Something to Look Forward To!
The new Lapham's just came out! Even better, their website features an excellent essay by Francine Prose on Original Sin and the place of women in religion:
Almost as soon as anyone (mostly women, for obvious reasons) started noticing or asking how the world’s religions viewed their female adherents, women-and I would assume some men-either had to face it or not, make excuses or not, question their faith or not. During the 1970s, feminists called attention to any number of ancient fertility-mother cults. But though pre-Christian cultures had goddesses, and priestesses in their temples, Greek and Roman myths are essentially crime blotters recording rapes, near rapes, and metamorphoses into animals or plants to avoid or atone for being raped. There is no word for heroine in Homeric Greek.
More ruminations later.
Almost as soon as anyone (mostly women, for obvious reasons) started noticing or asking how the world’s religions viewed their female adherents, women-and I would assume some men-either had to face it or not, make excuses or not, question their faith or not. During the 1970s, feminists called attention to any number of ancient fertility-mother cults. But though pre-Christian cultures had goddesses, and priestesses in their temples, Greek and Roman myths are essentially crime blotters recording rapes, near rapes, and metamorphoses into animals or plants to avoid or atone for being raped. There is no word for heroine in Homeric Greek.
More ruminations later.