H. Bathó Edit – Horváth László – Kaposvári Gyöngyi – Tárnoki Judit – Vadász István szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 15. (2006)

LÁSZLÓ ZSOLNAY: "SHE DID NOT GET DOG-BLOOD"

LÁSZLÓ ZSOLNAY "SHE DID NOT GET DOG-BLOOD" Anthropology and gender Chapters from the history of (improper) beliefs of the restrictive practice of women At the beginning of the 1970s, the research of feminist anthropologists was largely engaged in noting down the life of women and their roles in certain societies. These early investigations assumed sexual asymmetry, that is, the worldwide subordination of women, and they attempted to explain it from various theoretical points of view. For example, Freidl (1975) in his materialistic approach, tried to interpret the status of women focusing on their vital roles. Chodorow (1974) analysed the question of subordination from a psychological point of view stressing the importance of childhood socialisation in shaping the gender roles. Sherry Ortner (1941) approached the question of sexual inequality in a structuralist way suggesting that sexual relations were created by the fact that while women are natural creators being mothers, men, not capable of giving birth, are cultural creators. As a person interested in the science of religions, I am intending to investigate the questions of this creation of culture, and in particular, the discrimination confirmed by religion. This paper is attempting to outline the historical background of the beliefs that women are inferior to men, they cannot create culture, by their biological features they intermediate, they are come-between figures between the animal kingdom and the male members of humankind. I am looking for those biblical and theological reasons that underlie the spread of these popular vulgar fallacies. In this paper, I am staying within the borders of the culture of Ancient Christianity and Roman Catholicism. Linking women and evil nature, the foulness of women, and their good fellowship with the Devil is a common characteristic of several cultures. It is officially canonised. The list of philosophical views, doctrines and heterodoxies propagating the inferiority of women is endless. After making their appearance in "high" science, they also enter the popular range of ideas in practical jokes, phrases like: "Money should be counted, women beaten", "Go home and beat up your wife. You don't know why you did it, she will know why she got it." On the other hand, there are love poems as a counterpoint of this duality, in which the beauty and affection of women are matched with the "scholarship" of pejorative literature, and popular love songs outdo the jape of burdensome verses. 303