Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:47:33 -0600 From: flo-AT-mailserv.su.ualberta.ca (Florence Pastoor) Subject: matricide and genealogy Can anyone help me with some questions regarding Irigaray's concept (?) of matricide and how that relates to the collapse of female genealogy? I am looking at her re-reading of Plato in _Speculum_ and the issue comes up but I can't seem to really get my head around it... i think my biggest set back is that i have no knowledge of classics and so most of her subsequent analysis (i.e., her discussions of Antigone in _Sexes and Genealogies_) eludes me. My questions are: 1. I remember reading somewhere that there is a point in Greek culture where we (think we) can identify a transition away from a respect for matrilineage to an exclusive respect for patrilineage. Is this true? Is Euripides' writings apart of this transition? Is Plato? It is clear that Plato held the view that women's role in the procreative process was simply to incubate the male sperm. She is the garden for his seed. Was this a relatively new patriarchal perspective or what? Is it not true that at some point there was respect and revere for the fertility of women insofar as it was seen as a divine connection to the cycles of life? Wby did that change? Was Plato's concept of (paternal) Forms a part of that change? Did the disappearance of the Goddess coincide with the erasure of respect for mother - daughter relations? Did female lineage disappear with the ascedance of the concept of a single male Deity? How did this Deity come to seize absolute authority? 2. With respect to Irigaray's concept of matricide is it premised on her contention that male and female lineage has been collapsed into that of the male? Does matricide = the appropriation of the ability to bring forth life by a male God? (ie: God alone created the universe - without the help of a woman, except perhaps as the earth-matter in which his will is inscribed...) Perhaps it would help to refresh some memories of what Irigaray says about the issue of matricide and female genealogies... Here are some quotes: "The whole of our western culture is based upon the murder of the mother. The man-god-father killed the mother in order to take power." (from "Women-Mothers, the Silent Substratum of the Social Order", p. 49) If we are not to be accomplices in the murder of the mother we also need to assert that there is a genealogy of women. (from "Body against Body: In Relation to the Mother", p. 19) Male and Female Genealogies are collapsed into a single genealogy: that of the husband. (From Irigaray's intro to _Sexes and Genealogy_, p. 2) My overall question is: What is the relationship between matricide and the collapse of female genealogies? Are they one and the same? Is there a point in time (history) when this murder of the mother and conflation of male and female genealogies took place? Are there any theories about why this happened? Does Irigaray offer a theory - or merely point out that it has happened? I know that these are big questions... (sorry) Any help in enabling me to get a better sense about what Irigaray is on about with respect to this issue would, however, be very appreciated! all the best in the new year! Flo MA student Trinity College Ireland --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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