Myth and misogyny: how male representations of the female form have changed the way women are viewed

In the beginning was woman. The oldest representation of a human we have – the 40,000-year-old “Venus” of Hohle Fels – is an exaggeratedly fertile woman, the first in a series of Paleolithic statues emphasising breasts, broad hips and the vulva. In the earliest stories, the Earth was female and humanity was created by women, from the Chinese creator goddess Nüwa to the Colombian Kagaba “Mother Creator”. But soon, male creators muscled in. Nüwa became the sister or wife of male creator Fuxi, while in North American stories, an Old Man creator appeared, sitting on the female Earth. “He’s trying to pluck little bits from her, and then he decides to make them alive,” explains Mineke Schipper, gesturing excitedly over Zoom. Schipper is the author of The Shrinking Goddess, a fascinating and enraging account of how the female body has been viewed and treated – essentially, minimised and feared – in myths, legends and spiritual texts from around the world and throughout history.

“When you are comparing more and more of these stories, you see something striking, and that is the independent female creator is gradually becoming the god’s wife,” Schipper says. “Even if God is invisible and no one knows what he looks like, he’s addressed as He, as a father.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/25/myth-and-misogyny-how-male-representations-of-the-female-form-have-changed-the-way-women-are-viewed#img-5


This is interesting to learn about the evolving views of women and men over thousands of years.