Response to Max Dashu's review:
13 March 2001
Dear Editor:
I recently read Max Dashu’s review of my book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory in your journal, and would like the opportunity to respond, since it includes several misreadings of my argument.
First, Dashu says over and over again that I believe that all societies everywhere have always been male-dominated. I never say this, because I don’t believe we know any such thing. I am making the much more modest claim that however prehistoric societies were organized, we can be pretty sure that they were not all matristic, goddess-worshipping, and respectful of women. In other words, I am arguing against the thesis of universal prehistoric matriarchy; not in favor of the thesis of universal patriarchy. Given that this is my aim, all I need are a few well-chosen counterexamples: cultures that exist apart from the conditions that matriarchalists believe to create patriarchy (things like animal husbandry, advanced technologies, the rise of the state, or invasions by patriarchal cultures) that are nevertheless male dominant. Again, I am not saying that all cultures are patriarchal, or that no cultures have ever been sex egalitarian. All I am saying is that there’s a very good chance that prehistoric cultures were variable on the issue of sex relations, as cultures are today, and that no single pattern of sex egalitarianism or goddess worship existed.
Since my book was published, several “matrix historians” have claimed that it is only an oddball radical fringe that proposes that goddess worship and/or female-centeredness in society were universal in prehistory. They claim that all they or anyone else has ever tried to show is that some cultures somewhere were not male dominant. This is simply false. I have plenty of citations from prominent individuals saying that prehistory was universally, or near-universally “matristic.”
Second, I never use the words “essentialist” or “essentialism” in my book (Dashu accuses me of this four times in her review). I purposely avoided using these terms. I believe they have come to be stand-ins for an argument rather than an argument itself, and thus have descended to the status of cheap shot (something with which Dashu agrees in the course of her review). I wanted to make my case more carefully than this, so I never talked about the matriarchal thesis as being “essentialist.” Nevertheless, I do believe that matriarchal myth does a disservice to the feminist movement by reducing femaleness to a rather narrow quantity, and specifically to one that is largely the creation of a sexist society. Dashu complains that my position makes it “hard to see how to stop the dominant groups’ ideologies from continuing to define reality.” Obviously, both of us, as feminists, are troubled by the same problem. It is just that Dashu believes that matrix history avoids the problem while I think that matrix history repeats it.
It is particularly troubling to me that Dashu characterizes my approach as one that regards sexism as a superficial problem which could be easily remedied by ignoring gender altogether. If I have done anything to create this impression, I would like to correct it right now. I regard sexism as a deeply entrenched problem, and its social enforcement as being so heavy-handed as to make it difficult to even see it, let alone to remove it. When I say on p. 75 of my book that while “gender may in fact be nothing more than the effect of a performance . . . it still has incredible social power which we ignore at our own risk,” and on p. 76 that we live in a world where “sex determines quite powerfully and completely,” this is exactly the point I am trying to make. When I say, on p. 74, “why can’t we just ignore [the feminine] and see if it goes away?” I am not suggesting that we, as feminists, should just ignore gender and hope for the best. I am saying that we, all of us, might try ignoring gender (this includes toy designers). For feminists to pretend that gender doesn’t exist under current conditions is empirically absurd and politically disastrous. But to argue forcefully that gender has no necessary or well-documented existence is, I think, a sensible feminist approach and one that I advocate.
I also wanted to address just a few specifics in Dashu’s review. I never argue that Paleolithic or Neolithic female figures are pornographic. I mention this as one interpretation offered by some archaeologists. In fact, I think one of the most likely explanations for these figurine assemblages is that they are images of a goddess or goddesses, and I say this in the book (p. 139). However, extensive female iconographies are not incompatible with patriarchy. This doesn’t mean that prehistoric societies were patriarchal. All it means is that they could have been.
Since Dashu draws attention to the example of Iron Age Israel cited in my book, I’ll review that case again here. Archaeologists have uncovered a great many female figurines of apparently religious significance from this era. From the same era we have written texts proclaiming that there is only one (male) god, and all other worship of deities is heretical. This combination of artifacts and text does not mean that the artifacts could not have been goddesses or that they were not worshipped (what Dashu seems to think I am saying). What it suggests to me is that there was significant tension between folk religion and official religion in Iron Age Israel—a common occurrence in religions worldwide—and that there is no reason to believe that a similar tension could not have been in place in preliterate societies. Figurine-rich Neolithic cultures may have worshipped a goddess and may also have had an official religion that declared such worship inferior to that of worship of an invisible male god. Again, I’m not saying this is what the situation was in Neolithic societies; I’m simply saying that it could have been the situation, that the evidence of probable goddess worship available to us does not prove that these cultures were matristic or sex egalitarian. Similarly, I do not say that suttee burials aren’t patriarchal; they are. I say that absence of suttee burials doesn’t prove absence of patriarchy. We manage to be pretty patriarchal ourselves while burying our dead in a very egalitarian manner.
I wrote this book with the clear understanding that some people would regard me as a stooge of the patriarchal backlash, another Camille Paglia, as Dashu suggests. Obviously I don’t see myself this way. Readers will have to judge for themselves. However, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that the enemies of feminism “just love my book.” Lawrence Osborne’s review in Salon.com which Dashu refers to was downright nasty, not only towards feminist matriarchalists and their “twaddle” (his word, not mine), but toward me, who he described as an ideologue of “enlightened feminism” (whatever that is) who is unoriginal, smug, clubby, tangential, condescending, and boring.
It is easy to level the charge of “guilt by association,” but I don’t think it is fair. Just as anti-pornography feminists should not be dismissed because fundamentalist Christians happen to be against pornography too, I don’t think my critique should be rejected as anti-feminist because some anti-feminists also critique matriarchal myth. This is a particularly dangerous charge for feminist matriarchalists to make, since it is easily leveled in turn at them, for there is no question that earlier matriarchalists were unrepentant misogynists. As I take some care to say in my book (p. 7), this doesn’t mean that matriarchal myth cannot be feminist, or that feminists who adopt it are either foolish or naïve. I would appreciate the same respect.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Eller
P.S. Let me apologize for misrepresenting J.P. Mallory’s position. I understand what Mallory’s position is, and I should have introduced his quote by saying “As Mallory summarizes the position of most contemporary archaeologists . . .” rather than merely saying “As Mallory summarizes . . .”
13 March 2001
Dear Editor:
I recently read Max Dashu’s review of my book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory in your journal, and would like the opportunity to respond, since it includes several misreadings of my argument.
First, Dashu says over and over again that I believe that all societies everywhere have always been male-dominated. I never say this, because I don’t believe we know any such thing. I am making the much more modest claim that however prehistoric societies were organized, we can be pretty sure that they were not all matristic, goddess-worshipping, and respectful of women. In other words, I am arguing against the thesis of universal prehistoric matriarchy; not in favor of the thesis of universal patriarchy. Given that this is my aim, all I need are a few well-chosen counterexamples: cultures that exist apart from the conditions that matriarchalists believe to create patriarchy (things like animal husbandry, advanced technologies, the rise of the state, or invasions by patriarchal cultures) that are nevertheless male dominant. Again, I am not saying that all cultures are patriarchal, or that no cultures have ever been sex egalitarian. All I am saying is that there’s a very good chance that prehistoric cultures were variable on the issue of sex relations, as cultures are today, and that no single pattern of sex egalitarianism or goddess worship existed.
Since my book was published, several “matrix historians” have claimed that it is only an oddball radical fringe that proposes that goddess worship and/or female-centeredness in society were universal in prehistory. They claim that all they or anyone else has ever tried to show is that some cultures somewhere were not male dominant. This is simply false. I have plenty of citations from prominent individuals saying that prehistory was universally, or near-universally “matristic.”
Second, I never use the words “essentialist” or “essentialism” in my book (Dashu accuses me of this four times in her review). I purposely avoided using these terms. I believe they have come to be stand-ins for an argument rather than an argument itself, and thus have descended to the status of cheap shot (something with which Dashu agrees in the course of her review). I wanted to make my case more carefully than this, so I never talked about the matriarchal thesis as being “essentialist.” Nevertheless, I do believe that matriarchal myth does a disservice to the feminist movement by reducing femaleness to a rather narrow quantity, and specifically to one that is largely the creation of a sexist society. Dashu complains that my position makes it “hard to see how to stop the dominant groups’ ideologies from continuing to define reality.” Obviously, both of us, as feminists, are troubled by the same problem. It is just that Dashu believes that matrix history avoids the problem while I think that matrix history repeats it.
It is particularly troubling to me that Dashu characterizes my approach as one that regards sexism as a superficial problem which could be easily remedied by ignoring gender altogether. If I have done anything to create this impression, I would like to correct it right now. I regard sexism as a deeply entrenched problem, and its social enforcement as being so heavy-handed as to make it difficult to even see it, let alone to remove it. When I say on p. 75 of my book that while “gender may in fact be nothing more than the effect of a performance . . . it still has incredible social power which we ignore at our own risk,” and on p. 76 that we live in a world where “sex determines quite powerfully and completely,” this is exactly the point I am trying to make. When I say, on p. 74, “why can’t we just ignore [the feminine] and see if it goes away?” I am not suggesting that we, as feminists, should just ignore gender and hope for the best. I am saying that we, all of us, might try ignoring gender (this includes toy designers). For feminists to pretend that gender doesn’t exist under current conditions is empirically absurd and politically disastrous. But to argue forcefully that gender has no necessary or well-documented existence is, I think, a sensible feminist approach and one that I advocate.
I also wanted to address just a few specifics in Dashu’s review. I never argue that Paleolithic or Neolithic female figures are pornographic. I mention this as one interpretation offered by some archaeologists. In fact, I think one of the most likely explanations for these figurine assemblages is that they are images of a goddess or goddesses, and I say this in the book (p. 139). However, extensive female iconographies are not incompatible with patriarchy. This doesn’t mean that prehistoric societies were patriarchal. All it means is that they could have been.
Since Dashu draws attention to the example of Iron Age Israel cited in my book, I’ll review that case again here. Archaeologists have uncovered a great many female figurines of apparently religious significance from this era. From the same era we have written texts proclaiming that there is only one (male) god, and all other worship of deities is heretical. This combination of artifacts and text does not mean that the artifacts could not have been goddesses or that they were not worshipped (what Dashu seems to think I am saying). What it suggests to me is that there was significant tension between folk religion and official religion in Iron Age Israel—a common occurrence in religions worldwide—and that there is no reason to believe that a similar tension could not have been in place in preliterate societies. Figurine-rich Neolithic cultures may have worshipped a goddess and may also have had an official religion that declared such worship inferior to that of worship of an invisible male god. Again, I’m not saying this is what the situation was in Neolithic societies; I’m simply saying that it could have been the situation, that the evidence of probable goddess worship available to us does not prove that these cultures were matristic or sex egalitarian. Similarly, I do not say that suttee burials aren’t patriarchal; they are. I say that absence of suttee burials doesn’t prove absence of patriarchy. We manage to be pretty patriarchal ourselves while burying our dead in a very egalitarian manner.
I wrote this book with the clear understanding that some people would regard me as a stooge of the patriarchal backlash, another Camille Paglia, as Dashu suggests. Obviously I don’t see myself this way. Readers will have to judge for themselves. However, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that the enemies of feminism “just love my book.” Lawrence Osborne’s review in Salon.com which Dashu refers to was downright nasty, not only towards feminist matriarchalists and their “twaddle” (his word, not mine), but toward me, who he described as an ideologue of “enlightened feminism” (whatever that is) who is unoriginal, smug, clubby, tangential, condescending, and boring.
It is easy to level the charge of “guilt by association,” but I don’t think it is fair. Just as anti-pornography feminists should not be dismissed because fundamentalist Christians happen to be against pornography too, I don’t think my critique should be rejected as anti-feminist because some anti-feminists also critique matriarchal myth. This is a particularly dangerous charge for feminist matriarchalists to make, since it is easily leveled in turn at them, for there is no question that earlier matriarchalists were unrepentant misogynists. As I take some care to say in my book (p. 7), this doesn’t mean that matriarchal myth cannot be feminist, or that feminists who adopt it are either foolish or naïve. I would appreciate the same respect.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Eller
P.S. Let me apologize for misrepresenting J.P. Mallory’s position. I understand what Mallory’s position is, and I should have introduced his quote by saying “As Mallory summarizes the position of most contemporary archaeologists . . .” rather than merely saying “As Mallory summarizes . . .”
