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

[sakura]

[[

#at=380 youtube]]

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

But the communities and the church were run by men.

It doesn't answer the question to say that men keep control through violence. All control ultimately relies on violence, either through physical violence or physical harm through economic deprivation.

That wasn't the question asked in your link. The question was why men do it.

dittany, I hope you're just misremembering, but it's cheap to say I 'had to go on wikipedia' to object to that film. I didn't. I know perfectly well what the pertinent date is, and as far as I recall the only time I mentioned wiki was to confirm that, based on my knowledge, it was correct.

Do you ever feel bad about misrepresenting what other women say or do?

You're not wrong that it's important to talk about what men have done to women, but when we have been talking about it, and you come in saying we haven't, don't you think that's ignoring and belittling the women we've just discussed?

Right .... but the date was my point, so ... what did I get off wiki? The only other time I remember mentioning it - as I've just said - was to say it said the cross they mentioned was 9th century and I'd agree with them.

I don't want to rehash these arguments because it's clear we're not going to agree, but neither am I going to watch you pretend I don't know what I'm talking about.

Also, dittany, you should read my post a few pages back, replying to (I think?) SAF who compared the patriarchy to evolution. People were discussing whether patriarchy were in some way 'accidental', and I did point out that there is only evidence to show how men in general oppress women, not the other way around. The evidence shows that men have done these things. The point isn't a new one you've just come up with that we were all failing to make - it's been made and discussed already.

LRD, I think a lot of the point of that 'how the patriarchy came to be' discussion addressed the original thread topic - why are women feared so much that they are killed for it. That would make fear the root cause of why men want power.

Yes, I agree Milly. I forget who said what, but Brian and I were talking about the situation with miscarriages in America being investigated in case the women had tried to abort their foetuses, and the way this seems so similar to witches being accused of procuring abortion. It's the same exact images of women having control over their own bodies that are attacked.

[........men have to use violence to keep it.........]
yes-and/or fear.
well-this is what i was trying to say earlier Dittany.
when i spoke about a hypethetical friend[which wasnt very hupethetical]
garlicbutter posted back with basiccally[cant remember exact words-and sorry garlicbutter-im not having a go or belittling youre words]
"you have to tell the police=this is wrong ect"
but yes-i know its wrong but.............
we are frightened of the police!!
we might not know the right words or understanding but we see it as patriarchy-we feel it.
so its not much point in saying these things.
the fear has got to be tackled first.

yep-i agree dittany-men have made instruments of torture for women
they also invented a headbrace with tongue clamp for "nagging wifes"
then paraded them in the street wuth it on.
and female circimsision!

sparky - interesting you mention female circumcision, I've had Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Waris Dirie (I don't know how well know she is - she's not a feminist theorist like Ali but writes of her own experience - shockingly) in my head for a lot of this thread. I think what Ali says about not patronizing non-European cultures by assuming they can't achieve feminism is very, very important here.

Darn, I have to go out, but will be back ...

Skipping again ...
dittany Wed 01-Jun-11 18:25:34

I don't want to talk in depth about torture. I want to talk about the men who did it and what they chose to do. I think they are the key.

It has been posited that they did it in order to keep a population oppressed, and to attempt absolute power over everybody. That looks likely to me.

In those days - as, today, in the places where painful means of punishment & death are still routine - torture was considered necessary to make the death penalty seem more meaningful. That tends to happen when life is unreliable and short, as death itself is insufficiently feared. As elsewhere, everywhere, at other times, the prosecuting class has attracted sadists because they love the job of torturing.

Your thesis seems to be that this maleficence was directed specifically at women. I disagree. It's true that the majority of 'witches' were women. That might be because more women practised the 'dark' arts, or it might be for other reasons. In the time before my paint dries, I can offer a few possibles:
~ Women were the holders of herbal medicine, thus threatening 'establishment' healers;
~ The punishing class comprised mainly male sadists, who particularly enjoyed torturing women for personal reasons;
~ Women were considered inherently magical;
~ Our culture considered women magical, where Iceland considered men so;
~ It was a gender-based assault.

In this particular context, I think the latter is least likely. You don't have to look very far for striking examples of definite gender-based assaults, so I don't know why you're fixated on the witch trials for this purpose.

Your personal anger over this thread seems, to me, illustrative of the following:
1] You had been unaware of the witch scourges, and thought everyone else had been similarly unaware.
2] You were, understandably, shocked.
3] Since you learned about them from a badly-argued feminist film, you took the film makers' bad arguments in good faith.
4] It turned out that other people had wider/deeper knowledge of the problem, and you felt cross that your emotions had been churned up by the film-makers' shallow knowledge.
5] So you felt obliged to defend the film's proposition.
Which is completely understandable and natural.

But it might be time to climb down half a step, and consider that the witch trials weren't specifically targeted at women, they were a more generalised form of oppression that happened to hurt more women than men ... doesn't everything? So - why would it have hurt more women? In fact, how come women get the sharp end of most (not all) oppressive moves?
Those questions are being considered on this thread, in historical and contemporary terms.

Isn't that what feminism's for?

nostradamus was a seer.
why wasnt he murdered?
probably because hes family had turned to catholicism and he was privaledged?

GB, Dittany did know about the witch trials. She thought it was hidden from some other people.

Dittany (and anyone else who would care to venture an opinion) with reference to this assertion, "That whole article is about how nobody even wants the question asked. It was shown up again on this thread. A man invented thumbscrews, a man invented hanging, a man invented the iron maiden and the rack - men operated them, men ordered them to be operated. At every stage of the process was a man making a choice. That's what needs to be acknowledged and stated."

How do you categorise Countess Bathory, who is credited with the invention of a variety of grisly tortures which she visited upon young women?
Was she an anomaly or does she present a valid argument for the proposition that absolute power corrupts, leads to cruelty and is not necessarily as gender specific as you appear to maintain?

TYR-
i vaguelly remember reading a bit about countess Bathory
wasnt she a victim of conspiricy?
something to do with the church?

No! Nobody's working to erase misogynistic harms, not here anyway. But it damages feminism when you make everything about woman-hatred. Lots of people have posited theories about why women may have fallen foul of the witch-hunts, more so than men. You haven't. You've just gone "Woman-haters! Woman-haters!"

You might have engaged with the wider discussion, but you choose not to. You might have picked up on some of the leads thrown about specifically female-targeted scourges concurrent with the witch trials. You chose not to. You might even have engaged with the conversation about whether, and why, men might have perceived women as magical. You derided it. Your choice.

What do you want to do, have an Outrage about every rule that's hurt British women in the past? Here's a starter.
Chastity belts.
Women-only crimes with the death penalty: gossiping, scandal, nagging, adultery and considering adultery, being barren, refusing sex, souring milk.
"Homes" for women who had a child out of wedlock, or a child that might not be their husband's.
Incarceration for "mad" women who annoyed their husbands.
Sterilisation for "uneducable" women.
The status of women as livestock.
The status of women as mentally incompetent to vote.
The status of women as too menatally feeble for university.
... we could go on indefinitely.
If you add in the rules that hurt people, men and women, you'd be here forever. So why not stick to the ones that were, incontrovertibly, targeted at women?

Or, better still, look to what needs changing now and how to effect the changes.

Wrt your other dig - it's irrelevant I'm intelligent, but not academic. Working-class and all that, never got the chance to live the life of the mind.

when I became a radical feminist which is nearly ten years ago now
Aww, bless, you young feminists!

I wish you'd stop raving about that stupid book. It was discredited in its time. It was a 'best-seller' for its freakishness. It is quite startling, I'll grant you that.

Anyway, I'm fed up with - yet again - getting involved with the interminable dialogue on "Is Dittany More Feminist Than Anybody Else (This house believes Dittany defines feminism.)" Have a nice time.

x-post, Saf