Not buying it.

[CrispyQ]

13. I tried to keep within the four paragraph rule. There's so much more I would like to have posted.

Last edited Mon Sep 10, 2012, 02:06 PM - Edit history (1)

The switch to agriculture was the ideal opportunity to start the myths, religious & secular, that male dominance is the natural order of the world. Instead of an Earth mother being the giver of life, a male god is the life giver & he gives life first to a man who was created in his image & then as an after thought, created woman as a companion to man. A toy, almost. What a fucking crock of shit. No wonder we have so many female/male issues when people are raised on this bullshit.

Another aspect of anthropology that he mentions is how anthropology itself was male dominated for so long. He asks, how biased were their findings, based on our current male dominated culture? He believes that the hunter part of the "hunter-gatherers" was really not as big a part of their lives as many (male) anthropologists make out. His arguments are sound & backed by evidence that primal man's diet consisted mostly of plant food & that the women were the gatherers, & therefore the 'bread winners' of the group.

Be warned about the book - it's more a book about humanity's relationship to animals than it is about human-to-human relationships. I believe that the way we treat animals has a profound impact on how we treat the rest of the planet & each other. Can we recognize that animals have lives that have value, outside the value we put on them? It's the same with people. If you can objectify an animal, dominate an animal, you can objectify other people, too.

It's been an incredible read so far.

on edit:

Regarding the bias of male anthropologists, he said that whenever any type of tool with a sharp edge was discovered, it was always attributed to the great male hunters. More recently, however, they are thinking many of the sharp edged tools were women's tools, used to cut tough roots & crack nuts.

So very interesting how our current culture influences our interpretation of our historical culture in a way that reinforces our current culture.