History of women

1
History of women nature

• Historical grew out of nature knowledge where
  to get food, medicines,
• Since nurturing, associated w/ women (as opposed
  to hunting )
• Earth goddess
• Midwives/ healers
• Witches
• Modern
• wicca

2
History

• Most researchers currently accept the belief that
  modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000
  to 250,000 years ago.
• Until about 8000 BCE, hunter-gatherer societies.
• Humans alone had developed the realization that
  their life was finite that they would all die.
  This resulted in the development of the primitive
  religious beliefs.

3
History cont

• Societies which relied mainly on hunting by men
  naturally developed hunting gods to worship.
• Those in which gathering was more reliable
  -vegetative Goddesses.
• Fertility was important in crops, in
  domesticated animals, in wild animals and in the
  tribe
• The female life-giving principle was considered
  divine and a great mystery.
• Some Goddess statues still survive from this era.

4
Role of hunting vs women

• Societies which relied mainly on hunting by men
  naturally developed hunting gods to worship.
• Those in which gathering was more reliable
  generally created vegetative Goddesses. The
  importance of fertility in crops, in domesticated
  animals, in wild animals and in the tribe itself
  were of paramount importance to their survival.
• The female life-giving principle was considered
  divine and a great mystery. Some Goddess statues
  still survive from this era.

5
History cont

• the old European culture stressed the female as
  divine -based on the number of carvings of a
  female shape found.
• Some point to the relative lack of equivalent
  male statues as evidence of a Goddess culture.
• Others suggest that the female statues might have
  been the old European culture's equivalent of
  modern-day erotic photographs.

Freya
6
History old european

• This "old European" culture lasted for tens of
  thousands of years in what is now Europe. They
  generally lived in peace there is a notable lack
  of defensive fortifications around their hamlets.
• As evidenced by their funeral customs, males and
  females appear to have had equal status. Many
  historians and archaeologists believe that
• Their society was matrilineal children took
  their mothers' names.
• Life was based on lunar (not solar) calendar.
• Time was experienced as a repetitive cycle, not
  linearly as we think of it.

7
History Europe

• suppression of Goddess worship in Western Europe
  2000 BC Indo-Europeans invaded Europe from the
  East.
• They brought with them some of the "refinements"
  of modern civilization the horse, war, belief in
  male Gods, exploitation of nature,
• a variety of Pagan polytheistic religions
  developed - Romans

War horse from Roman era
8
History influence of judaism Christianity

• Further south, as Judaism, Christianity
  eventually Islam evolved, the Pagan religions
  were suppressed
• female principle was driven out of religion.
• Women were considered inferior to men.

Fall of man by evil woman
9
History - christianity

• The role of women became restricted.
• A woman's testimony was not considered
  significant in Jewish courts
• women were not allowed to speak in Christian
  churches
• positions of authority in the church were limited
  to men.
• Young women possessions of their fathers.
• After marriage, their ownership was transferred
  to their husbands.

10
Christian history

• Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) rejected
  millennia of religious tradition by treating
  women as equals. Women played a major role in the
  early Christian church.
• Later, epistle (letter) writers who wrote in the
  name of Paul, started the process of suppressing
  women once more.

11
History - christianity

• A feminine presence was added to Christianity by
  the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE when the Virgin
  Mary was named Theotokos (Mother of God).
• But her role was heavily restricted and included
  none of the fertility component present in Pagan
  religions.

12
Celtic/Druid nature concept

• Primitive ecology concept
• Interconnectedness of nature
• Celtic symbols all interwoven

13
Asian Philiosophy Taoism

• Yin- yang duality
• Male/female light/dark wet/dry, etc

Lao Tzu wrote about equal but different roles
for sexes but almost all adherents were men!
14
Witches

• very late Middle Ages,
• many tens of thousands of suspected female
  witches (and a smaller proportion of males) were
  exterminated by burning and hanging over a three
  century interval.
• Modern witches refer to Mary as a goddess

15
Witch Hunts

• A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence
  of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass
  hysteria and mob lynching, but in historical
  instances also legally sanctioned and involving
  official witchcraft trials.
• The classical period of witch-hunts in Europe
  falls into the Early Modern period or about 1450
  to 1700, spanning the upheavals of the
  Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting
  in tens of thousands of executions.
• US Salem Witch trials 1692
• Female land owners
• Midwives
• Those using herbs as medicine
• case study http//www.gendercide.org/case.html

16
Tellus/ Gaia Nature Goddess

• Tellus
• (t.eles) , in Roman religion, earth goddess
  also called Terra Mater.
• goddess of fertility
• worshiped at festivals held in January (in
  conjunction with Ceres) and in April.
• April festival coincides with Easter christian
  religion
• Tellus was identified with the Greek Gaea.

17
The Horae - seasons

• Horae "
• (hÇore) , in Greek religion and mythology,
• goddesses of the seasons
• daughters of Zeus and Themis.
• controlled the seasons,
• The number and names of the Horae differed from
  region to region.
• According to Hesiod, there were three
  HoraeEirene or Irene (peace), Dice or Dike
  (justice), and Eunomia (order).

18
Ishtar Fertility Goddess

• (/Ishtär) , ancient fertility deity, the most
  widely worshiped goddess in Babylonian and
  Assyrian religion. Also known as the sun
  goddess.
• She was worshiped under various names and forms.
  Most important as a mother goddess and as a
  goddess of love,
• Ishtar was the source of all the generative
  powers in nature and mankind.
• goddess of war and as such was capable of
  unremitting cruelty.
• One of the most famous of the Babylonian legends
  related the trials of her descent into the
  underworld in search of her lover and her
  triumphant return to earth.
• In Sumerian religion, where her cult probably
  originated, she was called Inanna or Innina.

19
Istar sun goddess
20
Aartemis Goddess of animals

• In Greek religion, the goddess of wild animals,
  the hunt, and vegetation, and of chastity and
  childbirth
• identified by the Romans with Diana.
• Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the
  twin sister of Apollo.
• Among the rural populace, Artemis was the
  favorite goddess. Her character and function
  varied greatly from place to place, but,
  apparently, behind all forms lay the goddess of
  wild nature, who danced, usually accompanied by
  nymphs, in mountains, forests, and marshes.
• Artemis embodied the sportsman's ideal, so
  besides killing game she also protected it,
  especially the young
• Homeric significance of the title Mistress of
  Animals.

21
Venus goddess of vegetation

•      Venus is the brightest object in our sky
  after the Sun and the Moon, so it has played a
  role in many human mythologies. The earliest
  recorded observations of Venus come from the
  Babylonians on the famous Venus Tablet dated
  circa 1500 B.C. The tablet includes the relative
  times when Venus would change from being an
  evening star to a morning star. Another
  Babylonina tablet records the length of the Venus
  axial rotation as 587 days (actual value of 584
  days).
• The name Venus was used by the Romans, to whom
  she was the Roman goddess of vegetation, gardens
  and vineyards. However, Venus has been known by
  many different names in the past.

22
Birth of Venus
23
Modern writing about goddesses

• The goddess in all her manifestations was a
  symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her
  Power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave,
  in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills,
  trees, and flowers. Hence the holistic and
  mythopoeic perception of the sacredness and
  mystery of all there is on earth. .......The
  Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of
  forests or onto mountaintops, where she remains
  to this day in beliefs and fairy stories. Human
  alienation from the vital roots of earthly life
  ensued, the results of which are clear in our
  contemporary society.
• From Return of the Great Goddess by Burleigh
  Muton

24
Goddess religion

• Hear the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of
  whose feet are the hosts of heaven, whose body
  encircles the universe
• "I who am the beauty of the green earth and the
  white moon among the stars and the mysteries of
  the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and
  come unto me.
• For I am the soul of nature that gives life to
  the universe. From Me all things proceed and unto
  Me they must return.
• From Return of the Great Goddess by Burleigh
  Muton

25
Goddesses witches

• The Goddess is "the end of desire," its goal and
  its completion. In Witchcraft, desire is itself
  seen as a manifestation of the Goddess. We do not
  seek to conquer or escape from our desires---we
  seek to fulfill them.
• Desire is the glue of the universe it binds the
  electron to the nucleus, the planet to the
  sun---and so creates form, creates the world.
• To follow desire to its end is to unite with that
  which is desired, to become one with it, with the
  Goddess. We are already one with the
  Goddess---she has been with us from the
  beginning. So fulfillment becomes, not a matter
  of self-indulgence, but of self-AWARENESS.
• From Return of the Great Goddess by Burleigh
  Muton