At 03:48 PM 6/6/2002 -0700, Gar Lipow wrote:
>Incidentally, there is some (highly disputed) evidence that the beginning
>of oppression was not the neolithic, but the late Paleolithic. Basically
>the process is not unlike the one Engel, but somewhat earlier...
Frederick Engels' analysis was enlightening and important to me when I read it as an undergraduate, but it became apparent that during the entire process laid out by Engels, oppression within the human species was present. Barbara Ehrenreich presents interesting hypotheses and evidence in Blood Rites that at least gives equal billing if not more to an important stage in the process "humans as prey" than "humans as predators (oppressors)." I don't think this conflicts at all with my delineation of the origins of the various ways humans have oppressed the relations within their own species once they became predominately predators.
The early part of Ehrenreich's analysis does belong in the paleolithic period and it involves relations between species: animals and humans. Animals, especially the animals that preyed upon humans, were ever-present in and weighed heavily upon the minds of paleolithic humans. Rituals that helped them deal with this blood and terror emerged such as animal sacrifices in place of human victims then later human sacrifices. Humans were not predominately predators but the brutality they witnessed and lived with, being torn into by the predator animals, set the stage. There was blood and terror all around. Burying the dead and denying the animal predators what was desired was a step in the direction of control, separation, and humans becoming mostly predators. Once humans understood how it was done, and with the help of some techniques, they could then use what they had learned where it had never been used before, and so on. I also remember reading in her book that women's vaginal bleeding -- menstruation, child birth -- which is so much more than that found with animals and would have been so undoubtedly in your face for paleolithic humans, added to the blood and terror and may have linked women to predators, hence, a reason for so many predator-like female deities. But how Ehrenreich was connecting that to what really escapes me.
I have a few additional comments below:
>Here is the process (I'm not claiming it is necessarily true - it is a
>hypothesis I find appealing):
>
>1) In the early Paleolithic humans had spears, and fire, but not weapons
>at a distance. As a result humans were prey more often than predator -
>foragers, and scavengers with hunting a minor source of anything. Like
>other victims of predation, there was some gender distinction - the less
>important men were the outer ring of the tribe - to guard the more
>important women and children if possible, to be victims and thus save the
>tribe as a whole if not.
I don't recall that. I thought it may have been the more effective ones on the perimeter battling with the beasts which would have required close proximity to use the spears and close range weapons.
>While there may have been some gender distinction there was no gender
>separation.
True, so there couldn't have possibly been gender oppression at the time. And I don't recall that Ehrenreich suggests that there was gender oppression during this paleolithic time.
>You could not have had the men going out hunting in one direction while
>the women went out foraging in another, because that would have left them
>unguarded. So foraging, scavenging, and what little hunting they did was
>together. Probably both men and women foraged. Some hunting (the drive a
>herd off a cliff method) was also done by both men and women. Because men
>were on "guard" duty women probably did the majority of foraging. If any
>hunting too place other than driving herd off cliffs, it was probably done
>by the men when the troop wandered onto an opportunity. In general, women
>probably provided the majority of calories, men doing the guarding and
>dying. Women probably had as high a death rate as the men thanks to
>childbirth. So the sacrifice and effort was pretty equal - even though
>there were distinct gender roles. We have no of knowing what degree of
>gender hierarchy was involved in this. But there is nothing in the
>situation that required it to be a severe one. None of this is
>established fact: but is seems to be a substantial minority position
True.
>2) Sometime in the mid to late Paleolithic the bow was invented. This
>changed the balance. Predators could be fought off with a fair degree of
>success. This is the beginning of the first human caused mass extinction.
>Quite understandably, once the bow was invented early humans set out to
>slaughter the creatures that tended to eat them. I have to admit I find
>the lack of sabre tooth tigers a positive feature of the world. They also
>set out wipe out herds prey animals over and above what they needed for
>their own diet - so as not leave a food source for the big cats, and other
>predators that threatened humans. (The evidence for this is somewhat
>stronger; it seems to be a majority opinion but not indisputable fact)
>
>3) Two consequences of this was that there was a gender separation rather
>than merely gender roles in works , and it was a separation where men
>ended up with most the weapons.
I don't recall this in her book at least not during the paleolithic period. Ehrenreich's book is on war and she moves very quickly beyond the paleolithic. Even the weakest person can pull back a bow string and in order for bows/arrows to be effective the archer has to have an accurate aim -- not gender specific...remember calamity Jane :). At any rate, weapons ending up in the hands of men seems to suggest a pre-existing oppression based on gender.
>So when the Sabre tooths etc. were either wiped out or reduced to a
>non-threatening level there was suddenly not a whole lot of work for the
>men to do. Women's foraging provoked the majority of the food.
When a group has access to a majority of what is needed, how can those group members be oppressed?
> Hunting, except in the coldest of climates, provided luxury food, rather
> that a staple. And hunting with distance weapons is a lot less dangerous
> than childbirth. So you have bunch of unemployed hunters looking for a
> new role.
>
>4) There is one dangerous creature out there still to hunt - other men.
>All sorts of excuses are available for hunting them - religious tokens,
>hunting territory, taking offense at some imagined insult.. So you end up
>as I said with pretty much the situation Engels described. The women have
>nothing to gain in this, protest it and are over-ruled by force. The
>winning hunters, probably the ones who come up with idea, probably soon
>come up with idea of capturing women from enemy tribes. So now they have
>wives who are enemies - and treat them as slaves (which in fact they are).
>And they probably encourage their sons to think of women that way
>too. And it is not just women who end up as slaves ; as the American
>Indians show, you can have non-agricultural people who take enemies
>captives and make them slaves. So if class oppression mixed with tribal
>oppression does not happen immediately, it begins so close to the
>beginning of women's oppression as to happen at the same time.
I think this depiction is way beyond the paleolithic period and it is obvious that women are already oppressed.
>The only real difference between this and what Engels suggested is that
>the material condition is not the invention of agriculture, but the
>invention of the bow, and the subsequent extermination of the most
>threatening non-human predators.
The invention of long range weapons like the bow did exterminate the beasts and make various kinds of oppression easier, but even as Ehrenreich mentions human technologies also played a role -- techniques used in agriculture assisted. Separation precedes oppression. How did the bow separate based on gender? I don't see it and I don't recall that Ehrenreich suggested that. This seems to be the "humans as hunters hypothesis" that she attempts to debunk.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Best, Diane