Jerry Schaefer
This book is a clear and unequivocal indictment, not only of men (written by a man), but of the civilization they have produced. By eliminating women from the equation at the very beginning, a disastrous cycle of war and destruction was begun which continues to today, when the final bill is being paid on men’s wanton reign of destruction: the planet itself is beginning to wobble. Not to mention the continuing violence and rape from one end of the globe to another, another fringe benefit of “progress.”
The “lies” begun back then (Garden of Eden), continue to haunt both men and women today, putting the lie to “civilization”—how “civil” can it be, built as it was/is on theft through blood and forced slavery?
Men too are trapped in the “charade of the sexes,” having to pretend at who and what we are. Even the “most powerful” men, the ones who own and run the world, are helpless to escape the “manhood trap” they’ve set for themselves. Out of balance, their testosterone-obsessed quest runs riot. Their deluded script substitutes money for mommy.
Woman DOWN through the Ages, How Lies have Shaped our Lives, is a capsule summary of civilization under men’s thumbprint. It’s a light-hearted romp through the tragedy of history, a nightmare we’ve yet to awaken from. We’re still in a deep-sleep of tradition, lulled by the enslaving and enchanting tricks of the marketplace.
There’s still hope. We know how we got here, through false promises and premises, and the lies that sustain “life as we know it.” We can still get back to the Garden. We didn’t need to leave in the first place.
It’s always bothered me, the way we treat women, the way we’re afraid of women, and the general mish-mash of men/women relations, especially when it comes to sex. I’m also aware of my own difficulties in “adjusting,” in finding my own definition of “manhood,” which began when I was three. I’m still looking.
The "manhood question," that I've sought an answer to, is bound up with how we treat women. And no matter what happens socially or politically, the small gains that women make are soon diluted and all but forgotten. Rape and pillage go on. The Madonna or horror choice for women continues. Our question goes unanswered.
I saw it in Cut Bank, Montana where I grew up, at St. Norbert High school in Wisconsin where I boarded for three of my four years, in the short time (not too short) I was in the army, and at the university—always this “men against women” thing, as if we were competing with them, or angry at them for something.
I’m in my second marriage (twenty-five years). I have grandkids from my first marriage. When I retired from teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1990, I came upon McElvaine’s book, Eve’s Seed. He voiced my core argument: women have gotten the shaft from the beginning and men are still shooting themselves in the foot by mistreating them. His book inspired me to put down on paper beliefs that have gnawed at me for years.
I received an M.A. in Catholic Theology from Marquette University, an M.A. in English from the University of Iowa, and I was in the doctoral program of religious studies at the same school for a short time. I‘ve written poetry and I’m working on a novel.
Chapter 4
Germanic Tribes Come to Rome to Shop(then decide to stay)
Hordes of Germanic Shoppers, called barbarians since many of them were free-lance barbers, invaded Rome in the 5th century (May 23, A.D. 410 at 6:01 PM) just when the stores were closing their doors. Imagine, coming as far as they did, then told to come back the next morning! They went on a rampage, broke into the stores and shopped all night, filling their sacks to the brim. This came to be known as “The Sacking of Rome.”
Nothing much was left of Rome after this “sacking,” so the Romans, themselves thoroughly sacked due to debauchery and generally high living, which they blamed on women, simply threw in the towel. The mighty Roman Empire was brought down in a fire sale—the first fire sale in history--by hordes of shoppers.
More Sacking and Shopping
The invading Germanic Tribes intermarried with the Romans, both sides thinking they were marrying “down.” And as Rome re-stocked its shelves, it got sacked again and again as other Vandals and Visiting Goths heard about the bargains to be had. The period from the 5th to the 11th century was a sort of rough-and-tumble frontier time for Western Europe. Women, who seem to thrive in situations of fluidity and chaos before male “order” sets in and they’re ordered around, played a vital role in laying the foundations of our modern society.
Monasticism
Chaos followed the collapse of the Roman Empire’s shopping malls, and in the 6th and 7th century, monks and nuns tried to civilize these wild-eyed shoppers and teach them to buy prayers and indulgences (on the Futures Market).
Once the Germanic kingdoms were in place, the nuns and monks went chasing after them to convert them to Christianity. They set up monasteries in the wilderness, and abbesses, female abbots, were often in charge of these warehouses of prayer.
Nuns and Monks Set up House
The most popular house for women in the seventh century was the double monastery—one side for women, the other side for the men folk--in which religious men and women observed the same rules and obeyed a common superior, usually a woman. The Christian doctrine that men and women are spiritually equal made it okay for men to be ruled by a woman, for now.
Watch Those Hands
The early Germanic law codes regarded women as property belonging to the family. Nothing new. The marriageable girl went to the highest bidder. But they did believe in protecting the modesty of women or their virtue, whichever came first. If a man pressed the hand of a woman, he paid a fine of fifteen solidi (about the price of a hen), above the elbow would cost him thirty-five solidi (about the price of an egg-laying hen—jumbo size if above the elbow but below the 3rd vertebra).
