How the Patriarchy ruined Friday 13th for Women - what else have they stolen?

[IwantToRetire]

I thought I would start this thread as a bit light hearted, it is after all friday 13th, but also an opportunity to talk about those things that women have created / discovered and been appropriated.

But sadly googling only brings up mystic ramblings and no facts

I thought the lost history of women and 13 was around numbers and calculus and ...

But now it looks like social media has ruined friday 13th for women. :(

But for anyone who has an anecdote about how the work of women has been stolen or ignored.

eg how wise women with herbal knowledge became evil witches and subjected to persecution.

Ummm... I'm mystified tbh. I am not remotely superstitious and had no idea Friday 13th had anything specifically to do with women!

I thought the Friday 13th superstition started with maritime disasters.

I thought it came from there being 13 at the Last Supper and the crucifixion being on a Friday.

Interesting. All those are said to be part of the Patriarchal plot to over ride the existing matriarchal reasons why the number 13 and fridays were important to women.

eg women worked out that most (although not all) women have 13 periods in a year. And early calendars were based on 28 days.

This is a quite frivilous article about it https://www.instyle.com/lifestyle/astrology/friday-the-13th-female-power

But I remember in the past reading articles about how in matriarchal societies it was important.

Are there not matriarchal feminists on this board?

(For me this is another example of how search engines are no longer as useful as the used to be. The have sucumbed to a most popular model rather than retaining information from different times and sources. ie maybe for financial reasons, older records now cant be fund, whereas in the past you could ask to search for information from 1990 and get results, now it is rare. Far from expanding our world of knowledge it is reducingit. No dusty archives in the virtual world.)

Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number -- the average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too, of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood, fertility, and lunar potency. 13 is the lucky number of the Great Goddess.

Representing as it does, the number of revolutions the moon makes around the earth in a year, 13 was the number of regeneration for pre-Columbian Mexicans. In ancient Israel, 13 was a sanctified number. Thirteen items were decreed necessary for the tabernacle. At 13 years of age, a boy was (and still is) initiated into the adult Jewish community. In Wicca, the pagan goddess tradition of Old Europe, communicants convene in covens of 13 participants. Thirteen was also auspicious for the Egyptians, who believed that life has 13 stages, the last of which is death -- the transition to eternal life.

Held holy in honor of Shekinah, the female aspect of God, Friday was observed as the day of Her special celebrations. Jews around the world still begin the observance of the Sabbath at sunset on Friday evenings when they invite in the Sabbath Bride. Friday is the Sabbath in the Islamic world. Friday is sacred to Oshun, the Yoruba orisha of opulent sensuality and overwhelming femininity, and also to Frig, the Norse Goddess of love and sex, of fertility and creativity. Her name became the Anglo-Saxon noun for love, and in the 16th century, frig came to mean "to copulate."

Friday was associated with the early Mother Creation Goddesses for whom that day was named. In Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Icelandic, and Teutonic cultures She was called variously, Freya, Freia, Freyja, Fir, Frea and Frig. Friday is Frig's Day, Frigedaeg, in Old English, Fredag in Danish, Freitag in Dutch. In Mediterranean lands, She reigned as Venus. In Latin, Friday is the Day of Venus, Dies Veneris; Vendredi in French, Venerdi in Italian and Viernes in Spanish.

Friday the 13th is ultimately the celebration of the lives and loves of Lady Luck. On this, Her doubly-dedicated day, let us consider what fortuitous coincidences constitute our fate. The lucky blend of just the right conditions, chemistries, elements, and energies that comprise our universe. The way it all works. The way we are. That we are at all.

As western Judeo-Christian culture was spread through colonisation these older cultures disappeared or went underground.

A better parallel to “witch” is the word “whore”. Both are time-honoured tools for policing women, meant to shame them into socially prescribed behaviour. A whore transgresses norms of female sexuality; a witch transgresses norms of female power. Witches are often called unnatural because of their ability to threaten men. With her spells, a witch can transform you into a pig, or defeat you in battle. She can curse you, blight your crops, ignore you, refuse you, correct you. Punishing witches accomplishes two things: it ends the threat and makes others afraid to follow in the unruly woman’s footsteps.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/07/cursed-from-circe-to-clinton-why-women-are-cast-as-witches

I'm just copying this out of various papers. I really thought there would be well informed posterd on FWR who could tells us the history of Wicca and so on.

And of course the more modern examples of where women's discoveries have been appropriated by men.

Interesting. All those are said to be part of the Patriarchal plot to over ride the existing matriarchal reasons why the number 13 and fridays were important to women

I'll take your word for that. Both the patriarchal plot and that 13 and Fridays were important to women.

Thanks @IwantToRetire I had no idea about this!!!!

It was to do with the knights templars, they were getting too powerful and the Catholic Church decided to react and on Friday 13th October 1307 they were all arrested at dawn, tortured and many burned at the stake.

I was taught that Friday the 13th was bad luck due to the pope (one of the "inocents" I think) issuing the kill order for the knights template on Friday the 13th.
It would seem that there's many different reasons for the superstitious amongst us to dislike Friday the 13th

Any explanation for anything that involves the Knights Templar is pretty much guaranteed to be bollocks (looking at you, Dan Brown..).

13 was unlucky to the Romans, way before Christ. No one really knows why, though there are lots of theories.

Conversely, the superstition about Friday 13th being unlucky is much more recent than the 14th century.

Either way, definitely nothing to do with the Knights Templar.

I think maybe some of this was covered in an earlier thread about when (or even if) societies ceased to be agrarian based matrilineal societies, over thrown / undermined by hunting / ownership societies dominated by violent men.

Which is where many of the old stories about women having their power taken from them originated from.

But still am surprised so few seem to have even heard of this, given that at one time Matriarchal Feminism was quite a strong strand of Women's Liberation.

For 'too powerful' read 'were very rich and the king of France needed money.'

Interesting- I actually came onto Mumsnet tonight to see if people had had bad things happen to them on Friday 13. As I have twice.
But reading this has made me think more favourably about it - so it has helped a bit

Friday is Frig or Freya, who is both the Norse goddess of love and also queen of witches - she has 12 followers (12 is a magic number which is why Jesus has twelve apostles, it's the number of tanists a ritual king has and who will die for him, so that his reign continues). That's the female connection with Friday 13th - Freya and her twelve companions.

That's the female connection with Friday 13th - Freya and her twelve companions.

I've not heard that. I mean what seems to have a similar concept but in this instance from northern Europe.

if people had had bad things happen to them on Friday 13. As I have twice.

Oh no, but hope this is some light relief. I used to dread friday 13th when I was young. I really believed everything would go wrong and crept around.

But then I was also told, that on All Hallow's Eve (now commercial Halloween) that if you didn't walk backwards up the stairs (carrying your shoes?????) the dead spirits would get you. Whilst in other countries familes were going to relatives graves with candles and goodies to celebrate lives well lived.

I certainly experienced growing up tales of customs that all seemed to be gloom and bad luck, but just assumed it was because of a sort of dreary superficial protestantism.

I don't think you hear so much about matriarchal feminism now because a lot of the historical claims weren't all that well founded. I remember there being lots of bollocksy stuff about Eostre as well, just making huge leaps that wouldn't be seen as justified by any historian. Very reminiscent of some of the quack 19th century studies of mythology.

I don't think you hear so much about matriarchal feminism now because a lot of the historical claims weren't all that well founded

I think you have misunderstood or been misinformed.

Matriarchal Feminism wasn't about trying to re-enact some historical fable or another.

It was about attempting to create a life that focused on how women, given the opportunity, would organise and decided on priorities.

So even if some think it daft it would include taking note of mentrual cycles and so on. ie so much of how women are expected to live their lifes is about fitting into a pattern of life that was created to suit men, including the fact that they anticipated having a woman doing domestic chores, whether a mother, a wife or a daughter.

Current concepts of feminism are now so narrow and largely framed by the expectation that the way life is now, is the norm.

Just want to say thanks OP, this is fascinating! Had no idea

Very interested in some areas which sound like they link to matriarchal feminism, certainly the “rebranding” of powerful or intelligent women as witches, the undermining of culture etc.

I’ve genuinely never heard of any link between Friday 13th and women though. And I didn’t think Wicca is a particularly old tradition - wasn’t it introduced in the 20th C? Of course pagan and other culture goddesses and matriarchal culture are very old.

And I didn’t think Wicca is a particularly old tradition

I think, but probably didn't explain it properly, that when looking up references I was amazed how little older material, ie only about 15-20 years ago no longer seemed available via search engines.

So referencing Wicca was meant to be about how in regurgitating older traditions, a current generation would only have acess to modern interpretations of older traditions. (I think this has become more and more apparent on google etc.. You are spoon fed the most popular / recent rather than the most factual).

This is a thread from earlier this year asking why Patriarchy https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4788786-why-has-it-always-been-a-patriarchy and I sort of assumed everyone on FWR would have read it!

I am mentioning it, because it is looking at the issue from another angle, ie was there ever a time when how women worked together as clans rather than families, and had influence and decision making powers, that meant life was lived differently. (And I dont mean not having electricity!)

And whether once men discovered their role in conception they adopted a concept of ownership and the start of families. Or whether because women were more tied to the home (child birth, breast feeding) and doing the farming! men were free to roam around, supposedly hunting (now disputed) and then started a pattern of confrontation with other responsibility free men roaming around. Or was it trade, concepts of ownership.

For anyone who is interested.

I find the matriarchal feminism side of this interesting, but not so much the symbolic importance of the number 13. Having special numbers based on mythological figures and menstruation seems like a lot of hokum to me!

When it comes to why 13 is unlucky, it's all just speculation: taking the superstition and retro-fitting theories about why that might be the case. e.g the Viking example given above. It might be to do with Frida - or Loki, which is another theory - but Vikings were not literate at the time that these legends were created, so there is no way of tracing their true origins. More likely is that the Vikings picked the superstition up from the Romans, as they had lots of trading contacts with the Byzantine remnants of the Roman Empire.

You could do exactly the same retro-fitting exercise with any other low (so frequently used) number. That's why we see so many different theories on this thread - nobody actually knows. But people love a neat theory

However, the more general point that women's knowledge has been suppressed and mischaracterised as unimportant or sinister, is clearly true.

However, the more general point that women's knowledge has been suppressed and mischaracterised as unimportant or sinister

Yes, and again from what i have read in the past, the persecution of witches was as much about women having formally had the information and knowledge of herbs etc., re healing, had to be turned from being the "wise woman" you turned to into the opposite. Someone who would harm you. And that men of "science" didn't want these "old wives tales" being taken more seriously than their newer "science".

But interestingly again, from only getting more recent articles from searching, more modern papers and articles just present it as outright misogeny, rather than a battle between the old ways and the new.

More than 2,500 Scots – most of them women – were executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/08/nicola-sturgeon-issues-apology-for-historical-injustice-of-witch-hunts

And by just (or witch craft) there is going to be a talk about this at the British Library and online https://www.bl.uk/events/witch-hunt-a-history-of-persecution