Red Pill, Blue Pill Moment, Cause There Is No Going Back!



I was not born into or raised in a patriarchal Christian religion – I unwittingly chose it in mymid teens. Though my parents had a family bible in the house, they never went to church, but my grandparents did, so I had a basic understanding of Christianity. I also had many friends that were Jewish, so in my search of a relationship with the “Creator”, between the two patriarchal faiths, I became a Christian when I was 16 years of age. Yet, a Christian that had strong Hebraic background and leanings. Christianity/Judaism were my only avenue for that search, as I had no other exposure to other religions or faiths. Even then, I did not like boxes and did not fit neatly into any one box.
 
As with everything I do in my life, I don’t do it half assed. I am a researcher by nature and have to know “how, when, where, and why” for everything. I had many questions about the Tanak/Bible and sought answers beyond the “just have faith” and “I don’t know” of pastors. I began learning Hebrew from my Jewish pastor (Yes, he was Jewish by birth and became Messianic. I Understand all the arguments from all sides involved that he was not Jewish, according to Jewish standards and not Jewish by Christian standards. That debate is not the point of this post.), continued with Rabbis at Synagogues in 2 states and then studied Greek, to get to the root of some of my questions. Unfortunately, this created more questions. I kept studying the history of the time periods involved, the concordances and dictionaries to understand the word usage, maps and charts and the more I delved, the more I saw an older faith. This was not Rabbinic Judaism, but older, more Hebraic faith. Abandoning Christianity, I began following this more ancient faith. For 10 years we kept biblical feasts and laws. All the while I kept finding questions and searching for answers. I was exhausting Semitic linguists comparisons to try and reconcile blatant contradictions. After a while I resolved that there were too many cooks in the kitchen of the canonized Hebrew text and had to dismiss the newer (post-exilic) Rabbinical scribal editings that contradicted a more natural, older, ancient faith. The more I got into the history, the history became archaeology and my world began changing radically. I had a major textual upheaval on my hands that required a tremendous amount of research to find answers.

I have always been a very independent woman, but had willingly subjected myself to patriarchal Christianity and somewhat to a very patriarchal Hebraic faith in my search, not realizing the true origins of either. Over the decades I realized how misogynistic the very foundation of these patriarchal Indo-European based faiths were. I had a hard enough time growing up, wishing that I was a male, to not be hindered by how a girl is supposed to behave and what she can participate in or achieve, or even to be allowed to wear pants to public school (yes, I am older). I was a feminine tomboy, wearing skirts and dresses with shorts underneath, participating in the only sports that were available at the time. I was raised by a father who let me mow lawns and taught me how to work with tools, which I am naturally drawn to. I kept scoring in the 90 + percentile on the mechanical aspect of those bloody preference tests, causing me to have to take them again, because “girls don’t score high in that subject,” so there had to be something wrong. Often I was made to feel that I was what was "wrong".

I chaffed at the church telling me that despite all my knowledge, a woman was not allowed to teach in the church, yet these men wanted my notes and research to preach from the pulpits. 'Cause everyone “knows” that woman was the one to sin, therefore they can’t teach men. I resented that the church told me that I had to submit to a husband that hardly even read or knew what was in that bible, especially a man that was verbally and physically abusive. I was repeatedly told that I had to look at his abuse like an illness and had to pray for his healing. I didn’t realize then that the patriarchal good ole boys club included the church leadership. I even tried being more submissive as pastors counseled, to the point of nearly losing myself - it felt like a living death. Ironically, that seemed to make matters more volatile. Yet, I could not acquire a divorce, until I had proof of the adultery, according to that patriarchal guide book and its “priests”. Only later I found out that those rules did not even apply to me, because I was a woman and had no rights. Once that was resolved, I got the hell out of Dodge and Texas, moving north, on my way to the beautiful mountains of Montana, all the while continuing my research.

Then in the summer of 2008 I tore my left rotator cuff, pec, bicep and tricep muscles loading up from a construction job. I was in a hell of a lot of pain, couldn’t sleep or move much. You can break or brainwash people in such a state. Trying to utilize all the many months of down time, I continued the major research that was needed to understand the conflicts I saw in the Hebrew text. Months of research became years and after 2 ½ years I freely published online The Worthless Deities in the Hebrew Text book, utilizing archaeology, ancient history, comparative mythology, archaeoastronomy and Semitic linguistics.

Through that research I became aware of two opposing cultures in the Tanak/Bible: the patriarchal and the matrilineal. This awareness actually shed much light on many of the contradictions I saw and questions I had. Finally! It also tremendously liberated me from many patriarchal “laws” that I had ignorantly, yet voluntarily, accepted to enslave me. I realized that I was no longer constrained by those patriarchal laws and filed for a divorce from a very short second marriage, not needing the justification of adultery for my get out of jail free card. I may be white, but my gender has been enslaved longer than Europeans were capturing slaves in Africa. I decided to not go back to my maiden name, a name which shows that I was originally the property of my father; nor keep my last husbands name, which indicated that I was his property, according to the patriarchal customs. I chose to use my middle name QannaYahu, a name which I had adopted after my first divorce to replace an unused and disliked middle name, as my last name. This was a sign of my new found independence from the patriarchal slave system, much to the disapproval of the DMV that strenuously wanted me to have a middle name and suggested I go back through the whole name change and social security card process to get one (Not). I am my own person, an egalitarian, not defined by my relationship to the men in my life.

As I continued my research, I was still stewing from the lies and deceptions that the patriarchal Indo-European culture has imposed on men and women for thousands of years. I needed an outlet, short of walking around town with a sandwich board sign (or worse-getting a facebook account and spewing my research and warnings there), I had to do something about this. Why does our culture accept the lies of patriarchal gender roles? Why can’t we just exist as humans? Gender roles exist because of the patriarchal caste system and its religious beliefs. It permeates our Indo-European languages, the history written by the patriarchal scribes and is the cornerstone for the governing and economic systems of most of the world. History is written (and rewritten) by the winners and these warmongering conquers appropriated the ideographic language systems of the conquered, creating syllabic languages out of those ideographs, removing the meaning from the original languages and with it, the real history - the ancient women's history. I needed to write a book as a bridge between the technical reference books and the average reader looking to find some answers to this patriarchal oppression.



The patriarchal Indo-European culture has enslaved women (as well as men) for over 6000 years; portraying mothers as dragons and serpents to be slain; the sexual women into whores and prostitutes; the sages and wise women into crones and witches. So what does it mean to be a woman outside of the misogyny of the patriarchally created images? You will see the real image of yourself, in the beautiful images of our ancestresses - the creatresses, the clan mothers, the artisans and wise women - the women before the vilification and deification. We need to reclaim the beautiful imagery, symbols, terms and ideographs that spoke of our true essence, equality and capabilities. 

I primarily write this from the perspective of a woman, but these symbols apply to the culture of equality, that of equal men and women - an egalitarian culture. The beliefs of the mothers / women, equal and strong, went underground and became expressed in the beliefs of the folk cultures. Textiles provide the visible record for the beliefs that the continuing creativity of the mother spins all life out of her own body. Which is why most ancient mothers are depicted spinning and often associated with spiders.

Through archaeology and archaeoastronomy, comparative and paleo mythology, ancient linguistics, writings systems and history, I have learned a great deal of what it means to be a woman - a creatress; free, equal and respected; strong yet feminine; beautiful as well as intelligent; constantly growing and evolving, even with the graying of my hair. Having cast off the patriarchal historical baggage, I have been learning the hidden history of women, buried in the soil of the earth, transmitted through images that survived on bones, stone, ceramics, metal. Rarely did ancient wood and textiles survive the ravages of time, but the traditions were carried on, even in the shadows of oppressing patriarchal cultures, often through women’s textiles, tools and jewelry.



Historical Baggage is a line of bags that I created, inspired from these histories and artifacts from around the world, taking a purely functional bag, using the language of their ancient symbols and imagery to weave their story in textiles ( I am an artist as well). Transmitting their history, like mothers did to daughters, to become your story. From this research Leviyah and I decided we needed a book, to share with men and women. Partly therapeutic, but mostly to give a hand to those that have not had the benefit of the educational resources; those that are forced to wear veils or have a part of their sexuality mutilated; those that have been forced into being breeding stock; those slandered and maligned; those accused of witchcraft, heresy, blasphemy because they did not fit within the misogynistic, patriarchal mould they created to transform their “Stepford Wives” into.

This research is just as much for men, because patriarchal misogyny needs
to be exposed, unlearned and stopped. There are many men that are just as oppressed as women by this system, unless you happen to belong to the patriarchal Indo-European king/warrior caste or their priestly caste, you are just as vilified or forced to conform to something that goes against your grain. Young boys are forced into the warrior caste or are left behind. Only these days some of it is called sports or the military. The sports heroes still reign supreme. “Geeks” and artists, are derided, often with the same derogatory terms that are applied to women, showing the contempt of the users for any males that don’t tow the patriarchal warrior line. Men that don’t “man up” are pussies, ladies, bitches, queens. etc. The patriarchal second caste, that of the original warrior king’s priests has branched to become the double edged sword of religion and politics, which once was one and the same. You can probably add the corporate rulers into this group as well, since the commerce and taxation was originally handled by the priestly administrators.



It’s like the comedic, partly Monty Python Erik the Viking movie, at the beginning, when Erik bursts into a village home where a beautiful, young woman (Helga) looks up horrified. He approaches with his sword and backs her onto a chest, trying to untie his pants, but apparently having difficulty and lowers his sword to better get to the ties. 
Helga asks, “Have you done this sort of thing before?”  
Erik, “Me? Of course! I've been looting and pillaging up and down the coast.“ H “Looting and pillaging, eh?” 
E “Yes." 
H “What about the raping?”  
E “Shut up.”  
H “It's obvious you haven't raped anyone in your life.”  
E “Sh!” He covers her mouth with his free hand, and looks round to make sure no one's heard. Then he carries on trying to undo his trousers, but he is now somewhat more than half-hearted about it. Helga watches suspiciously.  
H “Do you LIKE women?”  
E “Of course I like women... I LOVE 'em.”  
H “You don't love ME.”  
E “No... right... this is RAPE... Mark you, I'm not saying I couldn't get to like you... in fact... well, to be quite honest, I prefer it when there's some sort of mutual feeling between two people... " 
H “What - rape? " 
E “No. It isn't rape then, is it? " 
H “Oh, get it over with.”  
E “I don't suppose... no...”  
H “What?”  
E “I don't suppose you... you DO like me at all?”  
H “What d'you expect? You come in here, burn my village, kill my family and try to rape me... " 
E “I'll kill you if you say anything about this to anyone.” 
H “About raping me?”  
E “About NOT raping you...”  
H “You DON'T like it, do you?”  
E “Well it just seems a little bit crude, that's all." 
H “What about the killing and looting? That's just as crude, isn't it?”  
E “Oh well - you've GOT to do them.”  
H “Why? Why have you got to go round killing and looting?”  
E “To pay for the next expedition, of course.”  
H “But that's a circular argument! If the only reason for going on an expedition is the killing and looting and the only reason for the killing and looting is to pay for the next expedition, they cancel each other out.”  
E “Oh! Stop talking as if we were married!”  
H “Well you started it.” 
E “I just said I didn't feel like raping you.”  
H “And I was just saying that rape is no MORE pointless or crude than all the killing and looting that goes on.” 

If only it were that easy. 




Regardless of your place in this patriarchal system (or hopefully not), a man can realize there is a more beneficial way of life, not just for himself and other men, but for the women around him – the people around him. And here’s one of the reasons why. The patriarchal system breeds the type of women that men, by and large, abhor and look down upon. In the ancient Greek misogynistic, patriarchal religion (can you tell they piss me off?), there is an account of the creation of woman (ha, not a real woman). Zeus, a major Indo-European destroyer and usurper (you have to read this with Treebeard’s deep rumbling voice for a better effect), decides that mankind should be punished for accepting the fire from Prometheus. So he sends a trojan horse, so to speak, in the guise of a woman. Originally she is not named, but later associated with Pandora. She is created from the earth as a beautiful evil, and her gender to be a plague to men forever. “From her is the race of women and female kind; of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live among mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.” Each of the gods (and goddesses) contributes to her creation: beauty, charm, they dress her in finery, textile skills, strong desire, sly manners, lies and crafty speech, and the “morals of a bitch.” The deep and total trap was complete and sent to man. She was given a cask, the proverbial Pandora’s Box, which she opened and unleashed a myriad of additional evils on men, as if she was not bad enough.

This is the patriarchal view of women and this is what they create when they remove equality, respect, education, skills and such from the world of women, relegating them to the house to concern themselves with self adornment, treated as a slave and breeding stock. Do you want to see real women? Then treat them as equals, as human beings and be one yourself.

As for the women, working within a patriarchal system does not fix the situation, it is still a hierarchical patriarchal system that will never have equality for all people, especially women. “For this reason, the more powerful a woman is under patriarchy, the more ‘unsexed’ she becomes in the eyes of others as her female cultural identity recedes beneath the mantle of male-identified power and the masculine images associated with it.” – The Gender Knot, pg. 7. 

For those of us in the United States, it does not matter if the 19th Amendment gave women a right to vote. It is still an amendment to a patriarchal constitution that constantly needs patches to make it even quasi acceptable. After over 200 years, you would think that we had progressed as a people to create a new constitution that provides the basic rights of humanity for all, regardless of wealth, gender, race, age, religion or sexual orientation or preference (have I left anyone out?). Whether it is a country or a company, the patriarchal template is founded on slavery and doomed to corruption and suppression.

On another note, some of you women need to stop being made in the patriarchal image of the patriarchal Pandora, and “woman up.” We have great ancesstresses and abilities within our genes (and jeans). Amazing women live now and have for thousands of years, despite the adverse living conditions of the patriarchal bubble they created. It’s time we pop that misogynistic bubble. We don’t need the patriarchal images of their created goddesses for inspiration. Who needs the nagging wife (Hera), the devious whore (Aphrodite), the chaste tomboy trying to fit in with the guys at the expense of her own sexuality (Athene), the seducing siren witches (Circe), the angry man-hating young girls (Artemis) or the hell hath no fury like a woman scorned Medusas?

We don’t need the bullshit pseudo “scholarship” that I keep coming across, primarily written by women, for women, to inspire them against patriarchy, or sometimes just men in general. As if creating a matriarchy will undo thousands of years of patriarchal slavery. These books are filled with assumptions (and bad ones at that) stated as facts; fucked up “documentation” like stating that bull leaping was depicted in paintings at Catal Huyuk or that writing did not occur before 3000 BCE. The bull leaping frescoes were at Knossos on Crete; and the Neolithic Vinca culture, dating from 5500-4500 BCE exhibits a writing system that carries the foundation of the same symbols that later came to be used in all the surrounding writing systems such as Paleo-Phoenician, Linear A, Cretan, Cypriot and Luwian Hieroglyphics, which gave rise to Greek, Etruscan, Raetic, Glagolitic, Lydian, Lycian, Tifinagh, Hebrew, Aramaic and Runic scripts. While I could spend my time going through these books and websites, documenting all the fallacies, I would much rather spend it promoting what is real from the outset, what has been consistently attributed through time, from the Neolithic to the present. Not wild ass speculations and catchy one liners that this sensationalist fast food generation thrives on because they are too lazy to do the real research. Or worse, because the real research does not support their bullshit theories.



We have an abundance of real women and their heritage to inspire us. Let us cast off the patriarchal historical baggage, taking up the ancient imagery of equality. A picture is worth more than a thousand of those patriarchal Indo-European words. Let equality speak. In the immortal words (mostly) of the old western and Blazing Saddles, 

“Goddesses? We don’t need no stinkin' goddesses.”

Kathryn QannaYahu

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