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Objective:
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To improve students’ interpretive reading and verbal skills through discussion of specific questions.
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Methods:
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1. Class has been assigned the reading of ‘Atalanta’s Race‘ for homework and instructed to take notes.
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2. Each student must present a list of notes and questions about the selection and is given credit.
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3. Teacher has a double-circle seating chart and seating arrangement prepared .
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4. The class is divided into two groups:
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a. 12 students to take part in the initial discussion
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b. 12 or more students for the outer circle who are responsible for resolution; unprepared students sit here.
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5. All students have the Myth Maker text open for reference.
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6. Teacher begins the discussion by reading the first interpretive question and calling on one student to answer.
Interpretive Questions:
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a. Why does Atalanta wish that Hippomenes would not challenge her to a race?
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b. Which god might be ‘envious of young men‘ and want to destroy Hippomenes?
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c. Why does the author have Atalanta lose the race?
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d. Why did the author have the lovers changed into lions?
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e. What is the author saying about dominance or submission in a love relationship?
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7. Teacher asks the same student to support his or her answer from the text.
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8. Teacher asks another student to answer the same question and to give support for the answer.
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9. Other students are asked to agree or disagree.
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10. Teacher controls the flow of the discussion by asking factual or evaluative follow-up questions:
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Factual Questions:
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a. What does the oracle tell Atalanta about marriage?X
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b. What were Atalanta’s conditions for racing with men?
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c. What made men want to race Atalanta?
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d. What convinced Hippomenes to race Atalanta?
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e. Whom does Hippomenes ask for help in his racer
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Evaluative Questions:
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a. How do you think Atalanta became such a good runner?
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b. Would you have taken the risk that the male runners did?
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c. Would you have stopped to pick up the apples during the race?
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d. If you were Venus or Cybele, how would you have punished Atalanta and Hippomenes?
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e. Do you think that love makes people act in a certain way?
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11. Teacher decides to start resolution with the repetition of points already discussed or with fifteen minutes left in the period.
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12. Teacher repeats the original interpretive question and asks students in the outer circle to respond with answers given by the inner circle group.
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13. Teacher summarizes all responses collected from students by reading them back to the class. Teacher adds any responses that he or she has noted which the outer group omitted.
Matriarchy Research
After reading the Greek myths and discussing gods and heroes as representatives of the dominating sex in a patriarchy, we will examine the concept of matriarchy, a female dominated society. In order to counterbalance the negative concepts of women in Greek myth, I will introduce information which suggests the existence of a world-wide matriarchy before the Bronze Age(approx. 3000-1000 B.C.), prior to the introduction of Zeus in Greek mythology. I will accomplish this through lecture and the distribution of fact sheets, map work, and vocabulary lists. Other types of activities will include readings from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
and Hesiod’s
Theogony
which highlight mortals and divinities who represent qualities and characteristics of the Great Mother, the goddess of the matriarchy( The Greek legends containing references to Amazon cultures and warriors will be used as mythical evidence of the existence of the remnants of this matriarchy during early Greek history. These Amazon women do not adhere to the stereotypes of femininity established in Greek society and represent a mirror image of the Greek hero. I will use the reference to Penthesilea, the Amazon warrior killed by Achilles in the battle of Troy, in the Epic Cycle. I will also refer to legends containing Omphale and Hercules, and Hippolyta and Antiope versus Hercules and Theseus.
In discussing the matriarchal concept of woman in comparison to that shown by Greek myth, we will investigate the role of advertising in perpetuating the negative and repressive stereotypes which stem from mythological archetypes. By using selections from
Metamorphosis
and
Theogony
, I will establish the sources of these stereotypes and suggest that rape and abuse of women are also archetypal descendants from ancient myth.
The following paragraphs briefly summarize my research of matriarchy and serve as background information. I will preface this section by saying that, although the mythical and archeological evidence of the existence of a world-wide, original matriarchy is vast and extensively documented, it remains a highly controversial topic. Any attempt at a ‘final word‘ on the topic can, at best, be the subjective interpretation of the researcher since the real evidence is buried in prehistoric times.
Helen Diner, in
Mothers and Amazons
, bases her ‘first feminine history of culture‘ on the research and theories of Johann Jacob Bachofen, a Swiss anthropologist, contained in
Motherright
, published in 1861. According to Bachofen, there was a three-step process in human sociological evolution concerning the dominance of sex. The first stage could be personified by the Greek deities of Aphrodite and Pan. Unregulated sexual intercourse was the standard in this egalitarian existence of the sexes. A Demetrian stage followed under the worship of a Demeter-like Great Mother, when women determined government, matrimony, name, and inheritance. This evolved into the Amazon cultures referred to in early Greek epic poetry. The final stage, characterized by the :::dominance of the patriarchy, can be personified by Zeus and Apollo. Zeus represents a stage in the evolution of this patriarchy, insuring the success of his revolution with the total control of a dictatorship.
6
Bachofen proved the existence of ancient matriarchies in Lycia, Athens, Crete, Lemnos, Egypt, Tibet, Central Asia, India, Orchomenos, Locris, Elis, Mantinea, Lesbos, and Cantabria a collection of regions, city-states and countries.
7
Diner offers other theories. The basic premise of the Vaerting Pendulum Theory is that power corrupts in the case of dominance by either sex. The dominant sex always misuses power and incites a revolution. According to this theory, there have been many swings of the pendulum throughout history and the perfect state of harmony between the sexes can evolve only if the pendulum is somehow stopped in mid-swing.
8
The Frobenius Cultural Sphere Theory proclaims that cultures are like plants which thrive in a certain type of soil and climate. The culture can change any time it migrates to a different location which it needs to adapt to. This theory explains the existence of matriarchy and patriarchy as the same relationship which the equal parts of a whole represent. They have always existed as opposite ends of the sociological spectrum with the cultures of each, at different times, outnumbering those of the other.
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The Sociological Hypothesis resembles Bachofen’s Three-Step Theory.in that the progression of sex domination goes from the sexual horde to matriarchy to patriarchy. Whereas Bachofen attributes the transformations of dominance to the cult followings of primal deities, the sociological approach pinpoints the control of production as the class struggle which determines sex dominance. In the sexual horde state, there was no production, except for reproduction. The matriarchy appeared because women controlled the first source of production, primitive agriculture. As man developed his thought processes through the hunt, he came to understand agriculture, advanced it, and took control of the culture. Along with this revolution evolved a patriarchal judicial system which repressed and enslaved women in domestic endeavors.
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A group of female historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, psychologists, and classicists have a different story to tell. They represent the most recent research in the origins of matriarchy and women in myth, According to Elizabeth Gould Davis, Merlin Stone, Sarah Pomeroy, Marta Weigle, Patricia Managhan, and Nor Hall, there can be no question as to the existence of the Great Mother of the pre-Bronze era. Their books are filled with the evidence. Their explanation for the past rejection of original matriarchy places the blame on the subjective and misogynist interpretation of prehistoric cultures by the first historians, men. From the classic age of Greece, through the Roman Empire and Christian revolution, to the present, the matriarchal records of evidence have been overlooked, misinterpreted and transformed by each succeeding patriarchy to give credence and validity to the dominance of men.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Great Mother wa divided into five personalities to diffuse her power and they were subjected to the rule of a single god. Zeus produces or controls Hera, Aphrodite, Athene, Artemis, and Hestia. The combination of all five would produce a being who was equal to, if not more powerful than, Zeus.
11
Zeus supervised the creation of the first mortal woman, Pandora, and intended her to be mortal man’s punishment for accepting the gift of fire from Prometheus. She is blamed for the appearance of the world’s evils, misfortunes, and sufferings. Is it as a result of this negative archetype that women in classical Athens were secluded and denied the rights and potentials that were given to men at birth? Is it just a coincidence that Eve inherits the same damning fault of curiosity as Pandora in the early Hebrew retelling of the origin of evil?
Marta Weigle, in Spiders and Spinsters, explains the patriarchal disregard of the theory of the original matriarchy by stating that historians began to ignore women at the point in history when women were confined to the house and secluded from men. The oral tradition of the matriarchal legends was kept alive only in groups of old women who passed them on to the young girls of their culture. These ultimately died with old story tellers or were forgotten and lost and men just stopped listening, 12
I would encourage any teacher to examine all of the books in the Matriarchy Research section of this unit’s bibliography. They offer a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the feminist historian’s viewpoint. The evidence which validates, if not proves, the claim of an original matriarchy goes far beyond the confines of this unit.
