''The First Sex'' is a 1971 book by the American librarian

Elizabeth Gould Davis Elizabeth Gould Davis (June 23, 1910 – July 30, 1974) was an American librarian who wrote a feminist book called '' The First Sex''. Early life and education Davis was born in Leavenworth, Kansas to Colonel Robert Davis and Edwina Bailey McCa ...

, considered part of the

second wave of feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...

. In the book, Gould Davis aimed to show that early human society consisted of

matriarchal Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property. While those definitions apply in general E ...

"queendoms" based around worship of the "

Great Goddess Great Goddess is the concept of an almighty goddess or mother goddess, or a matriarchal religion. Apart from various specific figures called this from various cultures, the Great Goddess hypothesis, is a postulated fertility goddess supposed to h ...

", and characterised by pacifism and democracy. Gould Davis argued that the early matriarchal societies attained a high level of

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...

, which was largely wiped out as a result of the "patriarchal revolution". She asserted that

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

introduced a new system of society, based on

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically ...

rather than human rights, and worshipping a stern and vengeful male

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

instead of the caring and nurturing

Mother Goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or th ...

. These views of Gould Davis on a Great Goddess predominating in

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

Europe and the

Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

are similar to those made by a number of writers in the early and mid 20th-century, including

Eric Neumann Erich Neumann ( he, אריך נוימן; 23 January 1905 – 5 November 1960) was a German psychologist, philosopher, writer, and student of Carl Jung. Career Neumann was born in Berlin to a Jewish family. He received his PhD in Philosophy from ...

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. In his best-known book, ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' ...

Merlin Stone Merlin Stone (born Marilyn Jacobson, September 27, 1931 – February 23, 2011) was an American author, artist and academic. She was an important thinker of the feminist theology and Goddess movements and is known for her book ''When God Was a ...

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis, ...

, J. J. Bachofen, Walter Burket, James Mellart,

Robert Briffault Robert Stephen Briffault (, 1874 – 11 December 1948) was a French surgeon who found fame as a social anthropologist and later in life as a novelist. Biography Briffault was born in either France or London,easel words a number of writers have continued to develop the themes that Gould Davis originated.

Synopsis

The "Gynecocratic" World

In the first part of ''The First Sex'', Gould Davis used evidence from archaeology and anthropology to support a theory of matriarchal prehistory. The chapters in this section of the book focus on individual parts of the evidence for peaceful matriarchal queendoms: three are titled "Mythology Speaks", "Anthropology Speaks" and "Archaeology Speaks". Gould Davis said that the "loss of paradise" when the "Great Goddess" was replaced by a vengeful male deity is the theme of all surviving

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

. She argued that evidence from the Neolithic site at

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...

showed there to be no wars or even violent death, and that even physical injury to animals may not have been permissible there. She pointed to other parts of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

in which female tombs are preserved more carefully than male ones, and took this to be evidence of female primacy. In "Anthropology Speaks", Gould Davis focused on taboos, chiefly

incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...

, and aimed to show how taboos against brother-sister relationships acted to protect women against violent men. She also argued that

menstrual blood Menstruation (also known as a period, among other colloquial terms) is the regular discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from the inner lining of the uterus through the vagina. The menstrual cycle is characterized by the rise and fall of horm ...

was originally sacred rather than polluting or "unclean", and that only when people began to eat meat did men become bigger than women, because of selection of weak women by men.

The Patriarchal Revolution

In this section of the book, Gould Davis examined how mythology and society changed as a result of a suggested violent conversion from matriarchy to patriarchy. Her theory proposed that patriarchal revolution resulted from the violent invasion of nomadic tribes who were warlike and destructive, overrunning the peaceful, egalitarian matriarchies. These nomads (

Semites Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

) are argued to have never achieved a civilization of their own, but only to have destroyed or taken over older ones. Gould Davis asserted that many tales in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

were actually rewritings of older stories, with goddesses changed to male actors, or a goddess raped or overthrown and her powers usurped by the new father deity. This, she suggested, was part of a concerted effort to wipe out all evidence of female authority. Because the violent invaders wished to establish the a patrilineal system of inheritance, rigorous control of women's sexuality became paramount. Thus, women's right to sexual pleasure was redefined as sinful, and virginity was conceived of as a property right of a woman's father or husband. Gould Davis discussed

female circumcision Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found ...

as a means to protect the virginity of women and assure clear lines of paternity. This practice is described in the book in graphic detail, as performed with unsterilized instruments, without

anaesthesia Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), am ...

(conditions pertaining to all surgical practices before the nineteenth century).

Pre-Christian Women in the Celtic-Ionian World

In this part of the book, Gould Davis focused on the role of women in the ancient civilizations of

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

and

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. Th ...

. Her research suggested to her that, as in her model of prehistoric civilization, women were the primary powers. The book saw the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations as remnants of the ancient pre-Christian Celtic culture, which Gould Davis also believed to have granted women a great deal of power. She claimed, for example, that the monarchy was matrilineal, and that most of the tribal chiefs were women rather than men. Gould Davis claimed that Greek women possessed rights that are presently denied by the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

, and conservative

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

churches, such as the rights to

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

and

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

. She cited many well-known historians to support these claims. She also argued that women participated in almost all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman society, including government, learning and sport. In the following chapter, "The Celts", she argued that similar rights prevailed until the collapse of the Roman Empire, for a matrilineal system of monarchical descent, and for

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

women being the major preservers of learning during the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

The Tragedy of Western Women

The final part of ''The First Sex'' focused on the period since

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

became the state religion of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

in 313 A.D. Gould Davis aimed with this part of the book to show how Semitic myths of male supremacy were preached by the early

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...

to a Pagan people who would not believe them and did not take them seriously until

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given na ...

became emperor. Gould Davis believed that the writings of

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

were used by the Church to justify violence against women, leading throughout the Middle Ages to a level of cruelty and barbarity unheard of in previous ages. Gould Davis believed that once Christianity had attained civil power, the demotion of women and the "terrible materialism that marks and mars our present civilization" were inevitable. She argued that the influence of

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

as a "Goddess" grew as the violent imposition of Christianity erased the ancient Goddess religion. Quoting

Jules Michelet Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism. In Michelet's ...

, Gould Davis argued that women by the fifteenth century were treated so badly by men of all social classes that they were seen as "worse than beasts". The Church, she said, approved of this domestic violence, and brutality to women extended beyond families to the priesthood, who cited the Bible to justify themselves. In Gould Davis's view, the status of women was only improved briefly by the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and a flowering of learned women during the sixteenth century. Afterward,

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

ism's witch-hunts and a strengthened

papacy The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

placed women back in the same level of submission, and women were tortured and studied in the most prurient manner for "witch marks". Millions of people, she said, most of whom were women, died by burning, drowning, hanging, or from torture during the Catholic and Protestant

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

s. In Gould Davis's view, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked the first time Western women accepted their own inferiority, and before

Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft (, ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationsh ...

nobody spoke up for them. Gould Davis made a special effort to show how the ''minds'' of women were subjugated during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In the last part of ''The First Sex'', Gould Davis attempted to show the beliefs used to subordinate women to be myths, contending that in reality women are ''stronger'', and physically, mentally, and morally more than equal to men; and that the survival of humanity depends on the restoration of women to their former position as rulers of society. Gould Davis argued that patriarchal civilization is destroying itself, and that only the values of the "matriarchates" can save humanity, because a society based on the mechanistic, Cartesian duality of dominant and violent males leads inevitably to a focus on technology and gadgetry rather than on loving human relationships.

Advocacy for future matriarchy

Gould Davis called for "the matriarchal counterrevolution that is the only hope for the survival of the human race" and opined that "spiritual force",Davis, Elizabeth Gould, ''The First Sex'' (G.P. Putnam's Sons), ''op. cit.'', p. 339. " ntal and spiritual gifts", and " trasensory perception" will be more important than "physical force", "gifts of a physical nature", and "sensory perception", respectively, so that "woman will again predominate" and that "the next civilization will ... revolve about" divine woman", as it had in the past that she asserted. According to critic Ginette Castro, Gould Davis proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism"Castro, Ginette, trans. Elizabeth Loverde-Bagwell, ''American Feminism: A Contemporary History'' (N.Y.: N.Y. Univ. Press, 1990 ()), p. 36 and see pp. 26, 27, 32–36, & 42 (trans. from ''Radioscopie du féminisme américain'' (Paris, France: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1984) (French)) (author prof. Eng. lang. & culture, Univ. of Bordeaux III, France). and seemed to support "a feminist counterattack stigmatizing the patriarchal present",Castro, Ginette, ''American Feminism'', ''op. cit.'', p. 35. "giv ng... in to a revenge-seeking form of feminism", "build ng... her case on the humiliation of men", and "asserti g... a specifically feminine nature ... smorally superior." Castro criticized the essentialism and the assertion of superiority as "sexist" and "treason".

Influence and criticism

Since its publication, there has been criticism of ''The First Sex''. In ''Goddess Unmasked'', Phillip Davis argued that the assertions by Gould Davis and

are severely distorted at best, that serious study of artifacts in Europe and

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

does not support the idea of a peaceful matriarchy, and that there is no evidence for a female monotheism of the type advocated by Gould Davis. Similarly, in her 2000 book ''

The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory ''The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future'' is a 2000 book by Cynthia Eller that seeks to deconstruct the theory of a prehistoric matriarchy. This hypothesis, she says, developed in 19th century schol ...

'', Cynthia Eller attempted to show that, not only is Gould Davis's theory of prehistoric matriarchal queendoms unsupported by archaeological evidence, but even if it were true, it would not give women any more hope for a just and equal future, simply because replicating the ancient past in today's world is not feasible. She did, however, accept the notion that some Neolithic and Bronze-Age societies centered around female deities: "Certainly we are aware of numerous cross-cultural instances of goddess worship accompanied by widespread use of … emalefigurines, so this is one of the most likely explanations of the Neolithic figurine assemblages." Continuing, she wrote, "Especially persuasive is the fact that goddess figurines — and larger-scale goddess images as well — exist in later cultures in the same geographic area" as the prehistoric figurines (p. 139). In a partially sympathetic review, Ginette Castro wrote, "For this obscure librarian from Florida, myth is historically true" . . . "Elizabeth Gould Davis's historical reconstruction depends a great deal on drawing morals from the tale, and is filled with numerous, glaring extrapolations. However, the argument is so skillfully and ingeniously woven that the woman reader cannot help but be swayed." "Although it is difficult to grant the book any immediate practical value, it must be recognized that it has a cultural interest, that of exposing the sexual substrata of our culture." Other writers with a feminist orientation have, however, reviewed the book more harshly. Kay L. Cothran, in the ''Journal of American Folklore'', wrote, "the book is an example of folklore misapplied" . . . "The problem of evidence runs throughout the book, which is heavily footnoted and jammed with quotations. The difference between citations and evidence has not impressed itself upon

ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد‎ (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames. Notable p ...

Davis. Her notes come from a librarian's search, not a scholar's research. For

Davis, a reliable source is one that agrees with her; one that disagrees is a part of the conspiracy." "So the kindest thing one can say for

Davis' folkloristic and general scholarly competence is that it does not exist. It is unfortunate that she buries some sound information under such piles of rubbish." In a similar vein, Amy Hackett and Sarah Pomeroy, in ''

Feminist Studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppressi ...

'', wrote, "Unfortunately, ''The First Sex'' is a bad book, as we shall demonstrate. Yet it deserves more than a perfunctory dismissal." "The book's extravagant disorganization makes the job of summarizing nearly impossible." "It typifies

Davis's method that her 'historical' chapters reflect an inverse relationship between what available sources, documents, statistics, and the like allow us to know about women in a given period and the space she devotes to that period. Some excellent sources do exist for women's history, but

Davis prefers to rely on the obscure, idiosyncratic, and piquant, ignoring more substantive sources." . . . "until historians reject old-fashioned science and opt for intuition,

Davis's brand of history will be unacceptable."Amy Hackett and Sarah Pomeroy (1972), ''Review: Making History: "The First Sex"'', Feminist Studies 1:97-108. According to Castro, the book "undeniably" encouraged women to study their history.