So, what are the elements of a Patriarchal society? Men in charge obviously, yet it is the insidious influence of Patriarchy on women, that the women themselves unquestionably follow, that concerns me.
Women used to be very powerful. Life flowed through them – as it still does, and they were revered for it. It didn’t matter who the father of a baby was. The Goddess of Fertility was worshiped.
Then the Roman concepte of Primogeniture ( the first born male inheriting everything) came along and women became incarcerated.
They became guarded vessels for precious sperm to engender revered all-inheriting-sons. Throw the misogyny of religion into this injustice and you have most of the reasons why women struggle to achieve and have been edited out of History.
Today in the Printroom I started exploring this. One of the iconic images in my mind is of the powerful Venus of Willendorf: the Mother Earth Fertility Goddess , bringer of life, and one of Civilisation’s first sculptures.
I have made a study of her along with emblems of the Anglican Church – the hat , the cross, the patronage of the wave. Then I transferred these images onto an open screen silkscreen monoprint. I will go back to this with another layer- perhaps a new born male baby – the first born heir …perhaps on another medium. Possibly on tissue paper so it is transparent – or tracing paper. I want layers of meaning.
Perhaps I’ll draw over it?
Perhaps I could do a series -up to 12 images , examining my thoughts and feelings.
Examining misogyny, primogeniture and the rest….
Many things are only skin deep and if people think we are an equal society they need to scratch a layer and really look. Women are still blamed and derided. Simple things like the Great British Bake Off unleashed massive misogyny and name calling from both trolling sexes. One woman, Ruby Tandoh ,who got into the final three, was accused of being too thin to be a good cook and of flirting with the male judge, Paul Hollywood, to stay in the show! She wrote an excellent response in the Guardian,
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/22/great-british-bake-off-ruby-dandoh>,
and is now one of their Weekend cookery writers – so good for her – and the Guardian. Women can be perpetrators of misogyny and abuse. Conditioned? Led by a male view point? FGM is a case in point. In certain Muslim cultures mothers mutilate their daughters’ gentials and the men let them. Marriage is considered the best and only future for women – and men don’t want to marry girls who may have sexual pleasure – they could be promiscuous. Ye Gods. It’s been illegal in this country for 29 years. About 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk of having their clitorises and labia hacked off every year and no one has been prosecuted as yet.( Although since I started this blog, 2 men in their 30s are being prosecuted for mutilation on a woman who had just given birth. This was at the Wittington Hospital – in a very expensive part of North London) Would our politicians have done more if men were being mutilated so that like castrated animals, they were docile and never strayed? I bet they would.
After almost thirty years of this appalling, barbaric abuse , dispite legislation against it, they are now trying to enforce it better. A lot more needs to be done, both in this country ad worldwide.
