Is there only silence for our daughters?

Republish from 11-18-2007

In excavating motherhood, it is startling to realize how celebratory ancient matrifocal systems were, and that there was no lag time in responding to the needs of the female gender.

In “Old Europe” (7th to 3rd Millennia B.C.E.) Slavic peoples held reverence with Moist Mother Earth. In cognitive archeology, this reaffirmed the motherhood concept and its evolving symbolism that is threaded through the generations of daughters descending from our first mother in Africa.

Just as a female’s mitochondrial DNA remains unchanged through thousands of generations, motherhood at this time was defined by daughters and mothers who could not be diluted and rendered useless.

The social configuration characteristic of a Great Mother society was an era of great peace and absent of violence directed at females. Our daughters were esteemed and valued.

Geneticist Bryan Sykes researched the same ancient eras and peoples whose clan mothers provided the maternal DNA (mitochondria) which evolved into our modern day species. Described by Sykes, clan mothers are defined as having two daughters in order for the random mutation to occur in mitochondria DNA.

Sykes addressed how female biology evolved in the Paleolithic era and then again in Neolithic era, but pointed to how the “real power of mitochondrial DNA is that it is not diluted by distance.” (Seven Daughters of Eve, p.67)

Since then, we have not evolved, and evolution appears to be stuck in the muck of violence while motherhood is now defined by patriarchs.

Having manifested culture and communities, mothers and daughters knew that the earth, their homes, and how they lived their lives would be the womb that accelerates evolution.

Motherhood and evolution was conceptualized in the Paleolithic and Neolithic era, which was strewn with many Great Mother Goddess figurines and round bellied stoves and hearths. In excavating motherhood, it is startling to realize how celebratory ancient matrifocal systems were, and that there was no lag time in responding to the needs of the female gender.

When future scientists research statistics and articles about our daughters’ earthwide, I wonder how our generation of daughters will reflect Mother’s day. Their story would reveal an epidemic of violence against their female sex. The archeological ore of modern day would pose a violent symbolism for future archeologists.

This Mother’s Day I am met with one daughter from Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai, the slender 32 year old who was ganged raped by men in her village as a reprisal against her 13 year old brother who had sexual relations with a member of their tribe. The rapists were released and her relatives, whose advice was to accept money and not go to court, smugly felt vindicated. Her uncle was reported to have confronted her with the fact that not even the courts could protect her.

Where are the mothers to protest this sanction, not only for Mukhtar Mai, but for the thousands of years it took for blaming and shaming the daughter to become the accepted cultural attitude of our modern world. Is there only silence for our daughters?

The lag time is impossible to comprehend when it concerns the female sex and daughters. As in the case of Mukhtar Mai’s and that of 300 Mexican women murdered in Warez, there has been no swift justice and the perpetrators have been wandering free for many years.

A raging war in the Balkans elicited an international War Crimes tribunal law stating that rape is ‘now’ a war crime and yet the Bosnian mothers shrug their shoulders when met with another story of sexual abuse, sexual harassment at the hands of boyfriends, fathers, and in one case the director of a high school.

Lag time is a result of apathy.

It came to my attention and that of a Bosnian mother whose own two daughters went to the same high school, that there was a besieged Bosnian female teenager who was molested by the high school director in central Bosnia The Bosnian mother grew excited when I presented to her the dire situation. Thinking she would respond quickly and mobilize a movement with other mothers to finally oust and hold this school director accountable, I initially mistook her feverish delight as a celebratory embrace towards mothering but instead it was simply about being able to point out to me, “See how we live.”

The beginning of ‘lag time’ started ticking for this besieged Bosnian teenager and for other sexually assaulted Bosnian teenagers that attended the same high school. They were forced to swim in an ocean of inaction and frank apathy with each new rape.

Interestingly, one group of women in the same Bosnian village marched for regular garbage pick up but did not march for the protection of their daughters or to hold males accountable. Does this mean this daughter who spoke her story of sexual abuse from the high school director is less then garbage?

Mothers are so busy with the religious cries that beseechingly point out, “see what we have to live with and put with,” that they do not cry out for the safety of their daughters. The energy expended in living out patriarchal values certainly halts any evolving and defining motherhood by daughters.

Sanctions on daughters are stated as ‘abortion is murder’, or adultery and rape are the fault of the female sex. Heaping blame on to women/daughters appears to be a luxury women cannot hold on to since religious sanctions are the arsenal in gynocidal measures and its consequences. The espoused mighty moral causes which kill daughters and kill any random chance of the biological evolution that happened twice in eras that were termed as primitive by patriarchs, are promoted by the mothers themselves as sanctions and in androcratic systems.

Mothers according to the worldwide statistics are apathetic to life threatening violence towards their daughters. Or else how would 60 million women/daughters go missing (Amnesty International)?

As with Mukhtar Mai, the gang of male rapists is not held accountable in the resulting melee because of the blame and shame shouldered by our daughters. The response to her mirrors the entrenched norm world wide to not respond or ingest the violence against women because daughters are worthless unless they become a weapon for the patriarchal fathers.

Basically when it comes to daughters the response is universal: why make the investment in energy to do anything? Apathy is the patriarchal motherhood.

Believe it or not this Mother’s Day 2005 has to face the fact that the ‘basically worthless person’ is usually a female and the epitome of worthless is usually a female child.

For instance the sex ratio in India in the past ten years can not be hidden or held in denial as it is disturbingly screaming the murder of female fetuses as shown in the report by UNFPA stating: “Several thousand girls and women are “missing”, the UNFPA study said, referring to those who should have been part of the population but are not because they were killed for being female.” New Delhi (October 21 2003)

Femicide is not exclusive to just Asian countries and certain religions. The Associated Press (January 25, 2005) with the highest seal of approval from the Vatican, praised a mother’s true ability to sacrifice herself for them. Rita Fedrizzi died giving birth to the ultimate reward, a baby boy, after declining cancer treatment which would have required an abortion.

I am sure many mothers this Mother’s Day will light a candle for this saintly woman who scarified her worthless female sex to birth a worthy male son. The passing on of the ‘Y’ chromosome so firmly a foundation in patriarchal religions, and ruling powers are at the expense of mothers and daughters.

With the Pope’s passing away the women were seen teary eyed and deeply grieving for one man, and I have yet to see this happen with each new fresh statistic that reports the catastrophic violence on daughters let alone for Rita Fedrizzi.

Despite the inability to synthesize the androcratic mores which are full frontal assaults on daughters, Mothers have not realized how progression in cultures with such sanctions obliterates their internal logic.

The fact that sons are battling in Iraq and losing their lives while their guns kill over 120,000 Iraqi mothers and their children for androcratic mores deliberately exposes warped logic. According to patriarchs the definitions of motherhood are mothers whose sons are sent to kill daughters and sons.

The bombing of the Republic of Srpksa 1997 resulted in “All rights of the whole population of children in SRJ, i.e. 600 000 children are violated. The difference is only in level of violation for different children and different rights” reports Dusan Pajin Serbian Anthropological Society and Belgrade City Library. (Link Here)

While feeling good in advocating for the lives of unborn children, the very same mother sends her son off to war for a patriotic cause. She has amnesia about how it means the deaths of women and children-civilians as well as an inability to response to the catastrophic statistics of rape and murder directed at her daughters. Amnesia, warped internal logic, and apathy are the main ingredients for patriarchal motherhood today.

Amnesia, warped internal logic, and apathy disconnect mothers from their wombs and hearts.

Many mothers would think this sacrilegious to point out how mothers and daughters have become the ultimate weapon of patriarchy’s male preference. Instead of being silent on the subject, I choose to connect the statistics, the first person stories of our daughters, and face a horrible reality.

In doing so, I can relate to mothers who do not want to face such horrors and end up sitting in lag time perpetually exactly like someone suffering from Post Trauma Stress.

The lag time, the lack of response, the silence is more then stunning,

It is a gross understatement to how women and mothers are unable to be a movement, to respect/protect the life they birth. Wars and rapes are destructive to self-worth and without any honor for the female sex they will continue to be endemic to life on earth. Religions and ethnic practices encourage females to metabolize amnesia about the raw violence engulfing mothers and daughters.

Sometimes, the amnesia is called denial, disassociation, or even the Stockholm syndrome where the victim falls in love with the offender. Subjected to so much violence, women have joined in the onslaught towards their female sex with a belief that if you are your father’s daughter and not your mother’s, you could avoid being the next target.

But statistics show this isn’t so. In fact, if anything the violence and the status of women earthwide have gotten worse.

Mothers are so battered and barely surviving that many are unable to even know how to be a movement to protect their daughters and themselves.

The vulnerability in having Mothers abused for thousands of years contributes to an unfortunate and tragic situation in which Mothers are unable to counterattack the challenges to their female sex.

As a result the response is no response. The lag time, the lack of response to violence against women, has now become so normalized and absorbed it is a cultural way of life that cannot ever be denied its thirst for more blood.

Often it is the very mother’s themselves who collude with the world wide view of the female sex, and they encourage their daughters to become their father’s daughters. Is it a warped movement to protect their daughters borne from thousands of years of brain washing against their female sex?

As for men, males experiencing the same violent treatment women have endured for thousands of years as a matter of ‘collateral damage’ in war are swiftly attended to. Bob Herbert’s opinion in the New York Times titled his column with “Is no one accountable?” thrashing out how nothing has been done to the male perpetrators who killed and sexually abused male prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison is typical action and expression presented in a timely fashion and immediate response given to males only. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/opinion/28herbert.html?hp

The United Nations recently reported that there is no equality for women in any country on earth.

Seventy percent of the 1.3 billion peoples in poverty are women. And still no outcries from mothers that 2 million daughters suffer the practice of female mutilation each year since many of the mothers are holding the pieces of broken glass to cut out the daughters offending vagina. This is normal living for daughters to have such violence against their vaginas.

June Zenith of Women’s Environment and Development Organization report determined that women in all regions are actually in worse conditions then 10 years ago.

Pat Orvis, a U.N. correspondent, cited a World Bank report that basically states cancer rates worldwide are becoming lower than the rates of violence towards women. Daughters have become fair game. Sanctioned as a rule of law and reduced down as ‘light of reasoning’ that are not exactly written or expressed as such although statistics and first person stories of daughters earthwide record the legacy of hate and scorn towards their female sex.

This indicates an obliterated internal logic mothers have since it is not in the least like protection, loving or caring for their offspring.

In Bosnia, it was estimated that 52-60% of the population is female and that 16-20% of households were female headed. (Prism Research 1998 & World Bank, 1998)

Put into the victim role over and over again, Bosnian women and daughters are given “some humanitarian aid and government social assistance,” reports Prizma in 2000 and their research further states that the “majority of all financial services from commercial banks and micro credit agencies, continues to go to men.

Prizma’s research also stated a supposedly new paradigm: “Significant research suggests that women tend to direct resources they secure to the needs of their families more than men, leading to assistance to poor and low-income families generally.” This was reported in 1998 -2000.

The lag time from 1998 to 2005 shows the situation in Bosnia has escalated to a quiet level of disastrous desperation amongst Bosnian daughters and mothers who are shouldering the poverty, the war clean up, and raising the children without funds. Without being recognized as such they are forgotten by mothers and daughters worldwide.

Consider the lengthy time involved in developing research and reports only to have the information not registered by governing concerns. Men and women globally present a startling look at how women-mothers and men collude with each other in their violence towards the female sex.

It is not a matter of just being late; it is a matter of never responding which is returning insults to injury by blaming and shaming the victim for her poverty, illiteracy, and for being the wrong sex at the wrong place and time.

Many daughters and mothers die in the lag time; a period where disembodied science and rational thinking needs to gather facts and statistics to tell us what we already know.

Yes, there was outrage about the Beslan Middle School massacre of children in school September 1, 2004. Since it was basically children and about mothering, the whole incident faded into obscurity. Beslan fathers appear to have for the first time a glimpse of how mothers and children are less then human and second class citizenry. 338 were killed and over 700 wounded in the hostage situation. Pointing out the lag time, to this date no culprit was found or prosecuted.

The repeating reductionistic and segmenting pattern is a symptom of the inability to hold any male or masculine concern responsible. It is a not social justice but rather a black hole, throwing accusations and blaming the most available target; daughters. The Beslan massacre is only assumed to have Arab terrorist ties.

The lag time increases with each violent event against women and children.

Spinning round and round in legal courts, international diplomatic realms, and divorce from feminine perspective presents the ultimate weapon; lag time where there is no accountability.

I have encountered many mothers who simply do not think ‘gender’ has anything do with anything. Usually the immediate response is to defend their men and say how they do not hate men. I ask how holding males accountable is an act of hatred. Where is the immediate response to defend their daughters; themselves?

Mother’s Day 2005 presents mothers with thousands of years of lag time and how we mothers have colluded with it. This Mother’s Day 2005 I plan on looking at how my lack of response and amnesia contributes to cementing a persuasive hatred of the female sex.

All this violence and lack of women defining motherhood does not foster the natural balance and harmony found in earlier agrarian matrifocal systems which provided two periods in which mitochondria DNA evolved.

Mothers seriously need to be a great movement; a great earthquake and earth shake to save our daughters and our sons. Mothers must let go of the splintered interest groups with minute causes that are segmented and watered down, along with the division amongst patriarchal religions that assign daughters a destitute role. Female rage will be the glue to coalesce a great mothers’ movement and prompt evolution instead of revolution. Female rage is not acted out but rather acted upon with her mitochondrial DNA.

There have been some women’s and mother’s movements, as well as clan mothers from the distant past, that prompted biological evolution. Defining a women’s movement and beginning to give rise to an environment from which daughters can evolve, is something to think about this Mother’s Day.

References:

The Myth of the Goddess, Evolution of an Image, Anne Baring and Jules Cashford

The Civilization of the Goddess & The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas

The Seven Daughters of Eve & Adam’s Curse, a Future without Men, Bryan Sykes