Women and Everything Fire: The Great Cosmic Mother Pt1

We cheese out enough with the whole biting an apple/biting knowledge analogy in this episode so we'll spare you here in the show notes. 

We are back for season two - starting the first in a 3 (or 4, we'll see) episode series where we read and discuss and tangent about The Great Cosmic Mother. The biggest feminist text you aren't carrying around in your handbag, but should. 

SK & JV discuss some major points, read some major quotes, and majorly go off the rails - this book is the hundred thousand crazy aunts that you needed when you were just a young lass. And we're cracking it open and telling you what we think so you can tell us what you think. 

Join us as we talk about waves of feminism, ecofeminism, and giving women a break because our history has been hidden from us and we have to do things like rip it away from the greedy mouths of wealth hoarding men that fear lady power.   

We talk about the valuable lessons in TGCM - particularly rejecting the patriarchal idea of linear progress and linear historical progression. We marvel that people used to work 15 hours a week before guys were like we need to monetize every dang thing.  

About the book: "The Great Cosmic Mother (1987) by Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor is a foundational text in Goddess spirituality that explores ancient, pre-patriarchal matrifocal societies, exploring the Goddess as the supreme cosmic creator. It portrays the divine feminine as intrinsically connected to nature, the moon, and birth, positioning women as the original cultural innovators"

Here are a few links to much more thourough explanations of the waves of feminism:    A brief history of feminist waves
Kyra Krall  https://www.feministsinthecity.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-feminist-waves

What are the Four Waves of Feminism https://www.history.com/articles/feminism-four-waves

Zoey/superbflesh reading The Great Cosmic Mother https://open.spotify.com/show/54FiACeQTVyz2RDPpovjIQ?si=49a1e83f916c4a75

Cassandra Faye Floyd reading the Great Cosmic Mother https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-xEIV1H5EphymeVYoB56cBCu7aXvOiE&si=_4FE_HkR0BzUl6vF

Awesome review of GCM from GoodReads user Kathryn Green: My TL;DR: The gist of this book is pretty much the same as the themes and overarching plot of Mad Max Fury Road

Credits

Recorded at Troubadour Studios in Lansing, MI

Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia

Edited by Rie Daisies at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio

Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’  by Rie Daisies

Executive Producer Kate ML Rogers

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Website

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Transcript

Eve, Apples, And The Show Premise

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Don't threaten us with a good time.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. Ooh, she ate. Yes, she did. And she didn't die. I mean, how come no one talks about God's empty threads?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And we shall continue to feast in her honor.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Oh my gosh, yes, we will. Welcome to our knowledge feast. We like to call it biting all the apples.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

We're just two gals eternally tempted by forbidden knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Inspired by the wisdom-seeking defiance of Eve, we're digging into the texts that challenge the status quo that bust through binary thinking. Get it?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Biting all the apples, biting into books.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Biting all of them. Last season, we focused on one book: The Great 1895 bestseller, The Woman's Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her genius friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

And this season, we're doing kind of a charcuterie board of books. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

And we're sticking with the knowledge as food metaphor. Of course. Yeah, we're Yeah. You're like, it makes so much sense. It does. Even if we have to explain it to you all. I'm like, do you get it? Apples, books, okay, knowledge. Okay. Get it, get it, get it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Are you with us? Are you with us? Stay there.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Yes. Stay with us because we're selecting books that break the mold, that challenge our systems, and inspire our souls.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

And instead of an entire season, we'll spend a couple of episodes on each book so we can cover more ground, break more brains open.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

I can hear them cracking. Yeah, that's right. And I'm really excited about our lead-off book selection.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Jou and Barbara Moore. Experts, Scandinavian pronunciation. I might move to Norway. Yes. I'm thinking about.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Um, Ethel Edison. Will you take us calling? Will you please? Yeah. Uh quickly. This book takes it all the way back to the way, way back to the history before all the male conqueror history that were taught in school.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Lady knowledge. There is so much good stuff in here.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

For real. We're going to give you all the deets, tell you a bit about the authors, and talk about the first section of the book. It is a very big book. It is yes, it's hefty. It's husky.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

It's husky. It's like weightlifting. Yeah, it's weightlifting knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah, if you get this book, get two. Yeah. So you can do curls. Both, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah. It's good.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Balance yourself. Yeah. But it's so big because it covers like a bajillion years of history and earth religion and culture building. But lucky for you, dear listener, we'll give you the highlights over the next couple episodes. We'll also, very importantly, cover some of the criticisms because this was written in the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

70s, rewritten, rewritten.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, it's criticisms and ideas for how to take what's good about the book into the world now. Right. The world now that could use some zhezing.

Season Two Format And Lead Book

SPEAKER_03 3:41

We need lots of zhouzine. Yeah. We could use some zhouzine. But we're going to do all of that and more after a brief. I'm like, get ready. Get ready for the mole. So yeah, all of that and more after a brief musical interlude. So you can get settled. That's right. Settle down because it is time to bite some apples. Here we are. Oh my gosh, it is officially season two. Oh my gosh, we're so excited.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I'm so excited, I don't even know what to talk about. I'm just kidding. We have a book. Oh my gosh, we have a book. It's a phenomenal book. And I do want to give props to you, SK, because like the woman's Bible would have never heard of it, right? Like you have been on a journey like your whole life, right? Um I came on this journey because I was losing my mind. And I was like, you were like, you should read this book. And I was like, okay.

unknown 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

And then you're like, and then we need to do a podcast. And I was like, yes. Yes. And it has been my therapy. And it changed my life. Because I knew I was feeling these things, but I didn't know why. And you have given me the why.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yes. It was all me. It was you. The authors helped a bit, but really, I think it was me. It was you.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

It was you and probably like, you know, the demise of democracy that little spurred it.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

I think that all of this stuff is so I mean, healing. Do I need the word healing? But or mind opening, or it actually gives you an anchor because it does give voice and words to stuff that you us women, we already know. We are like, it's almost like when you're reading these books, you're like, oh, this is why I already knew that, but I'm glad that I know it now.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah. And that like it's not just like and that's that people have been thinking it for so long. Yeah. Right? That things, the way that we're living is it's it's been not great. It doesn't jive.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

It's like I mean, just to simplify it, I'm like, it isn't I don't give a shit. Even the people that are like conservatives and being like, this is this is going great, I'm like, it's not going great. How can we do that? What do you think you're working 50 hours a week and like your big goal is to like hoard more money? Like, I don't that's not it's not jiving.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah. How can that do you feel fulfilled? Yeah. Do you feel like you're spending enough time with your children? Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Like, do you know your children? Right. Do you know how to draw a cat? Which I think is truly like the purpose of life. If you don't know how to draw a cat, I don't know what you're doing. And I will tell you though, it is kind of a lifelong mission because I'm still my cats are pretty remedial that I draw. So again, we're looking at this book. It's called The Great Cosmic Mother Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

And this was written, no, I was it 70s, 80s it came out. Well, so it first started as a pamphlet. So um Oh, yeah. So Monica Zhu uh is actually an artist. Really, all of her um she was a artist, a a painter and everything before she wrote anything. Um she feels like when she is doing art, she is like a a vessel, I guess. Right? So she was drawing these lovely pictures. Her most famous is well, it's on the cover, I guess it's part of it. God giving birth. God giving birth. That's her most famous.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

1968. So she was a hippie. Oh, total hippie.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And Miss Monica was sent the pamphlet for her somewhere. I she think she was in California, and they were like, hey, it was like a woman's wisdom. Again, hippie in California. Right. Monica was a hippie in Norway, but she got the pamphlet and she's like, This is fabulous. Met up with her, they worked together, made it into a longer, just an 80-page book, which okay, 80 pages, and then they were like, Let's make this longer. So now it's like 476 some pages.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

So there are pictures though, listeners. There's pictures.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Oh, there's pictures, yeah. Photos. Now Monica is more of a like a scholar, like a historical person. But both of these ladies, I was gonna tell, I told I was leaving you some surprises. Yeah. Um, so they met, they were rewriting, and and Monica says, you know, oh, I just want to say Barbara did most of the writing. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Because when we were rewriting from the 80 to the 400-page book, she had just lost her youngest son, 15 years old, was hit by a car in front of her. Stop it. In front of her, no, and that same year, her older son was already in the late stages of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and he passed away. So she's like, I wasn't really available mentally, and she pulled the weight. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

While she's while they were writing a book called The Great Cosmic Mother. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah. So Miss Barbara, while they were doing all of that, she was on welfare, I think in Ari Arizona or something. Um we'll check the notes. But she was on welfare, but when they got the first uh check for the book, right, she was able to get off of welfare. Well, she got off, and then just life circumstances she ended up being homeless for like like homeless for many years. She had to send her girls to live with her eldest son and his wife, and she lived on the streets, and what she carried around with her was a bag with all the writings of this book.

The Authors’ Lives Behind The Text

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Get out of here. Well, I already told you to get out. So come back in and then get out again.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Right? Yeah. So that's how this book was written in the midst of these two suffering women. Like, right? Is that crazy? I just had a little bit of chill.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

That just gives me even more like respect for that. Yeah, that's amazing. Right? And sad and tragic and yeah. Crazy. And so oh my gosh, I'm thinking it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Nuts because this book is now taught in colleges. Right. Like, yep, there you go. That was my surprise. I love that. You're like, surprise! Death and and unhouse night. I know, I know. It's awful. But like through great suffering comes long books. Yeah. Comes long books.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

With mind mind expanding.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Oh my gosh. That makes me happy that we're you know extending the and not that it's just us because there are we have found, by the way. Oh my gosh. Shout outs to all these. Yes. So I think your name is Zoe. Yeah. This is Zoe. There's a lover person on Spotify. Yeah. Even though I know you guys, but just don't do the paid version. Anyways, the um there is a person that's reading this book chapter by chapter. I'll put a link in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

I feel like she's my friend. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

My friend is reading me a book.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah, I have a so we've developed a parasocial relationship with this reader.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I don't know what her name is.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Yeah. And that's, I don't know. I'm hoping not like misgendering. That's what I thought they said Zoe. Whoever you are, we're gonna send you a message, and I'm also gonna put a link to this. So you have somebody that can read this 400-page book to you with fun, it's not a lot, but just a smidge bit of commentary. And this book does need, this does need a little bit of commentary because it is a product of second wave feminism, which, as we were talking about before, receives like it almost gets discounted now, where they're just like, well, that was just, you know, like rich white lady feminism, or what, you know, and it's like there were issues right with it that it doesn't mean we should toss everything out. Same with this book, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Well, you because I know you were uh more into feminism than me earlier. Um second wave, first wave.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

That would be like the the our Elizabeth Cady Stantons. Okay. Oh geez, yes. Move in that way. Move in that way. And then 70s, late 60s. Probably people, and by the way, even though Joanna's giving me way too much credit because I know there are great women's studies scholars, it would be like, technically, it was 62, you know what. But that's when they were doing all the awareness raising, like meetings, consciousness raising stuff. Um so that was second wave, and they really did a lot. That's what we're talking credit cards, yeah, credit cards, jobs, um, more, more recognition of domestic labor, even though a lot of the stuff we're talking about is kind of going backwards. It also my like, if we had to do like criticisms to that second wave of feminism ended up being, and I'm not saying because there were some like radical people that were like F this, like the women that wrote this, and then like Angela Davis. Like, we have some like badass people that were like, you know, this is a whole systemic thing, and you gotta bring it all together. Bring patriot. In general, the the products of that second wave kind of just were like, hey, can we participate in your bullshit capitalism? Um, was it did it really help us to be able to get jobs where we just got paid 80 cents on the dollar? You know what I mean? And did it really help us to get credit cards? I mean, it it did in the context of capitalism, but it's still like we were left with the patriarchal system. And those changes happened despite men being against them. There was still I even remember like my jobs in the 90s, men were still making fun of like women's lib. Because you know, I worked in a really like male-dominated field. I was working in video production. Oh, yeah. And I would, they would be like, Can you grab that, you know, the airy light kit? I'd be like, Well, that's like the 300-pound one. They're like, Well, women's lib, you know, and and uh little jabs. Little jabs. And when I think back, I'm like, yeah, it takes. Yes, and it makes sense because I'm like, actually, you know, mid-fresh mid-90s, it's not that far. Men were still like, there's women here. Like, it's crazy. It's uncomfortable to have them in the office. Yes, exactly. I think back, I'm like, oh my god. Anyways, tangent. So that second wave. So are we third wave? Is that us? Third wave happened. I'm like, no, no, not yet.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

We're fourth.

Second Wave Feminism And Media Loss

SPEAKER_03 14:46

No, no, third wave, that was us, Riot Girl, the that was a lot of like date rape awareness. Okay. They, you know, people were bringing up like rape culture, and and again though, people still, and I say people because I'm like, that's um, that's not accurate. And I don't like when people simplify and discount it. People seem to discuss the parts that came out of that where it was focused more, you know, like the popular side of it. But there were people do, you know, there were feminists in the third wave that were into like socialism and looking at the systems and looking at religious racism, they weren't getting the media airplay. Riot girls were, you know. Okay. At the same time, that was pretty awesome. And it was really popular. Like, think back like not that long ago, we had so many media outlets and publications that came out of that third wave. We had Bust and Bitch and Jezebel, and these were like staples and uh XO Jane, and all of these were we used to be able to like publish our stuff, and it was like mainstream feminism and girl focused. That shit gone. What why though why? Where did it go? They went out of business. Also, the demand what do you mean? Where did it go? Wait, did you see how many media people were in the Epstein files? Oh my god. Where do you think all those magazines went? I mean, I don't know. I'm just saying, interesting. It is interesting, isn't it? Mm-hmm. There's not that there are a few now, and in fact, listeners, if you know any, I know there's one called the 19th, and there's Dame, Dame is good, but all of those, they're like locked down. They don't like a lot of them don't take submissions. It's very kind of like secret funding. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And back, you can't put in back in the day, you could be like bitch magazine, I wrote this thing, and put it out there. Fabulous. Yeah. Oh, we need to bring that back. I know.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So that's my explanation of the waves of feminism. I probably left some gaps. So the biggest criticism on this book is that just that they're not traditional feminists. So the even though I'm like, I was gonna save criticisms. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

We should do it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Because I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

And especially because so I want to tell some of the criticisms, and that will help the framework for the rest of the so in our reader person talks about this too, but what came out of this era, kind of I call it like the hippie, the second wave feminism, is when they really got into like the earth goddess and like reclaiming the mother spirit of the earth and women being like vessels of life and vessels of life and creativity. And at that time, this is um kind of what we were first talking about when you were like, This is so good to read these books. It gives like words to what we're saying. So at that time, though, people need to understand women did not have any of this shit for themselves. So they were writing this stuff about like the divine feminine and the cosmic mother, and it was so liberating and it gave them something to latch on to through today's lens. It has a lot of biological essentialism and gender essentialism. It's kind, and it also like equates the idea that like women and feminine equal like peace and nonviolence and safety posing, and it's binary too. So then it's like, and then masculine is like violence and like acquisition, and it's like that is way too and that's not where we're trying to go. It's way too too black and white. It's way too black and white. And that's not where we are today. Exactly. The word for this type of feminism, hippie feminism, is called I like it. No, that's but it's called echo feminism. Ooh. But I would argue, and this is what we're gonna like explore together, is that this is something that we shouldn't just discount, we should just update it with what we know now. Because echo feminism is an intersectional theory and movement developed in the 70s that links the oppression of women with the exploitation of nature, arguing both stem from patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical hierarchical systems. And it advocates for a sustainable, nonviolent, holistic worldview, demanding that environmental, feminist, and social justice issues be addressed together. Yes. But the critics like with the the idea of essentialism. So it's like the idea that they essentialize women is closer to nature than men. Oh, okay. And same thing, you know, like women are the earth, we're the earth mother. It's like, but I also like when people are criticizing this stuff, I'm like, give women a break. We literally have had our history hidden from us. Like fuck off. We're having like sorry if we had a few bumps in the road.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah, and it's not like, yeah, like come on. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

And we just know more now. So I'm like, why don't we just work with that? Also, with this too, is the Western centricity of it. It's all very like European-based, you know, focused on Western, white, maybe middle class, even though I'm like, well, we did just hear a story about the authors.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yes, yeah, not middle class.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

But um, but now, and we've even seen this, like, remember the women's march? That's when really like the idea of intersectionality really took hold race and class into this as well. So this is being addressed. And then also, um the other criticism is that even though I'm like, this one I don't totally agree with, but it's like they suggest that linking all social ills to patriarchy simplifies complex ecological problems.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And I'm like, I think it just answers it. But well, because think about it, this was 30 some years ago. Uh uh, 50 some years ago.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Oh my god, yeah. Don't forget how old we are. Shoot.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

So sorry, we're always like give these little middle-aged ladies a minute.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Oh yeah, so what? I'm a teenager. I know, I know. The world has changed, so of course we're gonna have it. But these were critics at the time, even.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Well, this is well, and I well, they also have been, yeah, I've been um looking into this as well. And then also hearing, you know, that reader and and some of the other people that we've listened to talk about this book, that there is so much good in here. And now that we have the framework, I'm like, just as we're discussing this stuff, and if you do pick up the book, keep that in mind. That although for a second it feels empowering to be like, yes, women are the earth. It's like everybody is, we all are. We're all humans. Plants, and men, women.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

That'll bring us back to the body. Everybody in that women's Bible, where they were like, hold on. It was like the world, then human, yeah. Not that we have dominion over at all. Exactly. We are all one. Right. And that's what I got from the beginning of this is that. We're connected like the ocean, like we are one.

Ecofeminism Basics And Major Critiques

SPEAKER_03 22:04

So this first section, by the way, I forgot to also say when we're describing, where's I'm like, where's my little note? This is the echo feminism. Oh, yes. Core principles, interconnected oppressions. Yes. The same mindset for the domination of women drives the destruction of nature. And then I would modernly add on, it also upholds the hierarchy of race and class. I don't know if that's included. I'm just student. I can't wait. I want somebody to correct us. Actually, yeah, correct or add to do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Do I want to hear more? No, because I'm curious. Yeah. I don't know. I obviously interconnectedness. I mean, class is a huge one.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

I mean, you just cannot separate. You can't separate it. You can't separate misogyny and racism and classism. No, they are interconnected. Yes, they're interconnected, which is why we're echo-feminist idea.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Um now I have a name for myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

And so, and then also uh brought this up revaluing the feminine and nature, it challenges the dualism. So, like culture, nature, male, female, human, animal that place nature and women in subordinate positions. But this is, I love this part of it. It involves an ethic of care. And that is the part that I think is a great takeaway from this, where they talk a lot about because this book goes through the history of different religious cultures and what people used to like worship and focus on and make and do. And they're simply saying that before we had this kind of conquering history, that this ethic of like care and nurture and creativity, like it's possible and it happened, and people used to live like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

And we need look, let's circle back.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Yeah, circle back.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Can we circle back?

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yep. And then the the other core principle of eco-feminism is anti-capitalists and anti-patriarchal. There you go. Yep. Explode your mind. Yes. Get ready. I hope you're wearing a helmet.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Put your helmets on. That's time for buttoning all the apples. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

And so this we're gonna be, we'll probably talk about this book for the next like two or three episodes. At least. It is, I mean, it's forum. We picked this book because it challenges the notion that history started with men in conquering and wars. And I don't know, hopefully, some of the you youngers, your youngs did not have the same education. But in general, us Gen Xers, as far as history is concerned, it like started with Columbus. Yeah. Like as far as what we were taught.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Well, and it was getting better, but I hate to tell you, being in the field, it's good and bad.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah. So it's challenging that notion, and we just pick, if you think about what that does to all girls growing up, where you literally are just like, I guess only two women were in history, Saka Juia and um Betsy Ross.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah, I guess it's I mean, I guess I'll be a, you know, a daycare worker. I know, exactly. Or a teacher. There's a lot of ladies teaching.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

So it challenges that notion that history started with men and the notion that women were, I have in my notes that NCP or was it what is it called? Non-character player.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Source. I'm like, what's that called? Non-character player.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Women were were NCPs in creation of modern civilization, which is not true. And that's this book actually is all about they're like, actually, women um were the ones that found and used fire. Yeah. Motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Actually, so on the cave painting, all the glory goes to the ladies.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Exactly. So stuff like that. And that's why we chose this book because all the stuff that we're choosing is to challenge a norm that it's like we've we absorb these norms through culture and society, and you know, and they're reinforced everywhere. Everywhere. Like commercials, like everywhere. Everywhere. And so um that's why we picked the book. And then we're just gonna go, and I know we're already like deep into it. For this time, we're just gonna discuss the first section, which is the first uh five chapters. It gives an overview of the women's contributions that the book goes deeper into later, but women's contributions to culture and language and art, which I guess is culture. Sorry, whatever. It goes over women's contribution to culture. You get it. And then um and it covers bias and the biological information that we are taught. So the this first section, it sets up kind of the problem that the rest of the book that will be. Yeah, that we're biting into the rest of the book will address that, and we'll get into that stuff uh next episode.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

But we'll just so this first part you said that you had epiphanies and like I I had so many, first of all, this is game changer what people need to hear right now, because we are having a full-on assault on our trans community um in the United States. Oh god, Kansas. Yeah. Fuck you, Kansas. Um I can't. And the fact that everybody isn't like losing their minds right now, because again, first they came for them, but then they're gonna come for you, Debbie. Right. Uh, anyways, they took like anyways, the book. The book says Kansas, you're idiots.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yes, exactly. It says it right there on page four.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

So it it goes into the formation of humans, but it goes way back. Like it starts. I love that it starts with the ocean is the womb, which again, this this connects you. It's true. It connects us all. That's why we like staring at it. Right? We are connected to the earth. The earth is our life source. Right. And we are just like it. But yeah, so we're 70% water, right? I've always thought that, but I was thinking of it more through um an environmental lens. This brought me to um when we're like the whole formation of life. Like we have a womb, there's water in there. Uh, you need it to be a wet. Oh yeah. Um, yeah. You need this internal body of water to grow this life. And then I was like, yeah, why are we not revered? Like men can't do that. Like, obviously, we're special. Right. Right, right. And this um then thinking about the because I we have trans friends, um, family, and the struggle that is everyday life now is like like they've been made a scapegoat. There and they're reading this, you realize, oh my god, like if we were evolved, who knows what we would be like. Right. Because our makeup, we could go either way until eight weeks. In gestation. You are female. All everybody embryos are female until eight weeks, like two months. Yeah. And then if a little um spermic comes in there and it's got the why, that's when things change. But we all start the same. And then you got the genetic makeup and it's all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you get a little bit of both. And I and then you know that it's not gonna be precise, right? Right. It's just like if you look at your siblings, you're like, I mean, yeah, you look a lot like me, but I definitely look more like mom, or I definitely look a little more like dad. And that goes with the sex.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

These are concepts people have embraced a long time ago, which is what this book is about.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Yeah.

Biology, Gender Construction, And Trans Rights

SPEAKER_03 30:13

And this first chapter, by the way, which I didn't even tell you that the title of the first section is called Women's Early Culture Beginnings. And the first chapter that Joanna is discussing with great enthusiasm is called The First Sex. In the beginning, we were all created female.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah. It's it's fascinating. And the other concept mentioned in there that I went on a deep dive on because I'm like, not a scientist. Um parthenogenesis. It is asexual reproduction. Okay, thank you. Okay, okay, it happens. Yep. I will give props to earth.org because um I found this article, but it was mainly about protecting endangered species, but they were talking about parthenogenesis, and I thought this was mind-blowing because we just got off of the woman's Bible. What do you think parthenogenesis means in Greek? Virgin birth.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

Mic drop.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

You're like, that's how much it blew my mind. Drop it. I just reversed my throw that mic. Right? I read that and I was like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Virgin birth. Virgin birth. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah. So plants, think about when you people, you love plants, they produce clones of themselves. Yeah, they do. They reproduce, they are living things just like us. We're all connected. Yes. Uh in 2017, a zebra shark in Australia gave birth without having any uh connection to anybody. Um his name was Leonie. 2015, a reticulated python named Thelma had six eggs in a cage at the Louisville Zoo. 2006, a kimono dragon Flora had babies in the Chester Zoo in England with had no penetrative sex. Um love the name Flora, by the way. I know.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Especially for a kimono dragon.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

And then um Aristotle even talked about um parthenogenesis as related to virgin birth. Aristotle. You're like, hello.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

That's so long ago.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

So she talks about there was a woman that was evolving and they she lived in the water like a mammal. And apparently, women humans have a lot of um aquatic mammal features still. Yeah, we just crawled right out of the ocean. Yeah, we crawled out of why people don't get it.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

We come from fish, it's where we got our eyes. I just I don't know, I don't know what I just said, but just don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

But yeah, so I I was just blown away. Also, I always thought gonads was a was a man thing. No, we uh we're we both have gonads.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Yeah, we have I did the only reason I know that is because I've been uh had a lot of imaging taken being a cancer survivor. Yeah. And I remember one time the lady gave me that big metal cover and she's like, Gotta cover gotta protect your gonads. And I'm like, What?

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Wait, I don't have those.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

I know.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

And it's just like we all have.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

And they're like, honey, just put this over your gonads. And I'm like, you put this over your gonads. Just I don't have no gonads. This is um the important takeaway is that that knowledge is so essential to understanding how much gender is constructed by um culture. Yeah, you know, and and it also shows how this is why I don't, I guess they're still out there, but I don't get feminists that are not super pro-trans rights because that, you know, all the LGBTQ. I'm like all of that, all that anti, you know, the crazy right-wing stuff, it all boils down to the fact that these are people that need us to adhere to these gender norms that they made up that are really just directly related to property. Yeah, right? I mean, yeah, I just like you know, boil it down to I'm like, essentially that's what it is. It's about property and it's about controlling um women's labor, which is very valuable. It's so valuable that they had to not pay us for it because they can't afford it. Yeah, they're like, ooh, that's it. We said all the, you know, what I call it like kinkeeping and connectivity and child rearing and community work.

unknown 34:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Tons of building those churches, having those bake sales. Bake sales, just doing that. I'm like, so essentially, this is good for, I mean, anyways, I'm no I know there's people that have done, I feel so like remedial talking about this just because I haven't, I'm not as schooled in gender studies. I know there's like a lot more work on that, but no. So there's people probably listening that are like, well, no shit. But just so you know, we're just two small town gals. And then yeah. And that's just chapter one. Changing the world.

unknown 35:11

I know.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Mind blown. My mind is blown.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

The next, and I don't, we don't have to go through like chapter by chapter. The next um, like I said, there's five uh five chapters in the first section. The first one, Aries says first sex, the second one is Marks and the Matriarchy, the third one is the original Black Mother, and then fourth one is women as culture creators, and the fifth is the first speech. All of them had things that did blow my mind. The Marks and the Matriarchy chapter is great because they acknowledge the work of like Marks and Ingalls, and they're like, Yeah, they are totally badass, they got the whole class consciousness, you know, workers stuff going. But they're critically for time and also just to give the overview of it, the chapter is really about they're like, they were cool and they like pick on religion and blah, blah, blah. But they, because they're just like white Western males, they can't even see or acknowledge that women were the original commies. That's the summary of that chapter. I love that. Yeah, they're like a long, long time ago. Like, women were already like doing this, and they're all of this.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

No, I just thought of it.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Yeah, it's the theory has my name on that. Yeah, but they're so based in, and it is after reading this, it does make me look at as much as maybe I'm not 100% commie, but I you know, reading marks like greatly affected me because say what you will, had some he had some, you know, some really good thoughts that to this day I still find myself quoting. Yeah, like well is very much based in like commodity and production. So it's like it's it's a framework that operates in response to the very thing that we want to get rid of in the first fucking place.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

But see, they weren't there yet. Right. Like now we're we're always evolving as a species.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

Even though you know what, if you watch the news, you may you may disagree, but I believe that in real, real life we are evolving.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Not all of us.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

But that happens in all species, right? Some of them are just like, I mean, some of them aren't gonna make it. They're not gonna make it.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

They're gonna be like, yeah, that's not evolving. Yeah, yeah. We'll find them all in like super churches in like a decade. We'll be like, look at them, they're still trying.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

And the rest of us will be living our lives, and then it'll be like, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Yes, we'll be like, too bad.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Shoulda bit some apples.

Women As Culture Creators In Prehistory

SPEAKER_03 37:54

So the chapter is about their attempts to kind of explain women's oppression to women. Mansplaining? Yeah. And so the so it's actually about Marx mansplaining. Um, and not that they completely failed, but just they don't, they didn't have they don't have the framework. They, you know, because they And especially, I mean, speaking of 19th century thinkers, you know, still very they're so like gendered, they were not, they weren't as radical in this. I like this is interesting. Another problem area among Marxists is the assumption that the matriarchal society where it existed occurred only at very low stages of production and only under primitive quote-unquote conditions. This assumption echoes the generalized linearity and chauvinism of Western history, which tends to see all other cultures other in space and time as mere preliminary stages on the way toward modern development, or as sadly failed attempts to achieve the freeway and the ball bearing. Now, and that ties into the other chapter in this section that talks about women as culture creators. That's where she talks about, or should say she's two authors, they talk about um they talk about how advanced these early societies were. And I gotta tell you, my brain had just assumed that too. Like before before like we had industry, people were just, you know, eating salted beef and you know, washing in the crick. And it's like, no. And that's what she said. Women as culture creators, women were the first to really use fire, and they did cooking and ceramics, and they were they became experts with like plants and plant medicine and different arts and crafts, and they developed language, which is the other chapter that's in this book. And so that really blows open this idea in it. That men were the only ones that created our culture. Or that uh old like to me, the the Marx chapter points out just how much they were still influenced by capitalism, even though they were trying to be like get by capitalism. I was like, you actually are still using that framework for even looking at like history, change is hard, right? So like that's why it's so slow, I think. And so that's what so the other two chapters that that kind of relates to are how women came up with the first speech because they were the ones with the children. They were like in I don't say what's whatever in community way more often than at the time. And we also have this idea that just men went out and hunted, which isn't entirely true. That's like a romantic notion. By the way, women hunted too really well. Really well. Reading that I'm like, I know there's another quote. Just by the way, in one of the chapters when she's talking about um women as culture creators, she talks about the word um radical comes from the word radix root and means getting to the root of things. These cultural inventions of early women were at the very root of human existence. They created what we know as human life. When we say that women created most of the early human culture, we are not trying to sound radical. The evidence is there, quite tangible, when we realize how many basic life industries were the inventions of women cooking, food processing and storage, ceramics, weaving, textiles and design, tanning and dyeing of leathers, by the way. Everything related to fire, everything related to fire, including chemistry and metallurgy, the medicinal arts, language itself, and the first scripts and glyphs, grain domestication, animal domestication, religious image imagery and ritual, domestic and sacred architecture, the first calendars and the origins of astronomy and on and on. All women.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, we have to have a history month.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Which is right now.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

Yeah, yeah, we are. Just a whole month. Even though we're like how we are. Well, it started out as a week. So, but I think a big takeaway to reading these kinds of, you know, feminist takes on early history is to let just or either, you know, examine and open up that notion we are taught about history in such a linear fashion. And in America, it's so crazy how we worship the past, but not the too far past. We worship it. Where we're like, that's how they used to do it in the olden days, so automatically has authority. Yeah. But if you go further back, we're supposed to think of any civilization before like quote unquote Western civilization, which is a problematic term, anyways, but I'm just thinking of like industry and um colonialism and all that. Like anything before that, people were just barefoot. Barbarians. Like that's I mean, let me know if I'm wrong, but literally that's the that's the if you're a person that just went to like public school in the 80s and 90s and you didn't do any more reading, that's probably what you think of Iran right now. Yep. Seriously. You're like, they're just the backwards, they don't even wear pants. So and they're they're just praying all the time. And so I'll I'll read this is a little bit longer passage, but it's good, and then we'll wrap up. So I don't want to keep it. When all these scholars of Africa and their data are telling us is that human development does not proceed in a straight line from the primitive to the advanced. Nothing in nature proceeds in straight lines, but in circles, which I've always believed. And like they do it in cycles. I always say it's even more of like a spiral. Because it's like it doesn't always go back, even though nature, you know, like the seasons are in a nature, but you never go back to the same season. No, you don't have two of the same summers. No, you don't. And human cultures, too, like individual human beings, go through cycles of development and regression. Empires do rise and fall. And cultures that now appear primitive or never developed could well be sitting on the rubble of great past civilizations once built by their ancestors. Once flourishing and then disintegrating under a multitude of pressures. This point is important for women investigating the past existence of matriarchies, as well as for students of ancient African glories, for the same patterns apply to both. The contemporary Western world, ruled by an essentially white patriarchal elite, sees itself as the peak of human development in its linear view. All past cultures were by nature inferior. Right? Yeah. That's what, yeah, that's what that's like the notion you pick up. They're like, that's just whatever. Simply because they came earlier in time. By the way, we don't even know what time is you on a trip out. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I do. I have been because I learned about Rome. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

And they're gonna go, I don't know. So simply because they came earlier in time and existed mainly not on their own right or in their own terms, but as mere steps on a grand stairway leading up to the supreme white meldom. And that is, they want us to think of they want us to think of all these past civilizations as like, well, that's just like the buildup to like this awesome. Look at us. Yeah. They're like, we're and you even hear you even hear those fuckers talking about it. You literally heard these fascists talk about we come from the they mentioned civilization. We we come from a long like the and I'm like, oh, we've all built up to this moment. Fucking take me back.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

If that is if that's the elite, we got some tweaking the exactly.

Work, Leisure, And How We Got Here

SPEAKER_03 45:35

So this linear development process is rarely questioned. No more than white male dominance is questioned. In the official view, it just comes from God. Oh my yeah. Oh, that's what I'm saying. This is all goes back. So, anyways, there's a there's a bajillion. Oh, wait, oh actually, let me finish that sentence. Oh, yeah. No more than the white male dominance is questioned in the official view, it just comes from God or derives from Newton in the internal combustion engine. Confronted with evidence from archaeology, anthropology, mythology, strange dreams of the existence of past cultures, whether of black Africans or of Central American Mayas or of Mediterranean matriarchies, for example, in Antolia, Anatolia, sorry, Crete, Malta, Eturia, the historical tendency of white patriarchy has been absolutely to deny these early cultures and mock their evidence. By the way, I could continue. I'm like, this is this I forgot, this is real good. There's a lot of good stuff right after this. So I said that was the last thing, but I gotta read it. Yeah, I get it because I want to hear it. This is setting up for the rest of the book and uh our next episode. So, how did we get here? On the ground level of being, the average adult member of a hunting and gathering culture, even in some environments called sparse by our standards, worked only 15 hours a week to fill sustenance needs.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

That's like 15 hours.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

That's that's literally all seriously. I know. Worked only 15 hours a week to fill sustenance needs. The rest of the time was spent in leisure activity, arts and crafts, spiritual ecstasy, running, swimming, making love. Doesn't say orgy or just like but they must have been eating some. I don't know. I don't want to see. I can't, yeah. Just wait for our orgy episode.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Gotta find the book.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Why am I like ha ha eyes wide shut? Making making love, eating, goofing around. I really think the value of goofing around is like superior. You should do more goofing.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

When do you feel your best?

SPEAKER_03 47:57

Yeah. Goofing around.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Um what are dogs doing? Look at how happy dogs are.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

I know. They're fucking goofing around. Fucking. I did it again, sorry. Dogs are goofing around. I'm not using that for how's this uh you should not trust people that don't goof around. And you know who doesn't goof around and is humorless? Doofus in charge. How do you know? I the orange menace.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Seems to be living on top of my head for decades.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Yeah. Of disgustingness.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

I'm like, he doesn't goof around. So, anyways. Um, in our advanced Western culture, the average male's work week is 45 hours. The average female's is 80. 77 hours.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

You were like, I okay, yeah. Yeah, because you leave work and you go to work.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

And again, this is what, the 1990 version of the book? So 77 hours. And and by the way, since this book was written, we've had so many technological advancements. You would think that it freed up time, but guess what? You just got had to get more productive at work.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

More mental.

SPEAKER_03 49:07

So there you go. And then also child rearing is like more time consuming now because you have to be everywhere and yeah, because they're scheduled and you gotta go here and you gotta go there, and you gotta take them there and take them home and feed them.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

You gotta feed them. Oops, I forgot to feed them.

SPEAKER_03 49:20

And you can't just throw them outside like we were raised. No, because it's scary out there, and there's weirdos. There were way more weirdos when we were kids, by the way. Yeah. Michigan's known for its kidnapping.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Go take your bike and hike for five hours. And I mean, I don't know where you are.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

So we have and again, this is in the 90s. A lot of employed people seem to be working more and more and enjoying it less. The unemployed and underemployed are working less and enjoying it less. Certainly, there's less joy, grace, creativity, and wonder in our average daily life than there is in daily experience of the average Kalahari Bushman or Australian Outback Martukuja? Australian Outback Martukuja. Sure. You were in Australia. You don't know how to I know. You don't do it yourself. Okay. I did not lose it. We don't have to prove this statement. We believe we all know somewhere deep in our beings that it is so. Modern existence in the long run profits very few at the expense of too many. So how did we get here and how do we get out? How do we get out? I love that that see, they're gonna talk so for the rest of this book, they're gonna talk about how we got here. And then how do we get out? I'm gonna skip to how do we get out. Chapter, how do we get out of here?

SPEAKER_01 50:40

I'm just gonna please tell me, because you're saying the 90s were bad and it is infinitely worse. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:48

Yes. We were in a war in the Middle East in the 90s, too. Oh my god, is there any difference?

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Yeah, it's like we're here again, but with way worse people. And I thought those people that got us in in the 90s and then in 2003 um were just terrible, but little did I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

But I think this um this kind of thinking, it's interesting that she talks about proof. She's like, we don't need this like proof. Y'all, y'all know this. Yeah. Y'all know this.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

And that's kind of what I felt like when I was reading it. I'm like, wait a minute, I kind of felt that. Yeah. Like obviously, I grew a life, I knew that felt crazy and powerful, and like I have very little control over that. Like, yeah, it's just happening and it's amazing. It's cosmic and yeah. But like you don't hear that. But this is like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

So these, and that's why books like this, The Great Cosmic Mother, and these kind of like I don't want to say they're pseudo-anthropological, but they they don't follow this like ultra-scientific method, but that is a product of the patriarchy, this idea that you need to have written proof, you need to have, you know, these standards, and blah, blah, blah. And I love that the authors are like, No, you know, they're like, you know, that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

And think about I'm I'm I know I always bring up Jane Godall, but I'm gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

You're like carrying uh heated rivalry. She, yes, yes, I we have a friend that like can't go an hour without being like, that reminds me of heated rival.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

Did you did you hear about heated rivalry?

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Here's a clip.

Trust Your Knowing And Closing Invite

SPEAKER_01 52:26

I'm like that with Jane Godall. Yeah. You're like, everybody's got their thing. Two. Yeah. But scientific community, right? She started. She just was doing what she felt, like probably her innate, like how she was created, because she was doing it as a child watching animals. And she takes all this crazy research that says apes use tools. Like, this is like crazy groundbreaking. And they're like, You name the apes. We don't name apes. That's not the rule. They should be numbers. Yeah. You're talking that that he felt sad. I d but she was like, yeah, because he was sad. Yeah, like what's the thing? Like I sat with him. He was Greybeard was sad. Yeah. And her work has transformed everything we know. Because before her, it was humans were separate from all other animals. We had dominion over animals.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

As written by the fake Bible. And here's little Jane, only trained to be a secretary. Yeah. And she's like, well, actually, I like hung out with them and live with them. And yeah, they're like us. They're exactly like us. Isn't that interesting? So that they can be assholes too.

SPEAKER_03 53:45

That is a devaluing of our knowing.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

And so I think that is such a good thing to end on because I want y'all to think about what would happen if you really did just know that you you knew. You already know. You lean in like lean into those feelings. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Lean into what you're like, I think this is the answer. It probably is.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

And if and if the voice in your head that's like, well, no, because this and that, and people do it like this, just know that that's not your voice. That's that's that's the voice of some patriarchal BS.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

Total BS. We're breaking through that. Stop it. Stop it, people. Stop it. Stop it. I hope that we have inspired you. And we and you're gonna come back. You gotta come back. We are gonna get into oh, in the next section that we're getting into next two part two of the whole book. And it's a big old chunk. And I mean, the next episode will probably be a little shorter. We just had to get it's called Women's Early Religion. And as you know, this is um, even if we do go on tangents, a relatively short podcast for a 400-page book. Yeah, we'd love to hear what you think if you have read this text.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Because I think a lot of people have.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

A lot of people have.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

A lot of I mean, obviously, some of you might have read it in college, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

I'm like, I'm a late bloomer, so I'm like, I just read it.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Yeah, 50. So um 50. 1990 was printed.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

And we are jamming now. Season two has started. We have a few books in the uh hopper. In the hopper. But we are, we wanna hear what book you gotta know about. Yeah, what what book took what you thought about something and just was like, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

And what do you think? Like, we're gonna take it and we're gonna be like, what?

SPEAKER_00 55:35

I know, be like, I didn't even know. I never even heard of this book. Where did you find it? And now we have to bite it.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

And we have to bite that apple.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

We want to bite your books. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

So reach out to us. Info is in the show notes. I love show notes. We're so happy to be back. And I know the world is nuts, scheduled, but we are we're the one we're gonna show people how to go nuts.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

That's right. We're gonna go nuts with some donuts. I do like donuts. That's good. All right, y'all. Have a fabulous week. Yes, we love you. Love you. See you.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Bye bye, bye-bye, right?