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Goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a "god". A great many cultures have goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon that includes both of the conventional genders and in some cases even hermaphroditic (or gender neutral) deities. As the concept of monotheism and polytheism can be relativistic, so too can related concepts be culturally misunderstood. The concept of gender as applied to a god and goddess, may connote deeper tendencies of patriarchy and matriarchy, which may have equivalence to the rift between monotheism and polytheism. The Goddess concept is advocated by modern matriarchs and pantheists as a female version of, or analogue to God, (i.e. the Abrahamic god) who in feminist and other circles is perceived as being rooted in patriarchal concept of dominance— much to the exclusion of feminine concepts. Use of parallel language such as "patriarchy" and "matriarchy" to indicate gender tendencies can add to the misunderstanding of the social organizational preferences of women and men, as evidenced in archaeological and cultural anthropological findings. The feminine-masculine relationship between deifications is sometimes rooted in monism, ("One-ism") rather than through a definitive and rigid concept of monotheism versus polytheism, wherein the Goddess and God are seen as the genders of one transcendental monad.

Hinduism

Hinduism is a complex of various belief systems that sees many gods and goddesses as being representative of and/or emanative from a single source, Brahman, understood either as a formless, infinite, impersonal monad in the Advaita tradition or as a dual God in the form of Lakshmi-Vishnu, Radha-Krishna, Devi-Shiva in Dvaita traditions. Shaktas, worshippers of the Goddess, equate this God with Devi, the mother goddess. Such aspects of One God as male God (Shaktiman) and female energy (Shakti), working as a pair are often envisioned as male gods and their wives and provide many analogues between passive male ground and dynamic female energy. Brahma pairs with Sarasvati and Shiva with Uma, Parvati, or Durga. Kali is a form of Parvati. A further step was taken by the idea of the Shaktis. Their ideology based mainly on tantras sees Shakti as the principle of energy through which all divinity functions, thus showing the masculine to be dependent on the feminine. Indeed, in the great shakta scripture known as the Devi Mahatmya, all the goddesses are shown to be aspects of one presiding female force, one in truth and many in expression, giving the world and the cosmos the galvanic energy for motion. It is expressed through both philosophical tracts and metaphor that the potentiality of masculine being is given actuation by the feminine divine. Local deities of different village regions in India are easily seen by outsiders as their own Goddess in different form, a process that has been called Sanskritization. It comes from a common misunderstanding of various aspects of the same personality as various independent personalities. Others attribute it to the influence of monism or Advaita which discounts polytheist or monotheist categorization. While the monist forces have led to a fusion between some of the goddesses (108 names are common for many goddesses), centrifugal forces have also resulted in new goddesses and rituals gaining ascendance among the laity in different parts of Hindu world. Thus, the immensely popular goddess Durga was a pre-Vedic goddess who was later fused with Parvati, a process that can be traced through texts such as Kalika Purana (10th century), Durgabhaktitarangini (Vidyapati 15th century), Chandimangal (16th century) etc.

Judaism and Christianity

Monotheist cultures, which recognise only one central deity, generally do implicitly or explicitly characterize that deity as male; e.g. in English by using the masculine pronoun, and words like "Father", "Son", and "Lord". This trend has almost entirely excluded the feminine pronoun "she" as sacred, and images such as "Mother", "Daughter", and "Lady" as divine. In some language, this may be nothing more than an artefact of language, which uses the masculine gender also as "default" gender, or for mixed groups. Although mainstream Judaism uses masculine words to describe God, Judaism maintains that God has no gender. While some mystics within the monotheist religions have used markedly feminine terms, e.g. the Collyridians in the time of early Christianity, who viewed Mary as a Goddess, the medieval visionary Julian of Norwich, the Judaic Shekinah and the Gnostic Sophia traditions, and some Sufi texts in Islam, belief in a feminine deity under Christianity was usually deemed heretical, and characteristic of heresy. Since the 1980s Christian feminists have challenged this view; some such as Mary Daly no longer consider themselves Christian but others continue to seek room within their traditions for the Divine Feminine and for female spiritual leadership. (See thealogy.)

Pre-Islamic Arabia

In the pagan religion prevalent in Arabia before Islam, a number of goddesses were worshipped, including the three referred to as daughters of Allah: Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat. In the 1990s, Salman Rushdie has brought this issue in the limelight. At the core of the argument is the following apocryphal verse which appears as a quotation in The Satanic Verses (novel): : (tilk-al-gharaniq al-'ula wa inna shafa'ata-hunna la-turtaja - p.340 Viking, New York) meaning "These are the exalted females [literally, cranes] whose intercession is to be desired." (In Arabic تلك الغرانيق العلى وإن شفاعتهن لترتجى.) These lines are an antithesis of the strong monotheism that is Islam, and attributing it to the Prophet is blasphemy. The lines however, are part of a historical debate - they appear in the work of two early Arab historians (al-Waqidi, 747-823, and at-Tabari, 839-923), but repudiated by later Islamic scholars. The controversial sentence, known as Satanic Verses in the debate, was well known to Rushdie who wrote a paper on Muhammad for his Cambridge tripos in history. The story is that these lines were inserted into the Qur'an by Muhammad so as to alleviate the persecution of the faithful by those who believed strongly in these goddesses. However, later these lines were recanted: :He stands in front of the statues of the Three and announces the abrogation of the verses which Shaitan [Satan] whispered in his ear. These verses are banished from the true recitation, al qur'an. New verses are thundered in their place. 'Shall He have daughters and you sons?' Mahound recites. 'That would be a fine division! These are but names you have dreamed of, and your fathers. Allah vests no authority on them.' - p.124 Muhammad Haykal (author of the "Life of Muhammad") comments that "the story arrested the attention of the western Orientalists who took it as true and repeated it ad nauseam." (Haykal 105). According to Haykal, The controversy over what is known as the "Gharaniq incident" is that it is a fabrication created by the unbelievers of Mecca in the early days of Islam. The main argument against the authenticity of the two verses in Haykal's work and elsewhere is that "its incoherence is evident upon the least scrutiny. It contradicts the infallibility of every prophet in conveying the message of His Lord." (Haykal 107). Haykal then concluded that "this story of the goddesses is a fabrication and a forgery, authored by the enemies of Islam after the first century of Hijrah" (Haykal 144). [http://www.satanicverses.mihanblog.com/?ArticleId=8]

New religious movements

Wicca and Neopaganism

Wiccan practice generally includes veneration of the Great Goddess along with the Horned God, though Dianic Wiccans celebrate only the Goddess or goddesses. Wiccan mythology mostly draws on ancient European mythology, which informs other kinds of neopaganism, and other neopagans are interested in reconstructing various ancient pagan religions directly. Many pagans today draw a connection between a Mother Earth goddess and ecological concerns. The Goddess can appear as the "Lady of the Ten Thousand Names", as did Isis. Adherents refer to her as 'Queen of Heaven', 'Lady of the Beasts', 'Creatrix' and just 'the Lady.' Worshippers sometimes approach her through her different aspects, represented by individual goddesses like Sarasvati, Lakshmi, Uma, Kali (of the Hindu tradition) Isis, Guan Yin, Pele or Athena. Some Wiccans perceive the goddess Aradia as a kind of messianic Daughter deity. They revere the yoni or vulva as a symbol of the Goddess, together with the cowrie shell, the (Moon) Crescent, the Earth, the Serpent, the Tree, the five pointed pentagram and the Eight Pointed Star, the Quartered Circle (compare Celtic Cross), and many animals and birds.

Triple Goddess

Celtic Cross Goddesses or demi-goddesses appear in sets of three in a number of ancient European pagan mythologies; these include the Greek Erinyes (Furies) and Moirae (Fates); the Norse Norns (Fates); Brighid and her two sisters, also called Brighid, from Irish or Keltoi mythology, and so on. One might also see the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth as following this pattern. Robert Graves popularised the triad of "Maiden" (or "Virgin"), "Mother" and "Crone", and while this idea did not rest on sound scholarship, his poetic inspiration has gained a tenacious hold. Considerable variation in the precise conceptions of these figures exists, as typically occurs in Neopaganism and indeed in pagan religions in general. Some choose to interpret them as three stages in a woman's life, separated by menarche and menopause. Others find this too biologically based and rigid, and prefer a freer interpretation, with the Maiden as birth (independent, self-centred, seeking), the Mother as giving birth (interrelated, compassionate nurturing, creating), and the Crone as death and renewal (wholistic, remote, unknowable) — and all three erotic and wise. Often three of the four phases of the moon (waxing, full, waning) symbolise the three aspects of the Triple Goddess: put together they appear in a single symbol comprising a circle flanked by two mirrored crescents. Some, however, find the triple incomplete, and prefer to add a fourth aspect. This might be a "Dark Goddess" or "Wisewoman", perhaps as suggested by the missing dark of the moon in the symbolism above, or it might be a specifically erotic goddess standing for a phase of life between Maiden (Virgin) and Mother, or a Warrior between Mother and Crone. There is a male counterpart of this in the English poem "The Parlement of the Thre Ages". The Triple Goddess as Maiden, Mother and Crone has also reached modern popular culture, such as Neil Gaiman's own conception of the Furies in The Sandman, and elsewhere.

Religious feminism

:Main article: Goddess movement The Goddess movement is a religious movement in the West focused on goddesses or more usually a single "Great Goddess".

Secular use

The term "goddess" has recently found an ever more popular and secular use to describe female sex appeal the males succumb to. Young single ladies (see Bridget Jones) want to feel like a goddess. Extremely desirable actresses, singers, sportswomen and other lady celebrities are often described by Sunday press as sex goddesses (see Marilyn Monroe, Elle MacPherson, Kylie Minogue, Anna Kournikova, etc.) Several TV advertisements promptly took advantage of this trend (e.g. Gilette Venus ladies' razors). There is also the term "domestic goddess".

Deity

:This article is about deities or gods from a non-monotheistic perspective. See God for information about the monotheistic entity. :"Gods" redirects here; for the computer game, see Gods (video game). A deity or a god, is a postulated preternatural being, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by human beings. They assume a variety of forms, but are frequently depicted as having human or animal form. Sometimes it is considered blasphemous to imagine the deity as having any concrete form. They are usually immortal. They are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions much like humans. Such natural phenomena as lightning, floods, storms, other "acts of God," and miracles are attributed to them, and they may be thought to be the authorities or controllers of every aspect of human life (such as birth or the afterlife). Some deities are asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, to be the givers of human law and morality, to be the ultimate judges of human worth and behavior, and to be the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe. Some of these "gods" have no power at all—they are simply worshipped.

Etymology

The English word deity is from the Latin deus, meaning 'god'. Similar is the Sanskrit deva, a god or celestial being. Related are words for the sky: Latin dies, day, divum, the open sky, Sanskrit div, diu, sky, day, shine. Also related are divine or divinity from Latin divinus from divus. See also Dyeus. The English word god is from the Anglo-Saxon, and similar words are found in many Germanic languages (see God for etymology).

Relation with humanity

Some are thought to be invisible or inaccessible to humans— to dwell mainly in otherworldly, remote or secluded and holy places, such as Heaven, Hell, the sky, the under-world, under the sea, in the high mountains, or deep forests, or in a supernatural plane or a celestial sphere—choosing but rarely to reveal or manifest themselves to humans, and to make themselves known mainly through their effects. While a monotheistic God is thought of as dwelling in Heaven, such a God is also said to be omnipresent, though invisible. Often people feel an obligation to their God. There are others however that treat their God as something that serves them. Folk religions usually contain active and worldly deities. In polytheism, gods are conceived of as a counterpart to humans. In the reconstructed and hypothetical Proto-Indo-European, humans were described as tkonion, "earthly", as opposed to the gods which were deivos, "celestial". This almost symbiotic relationship is present in many later cultures: humans are defined by their station subject to the gods, nourishing them with sacrifices, and gods are defined by their sovereignty over humans, punishing and rewarding them, but also dependent on their worship. The boundary between human and divine in most cultures is by no means absolute. Demigods are the offspring from a union of a human with a deity, and most royal houses in Antiquity claimed divine ancestors. Beginning with Djedefra (26th century BC), the Egyptian Pharaohs called themselves "Son of Ra". Some human rulers, such as the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, the Japanese Tennos and some Roman Emperors, have been worshipped by their subjects as deities while still alive. The earliest ruler known to have claimed divinity is Naram-Sin (22nd century BC). In many cultures rulers and other prominent or holy persons may be thought to become deities upon death (see Osiris, ancestor worship, canonization).

Religion

Main article: religion. Theories and narratives about, and modes of worship of, gods are largely a matter of religion. At present, the vast majority of humans are adherents of some religion, and this has been true for at least thousands of years. Human burials from between 50,000 and 30,000 B.C. provide evidence of human belief in an afterlife and possibly in gods, although it is not clear when human belief in deities became the dominant view. Some religions are monotheistic and assert the existence of a unique god. In the English language, the common noun "god" is equivalent to "deity", while "God" (capitalized) is the name of the unique deity of monotheism. Pantheism considers the Universe itself to be a deity. Dualism is the view that there are two deities: a deity of Good who is opposed and thwarted by a deity of Evil, of equal power. Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Gnostic sects of Christianity are, or were, dualist. Polytheism asserts the existence of several gods, who together form a pantheon. Henotheism is a form of polytheism in which one god is worshipped as supreme. Monolatrism is a type of polytheism in which gods are believed to exert power only on those who worship them. Animism is the belief that spirits inhabit every existing thing, including plants, minerals, animals and, including all the elements, air, water, earth, and fire. The anthropologist E. B. Tylor argued that religion originally took an animist form. Theism is the view that at least one god exists. Atheism is either the denial of the existence of gods or God, or the absence of the belief that there are gods or God. It may not be readily apparent what form a religion actually takes. Religions that avow monotheism may in fact be henotheistic in that they recognize the existence of several echelons of supernatural, immortal, deity-like beings in addition to the supreme God, such as angels, saints, Satan, demons, and devils, although these beings may not be considered deities. Adherents of polytheistic religions, such as certain schools of Hinduism, may regard all gods in the pantheon as manifestations, aspects, or multiple personalities of the single supreme god, and the religions may be more akin to monotheism or henotheism than is initially apparent to an observer. The many religions do not in general agree on which gods exist, although sometimes the pantheons may overlap, or be similar except for the names of the gods. It is frequently argued that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship the same monotheistic god, although they differ in many important details. Comparative religion studies the similarities and contrasts in the views and practices of various religions. The Philosophy of religion discusses philosophical issues related to theories about gods. Narratives about gods and their deeds are referred to as myths, the study of which is mythology. The word "myth" has an overtone of fiction; so religious people commonly (although not invariably) refrain from using this term in relation to the stories about gods in which they believe themselves. In Buddhism gods are the beings in God realm of Samsara, these beings are mortal, numerous and are not worshipped; it is also common for Yidams to be called deities, although the nature of Yidams are distinct from what is normally meant by the term. The Buddhist Madhyamaka argue strongly against the existence of a universal creator or essential being (such as Brahman), yet Buddhists are not atheist or agnostic - due to these terms being strongly tied to concepts of existence. Some Prasangikas hold that even the conventional existence of universal (monotheistic) deities is a non-existent, whereas others consider that the conventional existence of such a being is an existent. Many modern Buddhists consider that deities (and God) exist in the same manner that elves or unicorns do - as an archetypal consensual entity that serves a purpose in the popular imagination; and in this limited sense, God exists. Though this may seem a rather weak basis of existence for some, as Buddhists (such as the Yogacara) deny any objective existence (of e.g. a chair), and many more deny any sort of essential existence of phenomena at all, the distinction between the existence and non-existence of consensual entities is important to Buddhist philosophy. However, a necessary requirement of Candrakirti's (Prasangika) view is that existents must not conflict with essencelessness, and it is generally agreed by them that monotheistic assertions of deity do not make much sense without some assertion of essence, which itself is vehemently rejected, so thereby monotheistic (objectively/essentially existing) gods are non-existent even in a conventional sense. Of course these arguments are more to do with the delineation of the definition of existence than anything else.

Singular God

In some cases, especially the God of monotheism, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, the divine entity is not thought of by some believers in the same terms as deities -- as a powerful, human-like, supernatural being -- but rather becomes esoteric, the reification of a philosophical category -- the Ultimate, the Absolute Infinite, the Transcendent, the One, the All, Existence or Being itself, the ground of being, the monistic substrate, etc. In this view, God (Allah, Brahman, Waheguru, Elohim, etc...) is not a god or deity, and the anthropomorphic mythology and iconography associated with Him is regarded as symbolism, allowing worshippers to speak and think about something which otherwise would be beyond human comprehension.

Hermaphroditic

:For the Julia Ward Howe novel, see The Hermaphrodite. The Hermaphrodite In zoology, a hermaphrodite is an organism of a species whose members possess both male and female sexual organs during their lives. In many species, hermaphroditism is a normal part of the life-cycle. Generally, hermaphroditism occurs in the invertebrates, although it occurs in a fair number of fish, and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. See below for use of the term in plants. Note: The term "hermaphrodite" has historically been used to describe people with ambiguous genitalia or biological sex. The broader term intersexual is often used and is preferred by many such individuals and medical professionals. The term is still used by the pornography industry, though often as a synonym for transexual, as true human intersexuals are rare.

In animals

- Sequential hermaphrodite: The organism is born as one sex and later changes into the other sex.
- Protandry: When the organism starts as a male, and changes sex to a female later in life.
- Example: The seabasses (Family Serranidae). These are a highly sought food fish complex made up of primarily groupers. Since even a small male can produce more than enough sperm to fertilize a huge number of eggs, while a female's egg output increases greatly with an increase in size, this strategy makes sense for an organism (fish in general) where over 90% of the eggs laid will not result in a fish that reaches sexual maturity. It has been shown that fishing pressure actually is causing a change in when the switch from male to female occurs, since fishermen naturally prefer to catch the larger fish. The populations are generally changing sex at a smaller size, due to artificial selection.
- Protogyny: When the organism starts as a female, and changes sex to a male later in life.
- Example: Wrasses (Family Labridae) are reef fish that tend to have three distinct sexual types. Small females, immature males and supermales. The small females and the immature males have identical colorations. The supermale is usually brightly colored, and there is only one in a given area of the reef. This supermale dominates the other wrasses of the species, having the choice of females to mate with. When the supermale dies, the largest wrasse in the area, male or female, becomes the new supermale.
- Simultaneous hermaphrodite (or synchronous hermaphrodite): The organism has both male and female sexual organs at the same time as an adult. Usually, self-fertilization does not occur.
- Example: Hamlets, which (unlike other fish) seem quite at ease mating in front of divers, allowing observations in the wild to occur readily. They do not practice self-fertilization, but when they find a mate, the pair takes turns between which one acts as the male and which acts as the female through multiple matings, usually over the course of several nights.
- Gonadal dysgenesis, a type of intersexuality formerly known as "True Hermaphroditism", occurs in about one percent of mammals (including humans), but it is extremely rare for both sets of sexual organs to be functional, usually neither set is functional. In many cases, these manifestations are altered, sometimes only cosmetically, to resemble standard male or female anatomy shortly after birth.

Fetal hermaphroditism in humans

Sigmund Freud (based on work by his associate Wilhelm Fliess) held fetal hermaphroditsm to be a fact of the physiological development of humans. He was so certain of this, in fact, that he based much of his theory of innate bisexuality on that assumption. This was later revealed to be untrue (see Sexual differentiation).

In plants

Hermaphrodite is used in botany to describe a flower that has both staminate (male, pollen-producing) and carpelate (female, seed-producing) parts. Other terms for this condition are bisexual and perfect. Hermaphrodism in plants is more complex than in animals because plants can have hermaphroditic flowers as described, or unisexual flowers with both male and female types developing on the same individual—a closer analogy to animal hermaphrodism. However, this latter condition constitutes monoecy in plants, and is especially common to the conifers, while occurring in only about 7% of angiosperm species (Molnar, 3004).....

Etymology

The term "hermaphrodite" derives from Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek mythology, who was fused with a nymph, resulting in one possessing physical traits of both sexes. Thus Hermaphroditus was, by the modern terminology, a simultaneous hermaphrodite. The mythological figure of Tiresias, who figures in the Oedipus cycle as well as the Odyssey, was a sequential hermaphrodite, having been changed from a man to a woman and back by the gods.

References

- M.M. Grumbach, and F.A. Conte. 1998. "Disorders of sex differentiation." in Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, eds. J.D. Wilson, D.W. Foster, H.M. Kronenberg, and P.R. Larsen, (Philadelphia: W B Saunders:1303-1425).
- Molnar, Sebastian. 2004. [http://www.geocities.com/we_evolve/Plants/breeding_sys.html Plant Reproductive Systems], internet version posted February 17, 2004. Category:Intersexuality Category:Sex

Patriarchy

Patriarchy (from Greek: patria meaning father and arché meaning rule) is the anthropological term used to define the sociological condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position. The term patriarchy is also used in systems of ranking male leadership in certain hierarchical churches or religious bodies (see patriarch and Patriarchate). Examples include the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches. Finally, the term patriarchy is used perjoratively to describe a seemingly immobile and sclerotic political order. The term "patriarchy' is distinct from patrilineality and patrilocality. "Patrilineal" defines societies where the derivation of inheritence (financial or otherwise) originates from the father's line; a society with matrilineal traits such as Judaism, for example, provides that in order to be considered a Jew, a person must be born of a Jewish mother. "Patrilocal" defines a locus of control coming from the father's geographic/cultural community. In a matrilineal/matrilocal society, a woman will live with her mother and her sisters and brothers, even after marriage. She doesn't leave her maternal home. Her brothers act as 'social fathers' and will hold a higher influence on the women's offspring to the detriment of the children's biological father. Most societies are predominantly patrilineal and patrilocal, but this is not a universal (see: matriarchy).

In anthropology

Theoretical human societies have been described in Anthropology in terms of either patriarchal or matriarchal systems. Between these polarities lie a number of social structures which include elements of both systems. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead later acknowledged that she was misquoted when she stated that a "patriarchy was defined as one in which women take their husband's name and the children bear the father's name" whereas a matriarchal society "is one in which some if not all the legal powers relating to the ordering and governing of the family - power over property, inheritance, marriage are lodged in women rather than in men."(Mead 1950, p. 275). Mead was actually distinguishing a patrilocal from a matrilocal society. The majority of the higher economic, political, industrial, financial, religious, and social positions are held by men. There are no known exceptions to this rule. Anthropologist Donald Brown has listed patriarchy to be a "human universal" (Brown 1991, p. 137), which includes characteristics such as age gradation, personal hygiene, aesthetics, food sharing, rape, and other sociological aspects, implying that patriarchy is innate to the human condition. Margaret Mead has observed that "... all the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed....Men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."[http://www.cortsoft.com/mop/Books3.htm] Against this thesis is raised more and more emotionally-charged political opposition, today, from a new branch of social science, called modern Matriarchal Studies (see: matriarchy).Two World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies took place, 2003 in Luxembourg/Europe and 2005 in San Marcos, Texas/USA, based on a different definition of matriarchy and demonstrating that the concept of matriarchy as "women's or mother's rule" is wrong and male biased (see: [http://www.hagia.de/ www.hagia.de/], at this website both World Congresses are presented). No anthropological professionals were invited to these meetings. The 2003 Congress is perhaps most notable for having adopted a position that the sun revolves around the Earth, and not vice versa, adopting the political position that having "mother" Earth revolve around "father" sun was sexist imagery. To date, none of the efforts to "redefine" anthropological models have met with any academic acceptance. All advanced industrial societies appear to be variations of patriarchy. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, patriarchy is distinctly visible, and in the European nations patriarchy remains the underlying social structure in spite of some changes creating wider possibilities for both women and men. But in both cultures, men still dominate public life. In Marxist cultures, there has also been an attempt to create egalitarian organisations based on gender equality. In China, the Communist government is supposedly governed by the Party Congress, by law composed of equal numbers of men and women. However, in reality, it is the male-only Politburo that governs and the Party Congress is powerless.

In gender studies

In gender studies, the word patriarchy often refers to a social organization marked by the supremacy of a male figure, group of male figures, or men in general. It is also usually marked by the subordination of women, children, and those whose genders or bodies defy traditional man/woman categorization.

Feminist view

Many feminist writers have considered patriarchy to be the basis on which most modern societies have been formed. They argue that it is necessary and desirable to get away from this model in order to achieve gender equality. Feminist writer Marilyn French, in her seminal work Beyond Power, defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness. She argues that: :It is therefore extremely ironic that patriarchy has upheld power as a good that is permanent and dependable, opposing it to the fluid, transitory goods of matricentry. Power has been exalted as the bulwark against pain, against the ephemerality of pleasure, but it is no bulwark, and is as ephemeral as any other part of life. Coercion seems a simpler, less time-consuming method of creating order than any other; yet it is just as time-consuming and tedious and far more expensive than personal encounter, persuasion, listening, and participating in bringing a group into harmony. None of this is unknown, unfamiliar, unperceived. Yet so strong is the mythology of power that we continue to believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that it is substantial, that if we possessed enough of it we could be happy, that if some "great man" possessed enough of it, he could make the world come right. According to French: :It is not enough either to devise a morality that will allow the human race simply to survive. Survival is an evil when it entails existing in a state of wretchedness. Intrinsic to survival and continuation is felicity, pleasure. Pleasure has been much maligned, diminished by philosophers and conquerors as a value for the timid, the small-minded, the self-indulgent. "Virtue" involves the renunciation of pleasure in the name of some higher purpose, a purpose that involves power (for men) or sacrifice (for women). Pleasure is described as shallow and frivolous in a world of high-minded, serious purpose. But pleasure does not exclude serious pursuits or intentions, indeed, it is found in them, and it is the only real reason for staying alive" —[http://www.fragmentsweb.org/stuff/10french.htmlBeyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals] This philosophy is what French offers as a replacement to the current structure where power has the highest value.

Profeminism and patriarchy

Profeminism refers to a school of thought developed by men that supports the feminist analysis of patriarchy as a system that privileges men over women, and also men over other men. A profeminist analysis of patriarchy acknowledges that gender interacts with other dimensions such as ethnicity, power and social class. Patriarchy is seen as a hegemonic gender order imposed through individual, collective and institutional behaviours. Patriarchy as an embodied set of beliefs about the 'natural' gender order (frequently backed up by notions of biological or deific determinism) often operates through a collective willingness towards 'gender blindness', a refusal to observe and study the effects of gender on social relations and power. One clear effect of this has been a refusal until recently to acknowledge the full extent of physical and sexual violence committed against women by heterosexual men.

In psychology

Psychology researchers have used the SDO and RWA measures to predict patriarchal attitudes.

External links

- [http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994220 Cattle ownership makes it a man's world] New Scientist (1. October 2003): Early female-dominated societies lost their power to men when they started herding cattle, a new study demonstrates
- [http://www.menweb.org/throop/books/goldberg/menrule.html Debate Between Mark Ridley and Stephen Goldberg on the Inevitability of Patriarchy]

Literature

- Pierre Bourdieu, Male Domination, Polity Press 2001
- Robert Brown, Human Universals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1991
- Margaret Mead, . (1950). Male and Female, Penguin, London.
- Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour, Palgrave MacMillan 1999 Category:Anthropology Category:Feminism Category:Sociology Category:Men

Matriarchy

Matriarchy is a form of society in which power is conceived as lying with the women and especially with the mothers of a community. The word matriarchy derives from the Latin word mater meaning mother and the Greek word archein meaning to rule. There exists a different term for 'women's rule', it is gynocracy. Matriarchy is distinct from matrilineality, where children are identified in terms of their mother rather than their father, and extended families and tribal alliances form along female blood-lines. Matriarchy is also distinct from matrilocality, which some anthropologists use to describe societies where maternal authority is prominent in domestic relations, owing to the husband joining the wife's family, rather than the wife moving to the husband's village or tribe, such that she is supported by her extended family, and husbands tend to be more socially isolated. Matriarchy is a combination of these factors, it includes matrilineality and matrilocality. But what is most important is the fact that women have the power of disposition over the goods of the clan, especially the power to control the sources of nourishment, fields and food. This characteristic feature, besides matrilineality and matrilocality, grants women such a strong position that these societies are now called 'matriarchal'. But both genders have their own spheres of action, women and men, so matriarchies - like patriarchies - are well belanced societies and truly egalitarian ([http://www.goettner-abendroth.de Heide Goettner-Abendroth]).

Matriarchal societies

Some traditional matriarchal societies have been found to exist still today in each continent, except Europe. Several of them have been presented by scholars and indigenous speakers from still existing matriarchal societies at two [http://www.hagia.de/eng/ World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies]. The first one was held 2003 in Luxembourg/Europe, it was sponsored by the Minister of Women's Affairs of Luxembourg, Marie-Josée Jacobs, and organized and guided by Heide Goettner-Abendroth. The second one took place in 2005 in San Marcos, Texas/USA, it was sponsored by Genevieve Vaughan and again led by Heide Goettner-Abendroth. Due to a lack of any clear and consistent definition of the word 'matriarchy', the discussion remains confusing: The Wemale culture of western Seram, studied by A.E. Jensen during the Frobenius Institute expedition of 1938, is often indicated as an example of matriarchy. See: Karl Kerenyi noted in passing (introduction to Eleusis : Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter 1967, p. xxxii). On the other hand, anthropologist Donald Brown's list of "human universals" (i.e. features shared by all current human societies) includes men being the "dominant element" in public political affairs (Brown 1991, p. 137). He refers the opinion of mainstream anthropology. Feminist Joan Bamberger notes that the historical record contains no reliable evidence of any society in which women dominated (Bamberger 1974), though there are many known matrilineal societies. The Trobriand Islands were considered a matriarchy by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski; the dispute this view has engendered is discussed at that entry. Peter N. Stearns and other historians have speculated as to whether or not agricultural Japan was a matriarchy prior to contact with patriarchal China. (Stearns 2000, p. 51). On the other hand, anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday favors redefining and reintroducing the word matriarchy, especially in reference to modern, matrilineal societies like the Minangkabau. This group lives in West Sumatra and numbers about four million; it is considered the largest and most stable matrilineal society in the modern world. Sanday argues that this society is a modern matriarchy defined not in polar opposition to patriarchy, but on unique terms. A clear and consistent definition has been given by Heide Goettner-Abendroth, who did cross-cultural research on all of the still existing matriarchal societies of today (in her major work on matriarchy). Her viewpoint is close to that of Sanday. One of her examples are the Mosuo people of Southwestern China. Furthermore, the Minicoy islanders are also considered to be one of the living matriarchal societies today.

Nair Matrifocality

Anthropologist R. L. Smith (2002) refers to 'matrifocality' as the kinship structure of a social system where the mother assumes structural prominence. Most anthropologists distinguish this from matriarchy. The traditional Nair community in Kerala, South India is matrifocal by their definition of 'matrifocality'. (In today's modern world this system is rarely practised. The members of the Nair community now live in nuclear families). A traditional Nair matrifocal family is called as a Tarawad or Marumakkathayam family. A traditional Nair Tarwad consists of a mother and her children living together with their mother's surviving eldest brother or eldest surviving maternal uncle who is called as Karanavan. In a Nair family, amongst all the women at home, the eldest mother would become the head of the family. However this does not imply that the decision making was in the woman's hand alone. The 'Karanavan' was also responsible for making decisions. The main significance of this system is that the heirs to the property were the women in the family and the men folk were only allowed to enjoy the benefits during their lifetime. The naming system of the Nair community had the prefix of their mother's 'family name' and they adopted the mother's surname.

Archaeological hypotheses

Whether matriarchal societies might have existed at some time in the distant past is controversial. The controversy began in reaction to the book by Johann Jakob Bachofen Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World in 1861. Several generations of ethnologists were inspired by his pseudo-evolutionary theory of archaic matriarchy. Following him and Jane Ellen Harrison, several generations of scholars, arguing usually from myths or oral traditions and neolithic female cult-figures, suggested that many ancient societies were matriarchal, or even that there existed a wide-ranging matriarchal society prior to the ancient cultures of which we are aware (see for example The White Goddess by Robert Graves). More recent archaeologists like Marija Gimbutas have argued for a widespread matriarchal culture in pre-Indo-European Old Europe of the Neolithic.

Matriarchies in mythology

One area where written myths are available from an early period is the Aegean culture-zone, where the Minoan Great Goddess was worshipped in a society where women and men were apparently equals. Gender equality is a typical characteristic of matriarchy, according to the claims of modern Matriarchal Studies. Modern 'Goddess women' are sometimes too quick to assume that any culture that worships a Mother Goddess must be matriarchal. But there are traces, under the insistently patriarchal Olympian mythology of classical Greece, of earlier matrilineal and matrifocal systems. See the entries for Alcimede or for Hyas for examples. A famous legendary gynarchy (not matriarchy) on the edges of the Greek cultural horizon was Amazon society, which took shape in the imaginations of classical Greeks, based on reports of Scythian female status and even female warriors. However, extreme caution is called for in determining to what extent, if any, such myths or oral traditions reflected reality. About Amazons, Michael Grant claims that these female warriors were said to live at the boundaries of the world to which Greeks had travelled, making them kin to marvellous beings or monsters supposed to dwell in distant lands, like the Blemmyes or Cynocephali. In the meantime, there exists more and better research on Amazons which is not distorted though a male biased lens (see: Gerhard Pöllauer, Vicki Noble, Marguerite Rigoglioso). Regardless of actual historical fact, many cultures have myths about a time when women were dominant. Bamberger (1974) examines several of these myths from South American cultures, and concludes that, by portraying the women from this period as evil, they often serve to keep women under control. Historian Ronald Hutton has argued that there is no necessary correlation between the worship of female deities and relative levels of social or legal egalitarianism between the sexes. He has pointed out that within European history, in seventeenth century Spain there were many religious institutions staffed exclusively by women. A female quasi-deity was a conspicuous part of public religious veneration, and cult images of female supernatural beings were frequently encountered. Spain can be compared to the seventeenth century Netherlands, where the worship of female quasi-deities was emphatically rejected and female clergy did not exist. Yet, the social and legal status of women was much higher in the Netherlands than in Spain during this period. In the Netherlands, women were freer to move about unwatched, and could own businesses of their own and separate property. In Spain, their public roles, and their rights under both law and unwritten custom, were sharply circumscribed. But these examples are all from the epoch of full patriarchal history.

Origins of the unclear concept

The unclear concept of matriarchy, and of its replacement by "patriarchy" can be linked to the historical "inevitabilities" which the nineteenth century's concept of progress through cultural evolution introduced into anthropology. Friedrich Engels, among others, formed the notion that some primitive peoples did not grasp the link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. They therefore had no clear notion of paternity, according to this hypothesis; women produced children mysteriously, without necessary links to the man or men they had sex with. When men discovered paternity, according to the hypothesis, they acted to claim power to monopolize women and claim children as their own offspring. The move from primitive matriarchy to patriarchy was a step forward for human knowledge. This belief system was the result of errors in early ethnography, which in return was the result of unsophisticated methods of field work. When strangers arrive and start asking where babies come from, the urge to respond imaginatively is hard to resist, as Margaret Mead might have discovered in Samoa. In fact, while prior to the discovery of egg cells and genetics there have been many different explanations of the mechanics of pregnancy and the relative contributions of either sex, no human group, however primitive, is unaware of the link between intercourse and pregnancy. The fact that each child has one unique father has come more recently, however; Greek and Roman writers thought that the seed of two men might both contribute to the character of the child. By the time these mistakes were corrected in anthropology, however, the idea that a matriarchy had once existed had been picked up on in comparative religion and archaeology, and was used as the basis of new hypotheses that were unrelated to the postulated ignorance of primitive people about paternity. In the late nineteenth century, belief in primitive matriarchies was also allied with Max Müller's hypothesis that an ethnically distinct Aryan race had invaded and displaced or dominated earlier populations in prehistoric Europe. Their conquests, according to Müller, were responsible for the spread of the Indo-European languages; they would have also replaced an earlier language and culture in the invaded areas where Indo-European languages are now spoken. This theory, and the corresponding hypothesis for India, the Aryan invasion theory, are controversial. Marija Gimbutas has advocated the strongest form of the hypothesis, that of military conquest and forced cultural displacement, in recent decades, and given a lot of evidence.

Matriarchies in literature

The idea about a peaceful matriarchal civilisation being put to the torch by patriarchal, nomadic barbarian invaders has lived on as a powerful literary trope. The Nazi ideology of a master race of Aryan patriarchal conquerors was based in part on Müller's hypothesis about conquering Aryans being the founders of the European 'race.' More recent uses of the theme share essentially the same narrative. Goddess worship is one motif referred to by James Joyce in his novels such as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In addition to Robert Graves, poets such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound made use of the theme. Mary Renault's historical novels about Greek mythology and history such as The King Must Die combine motifs of political conflict between goddess and god worshippers with The Golden Bough's hypothesis about dying and reviving gods. The patriarchal conquest of matriarchy motif is found in literally dozens of fantasy novels, from Marion Zimmer Bradley's historical revisions of Arthurian romance and the Trojan War to works of pure fantasy such as Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne.

References

- Bamberger, Joan. (1974). '"The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society," in Women, Culture, and Society, edited by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, pp. 263-280. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
- Brown, Robert. (1991). Human Universals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
- Czaplicka, Marie Antoinette. (1914). Aboriginal Siberia, a study in social anthropology. Oxford. Clarendon press.
- Eller, Cynthia (2001). The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future. ISBN 0807067938
- Gimbutas, Marija (1991). "The Language of the Goddess".
- Goldberg, Steven (1993) Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance, rev. ed. ISBN 0812692373
- Hutton, Ronald (1993). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles ISBN 0631189467
- Lapatin, Kenneth (2002). Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History. ISBN 0306813289
- Sanday, Peggy Reeves. (2004). Woman at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801489067
- [http://culturalstudies.gmu.edu/faculty/faculty_bios/stearns.html Stearns, Peter N]. (2000). Gender in World History. New York Routledge. ISBN 0415223105
- Smith R.T. (2002) Matrifocality, in International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (eds) Smelser & Baltes, vol 14, pp 9416.

External links

- [http://www.hagia.de/ www.hagia.de]
- [http://www.goettner-abendroth.de/ www.goettner-abendroth.de]
- [http://www.second-congress-matriarchal-studies.com/ www.second-congress-matriarchal-studies.com]
- [http://www.matriarchy.info Matriarchy.Info]: about ancient and today's matriarchal societies
- [http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994220 Cattle ownership makes it a man's world] New Scientist (1. October 2003): A new study claims to demonstrate that early female-dominated societies lost their power to men when they started herding cattle.
- [http://www.debunker.com/patriarchy.html The Domain of Patriarchy]: Robert Sheaffer's sceptical site discusses matriarchies, Goddess mythology, and claims of non-patriarchal societies. Category:Anthropology Category:Feminism Category:Sociology

GoD

Gates of Discord (GoD, GOD, Gates, or simply the Gates expansion) is the seventh expansion released for EverQuest — a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The expansion focused on high-level content, providing a number of zones meant to be used by large groups of players, and many extremely powerful monsters to fight.

EverQuest: Gates of Discord

MMORPG

General information

The expansion takes place on the continent of Taelosia and introduced the Muramites, as well as the berserker character class. It features 18 zones, including many instances. It has 9 single-group instanced trials, 8 uninstanced exp zones, and 9 raid zones/instances.

Controversy

Many players and reviewers were dissatisfied by the Gates of Discord expansion; some claimed it was thus far the worst EverQuest expansion, or at least the worst since The Shadows of Luclin. Gamers perceived Gates of Discord as an unfinished product and criticized Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The main issues were with the rushed release that had some unbeatable content, and problems with the graphics engine which was updated at the same period. Several "uberguilds" (highly powerful and influential groups of players), including Fires of Heaven, Afterlife, and Keepers of the Faith, departed from EverQuest around this time. Many of these players acted as beta testers for World of Warcraft, which was in development for release later in the year. Although by Spring of 2005 several returned, disatisfied with WoW's gameplay. In response to the overwhelming exile of players and the players' criticism towards the expansion, SOE organized a summit in the summer of 2004 to hear the main concerns of the playerbase towards Gates of Discord and EverQuest in general. The summit's guests included a handful of players from guild leaders and fan websites, among them Woody Hearn of [http://www.gucomics.com/ GU Comics].

Zones

- Abysmal Sea - location of The Queen of Thorns which serves as a city
- Barindu - The Hanging Gardens
- Ferubi - Forgotten Temple of Taelosia
- Kod'Taz - Broken Trial Grounds
- Natimbi - The Broken Shores
- Nedaria's Landing
- Qinimi - Court of Nihilia
- Qvic - Prayer Grounds of Calling
- Riwwi - Coliseum of Games
- Txevu - Lair of the Elites
- Yxtta - Pulpit of Exiles Instanced zones
- Ikkinz - Antechamber of Destruction
- Inktu'ta, the Unmasked Chapel
- Sewers of Nihilia - Emanating Crematory
- Sewers of Nihilia - Lair of Trapped Ones
- Sewers of Nihilia - Pool of Sludge
- Sewers of Nihilia - Purifying Plant
- Tacvi, Seat of the Slaver
- Tipt - The Treacherous Crags
- Uqua - the Ocean God Chantry
- Vxed - The Crumbling Caverns Category: 2004 computer and video games Category:EverQuest games and expansions Category: Massively multiplayer online role-playing games Category: PC games

Abrahamic God

The three so-called Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have in common many beliefs about God. The term "Abrahamic God" is a convenient shorthand for "God as believed in by the Abrahamic religions". The actual term is seldom used within these religions themselves, although the related term God of Abraham is somewhat more common. The Abrahamic religions are more or less agreed on the following points.
- There is one exclusive God; no more, no less.
- God created our universe and continues to interact with it, and especially with the human race. The attributes of Abrahamic God, according to Pentateuch, can be divided into two categories: theistic and personal.

Theistic Attributes

God is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent.

Personal Attributes

God has a personality, i.e. self-conscious, self-willed, thinks, acts, love, righteous and holy. Category:Abrahamic religions Category:Singular God

Feminist

Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political, and economic situation. As a social movement, feminism largely focuses on limiting or eradicating gender inequality and promoting women's rights, interests, and issues in society. Within academia, some feminists focus on documenting perceived gender inequalities which they claim oppress women and on changes in the social position and representation of women. Others argue that gender, and even sex, are social constructs, and research the construction of gender and sexuality, and develop alternate models for studying social relations. Some feminist scholars have posited that the hierarchies in businesses and government and all organizations need to be replaced with a decentralized ultra-democracy. Some argue that having any central leader in any organization is derived from the androcentric family structure (and therefore needs reform and replacement), and thus such scholars see the essence of feminism as beyond the surface issues of sex and gender. Feminist political activists commonly campaign on issues such as reproductive rights (including but not limited to the right to choose an abortion, the elimination of legal restrictions on abortion, and access to contraception), violence within a domestic partnership, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, street harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence. Themes explored in feminism include patriarchy, stereotyping, objectification, sexual objectification, and oppression. In the 1960s and 1970s, much of feminism and feminist theory represented, and was concerned with, problems faced by Western, white, middle-class women while claiming to represent all women. Since then, many feminist theorists have challenged the assumption that "women" constitute a homogeneous group of individuals with identical interests. Feminist activists emerged from within diverse communities, and feminist theorists began to focus on the intersection between gender and sexuality with other social identities, such as race and class. Many feminists today argue that feminism is a grass-roots movement that seeks to cross boundaries based on social class, race, culture, and religion; is culturally specific and addresses issues relevant to the women of that society (for example female genital cutting in Africa or the alleged glass ceiling in developed economies); and debate the extent to which certain issues, such as rape, incest, and mothering, are universal. As of 2005, a number of feminist political parties have formed.

Origins

feminist political parties is third from the left, front row.]] Feminism as a philosophy and movement in the modern sense may be usefully dated to The Enlightenment with such thinkers as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Marquis de Condorcet championing women's education. The first scientific society for women was founded in Middelburg, a city in the south of the Dutch republic, in 1785. Journals for women which focused on issues like science became popular during this period as well. Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the first works that can unambiguously be called feminist. Feminism became an organized movement in the 19th century as people increasingly came to believe that women were being treated unfairly. The feminist movement was rooted in the progressive movement and especially in the reform movement of the 19th century. The utopian socialist Charles Fourier coined the word féminisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued that the extension of women's rights was the general principle of all social progress. The organized movement was dated from the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. In 1869, John Stuart Mill published The Subjection of Women to demonstrate that "the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong...and...one of the chief hindrances to human improvement." Many countries began to grant women the vote in the early years of the 20th century, especially in the final years of the First World War and the first years hence. The reasons varied, but they included a desire to recognize the contributions of women during the war, and were also influenced by rhetoric used by both sides at the time to justify their war efforts. For example, since Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points recognized self determination as vital to society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the vote became difficult for men to ignore.

Feminism in many forms

Some forms of feminist theory question basic assumptions about gender, gender difference, and sexuality, including the category of "woman" itself as a holistic concept, further some are interested in questioning the male/female binary completely (offering instead a multiplicity of genders). Other forms of feminist theory take for granted the concept of "woman" and provide specific analyses and critiques of gender inequality, and most feminist social movements promote women's rights, interests, and issues. Feminism is not a single ideology. Over-time several sub-types of feminist ideology have developed. Early feminists and primary feminist movements are often called the first-wave feminists, and feminists after about 1960 the second-wave feminists. More recently, a new generation of feminists have started third-wave feminism. Whether this will be a lasting evolution remains to be seen as the second-wave has by no means ended nor has it ceded to the third-wave feminists. Moreover, some commentators have asserted that the silent majority of modern feminists have more in common ideologically with the first-wave feminists than the second-wave. For example, many of the ideas arising from Radical feminism and Gender feminism (prominent second-wave movements) have yet to gain traction within the broader community and outside of Gender Studies departments within the academy. Some radical feminists advocate separatism—a complete separation of male and female in society and culture—while others question not only the relationship between men and women, but the very meaning of "man" and "woman" as well (see Queer theory). Some argue that gender roles, gender identity, and sexuality are themselves social constructs (see also heteronormativity). For these feminists, feminism is a primary means to human liberation (i.e., the liberation of men as well as women.) Other feminists believe that there may be social problems separate from or prior to patriarchy (e.g., racism or class divisions); they see feminism as one movement of liberation among many, each affecting the others. The various types of feminism include:
- Egalitarian forms:
- equity feminism
- individualist feminism (also known as libertarian feminism) - Same as above.
- liberal feminism
- Gynocentric forms:
- cultural feminism
- gender feminism
- radical feminism
- Belief in oppression by patriarchy:
- anarcha-feminism
- French feminism
- radical feminism
- Belief in oppression by capitalism:
- socialist feminism
- Marxist feminism
- Differences are solely or mostly cultural, not biological:
- Amazon feminism
- psychoanalytic feminism
- Segregationalist:
- lesbian feminism (Lesbian separatism)
- separatist feminism
- African-American
- Black Feminism
- Womanism
- non-Western:
- third-world feminism
- post-colonial feminism
- pro-sex feminism (also known as sexually liberal feminism, sex-positive feminism)

Subtypes of feminism

- Amazon feminism
- Anarcha-Feminism
- Anti-racist feminism
- cultural feminism
- ecofeminism
- equity feminism
- existentialist feminism
- French feminism
- gender feminism
- individualist feminism (also known as libertarian feminism)
- lesbian feminism
- liberal feminism
- male feminism or men's feminism
- Marxist feminism (also known as socialist feminism)
- material feminism
- pop feminism
- post-colonial feminism
- postmodern feminism which includes queer theory
- pro-sex feminism (also known as sexually liberal feminism, sex-positive feminism)
- psychoanalytic feminism
- radical feminism
- separatist feminism
- socialist feminism
- spiritual feminism
- standpoint feminism
- third-world feminism
- transnational feminism
- transfeminism
- womanism
- Certain actions, approaches and people can also be described as proto-feminist or post-feminist. Although many leaders of feminism have been women, not all feminists are women. Some feminists argue that men should not take positions of leadership in the movement, because men, having been socialized to aggressively seek positions of power or direct the agendas within a leadership hierarchy, would apply this tendency to feminist organizations; or that women, having been socialized to defer to men, would be hindered in developing or expressing their own self-leadership in working too closely with men. However, some feminists do believe that men should be accepted as leaders in the movement. Compare pro-feminist, humanism, masculism, masculinism®. Today, some young women associate "feminism" with radical and gender feminism, and this has put off some of these women from being active in feminism, spurring a move away from second-wave labels. However, the basic values of feminism (women's rights and gender equality for women) have become so integrated into Western culture as to be accepted overwhelmingly as valid, and non-conformity to those values characterized as unacceptable, by the same men and women who reject the label "feminist".

Relationship to other movements

Some feminists take a holistic approach to politics, believing the saying of Martin Luther King Jr., "A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". In that belief, some self-identified feminists support other movements such as the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. At the same time, many black feminists such as bell hooks criticize the movement for being dominated by white women. Feminist claims about the alleged disadvantages women face in Western society are often less relevant to the lives of black women. This idea is the key in postcolonial feminism. Many black feminist women prefer the term womanism for their views. Feminists are sometimes wary of the transgender movement because it challenges the distinctions between men and women. Transgender and transsexual women are excluded from some "women-only" gatherings and events and are rejected by some feminists who say that no one born male can fully understand the oppression that women face, and that there is sexism inherent in the notion that femaleness is a default gender that one can enter after shedding externally recognizable male traits. This exclusion is criticized as transphobic by transwomen who assert that the discrimination and various struggles (such as that for legal recognitions) that they face due to asserting their gender identity is closely linked to many feminist efforts, and that discrimination against gender-variant people is another face of heterosexism and the so-called patriarchy. See transfeminism and gender studies.

Effects of feminism in the West

Some feminists would argue that there is still much to be done on these fronts, while others would disagree and claim that the battle has basically been won.

Effects on civil rights

gender studies Feminism has effected many changes in Western society, including women's suffrage; broad employment for women at more equitable wages; the right to initiate divorce proceedings and the introduction of "no fault" divorce; the right to keep children from their fathers, the right to obtain contraception and safe abortions; the right to not allow men to face a woman who accuses them of rape, the right to be allowed admittance into any university in the US; and the right to have over 60 female-only universities in the US. Feminism is a pro-choice movement, although there are some exceptions. The national organization [http://www.feministsforlife.org Feminists for Life], for instance, condemns the act of abortion, claiming that the reason that abortion is so common is because women do not have access to alternate resources and information. Feminists for Life even suggest that what they refer to as the "abortion industry" is part of a system which allows the abuse of women and women's rights.

Effect on language

English-speaking feminists are often proponents of what they consider to be non-sexist language, using "Ms." to refer to both married and unmarried women, for example, or the ironic use of the term "herstory" instead of "history". Feminists are also often proponents of using gender-inclusive language, such as "humanity" instead of "mankind", or "he or she" (or other gender-neutral pronouns) in place of "he" where the gender is unknown. Feminists in most cases advance their desired use of language either to promote what they claim is an equal and respectful treatment of women or to affect the tone of political discourse. This can be seen as a move to change language which has been viewed by some feminists as imbued with sexism, providing for example the case in the English language in which the word for the general pronoun is "he" or "his" (The child should have his paper and pencils), which is the same as the masculine pronoun (The boy and his truck). These feminists argue that language then directly affects perception of reality (compare Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis). However, to take a postcolonial analysis of this point, many languages other than English may not have such a gendered pronoun instance and thus changing language may not be as important to some feminists as others. Yet, English is becoming more and more universal, and the issue of language may be seen to be of growing importance. On the other hand, quite a different tendency can be seen in French. Gender, as a grammatical concept, is much more pervasive in French than in English, and as a result, it has been virtually impossible to create inclusive language. Instead, nouns that originally had only a masculine form have had feminine counterparts created for them. "Professeur" ("teacher"), once always masculine regardless of the teacher's sex, now has a parallel feminine form "Professeure". In cases where separate masculine and feminine forms have always existed, it was once standard practice for a group containing both men and women to be referred to using the masculine plural. Nowadays, forms such as "Tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes" ("all Canadians", or literally "all the male Canadians and female Canadians") are becoming more common. Such phrasing is quite common in Canada, but practically unknown in European and African French-speaking countries.

Effect on heterosexual relationships

The feminist movements have certainly affected the nature of heterosexual relationships in Western and other societies affected by feminism. While these effects have generally been seen as positive, there have been some consequences that can be catalogued as negative from the traditional point of view on morals. In some of these relationships, there has been a change in the power relationship between men and women. In these circumstances, women and men have had to adapt to relatively new situations, sometimes causing confusions about role and identity. Women can now avail themselves more to new opportunities, but some have suffered with the demands of trying to live up to the so-called "superwomen" identity, and have struggled to 'have it all', i.e. manage to happily balance a career and family. In response to the family issue, many socialist feminists blame this on the lack of state-provided child-care facilities. Others have advocated instead that the onus of child-care not rest solely on the female, but rather that men partake in the responsibility of managing family matters. Some men counter that this expectation is unrealistic, claiming a deemphasis on breadwinning would be injurious to their ability to attract mates; while many women have the choice to try to "have it all", they claim that societal expectations placed on men preclude them from devoting themselves further to domestic responsibilities. Proponents of this position cite the following anecdotal observation: While men are derided for not devoting enough time to childrearing and domestic tasks, few women seem attracted to men who engage in these activities to the detriment of their careers. (In Defense of Working Fathers Sacks, Glenn. [http://www.hisside.com/7_10_05.htm].) There have been changes also in attitudes towards sexual morality and behavior with the onset of second wave feminism and "the Pill": women are then more in control of their bodies, and are able to experience sex with more freedom than was previously socially accepted for them. This sexual revolution that women were then able to experience was seen as positive (especially by sex-positive feminists) as it enabled women and men to experience sex in a free and equal manner. However, some feminists felt that the results of the sexual revolution were beneficial only to men. Feminists have debated whether marriage is an institution that oppresses women and men. Those who do view it as oppressive sometimes opt for cohabitation or more recently to live independently reverting to casual sex to fulfill their sexual needs.

Effect on religion

Feminism has had a great effect on many aspects of religion. In liberal branches of Protestant Christianity (and in some theologically conservative dominations as well, such as Assemblies of God[http://ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/4191_women_ministry.cfm]), women are now ordained as clergy, and in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism, women are ordained as rabbis and cantors. Within these Christian and Jewish groups, women have gradually become more nearly equal to men by obtaining positions of power; their perspectives are now sought out in developing new statements of belief. In Islam women have historically contributed to all aspects of Islamic life, from religious edicts to aid on the battlefield. Around half of the sayings of Muhammad are taken from his wife Aisha, whom men often consulted on religious matters. In this day you will often see many women scholars on Arabic satellite television answering Islam-related questions, asked by both genders. One matter remains debatable nowadays, which is whether or not a woman can lead men in prayers. These trends, however, have been resisted within Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism has historically excluded women from entering priesthood and other positions in clergy, allowing women to hold positions as nuns or as laypeople. Feminism also has had an important role in embracing new forms of religion. Neopagan religions especially tend to emphasize the importance of Goddess spirituality, and question what they regard as traditional religion's hostility to women and the sacred feminine. In particular Dianic Wicca is a religion whose origins lie within radical feminism. Among traditional religions, feminism has led to self examination, with reclaimed positive Christian and Islamic views and ideals of Mary, Islamic views of Fatima Zahra, and especially to the Catholic belief in the Coredemptrix, as counterexamples. However, criticism of these efforts as unable to salvage corrupt church structures and philosophies continues. Some argue that Mary, with her status as mother and virgin, and as traditionally the main role model for women, sets women up to aspire to an impossible ideal and also thus has negative consequences on human sense of identity and sexuality. There is a separate article on God and gender; it discusses how monotheistic religions reconcile their theologies with contemporary gender issues, and how modern feminism has influenced the theology of many religions.

Effect on moral education

Opponents of feminism claim that women's quest for external power, as opposed to the internal power to affect other people's ethics and values, has left a vacuum in the area of moral training, where women formerly held sway. Some feminists reply that the education, including the moral education, of children has never been, and should not be, seen as the exclusive responsibility of women. Paradoxically, it is also held by others that the moral education of children at home in the form of homeschooling is itself a women's movement. Such arguments are entangled within the larger disagreements of the Culture Wars, as well as within feminist (and anti-feminist) ideas regarding custodianship of societal morals and compassion.

Effects of feminism in the East

Worldwide statistics

The following is a sampling of statistics related to the relative status of women worldwide.
- According to the [http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_HDI.pdf United Nations Human Development Report 2004: Section 28, Gender, Work Burden, and Time Allocation], women work on average more than men, when both paid employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for. In rural areas of the developing countries surveyed, women perform an average of 20% more work than men, or an additional 98 minutes per day. In the OECD countries surveyed, on average women performed 5% more work than men, or 18 minutes per day.
- Women own only 1 percent of the world's wealth, and earn 10 percent of the world's income, despite making up 49.5 percent of the population.
- Women are underrepresented in all of the world's major legislative bodies (see [http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm Women in National Parliaments, November 2004]). In 1985, Finland had the largest percentage of women in national legislature at approximately 32 percent (P. Norris, Women's Legislative Participation in Western Europe, West European Politics). Currently, Sweden has the highest number of women at 45 percent. The United States has just 14 percent. The world average is just 9 percent. In contrast, half of the members of the recently established Welsh Assembly Government are women.

Perspective: the nature of the modern movement

Most feminists believe discrimination against women still exists in North American and European nations, as well as worldwide. But there are many ideas within the movement regarding the severity of current problems, what the problems are, and how best to confront them. Extremes on the one hand include some radical feminists such as Mary Daly who argues that human society would be better off with dramatically fewer men. There are also dissidents, such as Christina Hoff Sommers or Camille Paglia, who identify themselves as feminist but who accuse the movement of anti-male prejudice. On the other hand, many feminists question the use of the term feminist to groups or people who fail to recognize a fundamental equality between the sexes. Some feminists, like Katha Pollitt (see her book Reasonable Creatures) or Nadine Strossen (President of the ACLU and author of Defending Pornography [a treatise on freedom of speech]), consider feminism to be, solely, the view that "women are people." Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are considered by these people to be sexist rather than feminist. There are also debates between difference feminists such as Carol Gilligan on the one hand, who believe that there are important differences between the sexes (which may or may not be inherent, but which cannot be ignored), and those who believe that there are no essential differences between the sexes, and that the roles observed in society are due to conditioning. There is no consensus among modern scientists on whether inborn differences exist between men and women (other than physical differences such as anatomy, chromosomes and hormones). In Marilyn French's seminal works analyzing patriarchy and its effects on the world at large--including women, men and children--she defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness. According to French, "it is not enough either to devise a morality that will allow the human race simply to survive. Survival is an evil when it entails existing in a state of wretchedness. Intrinsic to survival and continuation is felicity, pleasure. Pleasure has been much maligned, diminished by philosophers and conquerors as a value for the timid, the small-minded, the self-indulgent. "Virtue" involves the renunciation of pleasure in the name of some higher purpose, a purpose that involves power (for men) or sacrifice (for women). Pleasure is described as shallow and frivolous in a world of high-minded, serious purpose. But pleasure does not exclude serious pursuits or intentions, indeed, it is found in them, and it is the only real reason for staying alive" [http://www.fragmentsweb.org/stuff/10french.html| Beyond Power] This philosophy is what French offers as a replacement to the current structure where power has the highest value--and it is this feminism to which many (women and men) subscribe. However many believe this view is flawed, simply because one who desires power will usually obtain power over one who does not.

Contemporary criticisms of feminism

Feminism, in some forms and to varying degrees, has become generally accepted in Western society. However, the attention it has attracted, due to the social changes it has effected, has resulted in many dissenting voices. Criticism has come from within the movement, from masculists, and from social conservatives. Postcolonial feminists criticise Western forms of feminism, notably radical feminism and its most basic assumption, universalization of female experience. They argue that this assumption is based on the experience of white, middle-class women, for whom gender oppression is primary; and that it cannot so easily be applied to women for whom gender oppression comes second to racial or class oppression. Non-feminist critics suggest that the continual emphasis on women's issues throughout the evolution of the movement has resulted in gynocentric ideology. They think that modern-day feminists are biased by the lens that filters their world views. They would like to see a gender-neutral term such as "gender egalitarianism" replace "feminism" when used in reference to the belief in basic equal rights and opportunities for both sexes. Many who support masculism argue that because of both traditional gender roles and sexism infused into society by feminists, males are and have been oppressed. Their view as expressed by Warren Farrell in "The Myth of Male Power" is that the traditional world was a bi-sexist world, not a uni-sexist one, and that the issues men faced then still exist plus several new ones created by feminist organizations. One complaint is that feminists promote misandry, even male inferiority - it has been demonstrated that replacing the words "male" and "female" in some feminist writings with "black" and "white" respectively would make these texts racist. However, this is applicable to non-feminist writing as well, as Douglas Hofstadter tried to show in [http://www.bloomington.in.us/~abangert/person.html "A Person Paper on Purity in Language"]. Another interesting word substitution is substituting "male" and "female" with each other in texts, like Gerd Brantenberg's Egalia's Daughters. Others still dismiss this word substitution argument as overly simplistic, and state that changing "men oppress women" to "blacks oppress whites" says as little about the speaker of the original sentence as would changing "I love Jews" to "I hate Jews". Another concern is that the belief in a glass ceiling for women may have resulted in affirmative action programs that promote women more for the purpose of public relations than for merit. Sexual harassment is also a topic of dispute: critics claim that, in the name of protecting women, men are discriminated against when they are the subject of claims; and that they are treated less seriously when claiming cases. The same is true with domestic violence, and even though oft-quoted feminist research suggests that over 30% of the victims of domestic violence are male, only a handful of the thousands of tax-funded shelters in the US will even admit men. Other concerns include inequity in health funding (particularly breast vs. prostate cancer), societal sympathy for women vs. vilification of men (e.g., emphasis on "violence against women"), and fears of censorship. Feminists disagree on the importance of men's issues; some argue that these issues are not important because society is male-dominated, others point out that the fact that a small group of men have much power doesn't contradict the idea that many men (especially poor, non-white, or non-straight men) might be oppressed. The concept of "patriarchy" is also questioned by masculists, largely because masculists examine whether a government's actions are more in line with men's interests or women's interests, not based on the gender of the people performing the actions, but on the actions themselves. Conservative criticism includes the claim that the feminist movement is trying to destroy traditional gender roles. Proponents argue that men and women have many natural differences, and that everyone benefits from recognizing them. They consider children to benefit from having a masculine father and a feminine mother, and that divorce, single parenthood, and non-traditional gender roles harm children. There is also a group of Paleoconservatives including George Gilder and Pat Buchanan who argue that feminism has produced a fundamentally unworkable, self-destructive, stagnant society. They note that societies in which feminism has developed the furthest have below-replacement rates of fertility and high rates of immigration (frequently from countries with cultures and religions hostile to feminism). In the US, "liberal" religious groups most accepting of feminism have noted fewer conversions and less natural increase. Some forms of Islam are hostile to feminism.

Criticism of feminists' claim to favor equality

Many critics argue that feminists really do not support equality, but actually support female-favoring sexism while only giving lip service to equality. Such critics offer lists of quotations such as the following in an attempt to illustrate this claim. Others argue that such criticism is dishonest, since a quotation by itself lacks context, and since any legitimate political movement may be misrepresented by compiling a list of the most extreme views of some of its members. Though some of the quotations below come from feminist leaders, they do not necessarily represent feminism--or even the actual views of those quoted. For example, they may be meant metaphorically (as in the Robin Morgan quotation), or may be intended as humor (the Feminist Dictionary quotation).

Feminist Quotations

- Definitions... MAN: An obsolete life form, an ordinary creature who needs to be watched, a contradictory baby-man; MISANDRY: A