George Walford: Feminists

FEMINISTS advocating greater social influence for women on the grounds that their gender renders them inherently tender, gentle and loving (while men are naturally aggressive, domineering and hating) have a difficult case to make. They can, perhaps, argue that Myra Hindley, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Boudicca and Our Lady of Grantham were induced by male dominance to go against their feminine natures; it is harder to counter the point that since no women (and no men either) have ever been known who were free of social conditioning, it is difficult to talk sensibly about their natural inclinations. Anthropologists, studying the remains which provide our most direct way of knowing how the early people behaved, find indications of Mother-Goddess cults, but this lady hardly met the feminists’ prescription: “In her chthonic and frightening aspect she must have been a Mother Terrible perhaps yearning for human and animal blood, as indicated by her epiphany in the shape of a ferocious dog.” [1]

Undoubtedly we need to behave with greater restraint and consideration for each other; if we don’t, then with the powers now loose in the world we shall soon cease to behave at all. Whether replacing masculine rule by feminine is the way to do it is a different matter. It looks as though it will take a good deal more than that.

[1] Gimbutas, Marija 1974. The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe 7000 to 3500 BC. Myths, Legends and Cult Images. London: Thames & Hudson, 196).

from Ideological Commentary 46, July 1990.