Yet, what must not be
glossed over is that
male dominion is grounded in
the primal act of dominion, that
is, the
subordination, subjection and submissiveness of
females.
As “the male body
is the birthing body” is an unexpressed
by clearly
central revelation, so is the
supremacy and sacredness of male power.
The female comes from the male,
is to be ruled by the male and—of significance—first
experiences this after she becomes intimate with
the male. The Father god transforms Eve from a “helper,” one
who though “naked…felt no shame,” into the Temptress,
the source of all evil and misfortune,
the source of the Father’s rage, “Because you listened
to your wife….”
While some interpret the Serpent as
another god or goddess, at this point, it is clear that Eve
discovered something about herself. Isn’t
it likely that she discovered—as in Genesis 1's "saw
that it was good" story—that
she was Adam’s equal? That he needed her
to create family? That without her he could not explore intimacy?
That when intimate she and he became co-creators?
(In a sense, when she re-imagined herself!)
In the Abrahamic tradition, the ways of the Mother,
the goddess, the feminine and females are deemed worthless. The
route to power, success, achievement in all areas is through walking
the male way and using male sourced power.
This male power is unleashed at
the moment when the male
subordinates and subjects the feminine—and,
ritually, this occurs during the
intimate act of coupling and embracing.
One further step: this subordination
and subjection is an act of intimate violence that
includes sexual violence. Telling Eve that she
is from Adam’s rib, telling her that her discovery of her
nakedness and female intimacy is the source of all evil, and telling
her that her curse is realized every time she births a child—how
else to understand all this except as acts of sexual
violence? There is, indeed, in the Abrahamic vision, a war
between the sexes.
Abrahamic warring originates
in the intimate space
created by males and females,
and
it's passion is fired by sexual violence.
