Today at Shakesville, Brynn posted about the idea of womb envy.
do you think the principle that femaleness is the default and maleness a Johnny-come-lately to the biological scene, operating on a very deeply subconscious level, fuels the fear and hatred of women that leads to brutal stonings and rape, not to mention, a near-universal inequality and subjugation of women throughout the world?Brynn was riffing on a scientific article about the discovery of partheogenesis in sharks.
My thoughts: I don’t think it has anything to do with partheogenesis, really. I don't think human beings have any innate subconscious fear of virgin birth. Mythologically, it's a Johnny-come-lately, and always very benign and very blessed. Buddha, Krishna, Mithras, all virgin births, all saintly males. The stories are low-stress and the women in them are all pretty much "in their place" (under the bo tree and pregnant).
But I do think womb envy is at the deepest root of misogyny. Plus, you know, a lot of complex Oedipal stuff. The mythology about menstruation, female sexuality, and female power is considerably more fraught with anxiety and tension.
Basically women have power—biological power in the form of childbirth, lactation, and the magical blood thing—and men are dependent on them from boyhood, men are envious and terrified, men fear and hate their own dependency, therefore the only solution is to usurp power and treat women as if they have none.
It’s the run-on sentence of all human culture.
(I can cross-post for a week every month and not die.)
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