Comments on: Images, language, women and patriarchy

By: Matthew Evans

Matthew Evans — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:30:54 +0000

It makes wonder what lies for us on the horion. When i try place myself in this timeline, I see huge progress in terms of human equality, but on the other hand we still have an equally long way to go.
I feel that female imagery has been exploited a touch to much with the advent of such things as the internet, MMS and reality TV. But who am i to complain.
In the words of my grandma “When i was your age…”
You’ve heard it all before!
that story will never grow old cause change is inevitable!

By: Talitha

Talitha — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:46:50 +0000

“What the world needs is a balance between the two (woman & men), instead of either being dominant; humanity needs images and the accompanying feminine values, as well as writing and its concomitant masculine values – we cannot do without either.”

I agree with this statement and I do believe that the world (or at least part of it) has realized this way back when… When I read this article it made me think of a scene in the film “300”, which I think is still relevant today. a Persian messenger comes to Sparta to address the Spartan King, as the King walks up to the Persian the Spartan Queen follows. The messenger then requests an audience with the King, and again the Queen follows, she also makes remarks and states her opinion – the Persian, angered by this then says: “What makes this woman think she can speak amongst men?” The Queen then steps forward and firmly replies: “Because only Spartan woman give birth to real men…” Throughout the film this Spartan Queen plays a dominant role and together they, King & Queen, rule Sparta – making use of the mans physical strength & the woman’s emotional vigour.

By: samuel

samuel — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:09:06 +0000

That is such an interesting issue,you talk about the patriachal society whereby men are dominant,i had a good example of that in Tanzania there are some tribes still practising the patriachal or i can say that left brain and right brain( maasai)women are given domestic work while men are hunting etc
My point is that although nowdays women are well educated and they are doing some works which were supposed to be done by men(i can say there is equal)but still there some places men are still conservative.

By: samuel

samuel — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:07:17 +0000

That is such an interesting issue,you talk about the patriachal society whereby men are dominant,i had a good example that in Tanzania there are some tribes still practising the patriachal or i can say that left brain and right brain( maasai)women are given domestic work while men are hunting etc
My point is that although nowdays women are well educated and they are doing some works which were supposed to be done by men(i can say there is equal)but still there some places men are still conservative.

By: Lyndall Beddy

Lyndall Beddy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:44:58 +0000

Jeanette,
Have not visited here for a while. I think you will find their numeracy skills link to the use of the abacus and have nothing to do with the alphabet.

By: Jeanette

Jeanette — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:08:36 +0000

I agree that this is really fascinating. I would love to know more about the use of symbols in writing (such as those used by the Chinese and Japanese) and their link or relationship with numeracy skills, which are purportedly superior to those of the western cultures who use the alphabet.

By: Bert

Bert — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:42:01 +0000

Thanks for the responses – and yes, it is quite a volumimous book, which is difficult to do justice to in such little space. Shlain writes beautifully; his book reads like a novel, and once you start you can hardly put it down – it is worth reading it in its entirety. About the ‘mechanics’ – he starts his book with a thorough explanation of the functions of the right and left hemispheres, respectively, as well as of the differences between images and alphabet-based writing, then spends substantial time on hunter-gatherer societies, specifically on how the allocation of different responsibilities to men and women (resp.) laid the basis for the correlation between certain brain functions and certain social functions. For example, men were generally assigned the task of hunting, while women did the gathering and child-minding. This explains why the left-brain function of objectifying something, as well as the related function of abstracting (‘thinking away’) everything that might interfere with the task at hand, that of bringing down the hunted animal, was endowed with ‘masculine’ value over a long time of reinforcing activity. On the other hand, the activities of women required a great deal of emotional giving or sheltering; hence the right-brain function of affectivity was gradually given a predominantly feminine connotation, for example (and importantly, images also have their seat in the right hemisphere). Although there are clear neurological and sensory remnants in men and women, resp., of this ancient division of labour – e.g. the fact that women have better peripheral vision than men because they have more rods in their eyes, while men have better focal vision because of the larger number of cones in their eyes (differences that Shlain relates to their different tasks in hunter-gatherer societies: women had to practice surround-vision to keep an eye on children while simultaneously foraging, and men had to concentrate their vision on one thing) – it should be noted that you are quite right that the similarities, in terms of specific abilities, between men and women outweigh the differences. Shlain stresses throughout the book that men and women can generally do the same things, even if there are these differences. The important thing as far as his thesis goes is this, however: because of hundreds of thousands of years of reinforcement of the connection between certain brain-functions (abstraction and objectifying, for instance) and masculine values, the advent of the alphabet (which requires massive abstraction) gave this connection a huge boost, to the detriment of feminine values. And Lyndall, you’re right about the linguistic test – you’ll remember that I referred to the ancient Egyptians, who were not patriarchal at all, for instance. Shlain looks at the Chinese, too, and finds that there were certain influences that undermined the salutary neurological effects of their kind of writing (if I remember correctly Confucianism was one of them, which neutralized the counter-patriarchal influence of their mode of writing. I would have to look at that part again to give you a more specific answer; he does examine patriarchal practices such as footbinding, though, and it does fit into his schema. Nor does Shlain claim that his hypothesis is the only explanatory framework; he would agree with you that thinmgs are complex; all he does in the book is to point out the remarkable correlations between alphabet literacy and the advent of patriarchy. And they work out all right. His other books are just as interesting. I’ll write something about them some other time. Google him – you’ll find quite a lot of information.

By: Lyndall Beddy

Lyndall Beddy — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:24:42 +0000

The test would be China and Japan where the languages have always been pictoral.What does he say about them?

The resaons for the clash between Hindu and Muslim in post-colonial India is much more complex than that !

By: Odette

Odette — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:36:50 +0000

Hi Bert

An interesting and thought provoking post – thank you.

Like Jocelyn, I am also struggling with the mechanics but I would venture the opinion that a blog post can only give a very basic outline of Leonard Shlain’s book so it would probably pay to read the book. Is it an accessible read for non-academics?

But then again, this post doesn’t contain images so maybe my female brain is struggling to process it.

By: Jocelyn Newmarch

Jocelyn Newmarch — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:26:11 +0000

Hi Bert

Thanks for this thought-provoking post. The correlation is intriguing, but I can’t grasp the mechanics. I’m struggling to understand how literacy would promote masculine values and images promote feminine values – and why there would be a correlation in the first place, since, as you noted, femininity is associated with linguistic competences and masculinity with spatial competence.

(And I’d also like to add that I think the similarities between men and women far outweigh the much-hyped differences.)