Women & Evil

[Joel Slater]

 In a great many low-tech societies (the kind that are sometimes assumed to be more like the way every culture was a long time ago) women are perceived as sources of potential pollution to adult males-and in some way the culture proscribes certain behaviors and sets up certain rituals to deal with the pollution.  Women are perceived to carry a threat in some way.  In the Bible and in early Greek religions-it was a female that brought evil into the world.  My question is 1)if in fact women are associated with evil more so than men then, 2) why is this the case.   So, If any one wants to discuss this further we can do this on this forum or by email.   

[Joel Slater]

Maybe I have it totally backwards and women's concern for changing their bodies through botox, fashion, etc. is not the rejection of "physicality"-but its embrace. (though female saints in the Christian tradition have a history of disparaging their own bodies). The changes women seek, I think, are to make them more attractive to men. So, it may be that women are more physical in that sense because that for the most part was what attracted men. Men have more options to be attractive besides the physical: 1) money, 2) power, 3) status, So, maybe women are more bodily nature, because that is what they are more limited to, while males have the cultural allures of money, and power, and status-that are not dependent on physicality.

[LOUANN BRIZENDINE]

I see what you mean Joel about women and their dependence on physicality--ie dependence on their looks/attractiveness to men and i agree that this perisists even for intelligent women--up until this generation this has limited women in their degrees-of-freedom, so to speak; whereas men, as you say, have more degrees of freedom: power, money, status. A woman's worth and her physical beauty are deeply ingrained in most cultures, it would seem. (Even though some studies show that a woman's personality and her reputation matter also.) And women are often jealous/resentful of this--a man's freedom --relative to her own.

[Scott Storm Carter]

I agree with Elijah Hamilton.

[Elijah Hamilton]

RE: Women and physicality - yes, it's well established that women are less concerned with the physical attractiveness of their mates than men are.  Women are more concerned with a man's "status", which is a reflection of his ability to protect and provide for her.  Status can be achieved in many ways, but in all its forms tends to be the main indicator of a mans attractiveness to females.

[Elijah Hamilton]

Another possible way of looking at this "women as evil" situation:  A man's primary job from the beginning has always been to ensure the immediate survival of himself and his offspring.  Men often get distracted from their goals and ambitions by spending too much time with women.  This would probably be especially problematic in a small tribe where if one man was laying with women during the day instead of hunting like he was supposed to it would cause a strain on the whole group (I'm just guessing here).  Since distraction from work / goals is a threat to survival (thus evil), women could have been labeled evil early on due to their role as distractors.  The sirens are a mythological example of a woman enticing a man away from his work, to his death.

[Joel Slater]

I am hoping that more women express their opinions on this discussion list.

[Scott Storm Carter]

Elijah Hamilton, I am under the impression you may have been studying some the same resources as I have. It is very good to be in a conversation with people who have understanding of what I have been studying.

[Elijah Hamilton]

Yeah Scott I have a feeling you're right.  I was wondering if I had any brethren in this forum.  It's amazing how much these subjects have been brushed under the rug academically.  Now I'm looking for a female equivalent to those resources to help some of the women in my life, but apparently there isn't nearly as much in that category.

[angel macedon]

Yo whats up Elijah ? Good debate and i would never hate the player even if i disagree. My point is simple. As higher animals who have the ability to change their own behaviour, it is encumbant upon us to modify our acts that are detrimental to ourselves and others. Therefore it seems logical that if both men and women don't like the rules of say,the mating game they should change the rules; together, not unilaterally. It makes little to shout at each other across the sterile environs of the talk shows and blogosphere. For me, as a man, making myself available to rejection by someone who is rude, unsympathic, ignorant,  just playing around or whatever is not a good thing for anyone. Unfortunately over the last 40 years the changes in gender have been defined unilaterally. Pushing the feelings, concerns, attitudes of men on gender  further to the fringes. So ignoring or excusing these excesses and poor behaviour from women doesn't fix the problem.

[Peter S. Lopez]

April 13, 2011 ~In a way, the woman of today is the 'fall-gal' for men. We gotta blame somebody! In relation to the Holy Bible we should see that it is dominated unfairly by men. Supposedly none of the major prophets were women, they were all men. Even the term God ~who I refer to as the Creator~ is a reflection of male domination in the world and in history. God has no sexual gender and can just as well be referred to as Goddess.

We should look at trying to create more and more unity between men and women, not separate them in terms of their brains, but rather see our common inheritance as human beings of one family of humanity. Let us examine more the humane brain!

My direct experience has been that for various reasons women in general tend to be more humane than men are in terms of their having more care, concern and compassion than men. You could blame these differences on brains, but it is more an existential matter of the general environment. Women have historically been the gatherers, first created agriculture and have been the primary care givers as parents. Naturally, this has effects their way of relating to the external world.

We are products of definite social conditions in our environment. These social conditions mold our ways of looking at the external world. Namaste, @Peta_de_Aztlan on Twitter