Talk:The First Sex

Review by Kay L. Cothran
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 343, Archer Taylor Memorial Issue,(Jan. - Mar., 1974), pp. 89-93

"the book is an example of folklore misapplied, some- thing that will concern folklorists and particularly folklorists involved in feminism. Consequently, I intend to approach the book, first, as any other folklorist might, and, second, as I think a rational feminist ought. We can outline Davis's thesis as follows: (i) There once existed an original, seminal ('pardon the expression), lost high civilization dominated by or entirely composed of women. This civilization, though its roots may have been extraterrestrial, probably ex- isted on Atlantis. The great women traveled around the world planting civilization among the savages, who were not capable of inventing culture but only of degrading that which was given them by the women. (2) Males are freak genetic mutations of females; they are not necessary to the species, and parthenogenesis was the method of reproduc- tion among the great women. (3) The old civilization was catastrophically destroyed and only a few women may have escaped. At any rate it was women who revived civili- zation, producing the historical high cultures, all of which mainly worshipped goddesses. (4) Myths are historical facts proving all the foregoing, which is also supported by archaeology and anthropology, if only the truth were known. Any myth that does not support these ideas is a later corruption foisted upon us by "masculist" society and its apologists. (5) The demise of the high cultures came about. First, hordes of god-wor- shipping Dorian barbarians destroyed Mycenean culture around o000 B.C. The power of women returned under Imperial Rome but was finally crushed by that Semitic re- ligion, Christianity, once adopted and promulgated by Constantine. Only the cult of the Virgin Mary, at first strongly opposed by the Church, kept Christianity from being a total disaster. Of course, Mary is the Great Goddess and may have been a visitor from outer space. With only a few bright periods in the early Reformation, Renaissance, and Age of Reason, it has been straight toward hell in a handbasket since Christianity came in.

"Citing a number of outdated authorities, Davis states flatly a number of times that myth represents historical fact; if all mythologies resemble one another, and she says that they differ only in "nonessentials," then they must be factually true."

"The problem of evidence runs throughout the book, which is heavily footnoted and jammed with quotations. The difference between citations and evidence has not im- pressed itself upon Davis. Her notes come from a librarian's search, not a scholar's research. For Davis, a reliable source is one that agrees with her; one that disagrees is a part of the conspiracy. Many of her anthropological sources are hideously out of date, reeking with ethnocentrism, or both, and I doubt that any folklorist will be satisfied with her versions and handling of myths."

So the kindest thing one can say for Davis' folkloristic and general scholarly compe- tence is that it does not exist. It is unfortunate that she buries some sound information under such piles of rubbish.

"It is most frustrating that some of Davis' information is doubtlessly solid-but which ?

She forces us to do her research for her, and that is no small endeavor even after one writes off the patently absurd material. Once she gets beyond the mythish early chapters into more recent material, one's interest grows, and it is maddening to have to doubt her at every turn because of her demonstrated willingess to flout canons of evidence."

"for Davis genetics is destiny, and in fact her genetic information comes from Arthur Jensen, who has also "proved" that blacks are innately inferior in intelligence to whites."

She is not entirely negative. While making it clear that it is difficult if not impossible to winnow the wheat from the chaff, and deprecating what she calls a "nasty little myth" she also writes "If Davis' book were not marked with the stigmata of the nut cult tract, it could have been a valuable work." Doug Weller (talk) 11:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Review in Feminist Studies
Review: Making History: "The First Sex", by Amy Hackett and Sarah Pomeroy, Reviewed work(s): The First Sex by Elizabeth Gould Davis Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, (Autumn, 1972), pp. 97-108

more excerpts

"Unfortunately, The First Sex is a bad book, as we shall demonstrate.   Yet it deserves more than a perfunctory dismissal.    It is being widely read and discussed by feminists, many of whom seem to find appealing its presupposition of an original matriarchy and its argument that "woman's contribution to civilization has been greater than man's."

"What, then, is Davis's argument?  The book's extravagant disorganization makes the job of summarizing nearly impossible.    To demonstrate that females once ruled males Davis calls on myth, archeology, anthropology, and history.    The First Sex begins with speculations on a superior, now lost (then temperate) Antarctic civilization.    Its matriarchal inhabitants-"ancient mariners," she calls them-spread goddess worship throughout the ancient world.    Unlike most historians, Davis believes that myth is directly pertinent to history. And, she tells us:    "In all myth...the first creator of all is a goddess."3   Because some myth describes the transition from the supreme goddess to the male god, she deduces that the human race likewise evolved from female to male dominance. Davis leaps from myth to biology are even more adventurous.    "On the biological evidence," she tells us-though she cites no biologist's evidence-"man's body was made expressly to please woman," not vice-versa. Specifically, the female reproductive organs are older and "more highly evolved," her proof being their sameness in all species. The male system is more varied. "Apparently, then, the male penis evolved to suit the vagina...." (Why are they so different if they serve such similar female equipment? one might ask.) Davis even claims to have "evidence"-though again she omits the footnotes which otherwise fill her book- that "...the male himself was a late mutation from an original female creature.  For man is but," Davis neatly reverses Aquinas, "an imperfect female.    Geneticists and physiologists"-again unnamed-"tell us that the Y chromosome that produces males is a deformed and broken X chromosome...." Man is then a "genetic error- an accident of nature," and perhaps the first males were "mutants, freaks," the product of genetic damage. "Maleness remains a recessive genetic trait like colorblindness and hemophilia...."4  A strange recessive trait this is, which dominates in over half of all human conceptions. And how explain the males in those many species lower down on the evolutionary chain? It is no surprise that Davis speculates freely that there was once only one sex and incorporates parthenogenesis into her historical theorizings when useful. "

As Davis reconstructs pre-history, "'Woman was the dominant sex, and man her frightened victim.'" (Davis cites, as so often, Robert Graves:    who returns the favor by commending her book on the back cover as necessary to help "the present intolerable world situation.")    As evidence of the "worldwide tradi­tion of the original and natural inferiority of men,"5 Davis cites male initiatory rites among primitive peoples, wherein men seem to imitate women through penis mutilation, mock childbirth and the like. Since Davis is loath to attribute such practices to her ex­emplary civilization, she derives them from attempts by their ancestors to emulate the ancient mariners' female leaders.

The travelling mariners would also, Davis thinks, explain the "universality of the belief in woman as civilizer and educator of man." Weaving, pottery-making, agriculture, and civilization are all women's achievements, as were the first cities. As usual, Davis claims too much, given the scanty evidence, when she credits woman with all culture and inven­tion, though certainly the frequent picture of man the sole inventor and provider needs much re-thinking.

Davis supposes that her original matriarchal civil­ization was lost in the continental shifts. Only a remnant survived, in Thrace or Anatolia, near the home of the Amazons. Davis suggests that women alone sur­vived, and resorts to parthenogenesis. Anatolia be­comes the probable "geminating point of all histori­cal civilizations."^  The apex of these civilizations was a "Celto-Ionian civilization," which more or less perpetuated the matriarchal tradition.

"As scholars, we feel obliged to criticize Davis for her parody of serious scholarly work.   First of all, she relies most heavily upon the theories of such highly controversial sources as Bachofen and Morgan,10 failing to remind her readers that these sources have been discredited by modern anthropology."

"The First Sex is full of other examples of counter-scholarship.   Her multiple quotations from classical authors lend an air of authority to the book.    Yet her dependence on unreliable translations of translations and her mistranslations of Latin indicate her weaknesses as a classical scholar. Another device of Davis is to quote a scholar's work selectively, to give only the pros and not the cons of his/her argument.    Thus her description of the structure of Neolithic society depends heavily on Mellaart's publication of his excavations at Catal Htiytik.    Davis applies the same principles used by Bachofen, but discredited by modern anthropology, to the evidence reported by Mellaart.    For example, Mellaart describes what seems to be burial practise with matrilineal implications by which children are buried either alone or with women, but never with men.    This indication of matriliny is, for Davis, a sign of matriarchy. Also, in the tradition of Bachofen, Davis assumes from the dominant role which women played in the religious life at Catal Htiytlk that they dominated men in all spheres. She fails to report that Mellaart himself says "Not much can be said about the Neolithic social structure as the excavations have revealed only the religious quarter."1^ It typifies Davis's method that her "historical" chapters reflect an inverse relationship between what available sources, documents, statistics, and the like allow us to know about women in a given period and the space she devotes to that period. Some excellent sources do exist for women's history, but Davis prefers to rely on the obscure, idiosyncratic, and piquant, ignoring more substantive sources. For instance, she cites the ideals of Plato and Socrates concerning the equality of women as though Plato and Socrates were describing the reality of Athenian life. For the laws of ancient Athens and Rome she uses as her source the eighteenth century philosopher Montesquieu, disregarding some two hundred years of subsequent research. "

"Davis ends her book with some revealing speculations on the "Age of Aquarias" to which we are presumably returning-a fancy related to her essential ahis-toricity.   She foresees that then, women with their "knowledge of the physics of the supernatural"  (the old intuitive woman!) will be in tune with the science of the twenty-first century.    This will be Davis's millennium, when the "3000 year old beast of masculine materialism"18 will be overthrown.   But until historians reject old-fashioned science and opt for intuition, Davis's brand of history will be unacceptable."

I don't have time right now to use any of the above material, but I think it illustrates some very serious problems with the article, which needs some pretty heavy revamping if it to both accurately reflect what Davis wrote (and it doesn't seem to right now) and the criticisms, which have left out the work above of 4 female writers. Doug Weller (talk) 11:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good stuff! I don't think it would be appropriate for anybody who hasn't actually read the book to try to rewrite the synopsis based on second-hand information, but it is certainly appropriate to use this material in the "Criticism" section.  I'll take a first pass at that.Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It is all scanned in and then copy and paste. Somehow the synopsis needs work though as it doesn't seem to represent impartially what she actually wrote. Maybe some comments 'according to...'  I don't think it is necessary to keep all the stuff from the reviews and other sources, criticism or not, in a walled garden called 'Criticism'. Doug Weller (talk) 16:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm against putting critical material into the synopsis not because it wouldn't be legitimate, but because it impairs readability. The reader is going along, thinking this is what the book says, I need to be skeptical -- then suddenly, without any signal, there is a sentence that isn't what the book says, and that isn't intended to be viewed skeptically.  Putting critical material into the synopsis forces the reader to make multiple "mode switches" of this sort, which are quite jarring.Looie496 (talk) 17:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This may not be a problem. Derbyshire library website says they have a book. That might be wrong, but I'll try to get hold of it -- it may be a while before I can get it. Doug Weller (talk) 17:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The First Sex
The critique of The First Sex obviously violates, however unintentionally, Wiki's primary critical criteria. Ms.Gould-Davis' work offers 42 pages of citation - 1 full page for every 8 pages of text. A confirmation that the critical analysis of The First Sex included a full reading of the cited sources as well as the sources cited therein would transform what, in its current state, is little more than unsubstantiated opinion into a valid academic analysis - to be a valid scientific analysis would require inclusion of peer-reviewed personal corroborative investigation. I know it seems like drudgery but it is a fundamental requisite of all science. So, if you please, good sir or madam, a confirmation of having given Ms. Gould-Davis' science the thorough consideration required in the name of credibility.

Perhaps the essential resource of any claiming to serve the advancement of science is a compulsion to, when roused to ridicule a hypothesis, to immediately question our world-view - the scientist stands with heresy against orthodoxy if they stand for science at all.

Perhaps the greatest single value of Wiki is its reintegration of amateurs [non-professionals with no vested fiscal interest in a paradigm]into the scientific process. The predominance of what we consider paradigm-altering has come to us from such dedicated amateurs as Charles Darwin.

If we truly wish to advance knowledge we owe, if not each other, science a dedication to go the deadening distance - shortcuts must disqualify us. To assert 'It's obvious, we all know...' or to roll our eyes or giggle is to declare against the pursuit of wisdom. So, citations and substantiations, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.171.171 (talk) 04:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

the a
Should it be "the" or "a"? In the section Synopsis, in the subsection The Patriarchal Revolution, in the first paragraph, in the sentence "Because the violent invaders wished to establish the a patrilineal system of inheritance, rigorous control of women's sexuality became paramount.": While "the a" is syntactically wrong, I don't know which word to preserve. I already returned the book to the library, so I can't read the chapter. If anyone knows the author's intention, could you please correct the article? Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

propose to delete Orphan and POV-Check tags
The Orphan and POV-Check templates at the top of the article appear to be out of date and resolved. I plan to delete each unless someone indicates why it should stay. Content can still be added anytime and more articles can be linked to this one anytime. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done: Both are now deleted, one by another editor recently. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)