on "feminism" (or one book at least)

... in "quotes" because the word is so loaded and means so many different things to so many different people.
anyway. my last batch of books from the library include these:
- operating instructions: a journal of my son's first year by anne lamott
- etruscans by morgan llywelyn and micheal scott
- white as snow by tanith lee
- on beauty by zadie smith
- war talk by arundhati roy
- who cooked the last supper? the women's history of the world by rosalind miles

it's this last book i want to blog about. briefly, though: "etruscans" was sort of disappointing, compared with the other ML books i have read so far; "white as snow" was lyrical and disturbing, a great read; "operating instructions" was certainly relevant, although AL was a single mother/freelancer at the time so her situation was rather different; i had already read some of the essays in "war talk" before but was struck anew by roy's passion for what she writes about - want to post in here a passage from one essay i particularly liked; and honestly i have to look at "on beauty" again - maybe i was just sleepy at the end and read it in too many sittings, but i got to the end and was totally surprised it was the end, it just didn't seem to resolve much or give much meaning to what was a mostly engaging (dare i say occasionally boring?) read... i got more out of "white teeth" which is why i say i should look at "on beauty" again coz i don't trust my reaction quite yet.

ANYWAY. so, the women's history of the world. my first thought when i picked it up to read was to wonder if it was really the women's history of the world or the women's history of the western world, since that's what "history" tends to be. but miles did a good job of being inclusive, even if she wasn't quite objective. still, it's a short book, not heavy on primary sources, definitely heavy on the author's perspective.

here's the gist: in the beginning, there was the goddess, and people worshipped her because women possessed the miracle of life and the mystery of menstruation, and nobody knew that men had anything to do with it. then, humans started figuring out cause and effect, and men figured out they had something to do with life too, so everything swung in the opposite direction and woman was just the vessel, not the originator. then monotheism came along and with its power structure (one God, one truth) and God-the-father being at the head of it, women, being not male like God (astaghfirullah, etc) were even further subdued. now, in order to truly free themselves, women must free their bodies - "if she could rescue herself from the endless cycle of sexual activity, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, pregnancy, then personal growth and social identity were possible."

so this book was not hugely informative or radical reading or anything like that, but it helped to sort of gauge my own position with regard to one kind of feminism at least. though i don't claim that miles defines feminism for anyone else. i find her argument as i understood it sort of inherently problematic - that early female-centered societies were based on ignorance of science, that the advent of greater human understanding fueled the repression of women, and that in order to break that repression women have to free themselves from the way their bodies naturally work (i.e., you have sex, you get pregnant). it's kind of like she's saying that science and truth and nature indicate or lead to the dominance of men, and we (women) have to shake off that science and truth and nature to be truly free. i might be wrong, but that's what i'm getting out of the book. i admit, i'm biased toward motherhood right now... not saying it's the epitome of womanhood necessarily (for if so, what is the epitome of manhood?) but i do believe it allows a completely new level of self to develop, if you can do it without erasing yourself, which is not always easy... funny, one of my pregnancy books described pregnant women as "the ultimate expression of female sexuality... the goddess incarnate"... which takes us right back to the matriarchal beginning, according to miles. so does sticking with the natural cycle hobble you from becoming all you can be, or make you into all you can be, or at least open a new path for you, if it closes other ones?

(hehe... i have musa cooped up in the playpen behind me so i can get at least part of this typed up without having to get up and pry his hands off of something every two seconds, and he is fussing, but just now he got quiet, so i turned around, and he was standing waving his hand over the edge, watching his shadow wave its hand on the ground... so cute!)

anyway, on the issue of freeing women from that cycle (which means unlimited contraception and abortion, practically) - i don't think complete sexual freedom for women leads to the best society we can hope for - i understand the impulse behind the idea, that men have always had such freedom because they have no consequences for their actions (in this world, lads, in this world!). let me amend - i don't think complete sexual freedom for everyone leads to the best society we can hope for. why not finally hold men accountable for their actions, rather than simply try to be as stringless as men?
but i realize her argument is a little more complex than that - it has to do with ownership of one's body, which she describes by the ability to CHOOSE whom one has sex with and CHOOSE to have a baby or not, but also includes defying the idea that a woman is the property of her family and is then transferred to the property of her husband, never really being her OWN person in anyone's eyes, which was something i railed much against in my youth...

so i get the fact that women have been treated as inferior to men for centuries in just about every culture, in varying degrees. no doubt, and no doubt we have suffered tremendously for it. i'm not going to delve here into solutions or my thoughts on why, etc... have neither the guts for the questions or the knowledge for the answers, right now ... but i do think this book is a good read, if for nothing else simply because i like reading about women's issues, and that it does a decent job of describing women's situations in historical contexts that otherwise don't consider them (how working women suffered during the western world's industrialization period, for example). plus, more importantly perhaps, miles names or gives a face to a number of women from "the beginning" who succeeded (in fulfilling their own potential) despite the odds against them, which is always refreshing to learn. but, it doesn't exactly do for women what howard zinn did for "the people" in the people's history of the united states, which is one of the best books i have ever read...

i was interested to see what miles made of the advent of islam. basically, she noted that all three monotheistic religions made women inferior beings, subject to fathers' and husbands' rules, though she also noted that the founders of those religions made efforts to alleviate the position of women (just adding that it didn't work because of the hierarchical power structure inherent in the faith systems). the problem is, she quotes and references the Qur'an by taking quotes from other scholarly works, not directly from the Qur'an. like in one place, she claims that the Prophet Muhammad was barricaded in his house surrounded by pagan goddess-worshipers, when he "conveniently" received a revelation that the trifold goddesses (al-lat, al-uzza, al-manat) were actually still around, a revelation that he canceled later... like where the heck is that from?
another example: on p. 95, she says, "The Koran makes it clear that the only virtuous woman was a mother: 'When a woman conceives by her husband, she is called in PAradise a martyr, and her labor in child-bed and her care of her children protect her from hellfire.'" (tried to find an ayah like this, not able to yet, but if you know which one she is trying to refer to please let me know!). i recognize the idea behind this "verse" though i always thought it was that a woman who died in childbirth was considered a martyr... but anyway. her reference for this quotation is a 1965 book, "The Jewel in the Lotus: a historical survey of the sexual culture of the East," by one Allen Edwardes. apart from my distaste at such a title, how does a verse rewarding what almost every woman has to go through get twisted around to be saying that they are the ONLY women who will be rewarded and therefore this is a sexist reductionist idea?

and she talks about the creation story as though it is the same for all three religions, never indicating that in the qur'anic story, it was not Eve who took the first bite and then seduced Adam - the source of centuries of female repression under the christian church - but both who disobeyed God together. aaand.. what else... oh, apparently islam "hijacked" the crescent moon symbol from the goddess religions and the Black Stone supposedly has a mark of aphrodite somewhere on it indicating it originally belonged to the goddess, etc etc. this is according to "one eyewitness," she says.

so these issues sort of invalidate some of the book for me, though i should say 1) she DOES use some primary sources, e.g. she does quote the qur'an directly a couple of times, and 2) she chronicles very well the cultural changes throughout history that affected women one way or another. though she never does tackle the question, "who cooked the last supper?"...

so i don't know what i'm getting from the library next, except i definitely want to find a biography of sojourner truth. aside from the fact that she had such a cool name, i read her famous quote again in miles' book and just would be very interested in learning more. she had thirteen children and saw most of them sold off into slavery... imagine the strength of spirit that took to survive emotionally and psychologically. for her and every other woman who has suffered like that...