulsory KS3 years), the kind of impact people on this thread want the witch trials to have is not going to happen through a history lesson.

LRD, you're not alone, I'm with you!!

I never usually venture into Feminism and will not post again (and apologise for drive-by type postings earlier - and that's to everyone), but I just thought I would give you my support.

I hate, hate, hate, this Disneyfication of history and the patriarchy that reduces women to feeble floaty moony herb gathering weirdos and men to evil one-dimensional embodiments of CHURCH and SCIENCE &tc. It severely denigrates the REAL women who were living at that time, and the women who were accused of being witches. Many of them were very poor, ignorant, and unfairly ostracised (as were the men - some 'wisemen', some clergymen - who were also accused) as are many women today who also require our sympathy and support as feminists and as human beings. Many of the accusers were women (and men) and their reasons for accusation, and the whole social environment they lived in is also important to examine, and can give us a better understanding of their day to day existence.

I can't help being upset at the casual way they played with history, because to me it's real people's lives - no-one should lie about it, even to make an inspiring story. Sorry. I just can't feel any other way than that. I think it's especially important for women because we are so often told we're liars about all sorts of things - rape, especially, of course. It seems like a doubled oppression to falsify women's history.

Exactly. As you say, there are about a million historial examples of male individuals and the patriarchy in general oppressing women without having to make up shit.

Take care.

Dittany, I never compared the film-makers to rapists and I don't think anyone else did. I have made the point, repeatedly, that lying is not something any feminist should think is acceptable, especially when it is lying in order to make a feminist point. The parallel with rape apologetics isn't something I'm mentioning to make you angry or to offend, it's something I'm mentioning because it is an extremely obvious parallel.

Women who define themselves as feminists don't suddenly get carte blanche to say and do whatever they like with no responsibilities to anyone else. The people who made this film obviously decided their message was more important than the facts, so they falsified those facts. Only a very stupid person could be credulous enough to call these 'mistakes', so let's not pretend that again. So yes, I am angry that they decided it was ok to misrepresent women's history. Yes, I do think that for someone to present themselves as a feminist and then misrepresent the facts in order to make a 'feminist' point is hugely inappropriate given that this is precisely what misogynists claim feminists do in the context of rape. If you cannot understand that parallel, I can't help you, but that doesn't make it any less obvious or important.

As to outrage on this thread, what I find interesting is that the majority of people are aware of the Witch Trials and have explained that they are taught in schools, memorialized in churches and ingrained in folk culture. Yes, I'm sure they could be taught more - it's very sad that a small number of people were unaware of this horrible part of history. But can you not see how arrogant it is to suggest your own ignorance is the ignorance of the masses? This film isn't, as has been suggested, the 'only' piece of information about Witch Trials out there. It's bad, and dishonest, and bad for feminism.

Cross-post: thanks lucy.

Dittany, that's not comparing the film makers to rapists. Read it again. It's saying (as I have said repeatedly) that it is never ok to lie, and that lying is a feminist issue. This does not mean I think the film makers are rapists. It means I think they are liars, and that lying is a very, very sensitive issue for feminism, which they decided to crap all over with their piece of religious propaganda.

I'm not pointing out your ignorance as a side issue. I'm pointing it out because you seem to think it is good for feminists to be ignorant, and good to champion ignorant propaganda, so long as it looks vaguely feminist to you (though obviously, this film is far more likely to damage feminism than promote it).

well-this is horrible isnt it!
maybe im missing something but surely feminism isnt about fighting with each other?
maybe we look at things from diffrent angles sometime because of what we each know and what we each understand/not understand and life experiance.
there is nothing wrong with this!
why cant we just hear each other and look at what each others got to say
thats how we learn and understand.
to be calling others ignorant is horrible-thats what men call women to shut them up and we dont need to be calling each other this.
is there a heirarchy in feminism that im missing?
ifso-im fucked then and might as well get my coat!

I don't think there's any shame in being ignorant and I've said so. There is shame in celebrating ignorance or, as this film does, in misrepresenting facts in order to take advantage of ignorance.

I agree with you we'd be much, much better off if we did more listening and learning, but every time I've tried to learn about feminist texts from Dittany she has responded angrily, and every time people on this thread have responded to her questions about where this film in inaccurate, she has responded by insisting the facts don't matter. She won't learn, and she won't let others learn.

Yes, I know this is a personal comment but I think it needs saying. And I think this thread should die a natural death - it's getting us nowhere.

Dittany,

How do you expect to understand, let alone have a valid perspective on a turbulent period of history, using a spurious ?documentary? and a copy of the Malleus as your source documents?
These were cruel times for all, largely the poor.
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, heretics of both genders suffered. Are you writing out the male victims? By so doing, you present an agenda informed more by blatant ignorance and misandry, than feminism.
You cannot reduce a period of history like that; all you are doing, like the film makers, is presenting a risible caricature which makes a mockery of any cause.
By the way, what does ?MRAtastic? mean?

yep-i agree.
which is a great shame-ive found it really really interesting.
i havent understood a lot of whats been said but this dont matter-ill keep looking at stuff untill i do.
there has been some fantastic links and this is something that im interested in looking at further.

'By the way, what does ?MRAtastic? mean?'

Men's Rights Activists
So, something they would find fantastic.
It's used as a negative indicator on the feminist boards.

Goblinchild,

Thanks for the clarification.

Pathetic.