The Very, Very First Woman

The Very, Very First Woman

Our very earliest ancestor, prehistoric woman was a person probably of great charm, intelligence, ingenuity.  She was neither chattel nor slave then, but rather an inventor, with other women of the possibilities of bending straw to make baskets, discovery of the cohesive quality of clay, researcher of healthful aspects of certain herbs, and, of course the bearer of children.  She, as well as males, learned to harvest grains after they planted seeds, and they kept part of the harvest for winter.  She lived at peace with environment, realizing that earth, fire, water and air could sustain or destroy her.   This is the portrait obtained from the insightful scholarship of Elaine Morgan, who, in The Descent of Woman, 1972, noted fallacies in the generally unquestioned wisdom of masculinists.

So, far from being the despised outcasts of Jean Auel’s novels, it is much more likely that our female ancestors bonded for support and companionship, admitting males on their own terms.  The adventures of these original achievers should be portrayed be creative authors. 

Centuries later, when people moved into caves, our ancestor must have been an art patron who permitted her portrait as the bearer of children and the source of fertility to be painted on walls of the caves.  Her deification as the Great Goddess followed.

Marilyn French continues the saga in Beyond Power, 1985, with men turning to wars for territory control, the subsequent slavery of the women of the defeated group, and their males of the winners to install male gods.  However, underground movements kept Isis alive well into the Roman era. Germanic tribes continued the worship of women until replacement by Christian saints.  Jean Markale, in Women of the Celts, 1975, identifies the original strong position of women, honored in saga, song and folktale.

Today’s struggles for peace, economic equity, political representation and justice for all have roots in antiquity.  While unsuccessful in the past, our glorious history can sustain actions and encourage faith in ultimate success.  Women’s Studies programs provide a great service as they explore the past, examine the present and create blueprints for the future.

Strength in Numbers

Strength in numbers

              Individual women have banded together for success.  In 195, B. C. Roman matrons crowded the Forum, demanded and achieved the repeal of the Oppian Law which forbid women to wear multicolored dresses or drive chariots in town or own more than half an ounce of gold.

              More than a thousand years later, in the middle of the 13^th century, many widows and unmarried women not protected or controlled by recognized church orders banded together with some nuns who were unhappy with church restrictions to create what historians named the Beguine Movement in Europe.  Their aims were self-help and support through weaving, embroidery, nursing, begging alms and prayers. They prayed and meditated on their own terms.  They wandered from place to place, mainly in Belgium, France and Germany.  The Church Fathers were not amused.  The beguines were harassed, forced to enter convents, and if they refused, excommunication, torture and death were the penalties.  The effects of the Beguine Movement, however, can be found to this day in hospitals and homes for the aged which these strong, stubborn women founded.

              As women entered the market economy, creating products for sale by others, they were provided no job protection or decent working conditions.  Men joined guilds but denied admission to women unless they were widows of former members.  In 1485 and again in 1482 more than 1000 women in London who worked in the silk industry, spinning and weaving – demanded protection from foreign competition, protection had given male guilds.  A century later there was an English silk women’s guild.

              Generally, conditions for the poor who labored more than 10 hours a day did not improve in the next centuries.  In 1643 and again six years later, thousands of women petitioned England’s Parliament for jobs, improved working conditions and increased pay.

              Here in America conditions were no better when the industrial age began.  Government and employers were slow to aid male workers and even slower to improve women’s working conditions.  Women resisted first.  In 1834 1000 shoe binders went on strike for 2 months.  Aided by the men’s union they won a raise.  The same year in Lowell, Massachusetts mill women waged a successful strike against a 25% proposed wage cut