Myths of matriarchy reconsidered

by Deborah B. Gewertz (Editor)

217 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[fausto · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the essays of the anthology are in one way or another a response to Joan Bamberger's essay "The myth of matriarchy: why men rule in primitive society". All the scholars came from the area of Pacific Ocean anthropology, so they actually only discuss myths from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, Vanuatu and Eastern Indonesia. Is very strange that even as long as they have a lot of material that actually correlates the link between matriarchal myths and women's status they tend to dismiss all the evidence, almost in a comical way. Basically all the scholars of the anthology have a strong anti-matricharchy perspective, so they just put aside any logical evidence of women's power and start to use Bamberger's analysis (she focused on South America myths, but, of course, as long as they are anti-matriarchal any disruption between the two cultural areas can be avoided) to "show" that matriarchal myths are just stories.
Is a good book to introduce yourself with matrilineal cultures in the Pacific Ocean, buy keep a critical perspective on the way they androentric perspective dismiss all the evidence that clearly show the existancce of women's power.

[Rieka Long · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very good example of how women continue to support patriarchy. I found it shocking that she had all the facts accurately enough, and then chose to disregard them based on no 'written history'. I read this book because it is on the reading list for the ADF druid group!