The First Sex

Although it is not without flaws, the book is a landmark. The only thing better is Mary Daly's "Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism" (1978) which builds on Elizabeth Gould Davis's work.

i can't help but notice which reviewers gave the book 1 star and which ones gave it 5... ;) whether it's been proven or disproven i have to say that the IDEAS are enthralling, and VERY well argued. i have to say in response to one of the reviewers that it's hard to swallow the assertion that free thinkers would be harmed in some way by this book: the work is, in and of itself, about the freedom of thought. as a college professor i am constantly reminding my students that history is written by the victors, and that anthropology is not the study of human development - look at the word - it's the study of the development of MAN. we all have our lenses, which refract our views of life experiences, and i think that this book is a testament to the notion that we really MUST reconsider what we think we know. that which is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is often later found to err from reality. who knows what further investigations will yield? i, for one, was liberated by this book, and have used its theories as the basis of a novel (yes, fiction) i am writing. i would suggest this reading to anyone interested in gender studies, anthropology, archeology, sexual identity, and religious studies.

If I could make everyone on the planet read one book, this would be it. Ms. Davis gives us a new slant on archeology, stripping away layer upon layer of gender bias to find our decidedly feminist roots. Note that the reviews listed below which are critical are written by men. This is the truth they can't handle, and the herstory they've tried so hard to bury. Even if you don't agree with the book's content, looking at history from a new perspective can only enhance ones world view. I disagree that the information has been "disproven". Rather, the vehemence with which it is attacked tells me that Davis was on to something. Absolutely essential for any woman's library.

Elizabeth Gould Davis' "The First Sex" was written in 1971 and attempted to argue that women are the natural leaders of society and that humanity is being destroyed by patriarchy. The book is written in a very logical manner starting with what Gould Davis describes as "matriarchal queendoms" and states that these were culturally advanced and ecologically highly sustainable. She bases her arguments on the science of archaeology and anthropology as they developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She states that the patriarchal Christian and Jewish societies of the last five or six millennia have wanted to destroy remnants of this matriarchal culture because of their desire to suggest society had always been male-dominated, Moreover, Gould Davis constantly states that these religions and their gods and bloodthirsty and demanding sacrifices of animals in contrast to earlier goddesses who demanded only vegetables as sacrifices. The goddess religion, she argues, was a female montheism with priestesses wearing robes like those of male priests today. She argued that matriarchal societies possessed a much more genuine democracy than do modern patriarchal societies because human rights took precedence over property rights and there was no rigid moral conformity as there is in most patriarchal societies. Gould Davis spends the early part of her book on describing the "Golden Age" of mother-right, based on the idea of a pacifist humanity with a female deity. Before this, she states that all myth is built around the ideal of a "golden age", including that of the Fall in the Bible. Gould Davis sees the "fall" of mythology as relating to male gods taking over from the Great Goddess, man becoming carnivorous and mercy and justice being replaced with warlike vengeance. As stated above, she relies on archaeology to find evidence that there was no violence in these ancient matriarchal societies which she said were universal in the early days of humanity. She then moves onto the patriarchal revolution, saying that patriarchy probably first evolved in barbaric societies that relied on nomadic herding in arid climates, but which, with the spread of the Semites, moved into more settled agricultural societies with the coming of the Jews. (However, she says that India was the first civilised country to shift to father-right). She then in a systematic way traces the decline in the status of women from the advent of Christianity, which she saw as producing a huge decline in scholarship and scientific knowledge. Indeed she actually sees it as Christianity's job to submit women and repress their desire for power, and views the vast appeal of Catholicism today as spawning from the devotion to Mary rather than its patriarchal Trinity. As Marina Warner has said, this devotion to Mary is actually opposed to power for women because extreme feminisation (through a female deity) most likely according to contemporary psychology would make a culture have extreme

Beginning with some very controversial (but very well supported documentation) foundations on the history and evolution of modern religious and patriarchial theological development, Gould-Davis presents a very compelling basis for matrilinial foundations for religion and patriarchial resistance and subsequent attempts to hammer it into submission. The chapters on matriliny and the Bible are particularly compelling and well- supported as are the very foundations of Old and New Testament editing to support the patriarchial dogma which has prevailed thus far.