Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man PDF
Preview Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man
SANCTIFYING MISANDRY This page intentionally left blank Sanctifying Misandry Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man KATHERINE K. YOUNG and PAUL NATHANSON McGill-Queen’sUniversityPress Montreal&Kingston(cid:1)London(cid:1)Ithaca © McGill-Queen’sUniversityPress2010 isbn978-0-7735-3615-9 Legaldepositfirstquarter2010 BibliothèquenationaleduQuébec PrintedinCanadaonacid-freepaperthatis100%ancientforest free(100%post-consumerrecycled),processedchlorinefree Thisbookhasbeenpublishedwiththehelpofagrantfromthe CanadianFederationfortheHumanitiesandSocialSciences, throughtheAidtoScholarlyPublicationsProgramme,usingfunds providedbytheSocialSciencesandHumanitiesResearchCouncilof Canada. McGill-Queen’sUniversityPressacknowledgesthesupportofthe CanadaCouncilfortheArtsforourpublishingprogram.Wealso acknowledgethefinancialsupportoftheGovernmentofCanada throughtheBookPublishingIndustryDevelopmentProgram (bpidp)forourpublishingactivities. LibraryandArchivesCanadaCataloguinginPublication Young,KatherineK.,1944– Sanctifyingmisandry:goddessideologyandtheFallofMan/ KatherineK.YoungandPaulNathanson. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-0-7735-3615-9 1.Goddessreligion. 2.Fallofman. 3.Sin,Original. 4.Sexrole –Religiousaspects. 5.Misandry. I.Nathanson,Paul,1947– II.Title. bl473.5.y662010 202'.114 c2009-904566-4 TypesetbyJayTeeGraphicsLtd.in10.5/13Sabon Contents Acknowledgments vii Prologue The Fall of Man ix Introduction Pop Goes the Goddess 3 part one from goddesses to witches (and back): rewriting the bible 17 Introduction 17 1 Paradise Lost: A Golden Age for Women 21 2 The Fall of Man: A Dark Age for Women 60 3 Paradise Regained: A New Golden Age for Women 125 part two from reform to revolution: restoring the goddess 147 Introduction 147 4 The Green Goddess: Feminism for a Therapeutic Age 149 5 History, Herstory, or Heresy: Sophianity and the New Reformation 183 6 A Hag for All Seasons: The Ultimate Revolution 216 7 Gynotopia: Goddess Ideology and Misandry 242 Epilogue Beyond the Fall of Man 257 vi Contents appendix Defining Religion 269 Notes 273 Index 377 Acknowledgments We want to thank the Canadian Federation for the Humanities for generously supporting the publication of this book. Thanks also to Monique David for reading and commenting on the manuscript, Maureen Garvie for editing it, and Jenna Preston for helping us in many otherways. This page intentionally left blank PROLOGUE The Fall of Man Wehavealreadywrittentwovolumesofatrilogyonmisandry.The sexist counterpart of misogyny, misandry refers to the hatred of men in secular forms – cinematic stereotypes, journalistic excesses, legal manoeuvres, and so on. Still in the works is the third volume of that trilogy. Meanwhile, however, we have found it necessary to writethisfourthandmorespecializedbookonmisandryinthespe- cificcontextofreligion.Beforeintroducingthisbook,hereisabrief introductiontoourearlierworkonmisandry. In the trilogy’s first volume, Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture,1 we showed how the entertainment, advertising, and even news industries have come to depict men. During the 1980s and 1990s, misandric stereotypes of menbecamepervasiveinAmericanpopularculture.Themalechar- acters of popular movies and television shows, for instance, are usuallyeitherinadequateorevil–orboth.(Exemptedfromridicule orattack,sometimes,arecharacterswhorepresentminoritymenor male feminists; they are, in effect, honorary women.) This was not the only gender pattern, but it was – and still is – a very common one. It is true that misogyny coexisted with misandry to some extent, but the two phenomena were different in one important way. Women monitored popular culture very carefully for signs of misogyny,whichmadeitincreasinglyunlikelytosurfaceinthefirst place. Hardly anyone watched for signs of misandry, which there- fore remained “politically correct.” Negative stereotypes of men (along with positive stereotypes of women), we concluded, are symptoms of a much deeper and more pervasive problem. And we
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