In the bestselling book, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, Leonard Shlain proposes that the invention of writing, particularly alphabetic writing, rewired the brains of the people who learned how to communicate using this culture-changing tool. Great benefits to society followed. However, a precipitous decline in feminine values manifested by women's status, goddess veneration, nature, and representative art occurred in tandem....

His essential contention is that the rise of literacy in the form of alphabetic writing has led to an over-emphasis upon masculine left-brain thinking at the expense of the feminine right-brain. This has resulted in a decline of the feminine archetype within the cultures where literacy has been introduced.

I'd like some clarification on the following:

What do you mean by "the feminine archetype"?

What are "feminine values"?

When did representative art ever decline?

I too would like to know. Also could explain to me what is meant when some one says 'masculine left-brain thinking at the expense of the feminine right-brain.'
Ok that would be great, thank you.

The way I see it (uninformed opinion time!):

Writing has historically gone hand in hand with peoples stopping the nomadic life and settling into agricultural communities. A people stop moving about with the seasons, following herds of animals to hunt etc. and instead settle somewhere, build communities, and get the majority of their sustenance from farming.

The need for writing comes about with this need for greater organisation, also the sense of identity that comes with continued existance in one (or a couple) of geographic regions.

At this time, people have more free time. Beforehand men and women were fairly equal, both hunted, worked, etc. However now they have more efficient farming. Men don't need to be away from the settlement all day looking for food, they only have to tend their crops.

Now that there is more free time, more effort is given over to culture and law, walking hand in hand with writing. Given that men are pysically tougher and stronger than women (don't hit me, Snugglebum!) they are able to direct the course of this movement. They create their cultures to reresent their influence.

It doesn't have to have anything to do with biology (left-brain, right-brain thinking), but simply the strong imposing their will on the weak. Writing is simply a catalyst.

See, this is why Issues makes me feel dumb. Can someone explain that in english?

Erm.... I'm not sure.

People suck. Even though we possess suckiness, we manage to develop. Even though we develop, we still suck and so the end result contains suckiness.

Nice paraphrasing, Cal.

I think it's an interesting idea. Interesting in the same way that I consider Scientology intersting or the phenomenon of Space Jell-o interesting. I think that the 'evidence' is circumsantial at best; so they happened at the same time. So I took a shower and sang at the same time; they aren't necessarily connected (not with me anyway, I'm a choir kid and thus always singing.).

My initial reaction is that my BS-radar is going cock-a-loopy at that idea. However, not having read the book, I'll hold back for a bit.

Assuming that what's being talked about here is the masculine part of the brain being 'systematic' (better at analytical and logic things), and the feminine part being 'empathetic' (better at communication and inter-personal things), I still have the urge to cry "Rubbish!".

Pointing to one particular event, albeit one such as the alphabet with the power to fundamentally change a civilsation, and claiming that it's singlehandedly responsible for something that takes place non-stop over the next 3000 years (or however long), is a little over-simplified for me. I'm happy to accept that it was the catalyst that began the process, but there's got to be literally millions of other events, developements and cultural/societal shifts that contribute to the effect, and continue it.

Sorry, but I have to say that I believe the female archetype isn't something that inherently exists. There maybe a trend to how females might act and be, but I'd be inclined to believe that it's caused by group mentality (you act how people similar to yourself act).
Example: Most girls are seen to be more emotional than guys, This has led to girls that just aren't naturally that emotional either trying to act all emotional to fit in, or rejecting it and just being frowned upon by a lot of society as not a good example of how to act.
Speaking psysiologically.. men and women's brains are wired differently, however the parts of our brains responsible for logic and feeling are essentially the same. So if you're a female you're just as likely to be logical as a guy, it's only people telling you and pushing you into being feminine that causes you to be that way.
I personally find it hard to define this female archetype.. women are less dependant and submissive than they used to be.. sure, and if you wanna say women are less feminine due to that.. then maybe. But I certainly know many women that don't fall into the "stay at home wife type" that I'd call far far far from being masculine.

Look Slay Shlain, flay and guillotine him if you have to...but spare me all that

Quote from Shlain...

"Literacy has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West, Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word."

The very act of learning written language, he argues, exercises the human brain's left hemisphere--the half that handles linear, abstract thought--and enforces its dominance over the right hemisphere, which thinks holistically and visually. If you accept the idea that linear abstraction is a masculine trait, and that holistic visualization is feminine, the rest of the theory falls into place. The flip side is that as visual orientation returns to prominence within society through film, television, and cyberspace, the status of women increases, soon to return to the equilibrium of the earliest human cultures.

In another place Shlain wrote about "Horticulture to Agriculture" period...when this tragedy occured....

To refute this I cite the Minoans, the ancient Eygyptions and the Celts. These cultures developed the earliest forms of the written word.

The Minoan's were matriarchal goddess worshipers up until they were conquered by the illiterate steppes people who married their goddesses to their gods and gave them lesser status.

The ancient Eygptions and the celts held women to be citizens equal to men, and while they were prohibited from certain jobs there were reasons. In Egypt women could not be soldiers because of their physical strength not being enough. They couldn't be pharoah unless they changed gender like Hap Shet Sud (that's spelled wrong, sorry) because the land was female and the pharoah had to marry the land. The celts could not have a woman as High King (she could be a lesser king) because the goddess Maeve of Teamhair (eg a high druidess) had to sleep with him and rule jointly with him, and if the goddess didn't like any of the candidates she ruled instead for as long as she wanted (which actually made celtic women more powerful than men. I give Ireland as an example but the other celtic countries were similar, you can see traces of it in the legends of Arthur with the charactors Morgouse and Vivien).

Ancient Greek women were subjected, but they were subjected thanks to the traditions of the illiterate culture that conquered the female centric literate one. The Romans, while not making women equal citizens treated them much more fairly. Also while viking women submitted to their husbands they had a lot more freedom and rights than say women in medieval england.

I'm inclined to think that the cultures that did opress women did so partly because of the land they inhabited. Different enviroments demand different physicalities, and where more hardy people are needed the men, being generally bigger and stringer, tend to rule e.g. the beduin. It's a very harsh enviroment and the men do most of what is needed to survive while in return the women allow themselves to be ruled by them.

While the majority of women are right brainers and the majority of men left (there was a scientific study that proved this) there are exceptions and the left does not equal male and the right female or vice versa, it's just statistically the genders tend to have one more than the other (that sentence made no sense).

Well, I think Museum Girl more or less wins this topic...

Agreed Commie.

I just have one question: how the hell do you get off calling types of thoughts masculine and feminine? Doesn't that inherently seperate the genders?

Anyway, I think you're reading too much into everything. Could literacy be used to hold down women? Yeah. But guess what! It was used to hold down the whole of society in the dark ages!

Just because there've been a few books on the so called "sacred feminine" and it is a growing trend to believe in it (mostly by punk teenagers rebelling for the sake of rebellion) just because a book has sold a million copies doesn't mean you should give it credence. It's the views and speculations of a few men. That's all.

(And if you hadn't noticed, there was a little thing called the feminist movement. The male domination is slowly but surely being rectified so that we don't have to worry about this kind of thing.)

Anyway... Museum Girl wins. As the children say, you were pwned.

But...the genders ARE different, and the different genders do TEND to think differently, and even TEND to think along the stereotypical lines (remember, stereotypes are there for a reason). Men TEND to be better at the more logical, mathematical, reasoned side of thinking, and women TEND to be better at more emotional, intuitive, and social side of thinking. Of course, this is a GENERALIZATION and yes, I know many counter examples but by and large, I do think that most people tend to be stronger in either of the two basic categories of thinking, and that men tend to fit into the first and women tend to fit into the second.

Some Necessary Timeline....

3,000,000 - 2,900,000 years ago

>Hominids differentiate away from other primates by becoming meat-eaters instead of vegetarians.
>Extended childhoods of hominid babies require prolonged attention from hominid mothers.
> Males of the species predominately engage in hunting and killing.
Females primarily engage in nurturing and gathering.
> Hominids become the first species of social predators in which the females do not participate in hunting and killing.

200,000 - 90,000 years ago

> Language develops.
> Homo Sapiens differentiate away from hominids.
> Language requires complete rewiring of human brains.
> Over 90% of language modules placed in the left hemisphere of right handed humans who comprise 92% of the population.
>Split Brain phenomenon becomes highly exaggerated only in humans.
>Most hunting and killing strategies placed in left hemisphere.
>Most nurturing and gathering strategies placed in the right side.....

Is there scientific evidence to support this? I assume Shlain cites some...

Ok, so where does that place people that do break the mold? If things are as simple as stereo types that are genetically in grained we wouldn't be able to break them save for mental disorder.
Currently all breaks of genetic trends in human normally result in handicap to a person, and are also rare. The very fact that social condition easily depicts whether or not a person comes out as masculine tells me nature seems to have less of an affect on person than nurture. We're built to have fairly blank canvased minds, otherwise a brain built to hunt for food, would hardly be able to code C aswell. From birth we learn by copying others.
If you're surrounded by majority traditional feminine women, and majorty traditionally masculine men, with little telling you otherwise. Then you'll likely slot yourself into that system too at a young age.

Examples.. pre-world war two there were nearly no feminists in the UK. They didn't really exist. Of the tiny number, even women laughed at what they said as stupid.
Soon as men left for the war, and women had to take over all the roles men had left behind, and broke out of what they were used to. Suddenly feminism kicked up. From a thin splattering of women no one listened to, to a force that changed our culture for good.

Just two more quick things:

1) Correlation is not causation. Just because event B happens after event A, doesn't mean event A caused event B.

2) There is far more difference (in terms of "left" and "right" brains) within genders than between them.

I definitely agree with the wonderful posts already here. Written language is just one more step in a ladder of cultural development. Gender roles were fluid a long time ago. Many shifts in culture gradually made them more rigid in most places. Men did the fighting and hard farming, women raised children and cared for their homes. Culture is changing again to make gender roles more fluid.
The feminine influence is everywhere. It's sometimes buried and hidden, but it's there if you care to look much. Thanks for pointing out the King Arthur myth (I forget who that was.) Without women, the story never exists. People idealize different types of men as they idealize different types of women. I'm not so sure that this one ideal female archetype you're talking about truly exists. People have been worshipping deities of either sex since they could talk, and the recent glamour of some "Feminine Archetype" is just something else coming into style as things often do in pop culture. I may take a look at this book, but I'll take it with a healthy dose of salt.
Excellent post, Museum Girl!

No feminists in the UK before WW2? High School history classes say you're wrong. Perhaps you've never heard of the Suffragettes?

As to breaking the mold, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. There is no hard lines drawn, as pgrmdave says, it's a matter of statistics. Men TEND to have more 'masculine' brains. There is a huge variance among men, and a likewise huge variance between women, but if you compare the genders, more men have a masculine brain than women do, and vice-versa. Remember that the jury's still out on how much genetics contributes, and how much learning and environmental factors contribute to the 'gender' of your brain.

I think that a lot of it's down to environmental conditioning. Indoctrination at a young age really influences how we think. If you raise little kids and tell them that boys and girls are equally good, they'll generally believe you. If your parents read to you a lot, you'll probably like to read more when you get older. If you give kids broccoli with lunch every day, most of them will learn to like it. Events and learning change you and affect who you are far more than some vague notion of male and female brain hemispheres. People are shattering traditional gender roles all the time, and the gender roles themselves are being rewritten. Brains may be orineted toward logic on one side and visual things on the other, but they aren't entirely "male" and "female," just different for different people.