The
original oppression of Woman was based on crude denigration. She caused
Man to fall. So she became a scapegoat. No, not a scapegoat which might
be blameless but a culprit richly deserving of whatever suffering Man
chose thereafter to heap on her. That is Woman in the Book of Genesis.
Out here, our ancestors, without the benefit of hearing about the old
Testament, made the very same story differing only in local colour. At
first the Sky was very close to the Earth. But every evening Woman cut
off a piece of the Sky to put in her soup pot or, as in yet another
rendering -- so prodigious is Man's inventiveness -- she wiped her
kitchen hands on the Sky's face. Whatever the detail of Woman's
provocation, the Sky finally moved away in anger, and God with it.
Well, that kind of candid chauvinism might be O. K. for the rugged
taste of the Old Testament. The New Testament required a more
enlightened, more refined, more loving even, strategy -- ostensibly,
that is. So the idea came to Man to turn his spouse into the very
Mother of God, to pick her up from right under his foot where she'd been
since Creation and carry her reverently to a nice, corner pedestal. Up
there, her feet completely off the ground, she will be just as
irrelevant to the practical decisions of running the world as she was in
her bad old days. The only difference is now that Man will suffer no
guilt feelings; he can sit back and congratulate himself on his
generosity and gentlemanliness.
Meanwhile our ancestors out
here, unaware of the New Testament, were working out independently a
parallel subterfuge of their own. Nneka, they said. Mother is supreme.
Let us keep her in reserve until the ultimate crisis arrives and . . .
Then, as the world crashes around Man's ears, Woman in her supremacy
will descend and sweep the shards together. (89)
- Anthills of the Savannah
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