The Great Earth Goddess

Head of Inanna, cement,1994, by B Heriz

I was delighted to watch Dr Amanda Foreman's programme "The Ascent of Woman", shown on BBC4, 2nd September, in which she recounted with great clarity the high status of women in many aspects of pre-Hellenic society.   She  looked at the earliest human settlement in Turkey where there is no evidence of hierarchical difference between men and women, and where statuettes of the Great Earth Goddess abounded. (This is true also of the earliest settlements in Pakistan, as related by Sona Datta in her programme "Treasures of the Indus", BBC4, 31st August - good, old BBC!!!!)  

Even after the cult of warrior hero became dominant within communities obliged to allocate resources to defense, the enterprising and majestic Inanna was still worshiped by the Sumerians, for whom priestesses continued to play an important role and women had rights under law.

It was the Hellenic Greeks who invented the idea that the female sex was a different and inferior species to man, and as male property had no rights in law and no role in public life.  Women of citizen class were subject to the dictates of male "honour", a more precarious status I imagine than that even of mere slave. As such it was a necessity to wear shawls and veils when entering public space.  Women of lesser status were either actual slaves or prostitutes, and the latter were of course actually forbidden to wear shawls or veils.

Thanks to Alexander the Great and other factors, this concept bled into the cultures of the near east and from there was adopted by Islamic and Christian practice.  However, it was not fully embedded in the cultural norms of the northern Celtic societies, nor that of the Scythians, where women, in spite of the warring nature of their societies, remained significant players, had rights of inheritance and the ability to hold power.

These exceptions demonstrate how the delegation of women to inferior status was not an inevitable progression.  Yet it came to be believed that humanity is defined by the 'heroic' warrior ego able to realise a determination towards combat for supremacy, followed by entitlement to plunder all resources, human and natural, for its own benefit.  As clans, tribes, nations, and now whole continents compete for possession and control of resources, any group not geared up for war and competition has been and still is desperately vulnerable to pillage.   Nevertheless a yearning for alternative beliefs and aspirations has always existed and is it not stronger than ever, thanks to the environmental, economic, political and social challenges that  face us all on an international scale?

It is astonishing to think how it is only so recently that women (along with low-status men, serfs and slaves!) have gained the right to vote in the democracies of the West, have gained property rights, legal representation and 'permission' to play an openly public intellectual, creative and political role.  But when one considers the millennia over which the human species has evolved, even the last three thousand years is only a fleeting moment: the flexible human mind is surely capable of modifying its narratives, however deeply embedded they may be, and inventing new metaphors (and, indeed, new words) that can transform behaviour and attitudes.  The archetype of the Great Earth Goddess has potential surely for reimagination?