The
De-masculization of The Future and of Futures Studies
or
From
Verdandi to Belldandy: the Goddess of the Present Wishes a Better
Future
Ivana
Milojević
The Reality
The majority of the liberal, or `progressive' futurists today
acknowledge the fact that Futures Studies - a not yet recognized
field of enquiry within traditional disciplinary scientific
divisions - have been dominated by one-civilizational view of time,
reality and space. The futures of non-Western people and countries
have been colonized in a similar way to their presents or pasts.[1]
But even among the most progressive futurist there is a very strong
underlying belief that, somehow, futures studies are at least
gender-free. These futurists believe that futures studies are field
in which personal values and attributes transcend polarized gender
divisions. Some of them would rather belong to `people's movement'
then to one which is part of and belongs to a particular gender
group, or they describe the future like a `loo' with separate
entries but with the inside the same for everyone.
This reminds me of the debates and realities in my own
country, and the efforts to transcend particular national identities
while creating a new, Yugoslav one. Not surprisingly, it was always
easier for the largest national group within the former Yugoslavia,
the Serbs, to have their identity changed, as they did not feel that
this new identity would deny their previous one.
On the other hand, marginal national groups, not just in
Yugoslavia, often see the overlapping globalizing identities as a
threat to their own, as they realize they would always be
outnumbered. The reason why I, and some other women futurists,
believe we should still occasionally work within `women's groups' is
because within futures studies - especially where money and status
are involved - women are outrageously outnumbered. The big umbrella
of futures studies should be big enough to cover eveyone's issues
and concerns, but in reality, the famous futures fork is always
leaning towards the male side and masculinity.
What is even more disturbing is the fact that most women
futurists within `people movements' work within accepted styles, on
problems and issues as defined by masculinist concerns. This is,
again, not surprising. Past and even present events teach us that if
women `come out' as feminist, or try to discuss women's own views on
future, they usually come under vicious attack.
One example is a special report in The
Futurist on `Women's Preferred Futures'.[2]
This report was initially included in the journal as a result of
women futurists complaints that an article in the journal: `Women of
the Future: Alternative scenarios', had been written by a man.[3]
Women futurists who sent the letter, Hazel Handerson, Eleonora
Masini and Riane Eisler, did not want to `condemn' the article
itself believing it was `well meaning', but felt that women
futurists should had been allowed `to speak for themselves'.[4]
This feeling was intensified partly because of one illustration on
the same page represented a chained woman.
Behind all the immediate and transparent reasons, the
reaction was probably partly intensified as a result of long-term
frustration with male domination in the field. Not only are men the
greatest experts when it comes to the future in general, or when it
comes to the every particular aspect of it, their views and opinions
are also consulted when it comes to women's futures, issues and
concerns.
In response to critiques of the representation of women, the
World Future Society, which publishes The
Futurist, decided to `put up' with women's issues, and invited
women futurists to `tell their vision of a preferred future'.[5]
The section has been `written, edited, typeset, designed, and
illustrated solely by women'.[6]
Not long after, this special report came under attack in the
letters section. Even though this report asked women futurists what
would be their preferred
vision for the future, women who contributed were labelled as an
`unrealistic bunch'.[7]
The other critique, also by a man, is a paradigmatic critique
which follows feminism from its early days: this bunch could not
claim to represent the `majority of women' and instead the average
woman should had been asked to `speak for herself'.[8]
While it is, of course, perfectly acceptable, that western male
futurists can make any generalization or universalistic statements
about `the future', when it comes to women's futurists visions,
`their opinions and prophecies' are labelled as `self-serving of
their own emotional and financial needs'.[9]
The writer of the letter suggested that we should instead try to go
out and find the average woman, meaning a `mother, homemaker, wife,
school volunteer, or factory or office worker'.[10]
The only letter sent by a woman, however, labeled one particular
aspect of report as `enriching', as it is gives an alternative to
the issue she, in her working life, finds `distressing'.[11]
For most gender-conscious women futurists it is obvious that
there is a big discrepancy in the way most people think about future
trends and their alternatives, depending on which gendered interests
they represent. Feminine alternatives are usually labelled as poor
writing, or naive, or without enough substance, or utopian, while
masculinist images, especially techno-maniacal and dystopian, are
usually seen as realistic, far reaching and logical. It is
interesting that especially the darkest images of the future get to
be chosen as `realistic' - somehow, people `take it as axiomatic
that fears are realistic and hopes unrealistic'.[12]
For feminist futurists it is also obvious that the way to the
`future's loo' is all high-tech, making-life-easier, on the
gentlemen's side, and far too difficult, naturalized with thorns and
bushes, on the ladies side.
The domination of the masculinist images of the future has
now reached a new peak. These images are accepted by globalizing
popular media, local and global policy planners or even by many
liberal futurists. They all give priority and attach higher value to
grand historical analyses and issues, and especially concentrate on
discussions where power is going next. And this is where a women
futurists might rather wish to be on the `other side', either among
`average women' or among radical feminist separatist groups. Because
the power in the `next millennia' starting with 21C definitely does
not seem like it is going in the direction of women. Just take the
year 2200 as an example: according to Kurian and Molitor it will be
an era in which women own up to 20% of the world's property (a
dramatic increase from the hardly believable 1% as it is apparently
today).[13]
At the same time, world income received by women will increase from
the current 10% to 40%, which would represent a significant increase
- if it is realized.[14]
Kurian and Molitor, however, do not state on which `facts' they base
their forecasts. In fact, there is an ever increasing gap between
rich and poor, and women are, unfortunately, still the majority of
the world's poor.
Posmodernism and the influence of non-Western feminist have
changed the way we write and think about `women' and destabilized
previous universalistic conception. However, even though we now
accept that the category of `women' is as diverse and different as
category of `men' or `people', since there are certain things we, as
people, all share, there are also certain things we, as women, still
have in common. One of those things is that we (women) all lack the
most important resources for liberating ourselves and the future
from masculinist domination: resources in time and personal energy.
Both time and our energy are shattered over the multiplicity of the
tasks necessary for adjustment and survival within patriarchal
societies. Furthermore, together with many other marginal groups we
lack the initial resources in wealth, education and knowledge,
informal networks and even more importantly the will to engage in
the power battle. Having said all this, I wish to conclude this
section on `realistic' writing about the future, or the writing
which starts `with the trends as they seem to be emerging now, and
then speculate on how they might develop'.[15]
Instead, I will
now further explore women's tradition of thinking about and
influencing the future, and contemplate how the future could be
liberated or de-masculinized.
Women
and the future
At present, the fact is that women are not in charge of the
future. Although being `practicing' futurists'[16]
women do not decide much about the general future, nor are they
expected to. But that was not always so. The importance of looking
in the past, for our efforts in thinking about and creating of the
future, can be summarized in a famous sentence by Kenneth Boulding:
if it exist, it is possible.[17]
So even if present trends do not promise much to girls and women of
the future, our own ability to also create the future certainly
gives us more hope.
The
past
The evidence of women's one time importance when it comes to
understanding and creating the future can be easily found in the
realm of old and long memories - those expressed in Slav, Greek,
Roman, Nordic, Saxon or Indian mythology.
In my own, Slav tradition, there are stories of so called sudjenice
(from serbo-croatian word for destiny: sudbina)
which are represented as three women in charge of deciding
everyone's personal destiny. They are also known as sudjaje,
rodjenice, or rozanice.[18]
They arrive when the child is born and decide every particular
aspect of her/his future life. Their will can not be changed, but
people can try to please them and in that way increase the chances
of a positive outcome.
In the Greek tradition, they are The Fates, or Moirae
(`cutters-off', `allotters'), which personify the inescapable
destiny of man. Clotho,
the spinner, spins the thread at the beginning of one's life; Atropos,
the measurer, weaves thread into the fabric of one's actions; and Lachesis,
cutter, snips thread at the conclusion of one's life.[19]
The process is absolutely unalterable, and gods as well as women and
men have had to submit to it.[20]
As goddesses of fate, the Moirae
`necessarily knew the future and therefore were regarded as
prophetic deities: thus their ministers were all the soothsayers and
oracles'.[21]
The Roman equivalent were Fortunae,
or (apparently in the medieval period) three Parcae
(`those who bring forth the child'): Nona,
Decuma and Morta.
Most religious traditions call the Fates `weavers' and latin word destino
means that which is woven. [22]
In the Nordic tradition they are called Norns. There are also
three Norns: Urd,
representing fate, Verdandi,
representing being, and Skuld,
representing necessity. Three Norns could change into swans for ease
of travel but they could have been usually found near the roots of
the ash tree Yggdrasil.
Yggdrasil had tree huge roots: one stretched to the underground
spring of Urd (earth); the second reached to the well of Mimir, the
well which was the source of all wisdom; and, the third went to
Niflheim, the underworld presided over by the goddess Hel.[23]
Each one of three Norns knows and is accredited with a
particular province: Urd knows the past, Verdandi the present, and
Skuld the future. In fact, it seems that the only deity which was
especially in charge of the future, is not a deity, but a deitess,
Skuld. According to Barbara Walker all of Scandinavia and also
Scotland was named after her, Skuld, or `as Saxons called her, Skadi'.[24]
The Saxon Weird
sisters also represented the past, present, and future: become,
becoming, and shall be.[25]
It seems that Norns and their equivalents were based on the great
Indo-European Goddess as Creator, Preserver and Destroyer and are in
some ways close to the Indian goddess Kali.[26]
Kali also symbolizes `eternal time and hence she both gives
life and destroys it'.[27]
Mother Kali continually ruled the Wheel of Time (Kalacakra),
where all the life-breath of the world was fixed.[28]
In most archaic traditions, `the deciding of men's fates was
a function of the Goddess'.[29]
Goddesses were also often creators of the universe: for
example, in Sumerian cosmogony the ultimate origin of all things was
the primeval sea personified as the goddess Nammu
- the goddess who gave birth to the male sky god, An,
and the female earth goddess, Ki.[30]
Past
and present
In patriarchal times the Fates became `witches':
Shakespeare's three witches were called Weird
Sisters (adapted from Saxon tradition).[31]
The Christian church appropriated this ancient beliefs and
transformed the trinity of She-Who-Was, She-Who-Is, and She-Who-Will
Be into its holy trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.[32]
As God became male so did time, so did the future. Men
decided which parts of our past tradition deserved to be recorded[33]
and passed onto future generations; they decided which direction we
should choose next. From many secret symbols which celebrated the
power of women and female principles, the symbol of Venus
(representing love and sexuality) was chosen for women. If we try to
deconstruct this symbol we can see that its essence is in the cross
below, the cross which, especially if surrounded with the circle,
has traditionally been the symbol for the Earth. Men's symbol, the
sign of Mars (god of war) has its essence in the arrow: a symbol
often viewed as a phallic symbol, as a weapon of war. In the male
symbol the arrow is pointed towards the upright direction, which is
not surprisingly also how we draw trends and movements toward the
future. The present understanding of women is in their role as
conservers, deeply rooted in the ground, with their essence in the
body. Men are the ones who transcend their mind, and are in charge
of the future, as they are the ones who bring about political
changes and preach radically new prophecies.
I said it is not surprising that we draw future trends in the
same way we draw the symbol for God of war as this is exactly the
direction we are heading toward. Each year we face more and more
people being killed, especially civilians in wars between countries,
and in wars on the streets. We are fighting against `mother Nature'
and against our own, inevitably animal bodies. Our most popular
images of the future are the ones of war games, of the future with
ever more powerful weapons and ever more powerful enemies. Conquest
in the future is as important as the conquest now, and it is both
the ultimate conquest of old enemies and battle for life and death
with new ones (aliens, cyborgs, mutants, androgynes). This has
resulted in the sad fact that, according to the recent UNESCO study,
the killer robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the
`Terminator', `was the most popular character among the world's
children'.[34]
The survey, which was billed as the first worldwide study of
violence in the media, said 88 percent of children around the world
knew Terminator, who was `a global icon' and that more than half the
children - raised in environments of violence - wanted to be like
him.[35]
Recent
present and the future
Such an idiotic obsession with death, killing and
self-destruction has had the impact of awakening worshipers of
peace, nature and tranquility. If Raine Eisler is right, time is
right for yet another shift in the power battle between the female
and the male principle. Women, say Aburdene and Naisbitt, have
lately evolved `into a more complex state of wholeness',
successfully absorbing positive masculine traits, and will lead the
way to the future.[36]
As a part of this process many feminists have tried to revive
the Goddess as a symbol of this power shift. The reason behind the
Goddess reawakening is empowerment: as `long as people visualize God
as male, women are diminished and inferior'.[37]
But this time it might be much more difficult for the Goddess
to express its female principle. For postmodernists, essence as
`women' (or female) and `men' (or male) does not exist as such any
more. In fact there are hardly any criteria left which would suffice
to describe two different and opposite genders. Criteria like
appearance can be challenged by transdressers and transvestites.
Sexual orientation has always been problematic as a criterion since
homosexuality among humans has (probably) always been present.
Thanks to modern medical science, the natural characteristics of the
sexes can be transformed and changed, women becoming men and vice
versa. Woman (or man) as a social category is also problematic since
any universalist statement about woman (man) can be questioned from
the position of epistemological (and group) minorities and different
perspectives. The Reawakened Goddess of the Future will have to work
rather in a context of future multiple-gender diversities then in
the context of traditional female-male polarity.
But this is not the only challenge the awakened Goddess is
facing. She ruled in the societies which belong to a totally
different historical context. The renewed symbols of Goddesses are
also symbols which make much more sense within the context of
agricultural societies. The cyclical understanding of time,
reclaimed as women's, as opposed to a linear patriarchal one, has
probably resulted from observations about cyclical changes within
nature - observations obviously extremely important for agricultural
societies. It is difficult to revive the ancient cults of earth and
goddess worship in times when less and less women live by the
dictums of their own natural cycles, where enormous number of
world's women live in cities, and where reproduction within women's
bodies might soon become obsolete -
several
thousands years of masculinist rites and gods notwithstanding. Donna
Haraway senses this change while declaring she would rather be a
cyborg then a goddess.[38]
And our own Norn Skuld does not sit under the secret ash tree
any more, but in front of the computer, with her sister Urd.[39]
While surfing the Net we can visit `The Sacred Shrine of Skuld-sama'
where we are welcomed to an information resource and place of
worship dedicated to Skuld, the technologically-minded young Goddess
from 'Aa! Megamisama'. The Skuld of Today is 12 Earth years old, 150
cm tall, with brown eyes and black hair, while her vital
measurements are se-cr-et! She is a second class goddess with
limited license. Her domain is still the future but her travel
medium these days is water. We are also informed that she likes her
older sister Belldandy. And 131's Ice cream. Besides eating ice
cream her favorite activity is to build all sorts of mechanical
devices. Her best inventions include Banpei-kun, the anti-Marller
defense robot and Skuld's Own Debugging Machine, a modified rice
cooker that specializes in catching bugs in a manner similar to the
Ghostbusters' Ghost Trap. She is still a very strong-willed girls
displaying sometimes fiery temper, and is in charge of `debugging'
the Yggdrasil mainframe up in the Heavens, as well as the occasional
bug that appears on the Surface. She has her own Image, Music and
Sound, Literature, and Movie World Library, her own Desktop Themes (Skuld
backdrops, cursors, a game, and more!) and, of course, her own
Mailing List.
Women
as practicing futurists
However, it is not only in the distant past or in the
emerging future that women thought and think about or tried and try
to influence the future. Even during the peak of the patriarchy
there are some individual women who were trying to change gender
relationships. At least, women have always been `practicing
futurists'. And they have always been active within the grass-root
movements. At the same time though, women did not and do not decide
much about the general future. Women's encounter with the future is
reserved for us in order to better care for future generations and
present households. Therefore women have to know something about the
future, but not too much. They should organize local networks to
support global political and economical processes, but should not
intervene within the essence of the latter. Even old and traditional
women's activities directed towards influencing the future (through
their role of witches or fates) were primarily local, personal,
family and community-oriented.
The feminist dictum of the personal being political suddenly
gave us the legitimation to bringing what has always been extremely
important to us (personal relationships, family, community) into the
societal level. For example, the issue of violence against women is
less and less considered as a private matter, an event which happens
and should remain behind the closed door. Rather, it is seen as a
global issue: and the actions in prevention and reduction of
violence are therefore being conducted at the world level as well.
The legitimization of `women's issues' have created the
opportunity for many women futurists to write about not only local
but also global futures directions. Many are envisioning radically
different future societies and suggesting feminist (or women's)
alternatives to patriarchy. Their images can easily been labelled as
utopian: for example, Boulding's vision of gentle/androgynous
society or Eisler's partnership model/gylany. However, the images
brought to us by the work of Boulding, Eisler and feminist fiction
writers, utopian or feasible, are extremely important for the de-masculization
of the future. Because what we can imagine, we can create.
Elise
Boulding, Raine Eisler and feminist utopias
Elise Boulding's image of the `gentle society' is an image of
a society situated within decentralist (and demilitarized) but yet
still interconnected and interdependent world.[40]
The creators of the gentle society will be androgynous human beings
(she brings examples from history in the images of Jesus, Buddha and
Shiva), people who combine qualities of gentleness and assertiveness
in ways that fit neither the typical male nor the typical female
roles. The coming of the gentle society will, according to Boulding,
happen through three main leverage points: family, early-childhood
school setting (nursery school and early elementary school) and
through community. Boulding believes that both women fiction writers
and `ordinary' women imagine and work in a direction of creating a
more localized society, where technology will be used in a
sophisticated and careful way to ensure humanized, interactive,
nurturant and nonbureaucratic societies. Through women's triple role
of breeder-feeder-producer women can bring radically different
imaging and are therefore crucial for the creation of more
sustainable and peaceful world.
For Raine Eisler - in our nuclear/electronic/biochemical age
- transformation towards a partnership society is absolutely crucial
for the survival of our species.[41]
Since today, due to many technological changes, our species'
possess technologies as powerful as the processes of nature, if we
do not wish to destroy all life on this planet we have to change the
dominator (patriarchal) cultural cognitive maps. In gylany
(as opposed to androcracy) linking instead of ranking is the primary
organization principle. It lacks institutionalization and
idealization of violence and stereotypes of masculinity and
femininity. More equal partnerships exist between women and men in
both the so-called private and public spheres and there is a more
generally democratic political and economic structure. She also
envisions gylany as society in which stereotypical `feminine' values
can be fully integrated into the operational system of social
guidance.
Boulding's and Eisler's imaging of future societies
corresponds in many ways to feminist fictions writings. It also
corresponds to most grass-roots women's activities and to women's
involvement within the peace or green social movements. For
Boulding, education is one of the most important social
institutions, crucial for our future. Similarly, in most feminist
utopias, education and motherhood are not only extremely respected,
sometimes they are the main purpose for the existence of the utopian
society in question. There are also some other common themes in
feminist utopias: future societies tend to live in `peace' with
nature and have some sort of sustainable growth; they are generally
less violent than present ones; families seldom take a nuclear form
but are more extended (often including relatives and friends);
communal life is highly valued; societies are rarely totalitarian;
oppressive and omnipotent governmental and bureaucratic control is
usually absent, while imagined societies tend to be either
`anarchical' or communally managed.[42]
On the other hand, the masculinist colonization of the future
brings about images of the totalitarian futures societies, societies
with some sort of feudal social organization, and the ones in which
the `progress' is defined in terms of technological developments.
Feminist writings about the future might be `naive' or too utopian
but mainstream images are rather evil and dangerous. Some of the
elements within feminist imaging of the future are rather
reminiscence to the times when gender relationships were more equal
- in past agricultural and matrilocal societies. But even with all
the recent technological developments there is nothing in the world
(except our patriarchal cultural cognitive maps) to prevent us from
giving priority to education and parenting instead of to the
corporate and military sector. We can use new technologies rather to
repair environmental damage then to keep on increasing it. We can
use them to improve health and happiness of future generations
rather then to steal the future from them. New technologies can also
help create the system of direct democracy or connections between
World Government and local communities. The Net can enable equal
access to social groups previously discriminated because of their
dis/ability, gender or race. It can help celebrate, understand and
learn about diversity, difference and `the other' rather then making
our songs unison.
The
De-masculization of the futures studies
If futures studies were to adopt the work within `feminine'
guiding principles they would most likely put priorities on the
futures of education, parenting, community, relationships or health
- the real grand issues! The method most commonly used would not be
forecasting or trend analyses but rather backcasting - and the work
with most disadvantaged groups in order to empower them. Futures
research would always have gender differences in mind, from deciding
which problems are going to be investigated, to research design,
collection and interpretation of data. Futures research would not
only acknowledge the pervasive influence of gender but would also be
concerned with its ethical implications. [43]
Sometimes it is quite easy to make necessary changes. For
example, the sentence `A host of new fertility treatments now enable
barren women to have a much-wanted child'[44]
should read `A host of new fertility treatments now enable childless
couples to have a much-wanted child'. First is the language of the
patriarchy, where it was always women who were blamed for the lack
of children in the marriage and where the responsibility for child
bearing and rearing was solely women's. The second sentence is more
in accordance to present knowledge in medicine about causes and
reasons behind infertility - men's inability to father the child
being equally the cause of the problem. It is also the language of
potentially emerging egalitarian relationships between genders and
societies where parenting and education of children are going to be
respected more -both by men and by general society.
The de-masculization of the future and futures studies seems
very radical and most likely it will be a rather slow and difficult
process. But the change needed is no more radical then the change
which transformed Weird Sisters into witches, triple Goddess into
Holy Trinity, and Verdandi into Belldandy. The emerging change might
be utopian, but it is possible.
Ivana
Milojevic, c/o Communication Centre, QUT, PO BOX 2434, Brisbane, Qld
4001
Ivana
Milojevic, born in 1967. in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, now temporarily
lives in Brisbane, Australia. Her interest and research are in the
area of women's studies, future's studies and sociology. She has
several articles on issues dealing with gender and the future,
including `Learning from Feminist Futures' in David Hicks and Rick
Slaughter, (eds), 1998 World
Yearbook For Education, Kogan Page, London; and `Towards a
Knowledge Base for Feminist Futures Studies', in Rick Slaughter
(ed), The Knowledge Base of
Futures Studies, Vol. 3. DDM, Melbourne, 1996.
[1].
Zia Sardar, `The Problem', Seminar
460, December 1997, pp. 12-19; Sohail Inayatullah, `Listening to
Non-Western Perspectives', in David Hicks and Richard Slaughter
(eds), World Yearbook of
Education 1998. Kogan Page, London, 1998, pp. 55-69.
[2].
The Futurist, 31(3),
May-June 1997, pp. 27-39.
[3].
The Futurist, 30(3),
May-June 1996, pp. 34-38.
[4].
The Futurist, 30(5),
September-October 1996, p. 59.
[6].
The Futurist, 31(3),
May-June 1997, pp. 27-39.
[7].
The Futurist, 31(5),
September-October 1997, p.2.
[12].
Elise Boulding, Kenneth E. Boulding, The
Future: Images and Processes, Sage Publications, Thousand
Oaks, 1995, p.100.
[13].
George Kurian, Molitor Graham T T, Encyclopedia
of the Future, Simon & Schuster Macmillan, New York, 1996,
p. 400.
[15].
The Futurist, 31(5),
September-October 1997, p.2.
[16].
Elise Boulding, The
Underside of History: A View of Women through Time, Westview
Press, Boulder, 1976, p. 781.
[17].
Elise Boulding, Kenneth E. Boulding, The
Future: Images and Processes.
[18].
Also narancnici, orisnice
(Bulgarian) or sudicki (Czech).
Spasoje Vasiljev, Slovenska
mitologija, (Slav mythology), Velvet, Beograd, 1996; Dusan
Bandic, Narodna Religija
Srba u 100 pojmova, (100 Notions in Serbian Folk Religion),
Nolit, Beograd, 1991.
[19].
Robert E. Bell, Women of
Classical Mythology, Oxford University Press, New York, p.
310; Michael Grant and John Hazel, Gods
and Mortals in Classical Mythology, G.& C. Merriam
Company, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1973, p. 175. Due to my
`broken' English I was surprised not to be able to find in these
books any reference from ancient Nordic or Indian Civilization (I
was not surprised there was no reference from Slav tradition as
our tradition rarely gets mentioned). Then I saw a book on non-
classical mythology and thought: `How interesting, what
contemporary mythology might be?'. My biggest surprise was
that I saw references on classic and ancient Indian, Chinese,
Nordic, even a little bit on Slav mythology. Only then I realized
that only mythology from Greece and Rome deserves the name and the
category of classic.
[22].
Barbara G. Walker, The
Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, Harper &
Row, San Francisco, 1988, p. 158.
[27].
Margaret and James Stutley, Harper's
Dictionary of Hinduism, Harper & Row, New York, 1977, p.
137.
[28].
Barbara Walker, Ibid., p. 16.
[30].Roy
Willis, World Mythology,
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1993, p. 62.
[31].
Barbara Walker, ibid., p. 43.
[33].
One example is previously mentioned World
Mythology, by Roy Willis. Although the author states that `the
goddesses of Egyptian mythology are often more formidable than the
male deities' (p. 50) he does not allow them nearly as much space.
He also dedicates the special session on `Powerful Goddesses'
(according to the tradition of `Women Question') only after many
pages of description of male Gods.
[34].
The Courier-mail, Brisbane, Saturday, February 21, 1998, p.29.
[36].
Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt, Megatrends
for Women, Villard Books,
New York, 1992, p. 262.
[37].
Ibid., p. 244.
[38].
Donna Haraway, `A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and
Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,' in Simians,
Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New
York, 1991, p. 181.
[39].
http:/www.auburn.edu/-weissas/shrine
[40].
Elise Boulding, The
Underside of History: A View of Women through Time, Westview
Press, Boulder, 1976; Elise Boulding, Women:
The Fifth World, Foreign Policy Association, Headline series,
1980; Elise Boulding, Building
a Global Civil Culture: Education for an Interdependent World,
Teachers College Press, New York, 1988; Elise Boulding, Women
in the Twentieth Century World, Sage Publications, New York,
1977.
[41].
Riane Eisler, The Chalice
and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, HarperCollins
Publishers, San Francisco, 1987; Riane Eisler, Sacred
Pleasure, HarperCollins Publishers, San Francisco, 1996; Riane
Eisler, `Cultural Shifts and Technological Phase Changes: The
Patterns of History, The Subtext of Gender, and the Choices for
Our Future', in Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah (eds.), Macrohistory
and Macrohistorians, Praeger, New York, 1997.
[42].
Francis Bartkowski, Feminist
Utopias, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebr,. 1989;
Debra Halbert, `Feminist Fabulation: Challenging the Boundaries of
Fact and Fiction', in The
Manoa Journal of Fried and Half-Fried Ideas, Hawaii Research
Center for Futures Studies, Honolulu, 1994.
[43].
Judith A Cook and Mary Margaret Fonow, `Knowledge and women's
interests: Issues of epistemology and methodology in feminist
sociological research", in Joyce McCarl Nielsen (ed.), Feminist
Research Methods, Boulder, San Francisco, 1990.
[44].
Seminar, 460, December
1997, p. 13.