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Marilyn French

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“In no society have women constricted men within the domestic compound or regularly battered or raped men. In no known culture, no matter how high a woman's status, have women as a caste locked up husbands, limited their bodily freedom, or denied them a voice in group decision. Men in matrilinies do not suffer as women do in patrilinies. Matrilineality is rooted in the bond between mother and child; patrilineality is rooted in dubious assertions of ownership of women and children.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Female maturity is evident in the onset of menstruation; nothing signals male maturity. When a boy becomes capable of erection, he may or may not yet be able to father a child. The ambiguity of male maturity, together with the lack of a given role that it seems to indicate, is precisely the problem male solidarity is intended to counter.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Isolated, confined, allowed only small amounts of certain foods and drink, taught that her body is powerful but contaminated, a girl learns that she has power - to pollute: in such cultures, menstrual blood is a source of horror and fear. Menstruation symbolises female power, considered destructive to men. If female power can destroy men, women are men's enemies, and the condition of the sexes is a state of war.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Rituals were designed to protect men from Earth's retribution, and it has been suggested that after the invention of horticulture, humans began to attribute creation to a deity above nature, rather than within it, to a male God rather than a female Goddess.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Patrilinies are founded on domination. To own children, men must guarantee their paternity, which requires them to guard women's bodies, claiming to own them. This claim turns women into men's possessions. Controlling another requires force, so patrilineality permits or encourages brutality towards women. Such behaviour makes for bad relations between the sexes. Brutality is rare in matrilinies, where women are surrounded by kin; men invented patrilocality to control women.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Myths rarely offer facts, only metaphors for political or social forces, but myths about former female powers would not exist if men had always controlled women. If men always controlled women, their domination would need to explanation or justification, but would seem natural. Myths of once powerful females are amazingly universal.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Once the mechanisms of patrilineality, patrilocality, and exogamy were in place, it was difficult for women to escape. In time, men in some groups raised vying for status to an organising principle, competing to show their importance within the group and generating "Big man" societies. These societies fostered the rise of the state and its sociopolitical form - patriarchy.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“The term " Patriarchy" denotes institutionalised male dominance, guaranteed by a set of interlocking structures that perpetuate the power and authority of an elite class of men over all other humans and grant all men power and authority over women of their class. Power is might - physical, psychological, or economic. Animals may dominate other animals by virtue of birth or charisma. But authority - a moral or spiritual right (tactically backed by force) to judge others and coerce behaviour - does not exist among animals. Authority is insidious because we tend to internalise it: we feel guilt at performing acts called wrong by authorities, even if we ourselves do not believe them wrong.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Patriarchies are societies within institutions - hierarchical bodies of government, religion, law, education, commerce, and culture - designed to transcend individual lives, to endure over ages, and to maintain and transmit power from man to man, a practice called "Passing the mantle". All institutions have customs or laws that give men prerogatives or advantages and that exclude or limit the participation of women and certain men. Patriarchies in different states disempower different groups of men, but they all disempower women.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Matriarchy, if it existed, would be identical to patriarchy, with females dominant. Women have wielded great power in the world and have had personal authority over men in their families or communities. But no society has institutionalised female-dominance, a sociopolitical structure giving women authority over men and the right to use force against them. So entrenched is patriarchal thinking, however, that people commonly use the term "Matriarchy" to describe women living free of male authority.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“States are corporations masquerading as peoples. They encompass diverse peoples with varied customs, bloodlines, and languages, and they are ruled by an elite that imposes unity by force and asserts a bond of nationality that supersedes traditional blood or family ties.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“The shift from female centrality to male domination occurred before the development of writing, so its roots are hidden. In consequence, and men's response over the millennia to all moves by women towards greater autonomy, suggests that it emerged from male hostility towards women and was imposed on them. The destruction of matricentry was the first and most important male war against women.”

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Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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“Men believe that women were nonvolitional beings, bound to their bodies and their instincts. But studies have shown that mothering is learned; is not instinctive. We learn to mother by being mothered, and creatures that are not mothered cannot do it. Taking care creates love, for a baby, a piece of land, an animal. Men devalue this work, attributing it to mere instinct, ignoring the many women who abandon children or raise them cruelly. Taking responsibility is not instinctual in human beings as it is in other mammals. It is a choice.”

ReligionFeminismSexismMisogynyWomen S RightsWomen S LiberationRadical FeminismWomen S History
Book:From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1
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