As well as possibly a leeetle wrong-headed.
Check this out:
Furthermore, in her discussion of Cassandra and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s engagement with the Gravesian notion of prehistoric matriarchies being swept away by (much less pleasant, of course) patriarchal social order, Steinmeyer neglected to contextualise the historicity of the matriarchy hypothesis – that, inter alia, whether prehistory had matriarchal or patriarchal societies isn’t a question that can definitively be answered, that all claims about social order and social power in prehistory are contingent ones – and left one rather with the impression that she felt prehistoric matriarchy was a Real Thing with Real Evidence supporting it.
Wow, did you get that? The “Gravesian notion of prehistoric matriarchies” and all?
This is Liz Bourke pointing out, with some justice, some provoking paper presentations the recent SF Classics Conference in Liverpool. Good times, good times. Glad I wasn’t sitting through those papers.
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Is there something in the air? A friend of mine was recently bending my ear about someone she knows who is working on stuff based on Riane Eisler’s work – and how wonderful it was. I was polite partly because it had been years since I read and chortled at THE CHALICE & THE BLADE. It’s all more of the prehistoric matriarchy swept away by the mean patriarchies…
I’d hoped all that was swept into the dustbin where it seems to belong. Liz was much politer than I would have been to Steinmeyer.