The Creation of Patriarchy [Paperback]

Gerda Lerner offers us a radical reconceptualization of Western civilization, making gender central to her analysis. Arguing that male dominance over women is a product of an historical development begun in the second millennium B.C. in the Ancient Near East and not natural or biological, Lerner maintains that the historical process can put an end to patriarchy as a system of organizing society. She uses historical, literary, archeological, and artistic evidence going back to the cultures of the ancient Near East--notably the Mesopotamian and ancient Hebrew societies--in order to trace the development of the leading ideas, symbols, and metaphors responsible for instilling patriarchal gender relations into Western civilization.A major new work by a leading historian and pioneer in women's studies,The Creation of Patriarchyis a radical reconceptualization of Western civilization that makes gender central to its analysis. Gerda Lerner argues that male dominance over women is not natural or biological, but the product of an historical development begun in the second millennium B.C. in the Ancient Near East. As patriarchy as a system of organizing society was established historically, she contends, it can also be ended by the historical process.Focusing on the contradiction between women's central role in creating society and their marginality in the meaning-giving process of definition and interpretation, Lerner explores such fascinating questions as: What can account for women's exclusion from the historical process? What could explain the long delay--more than 3,500 years--in women's coming to consciousness of their own subordinate position? She goes back to the cultures of the earliest known civilizations--those of the ancient Near East--to discover the origins of the major gender metaphors of Western civilization. Using historical, literary, archaeological, and artistic evidence, she then traces the development of these ideas, symbols, and metaphors andl£‰