The First Sex
Encyclopedia
The First Sex is a 1971 book by the American librarian Elizabeth Gould Davis
, considered part of the second wave of feminism
. In the book, Gould Davis aimed to show that early human society consisted of matriarchal
"queendoms" based around worship of the "Great Goddess
", and characterised by pacifism and democracy. Gould Davis argued that the early matriarchal societies attained a high level of civilization
, which was largely wiped out as a result of the "patriarchal revolution". She asserted that patriarchy
introduced a new system of society, based on property rights rather than human rights, and worshipping a stern and vengeful male deity
instead the caring and nurturing Mother Goddess
.
These views of Gould Davis on a Great Goddess predominating in Neolithic
Europe and the Near East
are similar to those made by a number of writers in the early and mid 20th-century, including Eric Neumann, Merlin Stone
, Marija Gimbutas
, J. J. Bachofen, Walter Burket, James Mellart, Robert Briffault
.
Although many of her views are considered unsupported by most anthropologists and archaeologists today, a number of writers have continued to develop the themes that Gould Davis originated.
. She argued that evidence from the Neolithic site at Çatal Hüyük showed there to be no wars or even violent death, and that even physical injury to animals may not have been permissible there. She pointed to other parts of the Mediterranean in which female tombs are preserved more carefully than male ones, and took this to be evidence of female primacy. In "Anthropology Speaks", Gould Davis focused on taboos, chiefly incest
, and aimed to show how taboos against brother-sister relationships acted to protect women against violent men. She also argued that menstrual blood
was originally sacred rather than polluting or "unclean", and that only when people began to eat meat did men become bigger than women, because of selection of weak women by men.
) are argued to have never achieved a civilization of their own, but only to have destroyed or taken over older ones. Gould Davis asserted that many tales in the Old Testament
were actually rewritings of older stories, with goddesses changed to male actors, or a goddess raped or overthrown and her powers usurped by the new father deity. This, she suggested, was part of a concerted effort to wipe out all evidence of female authority. Because the violent invaders wished to establish the a patrilineal system of inheritance, rigorous control of women's sexuality became paramount. Thus women's right to sexual pleasure was redefined as sinful, and virginity was conceived of as a property right of a woman's father or husband. Gould Davis discussed female circumcision as a means to protect the virginity of women and assure clear lines of paternity. This practice is described in the book in graphic detail, as performed with unsterilized
instruments, without anaesthesia (conditions pertaining to all surgical practices before the nineteenth century).
and Mycenae
. Her research suggested to her that, as in her model of prehistoric civilization, women were the primary powers. The book saw the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations as remnants of the ancient pre-Christian Celtic culture, which Gould Davis also believed to have granted women a great deal of power. She claimed, for example, that the monarchy was matrilineal, and that most of the tribal chiefs were women rather than men.
Gould Davis claimed that Greek women possessed rights that are presently denied by the Catholic
, Orthodox
, and conservative Protestant
churches, such as the rights to abortion
and divorce
. She cited many well-known historians to support these claims. She also argued that women participated in almost all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman society, including government, learning and sport. In the following chapter, "The Celts", she argued that similar rights prevailed until the collapse of the Roman Empire, for a matrilineal system of monarchical descent, and for Celtic women being the major preservers of learning during the early Middle Ages
.
became the state religion of the Roman Empire
in 313 A.D. Gould Davis aimed with this part of the book to show how Semitic myths of male supremacy were preached by the early Church Fathers
to a Pagan people who would not believe them and did not take them seriously until Constantine became emperor. Gould Davis believed that the writings of Paul
in the New Testament
were used by the Church to justify violence against women, leading throughout the Middle Ages to a level of cruelty and barbarity unheard of in previous ages. Gould Davis believed that once Christianity had attained civil power, the demotion of women and the "terrible materialism that marks and mars our present civilization" were inevitable. She argued that the influence of Mary as a "Goddess" grew as the violent imposition of Christianity erased the ancient Goddess religion. Quoting Jules Michelet
, Gould Davis argued that women by the fifteenth century were treated so badly by men of all social classes that they were seen as "worse than beasts". The Church, she said, approved of this domestic violence, and brutality to women extended beyond families to the priesthood, who cited the Bible to justify themselves.
In Gould Davis's view, the status of women was only improved briefly by the Reformation
and a flowering of learned women during the sixteenth century. Afterward, Puritan
ism's witch-hunts and a strengthened papacy placed women back in the same level of submission, and women were tortured and studied in the most prurient manner for "witch marks". Millions of people, she said, most of whom were women, died by burning, drowning, hanging, or from torture during the Catholic and Protestant Inquisition
s. In Gould Davis's view, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked the first time Western women accepted their own inferiority, and before Mary Wollstonecraft
nobody spoke up for them. Gould Davis made a special effort to show how the minds of women were subjugated during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
In the last part of The First Sex, Gould Davis attempted to show the beliefs used to subordinate women to be myths, contending that in reality women are stronger, and physically, mentally, and morally more than equal to men; and that the survival of humanity depends on the restoration of women to their former position as rulers of society. Gould Davis argued that patriarchal civilization is destroying itself, and that only the values of the "matriarchates" can save humanity, because a society based on the mechanistic, Cartesian duality of dominant and violent males leads inevitably to a focus on technology and gadgetry rather than on loving human relationships.
According to critic Prof. Ginette Castro, Gould Davis proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism" and seemed to support "a feminist counterattack stigmatizing the patriarchal present", "giv[ing] ... in to a revenge-seeking form of feminism", "build[ing] ... her case on the humiliation of men", and "asserti[ng] ... a specifically feminine nature ... [as] morally superior." Castro criticized the essentialism and the assertion of superiority as "sexist" and "treason".
does not support the idea of a peaceful matriarchy, and that there is no evidence for a female monotheism of the type advocated by Gould Davis. Similarly, in her 2000 book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
, Cynthia Eller attempted to show that, not only is Gould Davis's theory of prehistoric matriarchal queendoms unsupported by archaeological evidence, but even if it were true, it would not give women any more hope for a just and equal future, simply because replicating the ancient past in today's world is not feasible. She did, however, accept the notion that some Neolithic and Bronze-Age societies centered around female deities: “Certainly we are aware of numerous cross-cultural instances of goddess worship accompanied by widespread use of … [female] figurines, so this is one of the most likely explanations of the Neolithic figurine assemblages.” Continuing, she wrote, “Especially persuasive is the fact that goddess figurines — and larger-scale goddess images as well — exist in later cultures in the same geographic area” as the prehistoric figurines (p. 139).
In a partially sympathetic review, Ginette Castro wrote, "For this obscure librarian from Florida, myth is historically true" . . . "Elizabeth Gould Davis's historical reconstruction depends a great deal on drawing morals from the tale, and is filled with numerous, glaring extrapolations. However, the argument is so skillfully and ingeniously woven that the woman reader cannot help but be swayed." "Although it is difficult to grant the book any immediate practical value, it must be recognized that it has a cultural interest, that of exposing the sexual substrata of our culture."
Other writers with a feminist orientation have, however, reviewed the book more harshly. Kay L. Cothran, in the Journal of American Folklore, wrote, "the book is an example of folklore misapplied" . . . "The problem of evidence runs throughout the book, which is heavily footnoted and jammed with quotations. The difference between citations and evidence has not impressed itself upon [Gould] Davis. Her notes come from a librarian's search, not a scholar's research. For [Gould] Davis, a reliable source is one that agrees with her; one that disagrees is a part of the conspiracy." "So the kindest thing one can say for [Gould] Davis' folkloristic and general scholarly competence is that it does not exist. It is unfortunate that she buries some sound information under such piles of rubbish."
In a similar vein, Amy Hackett and Sarah Pomeroy, in Feminist Studies
, wrote, "Unfortunately, The First Sex is a bad book, as we shall demonstrate. Yet it deserves more than a perfunctory dismissal." "The book's extravagant disorganization makes the job of summarizing nearly impossible." "It typifies [Gould] Davis's method that her 'historical' chapters reflect an inverse relationship between what available sources, documents, statistics, and the like allow us to know about women in a given period and the space she devotes to that period. Some excellent sources do exist for women's history, but [Gould] Davis prefers to rely on the obscure, idiosyncratic, and piquant, ignoring more substantive sources." . . . "until historians reject old-fashioned science and opt for intuition, [Gould] Davis's brand of history will be unacceptable."
According to Castro, the book "undeniably" encouraged women to study their history.
Elizabeth Gould Davis
Elizabeth Gould Davis was an American librarian who wrote a feminist book called The First Sex.-Biography:She was born in Kansas, USA in 1910 and earned her master's degree in librarianship at the University of Kentucky in 1951...
, considered part of the second wave of feminism
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
. In the book, Gould Davis aimed to show that early human society consisted of matriarchal
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
"queendoms" based around worship of the "Great Goddess
Great Goddess
Great Goddess refers to the concept of an almighty goddess, or to the concept of a mother goddess, including:*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Latin Magna Dea*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Sanskrit Mahadevi, the Shakti sum of all goddesses...
", and characterised by pacifism and democracy. Gould Davis argued that the early matriarchal societies attained a high level of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
, which was largely wiped out as a result of the "patriarchal revolution". She asserted that patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
introduced a new system of society, based on property rights rather than human rights, and worshipping a stern and vengeful male deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
instead the caring and nurturing Mother Goddess
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
.
These views of Gould Davis on a Great Goddess predominating in Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
Europe and the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
are similar to those made by a number of writers in the early and mid 20th-century, including Eric Neumann, Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone was an author, sculptor, and professor of art and art history. She is best-known for her book, When God Was a Woman.-Biography:...
, Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
, J. J. Bachofen, Walter Burket, James Mellart, Robert Briffault
Robert Briffault
Robert Stephen Briffault was trained as a surgeon, but found fame as a social anthropologist and in later life as a novelist.- Biography :...
.
Although many of her views are considered unsupported by most anthropologists and archaeologists today, a number of writers have continued to develop the themes that Gould Davis originated.
The "Gynecocratic" World
In the first part of The First Sex, Gould Davis used evidence from archaeology and anthropology to support a theory of matriarchal prehistory. The chapters in this section of the book focus on individual parts of the evidence for peaceful matriarchal queendoms: three are titled "Mythology Speaks", "Anthropology Speaks" and "Archaeology Speaks". Gould Davis said that the "loss of paradise" when the "Great Goddess" was replaced by a vengeful male deity is the theme of all surviving mythMythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. She argued that evidence from the Neolithic site at Çatal Hüyük showed there to be no wars or even violent death, and that even physical injury to animals may not have been permissible there. She pointed to other parts of the Mediterranean in which female tombs are preserved more carefully than male ones, and took this to be evidence of female primacy. In "Anthropology Speaks", Gould Davis focused on taboos, chiefly incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
, and aimed to show how taboos against brother-sister relationships acted to protect women against violent men. She also argued that menstrual blood
Menstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
was originally sacred rather than polluting or "unclean", and that only when people began to eat meat did men become bigger than women, because of selection of weak women by men.
The Patriarchal Revolution
In this section of the book, Gould Davis examined how mythology and society changed as a result of a suggested violent conversion from matriarchy to patriarchy. Her theory proposed that patriarchal revolution resulted from the violent invasion of nomadic tribes who were warlike and destructive, overrunning the peaceful, egalitarian matriarchies. These nomads (Semites from the Arabian PeninsulaArabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
) are argued to have never achieved a civilization of their own, but only to have destroyed or taken over older ones. Gould Davis asserted that many tales in the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
were actually rewritings of older stories, with goddesses changed to male actors, or a goddess raped or overthrown and her powers usurped by the new father deity. This, she suggested, was part of a concerted effort to wipe out all evidence of female authority. Because the violent invaders wished to establish the a patrilineal system of inheritance, rigorous control of women's sexuality became paramount. Thus women's right to sexual pleasure was redefined as sinful, and virginity was conceived of as a property right of a woman's father or husband. Gould Davis discussed female circumcision as a means to protect the virginity of women and assure clear lines of paternity. This practice is described in the book in graphic detail, as performed with unsterilized
Sterilization (microbiology)
Sterilization is a term referring to any process that eliminates or kills all forms of microbial life, including transmissible agents present on a surface, contained in a fluid, in medication, or in a compound such as biological culture media...
instruments, without anaesthesia (conditions pertaining to all surgical practices before the nineteenth century).
Pre-Christian Women in the Celtic-Ionian World
In this part of the book, Gould Davis focused on the role of women in the ancient civilizations of CreteCrete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
. Her research suggested to her that, as in her model of prehistoric civilization, women were the primary powers. The book saw the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations as remnants of the ancient pre-Christian Celtic culture, which Gould Davis also believed to have granted women a great deal of power. She claimed, for example, that the monarchy was matrilineal, and that most of the tribal chiefs were women rather than men.
Gould Davis claimed that Greek women possessed rights that are presently denied by the Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
, and conservative Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
churches, such as the rights to abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
and divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
. She cited many well-known historians to support these claims. She also argued that women participated in almost all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman society, including government, learning and sport. In the following chapter, "The Celts", she argued that similar rights prevailed until the collapse of the Roman Empire, for a matrilineal system of monarchical descent, and for Celtic women being the major preservers of learning during the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
The Tragedy of Western Women
The final part of The First Sex focused on the period since ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
became the state religion of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in 313 A.D. Gould Davis aimed with this part of the book to show how Semitic myths of male supremacy were preached by the early Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
to a Pagan people who would not believe them and did not take them seriously until Constantine became emperor. Gould Davis believed that the writings of Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
were used by the Church to justify violence against women, leading throughout the Middle Ages to a level of cruelty and barbarity unheard of in previous ages. Gould Davis believed that once Christianity had attained civil power, the demotion of women and the "terrible materialism that marks and mars our present civilization" were inevitable. She argued that the influence of Mary as a "Goddess" grew as the violent imposition of Christianity erased the ancient Goddess religion. Quoting Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...
, Gould Davis argued that women by the fifteenth century were treated so badly by men of all social classes that they were seen as "worse than beasts". The Church, she said, approved of this domestic violence, and brutality to women extended beyond families to the priesthood, who cited the Bible to justify themselves.
In Gould Davis's view, the status of women was only improved briefly by the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
and a flowering of learned women during the sixteenth century. Afterward, Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism's witch-hunts and a strengthened papacy placed women back in the same level of submission, and women were tortured and studied in the most prurient manner for "witch marks". Millions of people, she said, most of whom were women, died by burning, drowning, hanging, or from torture during the Catholic and Protestant Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
s. In Gould Davis's view, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked the first time Western women accepted their own inferiority, and before Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
nobody spoke up for them. Gould Davis made a special effort to show how the minds of women were subjugated during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
In the last part of The First Sex, Gould Davis attempted to show the beliefs used to subordinate women to be myths, contending that in reality women are stronger, and physically, mentally, and morally more than equal to men; and that the survival of humanity depends on the restoration of women to their former position as rulers of society. Gould Davis argued that patriarchal civilization is destroying itself, and that only the values of the "matriarchates" can save humanity, because a society based on the mechanistic, Cartesian duality of dominant and violent males leads inevitably to a focus on technology and gadgetry rather than on loving human relationships.
Advocacy for future matriarchy
Gould Davis called for "the matriarchal counterrevolution that is the only hope for the survival of the human race" and opined that "spiritual force", "[m]ental and spiritual gifts", and "[e]xtrasensory perception" will be more important than "physical force", "gifts of a physical nature", and "sensory perception", respectively, so that "woman will again predominate" and that "the next civilization will ... revolve ["about"] ["divine woman"]", as it had in the past that she asserted.According to critic Prof. Ginette Castro, Gould Davis proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism" and seemed to support "a feminist counterattack stigmatizing the patriarchal present", "giv[ing] ... in to a revenge-seeking form of feminism", "build[ing] ... her case on the humiliation of men", and "asserti[ng] ... a specifically feminine nature ... [as] morally superior." Castro criticized the essentialism and the assertion of superiority as "sexist" and "treason".
Influence and criticism
Since its publication, there has been criticism of The First Sex. In Goddess Unmasked, Phillip Davis argued that the assertions by Gould Davis and Marija Gimbutas are severely distorted at best, that serious study of artifacts in Europe and AnatoliaAnatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
does not support the idea of a peaceful matriarchy, and that there is no evidence for a female monotheism of the type advocated by Gould Davis. Similarly, in her 2000 book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future is a book by Cynthia Eller that deconstructs the theory of a prehistoric matriarchy. This hypothesis developed in 19th century scholarship and taken up by 1970s second wave feminism following Marija Gimbutas...
, Cynthia Eller attempted to show that, not only is Gould Davis's theory of prehistoric matriarchal queendoms unsupported by archaeological evidence, but even if it were true, it would not give women any more hope for a just and equal future, simply because replicating the ancient past in today's world is not feasible. She did, however, accept the notion that some Neolithic and Bronze-Age societies centered around female deities: “Certainly we are aware of numerous cross-cultural instances of goddess worship accompanied by widespread use of … [female] figurines, so this is one of the most likely explanations of the Neolithic figurine assemblages.” Continuing, she wrote, “Especially persuasive is the fact that goddess figurines — and larger-scale goddess images as well — exist in later cultures in the same geographic area” as the prehistoric figurines (p. 139).
In a partially sympathetic review, Ginette Castro wrote, "For this obscure librarian from Florida, myth is historically true" . . . "Elizabeth Gould Davis's historical reconstruction depends a great deal on drawing morals from the tale, and is filled with numerous, glaring extrapolations. However, the argument is so skillfully and ingeniously woven that the woman reader cannot help but be swayed." "Although it is difficult to grant the book any immediate practical value, it must be recognized that it has a cultural interest, that of exposing the sexual substrata of our culture."
Other writers with a feminist orientation have, however, reviewed the book more harshly. Kay L. Cothran, in the Journal of American Folklore, wrote, "the book is an example of folklore misapplied" . . . "The problem of evidence runs throughout the book, which is heavily footnoted and jammed with quotations. The difference between citations and evidence has not impressed itself upon [Gould] Davis. Her notes come from a librarian's search, not a scholar's research. For [Gould] Davis, a reliable source is one that agrees with her; one that disagrees is a part of the conspiracy." "So the kindest thing one can say for [Gould] Davis' folkloristic and general scholarly competence is that it does not exist. It is unfortunate that she buries some sound information under such piles of rubbish."
In a similar vein, Amy Hackett and Sarah Pomeroy, in Feminist Studies
Feminist Studies
Founded in 1972, Feminist Studies was the first scholarly journal in women’s studies and remains a premier journal in the field. It is currently an independent nonprofit publication housed at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland....
, wrote, "Unfortunately, The First Sex is a bad book, as we shall demonstrate. Yet it deserves more than a perfunctory dismissal." "The book's extravagant disorganization makes the job of summarizing nearly impossible." "It typifies [Gould] Davis's method that her 'historical' chapters reflect an inverse relationship between what available sources, documents, statistics, and the like allow us to know about women in a given period and the space she devotes to that period. Some excellent sources do exist for women's history, but [Gould] Davis prefers to rely on the obscure, idiosyncratic, and piquant, ignoring more substantive sources." . . . "until historians reject old-fashioned science and opt for intuition, [Gould] Davis's brand of history will be unacceptable."
According to Castro, the book "undeniably" encouraged women to study their history.
See also
- When God Was a WomanWhen God Was a WomanWhen God Was a Woman is the U.S. title of a 1976 book by sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone. It was published earlier in the UK as The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites...
- The Hebrew GoddessThe Hebrew GoddessThe Hebrew Goddess is a 1967 book by Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai. In this book, Patai argues that the Jewish religion historically had elements of polytheism, especially the worship of goddesses and a cult of the mother goddess...
- Breast fetishismBreast fetishismBreast fetishism is a type of sexual fetish which involves a sexual interest in female breasts....
- History of feminismHistory of feminismThe history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
- Matriarchies in mythology
- Matriarchal religionMatriarchal religionThe concept of a Matriarchal religion is a concept forwarded in second-wave feminism since the 1970s, based on the notion of a historical matriarchy first developed in the 19th century by J. J...